Advisory Highlights: A new American Heart Association presidential advisory identifies the strong connections among cardiovascular disease (CVD), kidney disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity, and suggests redefining CVD risk, prevention and management. The advisory defines cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome for the first time. CKM syndrome ranges from Stage 0, or no risk factors and an entirely preventive focus, to Stage 4, the highest-risk stage with cardiovascular disease. Stage 4 may also include kidney failure. The advisory urges use of a new tool that will predict someone’s likelihood of heart attack, stroke and/or heart failure ...

BOSTON – Although several medications are approved to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), some individuals experience limited benefits from the drugs or develop side effects from their use. A recent clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), has demonstrated that the drug solriamfetol may be an effective alternative for managing ADHD in adults. Solriamfetol is currently approved in the United States for ...

A team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London and the University of Campinas in Brazil has found that tropical forest ecosystems are more reliant on aquatic insects than temperate forest ecosystems and are therefore more vulnerable to disruptions to the links between land and water.  The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, is the first to directly compare the interconnections between land and water in tropical and temperate environments via the emergence of aquatic insects. The researchers used a technique called stable isotope analysis to trace ...

Utrecht University geologist Suzanna van de Lagemaat has reconstructed a massive and previously unknown tectonic plate that was once one-quarter the size of the Pacific Ocean. Her colleagues in Utrecht had predicted its existence over 10 years ago based on fragments of old tectonic plates found deep in the Earth’s mantle. Van de Lagemaat reconstructed lost plates through field research and detailed investigations of the mountain belts of Japan, Borneo, the Philippines, New Guinea, and New Zealand. To her surprise, she found that oceanic remnants on northern Borneo must have belonged to the long-suspected plate, which scientists have named Pontus. She has now reconstructed ...

An international team of scientists have discovered a huge spike in radiocarbon levels 14,300 years ago by analysing ancient tree-rings found in the French Alps.    The radiocarbon spike was caused by a massive solar storm, the biggest ever identified.   A similar solar storm today would be catastrophic for modern technological society – potentially wiping out telecommunications and satellite systems, causing massive electricity grid blackouts, and costing us billions of pounds.   The academics are warning of the importance ...

A new study found that an alternative model to identify patients with lung cancer eligible for screening was more accurate than the currently used method based on the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) criteria. The results are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths, and using low-dose computed tomography scans to screen people who are at elevated risk for lung cancer reduces lung cancer deaths. The USPSTF criteria use age and smoking history to determine ...

Type of work: peer-reviewed/randomised controlled trial/people SSRI antidepressants normally take a few weeks before any showing mental health benefits, but how come it takes so long? Now a study from a group of clinicians and scientists provides the first human evidence that this is due to physical changes in the brain leading to greater brain plasticity developing over the first few weeks of SSRI intake. This may also begin to explain one of the mechanisms of how antidepressants work. This work is presented at the ECNP conference in Barcelona on 9th October. This ...

Type of work: Peer-reviewed / experimental study / people Up to a third of mothers don’t bond well with their babies after birth, causing intense emotional distress to both mother and baby1. Now researchers have found that they can train at-risk expectant mothers to recognise and regulate emotions better, potentially reducing their risk of postpartum depression. Presenting the work at the ECNP Congress in Barcelona, researcher Dr Anne Bjertrup said: People generally have an automatic tendency to see the positive or negative in any situation. In previous studies we saw that certain ...

A loving bond between parents and their children early in life significantly increases the child’s tendency to be ‘prosocial’, and act with kindness and empathy towards others, research indicates. The University of Cambridge study used data from more than 10,000 people born between 2000 and 2002 to understand the long-term interplay between our early relationships with our parents, prosociality and mental health. It is one of the first studies to look at how these characteristics interact over a long period spanning childhood and adolescence. The researchers ...

(Lugano, Monday, 9 October 2023) A major pan-European study has revealed that almost all patients affected by skin diseases face embarrassment, with the psychological burden compounding the physical impact of living with the disease.1,2 The Burden of Skin Disease in Europe, published today in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (JEADV), analysed 19,015 individuals with a range of skin diseases and revealed the huge psychological toll of living with a disease. The diseases examined included, amongst others, fungal skin infections, acne, atopic dermatitis (eczema), alopecia, psoriasis and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). With high levels of stigmatisation, ...

Scientists using natural tracers off Queensland’s coast have discovered the source of previously unquantified nitrogen and phosphorous having a profound environmental impact on the Great Barrier Reef. The findings, published today in Environmental Science and Technology, indicate current efforts to preserve and restore the health of the Reef may require a new perspective. Southern Cross University’s Dr Douglas Tait leads the ground-breaking study, ‘Submarine groundwater discharge exceeds river inputs as a source of nutrients to the Great Barrier Reef’. Submarine ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a new chemical process which upcycles polyesters, including PET in plastic bottles, to morpholine amide, a versatile and valuable building block for synthesizing a vast range of compounds. The reaction is high yield, waste-free, does not require harmful chemicals, and is easily scalable. The team successfully break the often costly closed-loop recycling loop of plastic waste, allowing upcycling to more valuable products.   Recycling plays an indispensable part of our fight against plastic waste. But at what ...

