When Dr. Bodo Beck first saw the three children of a family who had fled Syria sitting in his consultation room at University Hospital Cologne, the human geneticist was surprised. His genetic analysis diagnosed Bartter syndrome type 3, but never before had he seen such severe joint changes in patients with this rare disease. The kidney disease is hereditary – affected individuals lack the CLCNKB gene, which is responsible for a specific chloride channel. The electrolyte balance becomes disrupted because the kidneys cannot reabsorb important nutrients and salts back into ...

A recent study in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research found that cast immobilization is as effective as surgery for treating older patients with bone fractures near the wrist. The study included 276 patients aged 70–89 years who suffered a distal radius fracture that didn’t penetrate the skin and that was treated conservatively or surgically between August 2018 and January 2022. Cast immobilization was used on 213 patients, whereas the other 63 had plates or pins placed during different types of surgery. Nineteen patients experienced complications within the first year, with the most common being complex regional pain syndrome (5 patients who ...

It is estimated that, globally, mental disorders affect about one in seven children and adolescents aged 10–19 years. A recent analysis of published studies indicates that most research on child and adolescent mental health and psychological interventions in low- and middle-income countries is reactive rather than proactive, focusing on treating rather than preventing mental health problems or promoting mental health. For the analysis, which is published in Campbell Systematic Reviews, investigators searched a wide range of bibliographic databases, libraries, and websites for relevant studies published between 2010 and ...

Research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association reveals that many US young adults have poor lifestyle factors and cardiometabolic diseases—such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension—with varying rates based on race and ethnicity. The study included 10,405 individuals aged 18–44 years whose information was available from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011–2018. The prevalence of lifestyle risk factors ranged from 16.3% for excessive drinking to 49.3% for poor diet quality. The prevalence of cardiometabolic ...

Hearing impairment may cause difficulties in social interactions, but new research indicates that social struggles experienced by deaf individuals are likely not due to brain alterations but rather due to non-supportive environments. The findings, which are published in Human Brain Mapping, suggest that deafness does not affect the mechanisms and brain circuits supporting social skills. For the research, investigators analyzed published neuroimaging studies focusing on social perception in deaf versus hearing participants. Results indicated that both deaf and hearing participants recruited the ...

Previous studies have shown a link between catheter ablation and a lower risk of dementia and premature death for patients with atrial fibrillation. This procedure involves a flexible wire that is inserted into a blood vessel in the groin and guided to the heart where it destroys tissue that is causing rapid and irregular heartbeats. It’s unclear if the associations between catheter ablation and lower dementia and mortality risks hold among different subgroups of patients stratified by age, sex, co-morbidities, and medication use. Now, a large study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society including more ...

An analysis of relevant published studies indicates that cattle face a hypothetically high risk of getting tuberculosis from wildlife—such as deer, foxes, and wild boar—through indirect interactions, with a much lower risk from direct interactions. In the analysis, which is published in Mammal Review, data from 31 studies using various methods to assess wildlife-cattle interactions around the world revealed that direct interaction rates were low (an average of 0.03 interactions per month per species pair). In contrast, indirect interaction rates were 154 times higher (an average of 4.63 interactions per month per species pair). Indirect interaction ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 23 Aug 2023: Hours of inactivity during childhood could be setting the stage for heart attacks and strokes later in life, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 The study found that sedentary time accumulated from childhood to young adulthood was associated with heart damage – even in those with normal weight and blood pressure. “All those hours of screen time in young people add up to a heavier heart, which we know from studies in adults raises the likelihood of heart attack and stroke,”2 said study author Dr. Andrew Agbaje ...

How can we best keep our brain fit as we grow older? It’s well known that regular cognitive activity, for example brainteasers, sudokus, or certain video games in middle and old age tends to protect against cognitive decline and dementias like Alzheimer’s. But many of us regularly engage in adult education classes, for example learning a language or a new skill. Is such adult education likewise associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia? Yes, according to researchers from the Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan who have shown for the first time, in a new study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. “Here ...

During a time when hospitals were overrun with COVID-19 patients and ventilators were in high demand, the nation’s focus was not on firearm-related injuries. With our attention elsewhere, it may have seemed that these injuries appeared to decrease and mass shootings seemed to disappear. But that doesn’t mean firearm injuries went away. In fact, for one group of children in particular, firearm trauma rates grew. In a new study, investigators at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles reveal that ...

  Final results of landmark study confirm two-thirds reduction in cases of malaria, including cases of severe malaria, and deaths from malaria, for RTS,S-drug combination over either intervention given alone in settings of highly seasonal malaria transmission.   RTS,S vaccine has similar high efficacy to drugs in preventing malaria in highly seasonal transmission settings.   Overall reduction in malaria incidence likely “tops” 90% among children protected by bednets, vaccines, and drugs.   Seattle and London, August 22, 2023—The final results of a landmark study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases ...

Diabetes is a condition in which the body produces too little or no insulin. Diabetics thus depend on an external supply of this hormone via injection or pump. Researchers led by Martin Fussenegger from the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel want to make the lives of these people easier and are looking for solutions to produce and administer insulin directly in the body. One such solution the scientists are pursuing is enclosing insulin-producing designer cells in capsules that can be implanted in the body. To be able to control from the outside when and how much insulin the cells release into the blood, researchers have studied and applied ...

