Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of routine screening performed by primary care clinicians for oral health conditions, including dental caries, in children and adolescents ages 5 to 17. The USPSTF also concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of preventive interventions performed by primary care clinicians for oral health conditions, including dental caries, in children and adolescents ages 5 to 17. Untreated oral health conditions in children can lead to serious infections ...

Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of routine screening performed by primary care clinicians for oral health conditions, including dental caries or periodontal-related disease, in adults. The USPSTF also concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of preventive interventions performed by primary care clinicians for oral health conditions, ...

The largest floating ice shelves in the polar ice sheet have lost more than a third of their volume since 1978. In a study to be published on 7 November in Nature Communications, scientists from the CNRS1, alongside their Danish and American colleagues, have established that most of this thinning is due to the rise in surrounding ocean temperatures, which causes the glaciers’ floating extensions to melt. Until now, the glaciers in this region were considered to be stable, unlike more sensitive areas of the polar ice cap, which began to weaken in the mid-1980s. Located ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that maintenance immunosuppressive drugs are associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 hospitalization in solid organ transplant recipients. These results should be considered by clinicians treating transplant recipients and may help inform epidemic-related decisions for this population in the future. Authors: Epiphane Kolla, M.D., M.P.H., of French National Health Insurance in Saint-Denis, France, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.42006) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In a population-based study of 6,790 adult patients with emergency medical services–treated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) from a U.S. metropolitan system, the incidence of overdose related out-of-hospital cardiac arrest increased significantly from 2015 to 2021. The greatest increase was observed among patients with a combined stimulant-opioid OHCA. Presentation and outcome differed according to the drug-specific profile. The combination of increasing incidence and lower survival among patients with an opioid-stimulant OHCA supports prevention and treatment initiatives ...

A new report in Nature Geoscience has brought to light the challenge of air pollution levels in Africa and why international action is needed to combat it.    Over the last 50 years African nations have suffered from rapidly deteriorating air quality, making their cities some of the most polluted in the world. Particulate matter concentration levels are now five to ten levels greater than that recommended by the World Health Organisation, with the situation predicted to worsen as populations grow and industrialization accelerates.   However, far too little has been ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 16:00hrs GMT Tuesday 7 November 2023 Peer reviewed Observational study People Body changes up to eight years before inflammatory bowel disease diagnosis Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and Aalborg University in Copenhagen have shown that changes can be detected in blood tests up to eight years before a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease and up to three years before a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. This means the beginnings of inflammatory bowel diseases start a long time before symptoms occur, and in the future may provide an opportunity for doctors to take preventative ...

Many parents experience stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms throughout their lives, particularly during times of transition, such as pregnancy and children’s entry into school. Studies have generally found that high levels of anxiety and depression in parents are linked to poorer behavioural and cognitive outcomes in children. A team of researchers led by Tina Montreuil, Associate Professor in McGill’s Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and Scientist in the Child Health and Human ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Diagnosing early-stage lung cancer with low-dose CT screening dramatically improves the long-term survival rate of cancer patients, according to a large-scale, 20-year international study published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The results show that patients diagnosed with lung cancer by low-dose CT screening have a 20-year survival rate of 81%. If diagnosed in the earliest Stage I, long-term survival was 95%. “It is the first time that 20-year survival rates ...

New York, NY (November 7, 2023) — Diagnosing early-stage lung cancer with low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening drastically improves its cure rate measured over a 20-year period, according to a large-scale international study by Mount Sinai researchers published in Radiology. The results show that patients diagnosed with lung cancer via CT screening have a 20-year survival rate—an approximation of the cure rate—of 81 percent. Among the 1,257 participants diagnosed with lung cancer, 81 percent ...

BACKGROUND One of the hallmarks of cancer cell development is its dependence on sugar, especially glucose, to grow and divide. Scientists have long been studying how to restrict or block this process that promotes tumor growth, called glycolysis, from happening as a possible effective strategy against cancer. Previously, researchers from the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a specific protein sodium glucose transporter 2, or SGLT2, as a mechanism that lung cancer cells can utilize to obtain glucose. Drugs that inhibit SGLT2 are already FDA approved for other conditions and the UCLA team found these drugs could also delay the development ...

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital today announced Giles Robinson, M.D., has assumed the role of director for the Department of Oncology’s Division of Neuro-Oncology. He has also become co-leader of the Neurobiology and Brain Tumor Program within the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center. These combined units comprise one of the largest clinical brain tumor programs in North America. “Dr. Robinson has been an exemplary member of St. Jude since joining as a hematology/oncology fellow in 2007,” said Julie R. Park, M.D., Department of Oncology ...

HOUSTON and DUBLIN ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc today announced a five-year strategic research collaboration agreement to evaluate zanidatamab, Jazz’s investigational HER2-targeted bispecific antibody, in multiple HER2-expressing cancers. The collaboration will combine MD Anderson’s translational medicine and clinical research expertise with Jazz’s expanding oncology drug development capabilities to investigate the potential of zanidatamab as monotherapy and in combination with other treatments for patients with different tumor types and stages. This includes its possible applicability ...

