At a pivotal time for Medicaid health coverage for Americans with low incomes, a report on the impacts of Michigan’s Medicaid expansion shows very positive effects, as well as opportunities for continued improvements. The report was produced by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation as part of its evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan, Michigan’s Medicaid expansion program. The program currently has about 1 million enrollees and was signed into law 10 years ago this September. On the whole, the report shows that the Healthy Michigan Plan has been effective at: reducing uninsurance,  supporting ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023: Researchers urge governments to raise the legal age to purchase cigarettes to 22 years or higher as study finds it becomes less addictive and easier to quit as people get older. The research is presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 In 2020, more than one in five people worldwide used tobacco.2 Tobacco kills up to half of its users.2 Smokers below the age of 50 years have a five-fold higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease compared with their non-smoking peers.3 The legal age to purchase tobacco is 18 years old in many ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023: Middle-aged adults with three or more unhealthy traits including slightly high waist circumference, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose have heart attacks and strokes two years earlier than their peers, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 “Many people in their 40s and 50s have a bit of fat around the middle and marginally elevated blood pressure, cholesterol or glucose but feel generally well, are unaware of the risks and do not seek medical advice,” said study author Dr. Lena Lönnberg of Västmanland  County ...

Reefs, whether natural or man-made, are hotspots of marine biodiversity. But especially in soft-bottomed seas, reefs have now become scarce because many hard substrates have been removed due to overfishing of shellfish, dredging, trawling, and deep-sea mining. How can we restore this lost biodiversity, as encouraged by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy? Now, researchers have shown that culled fruit trees sunk into the sea are a cheap and effective way to recreate reefs and boost the local diversity and abundance of marine life. The study, published ...

Replacing single use plastic cups with paper ones is problematic. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg show that a paper cup that ends up in nature can also cause damage as they also contain toxic chemicals. Reports of plastics pollution contaminating all parts of the Earth and in all living things has accelerated a shift to alternative materials. The coffee latte you take with you from the kiosk on the corner now comes in paper cups, sometimes even with paper lids. But that cup can also harm living ...

A recent study by the University of Eastern Finland and Balettakademien Stockholm found that performing in a dance company and being involved in its activities play a significant role in the identity and disease-related identity negotiation in people with Parkinson’s disease. Performing in the dance company and sharing the process of performing with others created a strong group identity for the dancers with Parkinson’s disease. The dancers’ experiences of watching and being watched provided them with novel ways of expressing themselves and being seen without their identity being associated with Parkinson’s disease. Earlier ...

Myocardial infarction, the number one cause of sudden death in adults and the number two cause of death in Korea, is a deadly disease with an initial mortality rate of 30%, and about 5-10% of patients die even if they are transported to a medical center for treatment. The number of myocardial infarction patients in Korea has been increasing steeply, from 99,647 in 2017 to 126,342 in 2021, an increase of 26.8% in five years. Until now, drug administration, percutaneous angioplasty, and arterial bypass surgery have been known as treatments, but ...

ARLINGTON, Va. (August 25, 2023) — Avoiding the unnecessary use of indwelling catheters and promptly removing catheters that are no longer needed are the first steps in preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections in acute care hospitals, according to new recommendations developed by five medical societies and published today in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. “Urinary catheters can be associated with infection and also with non-infectious harms like trauma and obstruction,” said Payal Patel, M.D., an infectious disease physician at Intermountain Health and ...

FINDINGS UCLA researchers find that they can electronically recruit patients for biomedical research at rates up to 40 times higher than the traditional method of patient portal messages by embedding study recruitment into the pre-appointment preCheck-in page.   BACKGROUND While patient portal messages are increasingly used to recruit patients for research studies, this method typically results in study enrollment rates of 1-8%. In addition, this method of study recruitment has historically led to ...

A new fund to fast-track patient access to potentially valuable new medicines may incentivise the pharmaceutical industry to develop high priced drugs for rare diseases with weak evidence on clinical benefits. Health economics and policy academics from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, warn that if the NHS England Innovative Medicines Fund (IMF) is not implemented appropriately, it risks disincentivising the generation of essential evidence and could shift the financial burden from the pharmaceutical industry to the public finances. The IMF operates on similar terms to ...

Certain gut problems, such as constipation, difficulty swallowing, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), may be early warning signs of the neurological condition Parkinson’s disease, suggests research published online in the journal Gut. Gastrointestinal symptoms are thought to precede the development of cerebrovascular disease, such as stroke or a brain aneurysm, or Alzheimer’s disease, and it has been suggested (Braak’s hypothesis) that gut conditions may precede the development of Parkinson’s disease too. To ...

Over 60s with the unhealthiest lifestyles are significantly more likely to require admission to a nursing home than their peers with the healthiest lifestyles, suggest the findings of a large population study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Physical inactivity, smoking, poor diet and sleep disorders between the ages of 60 and 64 seemed to be particularly influential: they were associated with a more than doubling in the risk of admission, the findings show.  Modifiable lifestyle risk factors are associated with the development and progression of several long term conditions, ...