When UCLA shifted to remote instruction during the early days of COVID-19, the campus was much less populated — but it wasn’t totally empty. Several species of animals continued to go about their daily lives, just with far fewer disturbances from humans. Among them were around 300 dark-eyed juncos, a bird species that has thrived at UCLA for probably around 20 years. A group of UCLA scientists who have been studying fear and aggression in urban juncos for years recognized that the dramatic shift in human activity presented a unique opportunity for an experiment: ...

Silicon is one of the most pervasive functional materials of the modern age, underpinning semiconductor technologies ranging from microelectronics to solar cells. Indeed, silicon transistors enable computing applications from cell phones to supercomputers, while silicon photovoltaics are the most widely deployed solar-cell technology to date. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports that nearly 50% of new electric generation capacity in 2022 came from solar cells, and according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), silicon has a 95% market share. Yet despite silicon’s ...

The number of local zoning ordinances governing renewable energy deployment is growing in the United States, according to new research by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The amount of land available to deploy renewables depends on the characteristics of the ordinances. “It’s important to understand the types of ordinances in effect, specifically setback ordinances, or the required distance from a specific feature like a house,” said Anthony ...

(Boston) – Serum amyloid A (SAA) is a family of ancient proteins that can be traced from present-day humans back half a billion years to sea cucumbers and oysters. A new study by researchers from the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine explores the link between the dual nature of this small plasma protein: how it works to clear toxic debris from wounds and inflammation sites, but also its role in forming fibrous deposits of the pathologic amyloid in vital organs such as the ...

In the United States and other western countries, a form of esophageal and stomach cancer has risen dramatically over the last five decades. Rates of esophageal adenocarcinoma, or EAC, and gastric cardia adenocarcinoma, or GCA, are both highly fatal. However, Joel Rubenstein, M.D., M.S., a research scientist at the Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Kettles Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research and professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine, says that preventative measures can be a saving grace. “Screening can identify pre-cancerous changes in ...

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/AMM-2023-0016 Announcing a new publication for Acta Materia Medica journal.  Cuproptosis is a newly identified specific form of programmed cell death. This study aims to identify cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in patients with kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) from the The Cancer Genome Atlas database and to evaluate CRG biological functions. Using lasso regression, four KIRC prognosis-associated CRGs were identified and an associated prognostic risk signature was constructed. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that patients with ...

New Haven, Conn. — High levels of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19 may reduce or overcome the protection that vaccination and prior infection provides, according to a new study by researchers from Yale University, the University of Florida, and the Connecticut Department of Correction.  The findings, published Aug. 19 in Nature Communications, suggest that in densely crowded settings, control measures that reduce levels of exposure to the virus — such as masking, improved ventilation, and distancing — may afford additional benefit in preventing new infections among people who have been ...

For his contributions to the aerospace community, Peyman Givi, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Pittsburgh, was selected to present the 2024 Dryden Lecture in Research, by the Honors and Awards Committee and the Board of Trustees of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). According to AIAA, the Dryden Lectureship in Research, established in 1961, is one of the Institute’s most prestigious lectureships and emphasizes the importance ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – In osteoporosis, bones become brittle and fragile, putting them at high risk of fractures or breaks. These “fragility fractures” can cause pain, suffering, disability and even death, and patients have increased risks of repeat fractures. It is estimated that one in two women and up to one in four men experience a fracture in their lifetime due to osteoporosis. Can an augmented health care delivery pathway reduce the chances of those future fractures and improve outcomes that are important to patients? Two University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Indigenous peoples suffered disproportionately from the COVID-19 pandemic, experiencing a lack of sovereignty, limited infrastructure and discrimination in local healthcare systems that make them particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases. Yet little research exists to guide interventions and public health efforts tailored to remote-living Indigenous populations during pandemics. In Bolivia, for example, a team of researchers including UC Santa Barbara’s Tom Kraft and Michael Gurven, and local collaborators, attempted to mitigate SARS-CoV-2’s impact on the ...

To improve therapies for cancer and other diseases, researchers strive to identify tissue-specific therapeutic targets and diagnostic biomarkers in every patient. Identifying specific targets and biomarkers can be achieved by analyzing the cellular composition of tumors at the single-cell level. Although tissue profiling technologies such as single-cell RNA and single-nuclei RNA sequencing provide cell-type-specific information at unprecedented resolution, their implementation has technical and financial challenges that prevent their widespread adoption in clinical settings. In this study published in Genome Biology, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Ghent University ...

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA  – Ochsner Health has announced the recipients of the 38th Annual Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Disease.  They are Ken J. Kellar, Ph.D, Professor of Pharmacology, Georgetown University Medical Center, and Ryan E. Hibbs, Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology, University of California San Diego. This prestigious honor bestowed by Ochsner Health recognizes scientists who have made major contributions in understanding the relationship between smoking and disease, along with the development of innovative treatment modalities. The award is named in honor of Alton Ochsner, MD, the co-founder of the Ochsner ...

In the last few years, breast reduction procedures in the U.S. have become increasingly common. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, nearly 100,000 breast reduction procedures were performed in 2020. This procedure involves a high-tension T-Junction suture in which three incisions meet, forming the shape of a T. Larger breast reductions with longer incisions may have a higher risk of complications and wound healing problems at the T-Junction, which represent 13 to 39% of wound breakdown. It’s known that decreased blood flow to the wound, which then reduces the amount of oxygen to the area, promotes wound breakdown. Looking to improve ...