ARLINGTON, VA and DALLAS, December 11, 2023 — The American Diabetes Association® and the American Heart Association® have awarded grants to 10 community organizations to help people living with Type 2 diabetes lower their risk for cardiovascular diseases like heart attack, heart failure and stroke.  The community grants are part of the leading health non-profits’ joint Know Diabetes by Heart™ initiative which seeks to reduce cardiovascular events and deaths among people living with Type 2 diabetes. The grants will help organizations in California, Florida, Georgia, ...

A Stanford Medicine-led, international study of hundreds of samples from patients with Hodgkin lymphoma has shown that levels of tumor DNA circulating in their blood can identify who is responding well to treatment and others who are likely to experience a disease recurrence — potentially letting some patients who are predicted to have favorable outcomes forgo lengthy treatment.  Surprisingly, the study also revealed that Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes, can be divided into two groups, each with distinct genetic changes and slightly different prognoses. These changes hint ...

The current emoji library doesn’t accurately represent the “tree of life” and the breadth of biodiversity seen in nature according to an analysis presented December 11 in the journal iScience. A team of conservation biologists categorized emojis related to nature and animals and mapped them onto the phylogenetic tree of life. They found that animals are well represented by the current emoji catalog, whereas plants, fungi, and microorganisms are poorly represented. Within the animal kingdom, vertebrates were overrepresented while arthropods were underrepresented with respect to their actual biodiversity. The researchers argue that creating a more diverse and representative ...

About The Study: High body mass index (BMI) in late adolescence was associated with early chronic kidney disease in young adulthood in this study that included 593,000 adolescents. The risk was also present in seemingly healthy individuals with high-normal BMI and before 30 years of age, and a greater risk was seen among those with severe obesity. These findings underscore the importance of mitigating adolescent obesity rates and managing risk factors for kidney disease in adolescents with high BMI.  Authors: Gilad Twig, M.D., Ph.D., of the Israel Defense Forces, Medical Corps, Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan, Israel, is the corresponding author. To ...

Embargoed for release: Monday, December 11, 11:00 AM ET Key points: In a study of 3.5 million pregnancies across four countries between 2009 and 2021, researchers observed no elevated risk of major congenital malformations, including major cardiac malformations, among infants born to pregnant women with pre-gestational type 2 diabetes who took second-line non-insulin antidiabetic medications compared with those who took insulin. The researchers observed an increase in use of second-line non-insulin antidiabetic ...

  The Organoid Group (Hubrecht Institute) and the Rare Cancers Genomics Team (IARC/WHO) found a way to grow samples of different types of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) in the lab. While generating their new model, the researchers discovered that some pulmonary NETs need the protein EGF to be able to grow. These types of tumors may therefore be treatable using inhibitors of the EGF receptor. The results were published in Cancer Cell on 11 December 2023.   Neuroendocrine tumors Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are relatively ...

BOSTON – Physician-investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) compared a chatbot’s probabilistic reasoning to that of human clinicians. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, suggest that artificial intelligence could serve as useful clinical decision support tools for physicians. “Humans struggle with probabilistic reasoning, the practice of making decisions based on calculating odds,” said the study’s corresponding author Adam Rodman, MD, an internal medicine physician and investigator in ...

People who have been subject to abuse are more likely to experience physical and mental health effects than previously thought, according to a new study.   In a global review and meta-analysis of evidence published in Nature Medicine today, researchers have found that there are elevated risks between intimate partner violence or childhood sexual abuse, and some health conditions including major depressive disorder, maternal miscarriage for partners, and alcohol misuse and self-harm among children.   Globally, one in three ever-partnered women have experienced ...

McGill University researchers have made a breakthrough in diagnostic technology, inventing a ‘lab on a chip’ that can be 3D-printed in just 30 minutes. The chip has the potential to make on-the-spot testing widely accessible.   As part of a recent study, the results of which were published in the journal Advanced Materials, the McGill team developed capillaric chips that act as miniature laboratories. Unlike other computer microprocessors, these chips are single-use and require no external power source—a simple paper strip suffices. They function through capillary action – ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, December 11, 2023 – Fairy circles, a nearly hexagonal pattern of bare-soil circular gaps in grasslands, initially observed in Namibia and later in other parts of the world, have fascinated and baffled scientists for years. Theories for their appearance range from spatial self-organization induced by scale-dependent water-vegetation feedback to pre-existing patterns of termite nests. Prof. Ehud Meron of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has been studying the Namibian fairy circles as a case study for understanding how ecosystems respond to water stress. He believes that all theories ...

WASHINGTON (Dec. 11, 2023)--A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus provides a better understanding of how the brain responds to injuries. Researchers at the George Washington University discovered that a protein called Snail plays a key role in coordinating the response of brain cells after an injury.   The study shows that after an injury to the central nervous system (CNS) a group of localized cells start to produce Snail, a transcription factor or protein that has been implicated in the repair process.The GW researchers show that changing how much Snail is produced can significantly affect whether the injury starts ...

About The Study: In participants with obesity or overweight, withdrawing tirzepatide led to substantial regain of lost weight, whereas continued treatment maintained and augmented initial weight reduction in this randomized clinical trial that included 670 adults.   Authors: Louis J. Aronne, M.D., of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, 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/jama.2023.24945) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict ...

