Embargoed for release: Monday, June 24, 7:30 PM ET Key points: In a study of loneliness and stroke risk over time among adults ages 50+, those who experienced chronic loneliness had a 56% higher risk of stroke than those who consistently reported not being lonely.  Those who experienced situational loneliness did not have an elevated risk of stroke—suggesting that the impact of loneliness on stroke risk occurs over the longer term. Boston, MA—Chronic loneliness may significantly raise older adults’ risk of stroke, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  “Loneliness is increasingly considered a ...

The risk of developing Parkinson’s is at least twice as high in people with anxiety compared to those without, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research, published in the British Journal of General Practice, investigated whether there was a link between people over the age of 50 who had recently developed anxiety and a later diagnosis of Parkinson’s. The team used UK primary care data between 2008 and 2018 and assessed 109,435 patients who had developed anxiety after the age of 50 and compared them to 878,256 matched ...

A new study of drinking patterns across Europe from 2000 to 2019 shows that drinking occurs in stable, beverage-specific clusters that seem to be partly determined by geography.  The study was published today by the scientific journal Addiction. The study identified six drinking patterns in Europe in 2019: Wine-drinking countries: France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden.  Characterized by the highest consumption of wine, lowest consumption of beer and spirits, and lowest overall alcohol consumption. High beer/low spirit drinking ...

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen discover a link between birthweight and the risk of health complications from obesity during childhood. The findings highlight the need for prevention and treatment approaches for children with obesity who were born with a lower birth weight. Hundreds of millions of people live with obesity, which is normally measured as a higher-than-optimal body mass index (BMI). While an elevated BMI increases the risk of a range of cardiometabolic diseases and is responsible for around five million deaths a year according to the World Health Organization, not everyone is equally at risk. Scientists at the ...

Vienna, Austria: Cannabidiol (CBD), one of the active ingredients in cannabis, is thought to be safe as it does not cause a “high”. Increasing numbers of pregnant women take CBD, believing that it can help alleviate symptoms such as morning sickness, insomnia, anxiety and pain.   However, research presented today (Tuesday) at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2024 [1,2], suggests that it may affect offspring. Two studies in mice have shown that gestational exposure to CBD alters the behaviour of offspring and also affects the nerve cells (neurons) in the insular cortex (IC) ...

A fingerprint may soon be all a doctor needs to check whether tuberculosis patients are taking their antibiotics – thanks to a new study led by the University of Surrey.    Scientists successfully detected the drugs in finger sweat – and with almost the same accuracy as a blood test.    Professor Melanie Bailey, an analytical chemist and co-author of the study from the University of Surrey, said:    “Up until now, blood tests have been the gold standard for detecting drugs in somebody’s ...

By Leah Shaffer Using animals to study heart disease doesn’t always translate well to human health outcomes, and human heart cells available for research don’t work outside the human body.  “You can’t keep them alive, much less function outside of the person for long enough to study these processes,” said Nathaniel Huebsch, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Huebsch is studying cells with a mutation that causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a disease that can set off heart failure ...

Intervention improved well-being in workers who were highly stressed by the job Health care worker burnout was on the rise before COVID-19 and continues today Addressing significant structural barriers in U.S. health care ‘needs to be a top priority’ Easily accessible individualized solutions also are needed to boost well-being in stressed health-care workers CHICAGO --- The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated already rising rates of burnout among American health care workers. A new Northwestern University study found learning and practicing skills that increase positive emotion like gratitude, mindful awareness and self-compassion ...

Bill Partridge, a recently retired distinguished researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was recognized by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office, or VTO, for leading world-class research in transportation throughout his 25-year career. His expertise has guided the development of advanced diagnostic tools that enabled next-generation engines and emissions control systems. Partridge was presented the Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award during the VTO Annual Merit Review held on June 3, 2024, in Washington, D.C. He was nominated for the award by the VTO Decarbonization of Offroad, Rail, Marine ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 24 June 2024      Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet       @Annalsofim      Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.      ----------------------------      1. ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 24 June 2024      Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet       @Annalsofim      Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also ...

When neuroscientists think about the strategy an animal might use to carry out a task – like finding food, hunting prey, or navigating a maze – they often propose a single model that lays out the best way for the animal to accomplish the job. But in the real world, animals – and humans – may not use the optimal way, which can be resource intensive. Instead, they use a strategy that’s good enough to do the job but takes a lot less brain power.   In new research, Janelia scientists set out to better ...

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/ZOONOSES-2024-0004 Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. Songling virus (SGLV) is a spherical, enveloped, fragmented, negative-stranded RNA virus belonging to the genus Orthonairovirus in the Nairoviridae family. SGLV is transmitted by ticks and can cause disease in humans. This study identified and characterized SGLV in Haemaphysalis concinna ticks collected in 2023 in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (China) near the China-North Korea border.   A real-time quantitative ...

