INFORMATION:
The Lancet: WHO's new End TB Strategy
2015-03-24
(Press-News.org) On May 19, 2014, the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted WHO's "Global strategy and targets for tuberculosis prevention, care and control after 2015". This post-2015 global tuberculosis strategy, labelled the End TB Strategy, was shaped during the past 2 years. A wide range of stakeholders--from ministries of health and national tuberculosis programmes to technical and scientific institutions, financial and development partners, civil society and health activists, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector--contributed to its development. The strategy has a vision of making the world free of tuberculosis, with zero deaths, disease, and suffering due to the disease. In this Viewpoint, Dr Mukund Uplekar from the World Health Organization, and colleagues, outline how achievements in TB control over the past two decades can provide the basis for further progress, and how ending the tuberculosis epidemic is an important health and development goal, achievable in the foreseeable future. This goal can be realised over the next two decades, the authors assert, through optimizing implementation of current tools and approaches, addressing social determinants of TB through universal health coverage and social protection, and investing in research and development adequately to secure and employ new tools of elimination.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Xpert MTB/RIF assay for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis
2015-03-24
Microbiological confirmation of childhood tuberculosis is rare because of the difficulty of collection of specimens, low sensitivity of smear microscopy, and poor access to culture. This study, led by Dr Anne Detjen, from the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, aimed to establish summary estimates for sensitivity and specificity of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay compared with microscopy in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children. The researchers found that compared with microscopy, Xpert offers better sensitivity for the diagnosis of pulmonary ...
News from Annals of Internal Medicine March 24, 2015
2015-03-23
1. Task Force finds insufficient evidence to recommend routine screening for thyroid dysfunction
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to recommend for or against screening for thyroid dysfunction in nonpregnant, asymptomatic adults. The recommendations are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Thyroid gland disorders are among the most common endocrine conditions evaluated and treated by clinicians and may be asymptomatic. If left untreated, thyroid dysfunction could lead to fractures, cancer, or cardiovascular ...
Archeologists discover Maya 'melting pot'
2015-03-23
Archaeologists working in Guatemala have unearthed new information about the Maya civilization's transition from a mobile, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary way of life.
Led by University of Arizona archaeologists Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan, the team's excavations of the ancient Maya lowlands site of Ceibal suggest that as the society transitioned from a heavy reliance on foraging to farming, mobile communities and settled groups co-existed and may have come together to collaborate on construction projects and participate in public ceremonies.
The findings, ...
Supercomputers give universities a competitive edge, researchers find
2015-03-23
CLEMSON, S.C. -- Researchers have long believed that supercomputers give universities a competitive edge in scientific research, but now they have some hard data showing it's true.
A Clemson University team found that universities with locally available supercomputers were more efficient in producing research in critical fields than universities that lacked supercomputers.
A supercomputer that can do 551 trillion calculations per second is housed at Clemson's Information Technology Center.
A supercomputer that can do 551 trillion calculations per second is housed at ...
Smoking in front of your kids may increase their risk of heart disease as adults
2015-03-23
DALLAS, March 23, 2015 -- Kids exposed to their parents' smoking may have a higher risk of developing heart disease in adulthood than those whose parents didn't smoke, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
The study's results add to the growing evidence that exposure to smoking from parents has a lasting effect on children's cardiovascular health in adulthood.
Researchers tracked participants in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, which included childhood exposure to parental smoking in 1980 and 1983. They collected carotid ...
Detecting cancer cells in blood can give an early warning of treatment failure
2015-03-23
A blood test that measures the number of cells shed from prostate tumours into the bloodstream can act as an early warning sign that treatment is not working, a major new study shows.
Researchers showed that measuring the numbers of circulating tumour cells in the blood predicted which men were benefitting least from a prostate cancer drug after as little as 12 weeks of treatment.
They hope their work will allow doctors to switch patients to alternative treatments earlier than is currently possible, if these results are confirmed by further studies. The research could ...
Insulin resistance linked to a human gene variant
2015-03-23
Insulin resistance is a risk factor for developing both type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Almost one third of the U.S. population has some degree of insulin resistance, though it is undiagnosed in many of these individuals. Obesity is associated with reduced insulin sensitivity and the development of insulin resistance. However, recent large-scale genetic studies have indicated that insulin resistance is heritable. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation identifies a gene that is strongly associated with the presence of many features of insulin resistance. ...
Metabolic compensation underlies drug resistance in glioblastoma
2015-03-23
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Greater wealth equals better health for most Canadian moms and their newborns
2015-03-23
TORONTO, March 23, 2015 -- Across all income levels, Canadian moms in better socioeconomic standing have better health outcomes than moms in lower socioeconomic brackets. The same relationship between socioeconomic position and health outcomes holds true for these moms' newborn babies, according to a new study.
A team of researchers placed 68,705 Canadian new moms and their babies along a socioeconomic spectrum by using factors about the moms such as education, whether she was living in poverty and the income of the neighbourhood she lives in. The researchers compared ...
How to get smarter on pills for seniors
2015-03-23
(PHILADELPHIA) - Open the medicine cabinet of a senior and you're likely to find scores of pill bottles. Physicians are often unaware of all the medications a patient is taking, which can result in unnecessary additional prescriptions, non-prescription medications and potential drug-drug interactions that cause unexpected adverse effects. When a cancer diagnosis is thrown into the mix, the drug-drug interactions can become even more complex. A new study evaluates the currently available screening tools for determining if and when seniors with cancer are taking too many ...