We are delighted to announce that the Beverage Plant Research articles are now indexed in CABI specialized databases. This important milestone ensures that articles published in Beverage Plant Research are easily found when searching for beverage plant literature and it enables this journal authors to keep track of how often their article has been cited by others. According to the correspondence made by CABI, the Beverage Plant Research will be indexed from Volume 1, 2021. About Beverage Plant Research Beverage Plant Research (e-ISSN: ...

“Eco-friendly” paper drinking straws contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals, a new study has concluded.    In the first analysis of its kind in Europe, and only the second in the world, Belgian researchers tested 39 brands of straws for the group of synthetic chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).      PFAS were found in the majority of the straws tested and were most common in those made from paper and bamboo, the study, published ...

Enormous amounts of sediment, or sand and mud, flowed through Houston waterways during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, due in part to modifications made by humans to bayous, rivers and streams over the past century, that could seriously impact future flooding events and be costly to the City of Houston. New analysis by geology researchers at the University of Houston found 27 million cubic meters of sediment, or 16 Astrodomes, moved through 12 Houston waterways and Addicks and Barker reservoirs during Harvey, the largest rainfall event in U.S. history. After the storm, up to five feet ...

A stem cell patch developed by USC researchers for patients with macular degeneration will soon be tested in a phase 2b clinical trial. This latest milestone in the patch’s development was made possible by a combined $21 million in support from a state organization, a nonprofit foundation and the university. Last month, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded an estimated $12.4 million to the USC-supported startup Regenerative Patch Technologies (RPT) to test the safety and efficacy ...

For the first time, researchers have used a surface normal nonlinear photodetector (SNPD) to improve the speed and energy efficiency of a diffractive optical neural network (ONN). The new device lays the groundwork for large-scale ONNs, which can perform high-speed processing at the speed of light in an extremely energy efficient manner. Farshid Ashtiani from Nokia Bell Labs will present this research at Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science (FiO LS), which will be held 9 – 12 October 2023 at the Greater Tacoma Convention ...

Smoothies can be a tasty and convenient way to get the important fruits and vegetables you need for a healthy diet. But is a banana and blueberry smoothie the best combo? Researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggest that blending certain ingredients in smoothies can influence whether your body is getting a nutritional boost. The study, published today in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Food and Function, used smoothies to test how various levels of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme in many fruits and vegetables, affects the levels of flavanols in food to be absorbed by the body. Flavanols ...

Alcohol-associated liver disease accounts for 50% of liver-related deaths, and its rates are rising worldwide. But one of the best treatment options, early liver transplantation (ELT)—transplants done with no mandatory period of abstinence from alcohol—is also one of the most controversial, partly because of concerns that patients will relapse to alcohol after transplantation. Part of the problem is that livers for transplants are in short supply, and researchers lack data to determine who will benefit most from ELT. Studies show that decisions about who gets a transplant can, at times, be influenced by bias or unsystematic. ...

An examination of the SCALE-UP Counts program was recently published in the journal Pediatrics. This analysis, led by Yelena Wu, PhD, investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute and associate professor in the department of dermatology at the University of Utah (the U), and David Wetter, PhD, MS, investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute and professor in the department of population health sciences at the U, received support from RADx-Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) and funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH). The SCALE-UP Counts program was designed to promote COVID-19 testing through collaboration ...

At a time of nature crisis driven by unparalleled rates of biodiversity loss, a new interconnected system to monitor biodiversity around the world is urgently needed to direct and focus conservation action. "The lethal combination of habitat loss, the exploitation of natural populations, pollution, and climate change is causing species extinction rates not seen since the last mass extinction 65 million years ago," said Prof. Andrew Gonzalez, Liber Ero Chair in Conservation Biology at McGill University, and co-Chair of GEO BON. "We lack the means to monitor these impacts ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (08/24/2023) — Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School and College of Pharmacy have found that high costs for hepatic encephalopathy treatment in patients with end-stage liver disease were associated with decreased treatment retention for patients. The study results were recently published in Hepatology Communications. Hepatic encephalopathy is the loss of brain function that occurs in people with severe liver disease. The condition is associated with high morbidity and mortality. ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (08/24/2023) —Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the United States, and 80% of lung cancer deaths are linked to one risk factor: smoking. While lung cancer screenings are a critical part of prevention and treatment for the disease and 15 million Americans qualify for yearly screenings, over half those eligible for screenings are still actively smoking. Without standard smoking cessation measures in place, the benefits of the screenings have not been fully realized.  New ...

A new approach to quantum light emitters generates a stream of circularly polarized single photons, or particles of light, that may be useful for a range of quantum information and communication applications. A Los Alamos National Laboratory team stacked two different, atomically thin materials to realize this chiral quantum light source. “Our research shows that it is possible for a monolayer semiconductor to emit circularly polarized light without the help of an external magnetic field,” ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team at Sandia National Laboratories developed a molecule that helps change the way some materials react to temperature fluctuations, which makes them more durable. It’s an application that could be used in everything from plastic phone cases to missiles. Polymers, which include various forms of plastics, are made up of many smaller molecules, bonded together. This bond makes them especially strong and an ideal product to be used to protect delicate components in a wide variety of items. But with time, use and exposure to different environments, all materials begin to deteriorate. Hot ...