Having obesity before and during early pregnancy appears to be a strong indicator of risk for developing future cardiovascular disease and was significantly linked with adverse outcomes during pregnancy such as high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes, according to a study published in Circulation Research that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers have known obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and pregnancy complications related to blood pressure. However, they did not know which factors – obesity or the pregnancy complications – played larger roles in influencing a person’s ...

Increased demand for water due to global population growth, coupled with the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, endangers our water security. Nonetheless, little is known about the relationship of water use by sectors and the occurrence of drought-heatwave events, particularly at the large scale. To unveil this issue, a group of researchers from the Department of Physical Geography from Utrecht University evaluated the responses of sectoral water use during droughts, heatwaves and compound (combined) events at a global scale. The study published in Environmental Research Letters shows that stronger sectoral water use responses are found for heatwaves compared to ...

A new paper in the Annals of Botany, published by Oxford University Press, reveals that researchers have found unaltered agave plant species cultivated by several early cultures including the Hohokam people, a large Native American group in the Southwest that existed between 300 and 1500 CE. Agave plants have been of great economic and social importance in the Americas for at least 9,000 years. Before people cultivated corn, agave plants were one of their main carbohydrate sources. Archaeological research indicates the Hohokam increased agricultural potential by building terraces for agave dry farming. Agricultural features such as terraces and rock piles were especially characteristic ...

October 10, WASHINGTON D.C. – A new tool will help governments customise food and agriculture policies based on country-level circumstances to increase their effectiveness at improving diets, adapting to changing climate and protecting natural resources. The Political Economy and Policy Analysis (PEPA) Sourcebook is the first to compile dozens of frameworks and approaches for designing food and agriculture policies, such as reforming farm subsidies, water policies, food safety regulations and taxes. The authors from the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and the International Food Policy Research Institute ...

A comprehensive guideline from Osteoporosis Canada aims to help primary care professionals deliver care to optimize skeletal health and prevent fractures in postmenopausal females and males who are age 50 years and older. It is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.221647. With 25 recommendations and 10 good practice statements, this update to the 2010 guideline contains sections on exercise, nutrition, fracture risk assessment, treatment and more, reflecting advances in risk assessment, and nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic management of osteoporosis. In ...

Five years after cannabis legalization in Canada, it appears to be a mixed success, with social justice benefits outweighing health benefits, write authors in a commentary published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230808. Cannabis use was legalized in Canada in October 2018, with the goal to improve cannabis-related public health and safety, and reduce youth access and illegal activities related to cannabis. There was concern among some health ...

WASHINGTON (Oct. 10, 2023)--Latinx kids who experienced depression, anxiety or other mental health issues in middle school had a greater chance of developing sleep problems, unhealthy weight gain and sedentary behavior in high school, according to a study out today.   The research, led by a team at the George Washington University, suggests that unhealthy behaviors linked to mental health issues may start early in life and trigger obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and other serious health problems.   “Our study suggests signs of depression ...

Peer-reviewed / Modelling, Review, and Opinion / People New World Stroke Organization-Lancet Neurology Commission forecasts future epidemiological and economic impacts of stroke, identifies evidence-based recommendations for improving the four pillars namely: surveillance, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. Epidemiological analysis projects stroke deaths will increase from 6.6 million in 2020 to 9.7 million in 2050, with an ever-widening gap between low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). In 2050, 91% of stroke deaths are projected to be in LMICs compared to 9% in HICs, up from 86% in LMICs and 14% HICs ...

Researchers from the United States, Brazil, and Spain, including scientists with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, published an analysis in a special edition of the British Medical Journal with a timely and controversial recommendation: It’s time for an international shift in the way we think about ultra-processed food. “There is converging and consistent support for the validity and clinical relevance of food addiction,” said Ashley Gearhardt, the article’s corresponding author and a psychology professor at the University of Michigan. “By acknowledging that certain types of processed foods have the properties of addictive substances, ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 9 October 2023 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. History of parental infertility associated ...

Models built on machine learning in health care can be victims of their own success, according to researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine and the University of Michigan. Their study assessed the impact of implementing predictive models on the subsequent performance of those and other models. Their findings—that using the models to adjust how care is delivered can alter the baseline assumptions that the models were “trained” on, often for worse—were detailed in the October 9 online issue of Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0949. “We wanted to explore ...

Graphics It's well-known that birds and other animals rely on Earth's magnetic field for long-distance navigation during seasonal migrations. But how do periodic disruptions of the planet's magnetic field, caused by solar flares and other energetic outbursts, affect the reliability of those biological navigation systems? University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues used massive, long-term datasets from networks of U.S. Doppler weather radar stations and ground-based magnetometers—devices that measure the ...

Charles Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. If evolution is always causing things to change, they asked, then how is it that two fossils from the same species, found in the same location, can look identical despite being 50 million years apart in age? Everything changed in the past 40 years, when an explosion of evolutionary studies proved that evolution can and does occur rapidly — even from one generation to the next. Evolutionary biologists were thrilled, but the findings reinforced the same paradox: If evolution can happen so fast, then why do most species on Earth continue to ...