A researcher at the University of Missouri has developed a program that improves the quality of care and reduces avoidable hospitalizations in nursing homes — saving Missouri nursing homes and Medicare millions of dollars and allowing Missouri nursing homes to invest more in retaining their most skilled staff members. The program is so successful that it’s being recommended for use in all 50 states. The Quality Improvement Program for Missouri (QIPMO) was created by Marilyn Rantz in 1999 as a partnership between Mizzou’s Sinclair School of Nursing and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. For the past 25 years, the program has allowed Rantz and ...

Research in nonhuman primates is opening the possibility of testing treatments for the early stages of Alzheimer’s and similar diseases, before extensive brain cell death and dementia set in. A study published June 21 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association shows up to a six-month window in which disease progress could be tracked and treatments tested in rhesus macaques.  “This is a very powerful translational model to test interventions that target the tau protein,” said John H. ...

A new study led by University of Cincinnati researchers sheds new light on the role of a signaling pathway in the brain to maintain health and prevent inflammation and cognitive deficits. UC’s Agnes (Yu) Luo, PhD, is corresponding author on the research, published June 21 in the journal Nature Communications, and focused on a signaling pathway called TGF-β that plays a number of roles depending on where it is located in the body.  Luo explained that signaling pathways in the body control different cell functions and require two components: a type of molecule called a ligand and a receptor that the ligand binds to and ...

DETROIT -- Early memory loss has been linked to wealth loss, but research has mostly focused on investments. Four years ago, clinical geropsychologist Peter Lichtenberg, Ph.D., wondered what clues might be found in an older person’s financial decisions to indicate their vulnerability to financial victimization. Lichtenberg is director of the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University and a national expert in the financial exploitation of older adults. The results of his curiosity have now been published as “The WALLET Study: Financial ...

Though exposure to “trace” (an extremely small amount) elements has been shown to affect ovarian functions in experimental studies, there has been little research on the impact of trace levels of non-essential elements, such as lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg), on female reproduction. Studies have shown that high levels of these non-essential elements may lead to decreased female fertility and reduce the likelihood of getting pregnant. Taken together, this evidence raises concern about the potential negative impact of exposure ...

Asthma patients experience respiratory distress due to allergens like house dust mites or pollen. However, the various triggers for asthma share a common pathway involving the release of proteins called type-2 cytokines by Type-2 helper T (Th2) cells and group-2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). Both Th2 and ILC2 require high amounts of GATA-binding protein 3 (GATA3) for their maturation. Specific gene sequences called enhancers are responsible for elevating the expression of GATA3 genes in humans. Studies have found that by controlling the production of GATA3, enhancers influence the development of Th2 and ILC2. The gene region G900, located close to ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Imagine zooming in on a dried drop of salt solution — each pattern a unique masterpiece, reminiscent of abstract art, yet no larger than the size of a penny. New research by scientists in the Florida State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry uses the patterns formed by a dried salt solution to train a machine learning algorithm that can identify the chemical composition of different salts. The work will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We are taking chemical fingerprints ...

Nearly all the neural networks that power modern artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT are based on a 1960s-era computational model of a living neuron. A new model developed at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Neuroscience (CCN) suggests that this decades-old approximation doesn’t capture all the computational abilities that real neurons possess and that this older model is potentially holding back AI development. The new model developed at CCN posits that individual neurons exert more control over their surroundings than previously thought. The updated neuron model could ultimately lead to more powerful artificial neural ...

Proteins are the building blocks of life, involved in virtually every biological process. Understanding how proteins interact with each other is crucial for deciphering the complexities of cellular functions, and has significant implications for drug development and the treatment of diseases. However, predicting which proteins bind together has been a challenging aspect of computational biology, primarily due to the vast diversity and complexity of protein structures. But a new study from the group of Anne-Florence Bitbol at EPFL might now change all that. The team of scientists, ...

The world of artificial intelligence (AI) has recently seen significant advancements in generative models, a type of machine-learning algorithms that “learn” patterns from set of data in order to generate new, similar sets of data. Generative models are often used for things like drawing images and natural language generation – a famous example are the models used to develop chatGPT. Generative models have had remarkable success in various applications, from image and video generation to composing music and to language modeling. The problem ...

We’ve all seen the surreal footage in nature documentaries showing hydrothermal vents on the frigid ocean floor—bellowing black plumes of super-hot water—and the life forms that cling to them. Now, a new study by UC Santa Cruz researchers suggests that lower-temperature vents, which are common across Earth's seafloor, may help to create life-supporting conditions on "ocean worlds" in our solar system. Ocean worlds are planets and moons that have—or had in the past—a liquid ocean, often under an icy shell or within their rocky interior. In Earth's solar system, several of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons are ocean worlds, and ...

Media Contact: John Dudley (814) 490-3290 (cell) jjdudley@usf.edu TAMPA, Fla. (June 24, 2024) – Mindfulness – focusing on the present moment – can improve sleep, reduce stress and improve overall health. A new University of South Florida-led study helps explain why. Researchers studied 144 nurses over two weeks to see how well they could stay focused on the present and how often they fixated on negative thoughts. The nurses completed surveys three times a day and reported their sleep quality the following morning. The findings shed light on how mindfulness relates to emotion ...