They reveal the origin of wine, the age of bones and fossils, and they serve as diagnostic tools in medicine. Isotopes and isotopologues – molecules that differ only in the composition of their isotopes – also play an increasingly important role in astronomy. For example, the ratio of carbon-12 (12C) to carbon-13 (13C) isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet allows scientists to infer the distance at which the exoplanet orbits its central star. Until now, 12C and 13C bound in carbon monoxide were the only isotopologues that could be measured in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Now a team of researchers has succeeded in detecting ammonia isotopologues ...

Online shopping for cigarettes and vaping products increased significantly in the weeks following the implementation of SB-793, a 2022 California law prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products. Researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego identified potential loopholes in tobacco control policies due to the absence of explicit regulations on e-commerce sales in retailer licensing programs. Reporting in the journal Tobacco Control on Nov. 7, 2023, researchers assessed the ...

Karl Klose, director of The South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (STCEID) and the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg College of Sciences Endowed Professor, coauthored a research article with Cameron Lloyd ’23, a UTSA doctoral student who graduated in August with a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and immunology under the guidance of Klose. The research paper investigates a novel strategy for inhibiting the spread and infection of Vibrio cholerae, the bacteria responsible for the disease, cholera. The research article is entitled, “A peptide-binding ...

A study presents evidence that mitochondrial fragmentation is a proximal mechanism underlying ventilator-induced diaphragm dysfunction (VIDD)—and identifies a possible therapeutic to limit diaphragm atrophy during a stay in intensive care. Previous research has established that many of the cellular pathways responsible for VIDD are kicked off by oxidative stress stemming from diaphragm inactivity. Stefan Matecki and colleagues studied the molecular causes of this oxidative stress in mice. Just six hours on mechanical ventilation was enough to increase expression of dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP1), which is involved in mitochondrial ...

The “hygiene hypothesis” posits that allergic asthma can be triggered by a childhood environment that is too clean and sterile. One studied mechanism underlying this relationship is the influence of microbial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which train the immune system. In the absence of LPS, Toll-like receptors in the human body will become more sensitive, which can lead to an exaggerated allergic response to triggers such as house dust mites. Mingliang Fang and colleagues explored how the environmental pollutant bisphenol ...

Losing summer snow patches may hit mountain goats hard, according to a study that suggests that goats seek out snow to avoid biting insects. Many cold-adapted species take advantage of patches of snow that linger through the summer, as corridors for travel, sources of drinking water, zones for cooling off, or places to play. As the climate changes, many species will have reduced access to snow patches. Forest Hayes and Joel Berger explored what this lack of summer snow might mean for mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) in Glacier National Park, which has lost 85% of its glaciers since 1850. The team studied goats in the park—along with another population 1,000 ...

Obesity is a growing health problem that disproportionately affects people and communities with a low socio-economic position in Europe. Thanks to a Horizon grant worth more than 10 million euros, Jeroen Lakerveld, epidemiologist at Amsterdam UMC, is now set to lead a European consortium in better identifying the causes of obesity and designing guidelines to tackle the problem.     "Social and cultural factors play a role in our lifestyle behaviours but so do our genes and the environment in which we live and work. Residents of neighbourhoods are not equally exposed to unhealthy factors: ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – Invoking a sense of guilt—a common tool used by advertisers, fundraisers and overbearing parents everywhere—can backfire if it explicitly holds a person responsible for another’s suffering, a meta-analysis of studies revealed. While guilt is widely used to try and persuade people to act, research has been mixed on its effectiveness in spurring behavior change. This analysis, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, found that overall guilt had only a small persuasive effect, which is in line with previous research. However, researchers uncovered that guilt worked better ...

Researchers have found that previous studies analyzing the genomes of people with European ancestry may have reported inaccurate results by not fully accounting for population structure. By considering mixed genetic lineages, researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, demonstrated that previously inferred links between a genomic variant that helps digest lactose and traits such as a person’s height and cholesterol level may not be valid. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that people with European ancestry, who were previously treated as a genetically homogenous group in large-scale genetic ...

More than 150 million women worldwide use oral contraceptives. Combined OCs (COCs), made up of synthetic hormones, are the most common type. Sex hormones are known to modulate the brain network involved in fear processes. Now a team of researchers in Canada has investigated current and lasting effects of COC use, as well as the role of body-produced and synthetic sex hormones on fear-related brain regions, the neural circuitry via which fear is processed in the brain. “In our study, we show that healthy women currently using COCs had a thinner ventromedial prefrontal cortex than men,” said Alexandra Brouillard, ...

Global warming caused by climate change could exacerbate the burden of inpatient mortality from respiratory diseases during the warm season. This is the main conclusion of a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, and published in The Lancet Regional Health - Europe. The results could help health facilities adapt to climate change. The research team analysed the association between ambient temperature and in-hospital mortality from respiratory diseases in the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona between 2006 and 2019. ...

Reading, writing and sharing poetry can help people cope with loneliness or isolation and reduce feelings of anxiety and depression, a new study shows. Research by the University of Plymouth and Nottingham Trent University, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, found that many people who took to sharing, discussing and writing poetry as a means to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic experienced “demonstrable positive impact on their wellbeing”. The findings are based on a survey of 400 people which showed that poetry helped those experiencing common mental health symptoms as well as those suffering from grief. It was carried out with registered users of the ...