Many species experience little to no change over long periods of time. Biologists often fall back on the same explanation for why this is true: that natural selection favors individuals with more moderate characteristics. Individuals with more extreme features — longer limbs, for example — have a disadvantage, while more moderate or average individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their common features. But new research from Washington University in St. Louis and the Georgia ...

Maize plants form special compounds derived from indole, the so-called benzoxazinoids. They are considered ecologically important because they act against a wide range of herbivores and reduce their feeding. Benzoxazinoids also exhibit antimicrobial properties and are thought to be involved in mediating plant-plant interactions. Their biosynthesis in maize has been known since the 1990s. Meanwhile, their biosynthetic pathway has been described in several grasses, but benzoxazinoids have also been found in other plant species. Their distribution is peculiar: While specialized metabolites often occur in specific evolutionary related plant species, benzoxazinoids ...

Scientists at the UCL Institute for Neurology have developed new tools, based on AI language models, that can characterise subtle signatures in the speech of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. The research, published in PNAS, aims to understand how the automated analysis of language could help doctors and scientists diagnose and assess psychiatric conditions. Currently, psychiatric diagnosis is based almost entirely on talking with patients and those close to them, with only a minimal role for tests such as blood tests and brain scans. However, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to a new paper, ancient Maya reservoirs, which used aquatic plants to filter and clean the water, “can serve as archetypes for natural, sustainable water systems to address future water needs.” The Maya built and maintained reservoirs that were in use for more than 1,000 years, wrote University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign anthropology professor Lisa Lucero in a perspective in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These reservoirs provided potable water for thousands to tens of thousands of people in cities during the annual, five-month dry season and in periods of prolonged ...

Hamilton, ON, Oct. 9, 2023 – New analysis of the remains of victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, contradicts the widespread belief the flu disproportionately impacted healthy young adults.  Because so many people fell ill so quickly, physicians at the time believed the healthy were as likely to die from the flu as those who had already been sick or frail. Despite numerous historical accounts, though, it turns out there is no concrete scientific evidence to support that belief. Researchers at McMaster University and the University of Colorado Boulder ...

LOS ANGELES — Approximately 7% of Americans have had long COVID, a range of ongoing health problems experienced after infection and recovery from COVID-19. Symptoms can include fatigue, brain fog, headaches, chest pain, heart palpitations and more.   To date, there is no proven treatment for the syndrome, and the mechanisms that cause it are not fully understood.   Now, a new clinical trial from Keck Medicine of USC is investigating if a diet designed to lower inflammation may play a role in easing this often debilitating condition.   The premise of ...

Miriam Merad, M.D., Ph.D., an esteemed immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in recognition of her pioneering contributions to the fields of immunology and cell biology. Dr. Merad was elected for her transformational discoveries, establishing for the first time that tissue-resident macrophages have distinct origins, maintain their lineage separately from adult hematopoiesis, and possess unique functions that enhance tissue health, repair, infection defense, and impact tumor outcomes. She is the Mount Sinai Professor ...

In cases where standard therapies fail, a medication called XEN1101 reduces seizure frequency by more than 50% in some patients and sometimes eliminates them altogether, a new study shows. Unlike several treatments that must be started at low doses and slowly ramped up, the new drug can safety be taken at its most effective dose from the start, the authors say. Focal seizures, the most common type seen in epilepsy, occur when nerve cells in a particular brain region send out a sudden, excessive burst of electrical signals. Along with seizures, this uncontrolled activity can lead to abnormal behavior, periods of lost awareness, and mood changes. ...

*EMBARGOED UNTIL 11 A.M. MONDAY, OCT. 9* Liquid biopsies are blood tests that can serially measure circulating tumor DNA (cell-free DNA that is shed into the bloodstream by dying cancer cells). When used in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer undergoing immunotherapy, they may identify patients who could benefit from treatment with additional drugs, according to a phase 2 clinical trial in the U.S. and Canada. The trial is led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel ...

In the game of soccer (association football), goalkeepers have a unique role. To do the job well, they must be ready to make split-second decisions based on incomplete information to stop their opponents from scoring a goal. Now researchers reporting in Current Biology on October 9 have some of the first solid scientific evidence that goalkeepers show fundamental differences in the way they perceive the world and process multi-sensory information. “Unlike other football players, goalkeepers are required to make thousands of very fast decisions based on limited or incomplete sensory information,” says Michael Quinn, the study’s ...

About The Study: This study of 23,000 individuals found a higher risk of all-cause, cardiovascular disease, and ischemic heart disease mortality among adults with moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to those without depressive symptoms. Public health efforts to improve awareness and treatment of depression and associated risk factors could support a comprehensive, nationwide strategy to reduce the burden of depression.  Authors: Zefeng Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: ...

About The Study: During the first full calendar year of the pandemic, approximately 1 in 5 adolescents had major depressive disorder, and less than half of adolescents who needed treatment had any mental health treatment, according to this analysis of nationally representative survey data of 10,000 U.S. adolescents. Adolescents in racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly Latinx, experienced the lowest treatment rates. Authors: Michael William Flores, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the corresponding author. To access ...