Lymphatic fluid from surgical drains, which is usually tossed in the trash, is a treasure in the hands of University of Pittsburgh and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis researchers who found that this liquid could inform more precise treatments for patients with head and neck cancer caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). The new study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, shows for the first time that HPV DNA in lymphatic fluid collected ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- LOINC® and Health Data Standards at Regenstrief Institute has received a $4.4 million grant from the Regenstrief Foundation to support expansion of work on a global initiative to categorize and standardize social determinants of health (SDOH) information into electronic health records (EHRs), an ambitious project to integrate social needs data into clinical care to more effectively address health inequities. The unequal distribution of income, food, safety and access to healthcare are recognized as root causes of health disparities. But, currently, data on these factors are rarely well documented within a patient’s ...

Frontline nurses who learned the Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) technique during the COVID-19 pandemic showed rapid and significant improvements in flourishing, PTSD, anxiety, and burnout over 3 months compared to controls, according to a study published today in the Journal of Nursing Administration. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of Transcendental Meditation on nurses’ multidimensional well-being, conceptualized as the presence of flourishing and the absence of PTSD, anxiety, and burnout. A total of 104 nurses in three Florida hospitals participated. ...

Intimate partner violence is widespread and can have severe physical and psychological health repercussions, but there is a shortage of research on reliable predictors of abuse before it occurs. New research, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, identifies several warning signs that preceded and predicted intimate partner violence. “Although future research is required to fully understand the associations between warning signs and abuse, these red flags could eventually be used ...

It may feel unforgivably rude to reject an invitation – even one to an event you would much prefer not to attend – but people often overestimate the social consequences of saying no, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “I was once invited to an event that I absolutely did not want to attend, but I attended anyways because I was nervous that the person who invited me would be upset if I did not – and that appears to be a common experience,” said lead author Julian Givi, PhD, an assistant professor at West Virginia University. “Our research shows, however, ...

Considerable attention has focused on mental illness as a major contributor to homicides in the United States. Serious mental illness affects more than 14 million Americans ages 18 and older and nearly 58 million people reported having a mental illness. In 2021, 47,286 Americans died from gun violence – the highest ever – of which 46 percent were homicides and 54 percent were suicides involving firearms.  Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators compared deaths from mental illness and gun violence in the U.S., Australia and the United Kingdom and their clinical ...

As holidays near, people are sneaking shakes of their presents to try to figure out what they’re getting. But present shakers might be a little less sly than they think. New research shows it’s incredibly easy for people watching others shake boxes to tell what they’re up to. “There are few things more delightful than seeing a child’s eyes light up as they pick up a present and wonder what might be inside,” said author Chaz Firestone, a Johns Hopkins University assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences who investigates ...

Some Covid-19 vaccines safely and effectively used lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to deliver messenger RNA to cells. A new MIT study shows that different nanoparticles could be used for a potential Alzheimer’s disease (AD) therapy. In tests in multiple mouse models and with cultured human cells, a newly tailored LNP formulation effectively delivered small interfering RNA (siRNA) to the brain’s microglia immune cells to suppress expression of a protein linked to excessive inflammation in Alzheimer’s ...

Electrochemical reactions are central to the green transitions. These reactions use the electric current and potential difference to carry out chemical reactions, which enables binding and realizing electric energy from chemical bonds. This chemistry is the basis for several applications, such as hydrogen technology, batteries, and various aspects of circular economy.  Developments and improvement in these technologies require detailed insight into the electrochemical reactions and different factors impacting them. Recent studies have shown that besides the electrode material also the used solvent, its acidity, and ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – A single strand of fiber developed at Washington State University has the flexibility of cotton and the electric conductivity of a polymer, called polyaniline. The newly developed material showed good potential for wearable e-textiles. The WSU researchers tested the fibers with a system that powered an LED light and another that sensed ammonia gas, detailing their findings in the journal Carbohydrate Polymers.  “We have one fiber in two sections: one section is the conventional cotton: flexible and strong enough for everyday use, and the other side is the conductive material,” said Hang Liu, WSU textile ...

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, UCL and MSD have identified a potential treatment target for a genetic type of epilepsy. Developmental and epileptic encephalopathies are rare types of epilepsy which start in early childhood. One of the most common types of genetic epilepsy, CDKL5 deficiency disorder (CDD), causes seizures and impaired development. Children are currently treated with generic antiepileptic drugs, as there aren’t yet any disease-targeting medications for this disorder. CDD involves losing the function of a gene producing the CDKL5 enzyme, which phosphorylates proteins, meaning it adds an extra phosphate ...

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have examined the brains of 16 patients previously hospitalised for COVID-19 with persisting symptoms. They have found differences in brain tissue structure between patients with persisting symptoms after COVID-19 and healthy people. Their findings, published in the journal Brain Communications, can bring insights into the underlying mechanisms of persisting neurological problems after COVID-19. Several previous studies of persisting problems after COVID have involved MRI brain scanning. Although researchers have found differences compared with healthy brains, these differences are not specific ...

A world without cardiovascular disease (CVD) is possible, yet millions of lives are lost prematurely to heart disease each year, according to the new Global Burden of Disease (GBD) special report published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The report provides an update of health estimates for the global, regional and national burden and trends of CVD from 1990-2022 by analyzing the impact of cardiovascular conditions and risk factors across 21 global regions. Research from this study reflects an urgent need ...