Under overcast skies that stood no chance of clouding the celebratory tone of the day, hundreds of faculty, staff, students, alumni, neighbors, and academic leaders gathered today on the Medford/Somerville campus to witness the inauguration of Sunil Kumar as the 14th president of Tufts University. He succeeds Anthony P. Monaco, who served as president for 12 years. Delegates from more than 85 academic institutions and learned societies around the world attended Kumar’s inauguration ceremony on the residential quad. The ceremony ...

Type of work: peer-reviewed/experimental study/people The first study to compare effects of antidepressants with running exercises for anxiety, depression and overall health shows that they have about the same benefits for mental health – but a 16-week course of running over the same period scores higher in terms of physical health improvement, whereas antidepressants lead to a slightly worse physical condition, as has been suggested by previous studies.  However, the drop-out rate was much higher in the group which initially ...

Not peer-reviewed/experimental study/people Researchers have announced preliminary results of using wearable technology to measure electrical impulses in the skin and other physiological biomarkers which might be associated with mood changes in bipolar disorder. The work is at an early stage, but they hope that they will be able to build on these patterns to detect mood swings in bipolar disorder sufferers, so helping in diagnosis and potentially offering more rapid and personalized treatments.  Bipolar disorder (formerly called manic-depressive illness or manic depression) is a mental illness that causes swings in a ...

The SUSTAIN Wellbeing COMPASS Coordinating Center of the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work has made a lasting impact in the fight against the HIV epidemic in the Southern U.S. over the past five years, particularly for Black and Latinx-led organizations. The SUSTAIN Center is one of four across the South funded by the Gilead COMPASS Initiative®, an unprecedented 10-year, more than $100 million effort to address the Southern HIV epidemic by collaborating with local community organizations and stakeholders to use evidence-based solutions to meet the needs of people living with and impacted by HIV/AIDS. Led ...

Long before another school year started for K-12 students across Texas, a Texas A&M University-led team has been hard at work behind the scenes to position high school students throughout the Lone Star state for future college writing success. Leading the college-readiness charge is Dr. Terri Pantuso, an instructional associate professor in the Department of English and associate dean for assessment and curricular matters in the College of Arts and Sciences, who recently received a $1.2 million service contract from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) aimed at better ...

Governments, nonprofit organizations, and other groups spend roughly $100 billion a year to support conservation. Restrictions on where conservation funds can be spent, however, prevent organizations from focusing on the most promising opportunities to help species. A new study led by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, suggests a way to improve the situation. “There are plenty of conservation bargains still available in the United States,” said Paul Armsworth, professor in the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and lead author of the study. “Some ...

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a bastion of nuclear physics research for the past 80 years, is poised to strengthen its programs and service to the United States over the next decade if national recommendations of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, are enacted. “The 2023 Long Range Plan lays out a compelling vision for nuclear science in the United States under multiple budget scenarios,” said Gail Dodge, physicist at Old Dominion University and chair of the NSAC. “Implementation of the Long Range Plan’s ...

The world is full of good ideas, but only some of them become viable and real. “You don’t see the full impact of a good idea until someone figures out a way to convert it to a usable product or service that has value, brings it to market and makes money off of it – this is what makes it a sustainable business,” said S. Radhakrishnan, a retired University of Houston business professor and coordinator of UH Energy’s Innovation Commercialization Competition. “To have a successful energy transition, we need many innovative ideas to be commercialized.” Keeping this in mind, Radhakrishnan worked hard to grow the second annual Energy Innovation Commercialization ...

Once thought to be the trash can of the cell, a little bubble of cellular stuff called the midbody remnant is actually packing working genetic material with the power to change the fate of other cells — including turning them into cancer. It’s a surprise to many people, according to Ahna Skop, a University of Wisconsin­–Madison genetics professor, that when one cell divides into two, a process called mitosis, the result is not just the two daughter cells. “One cell divides into three things: two cells and ...

Photos will be added to the release link as available. On average worldwide, fewer than one in every ten cardiac arrest victims outside of the hospital survive.[1] Too many people do not survive from cardiac arrest because those around them are not educated on the lifesaving skills of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Knowing CPR can be a lifesaving tactic. On October 7, 2023, the Chasing M’s Foundation - professional football player Damar Hamlin’s charity - the American Heart Association, the British Heart Foundation ...

A research team led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC has discovered that a non-invasive eye exam may be a possible tool for screening Black Americans and other people from underdiagnosed and high-risk populations for cerebral small vessel disease, a major contributor to cognitive impairment and dementia. After Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, associated with impaired blood flow to the brain, is the second most common dementia diagnosis.  “Most people with cerebral small vessel disease are not diagnosed until significant brain damage has occurred. Damage to the brain cells is not reversible.” ...

In urban areas throughout the United States, it is imperative for all communities to have equal access to high quality parks. These parks can have many benefits for the physical and mental well-being of the residents who live in close proximity to the urban green spaces. For instance, they are a place to socialize and exercise outdoors while also providing vegetation nearby, which can help reduce urban heat. Yet, in the City of Philadelphia, not all parks are created equal, according to a new study from the University of Delaware. Using a machine learning algorithm to analyze 285 ...

The offspring of adolescent and young adult women with a history of cancer face a higher risk of birth defects, according to new research from UTHealth Houston. A study led by Caitlin C. Murphy, PhD, MPH, associate professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, was published recently in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “Concerns like the health of future children are at the top of mind for many young adults diagnosed with cancer, but they are already so overwhelmed at the time of diagnosis with ...