HOUSTON (October 4, 2023) – Texas Children’s Hospital is proud to announce that its Adolescent Bariatric Surgery Program has received national accreditation from the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP).   Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands is the only Bariatric Surgery Center in the state of Texas that serves to an adolescent-only patient population with a multidisciplinary clinical staff who is certified to meet the surgical, medical and psychological needs of ...

Some of the thinnest materials known to mankind may provide solutions to scientists in their quest to curb the effects of global warming.  Known as MXene and MBene compounds, these substances are only a few atoms thick, making them two-dimensional. Because of their large surface area, the materials have the potential to absorb carbon dioxide molecules from the atmosphere, which could help reduce the harmful effects of climate change by safely sequestering carbon dioxide. In a paper published Oct. 4 in the journal Chem, UC Riverside professor Mihri Ozkan and her co-authors explain the potential of MXenes and MBenes in carbon capture technologies. “In this review, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Fossil researchers have discovered a novel genus and species of tiny wasp with a mysterious, bulbous structure at the end of each antenna. The female micro-wasp was described from 100-million-year-old Burmese amber in a study led by George Poinar Jr., who holds a courtesy appointment in the Oregon State University College of Science. Poinar and Fernando Vega, an independent researcher based in Silver Spring, Maryland, have some ideas about the “clouds” on the ...

Tirzepatide is as effective at treating early-onset type 2 diabetes (T2D), a more aggressive form of the condition that normally responds less well to treatment, as it is at treating T2D diagnosed later in life, new research being presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Hamburg, Germany (2-6 Oct) has found. Tirzepatide belongs to a new class of drugs that mimic the effect of two hormones involved in blood sugar control and appetite suppression, ...

New research being presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Hamburg, Germany (2-6 Oct) has identified a range of characteristics associated with a higher risk of sudden cardiac arrest in individuals with type 2 diabetes. These include the some commonly prescribed antibiotic and antipsychotic drugs, prokinetics (drugs used to treat gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting) and low fasting blood sugar. Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of death. ...

New research presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Hamburg (2-6 Oct), reveals a marked increase in several common conditions in the years leading up to, and immediately prior to, type 2 diabetes diagnosis, suggesting considerably earlier diagnosis might be possible in some patients. “These novel insights into the onset and natural progression of type 2 diabetes, suggest an early phase of inflammation-related disease activity long before any clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes is made”, says senior author Dr Adrian Heald from Manchester ...

At this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Hamburg, Germany (2-6 Oct) experts will discuss if lasting remission from diabetes is feasible in the real-world setting. Professor Roy Taylor of Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK, will be speaking in support of the motion Professor Taylor will argue that through a series of studies in which people with type 2 diabetes were put on low calorie diets, he has shown that lasting remission of type 2 diabetes is indeed feasible in the real world. He will begin ...

Precision medicine is part of the logical evolution of contemporary evidence-based medicine that seeks to reduce errors and optimise outcomes when making medical decisions and health recommendations. Diabetes affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, many of whom will develop life-threatening complications and die prematurely. “Diabetes recommendations often focus on what works well for the average person. However, because diabetes is an incredibly heterogeneous disease, few people are Mr or Mrs “average” and one-size-fits-all ...

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers using wastewater surveillance over conventional indicators have predicted the start of the annual respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season 12 days early, providing more lead time for hospital preparedness and the timely initiation of RSV prevention therapy provided by the province for at risk-infants and young children. Published in Frontiers in Public Health, the study is the first to describe the relationship between wastewater measurements and clinical data for RSV and to use near real-time wastewater measurements to accurately identify the start of the RSV season. Working in close collaboration with CHEO Research Institute (RI) ...

The burden of non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes is increasing globally, especially in low-income and middle-income countries where they occur alongside epidemics of communicable diseases like HIV. A large public health survey in South Africa led by Emily Wong, M.D., has assessed the multimorbidity health needs of individuals and communities in rural KwaZulu-Natal and established a framework to quantify met and unmet health needs for individuals living with infectious and non-communicable diseases. The study is published in The Lancet Global Health. “Applying ...

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is emerging as a blood-based biomarker for many solid tumor types, including melanoma. A new study that assessed ctDNA in the blood of patients with BRAF wild-type (BRAF WT) stage III and IV melanoma concludes that measuring ctDNA may lead to alternative treatment options and better outcomes for these patients, report investigators in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier. For patients with BRAF WT stage III and IV melanoma, there is an urgent clinical need to identify prognostic biomarkers and biomarkers to predict treatment ...

Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) were recognized for their achievements at the 2023 meeting of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. Teams reported new findings about radiation-induced secondary cancers, a new guidance system for radiation therapy, and the consequences of insurance denials, among other topics. At the meeting, held from October 1 to October 4, 2023, in San Diego, Simon Powell, MD, PhD, FRCP, Chair of MSK’s Department of Radiation Oncology and Enid A. Haupt Chair in Radiation Oncology, was honored with ASTRO’s Gold Medal Award. This award is ASTRO’s highest honor, bestowed upon ...

Type of work: peer-reviewed/clinical trial/people A major clinical trial shows that the drug, esketamine, one of the two main forms of ketamine, outperforms one of the standard treatments for treatment-resistant major depression. This industry-funded work is presented for the first time at the 36th ECNP Congress in Barcelona, with publication in the peer-reviewed journal the New England Journal of Medicine (see Notes for details). Clinical depression (also known as MDD, major depressive disorder) affects a significant number of people at any one time, giving ...

Understanding Treatment-Resistant Depression Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a particularly challenging form of major depressive disorder. As Albino Oliveira-Maia, head of the Champalimaud Foundation’s Neuropsychiatry Unit and the study’s national coordinator for Portugal, explains, “TRD is defined as the persistence of depressive symptoms despite adequate courses of at least two different antidepressant medications”. Despite repeated therapeutic attempts, these patients’ depressive symptoms ...

When two lattices with distinct angles or periodicities come together, they conjure a moiré superlattice — a realm where astonishing phenomena like superconductivity and optical solitons spring to life. At the heart of this realm lies the moiré flatband, a key player in shaping advanced light–matter interactions, such as laser emission and second harmonic generation. In moiré physics and its relevant applications, wielding control over flatbands is a pivotal superpower. Moiré flatbands are typically generated with special structures, often manipulated ...

Audio Roughly 40% of older Black adults live with a disability, compared to only one-third of older adults overall.   Disability is one of various disparities highlighted in a new study from the University of Michigan, which used data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging to examine the extent to which 50- to 80-year-olds were prepared to age in place and the racial and ethnic disparities that exist to that end. Sheria Robinson-Lane, U-M assistant professor of nursing and principal investigator, said many of the disparities were related to "weathering"—stressors connected to environmental, ...

Most Americans take it for granted that the water that comes out of their taps is clean and safe to drink.  But a new study published by a University of New Mexico scientist with colleagues from across the U.S. warns that water from many wells and community water systems contains unsafe levels of toxic contaminants, exposing millions to health risks, including cancer. The review in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology also finds that people living on tribal lands or ...

“In this work, we focused on the application of the established pipeline to the identification of the potential targets related to aging [...]” A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 18, entitled, “Biomedical generative pre-trained based transformer language model for age-related disease target discovery.” Target discovery is crucial for the development of innovative therapeutics and diagnostics. However, current approaches often face ...

Despite decades of decline, a genetic analysis of ruffed grouse reveals that Pennsylvania’s state bird harbors more genetic diversity and connectivity than expected. The findings suggest that the iconic game bird could be maintained in persistent numbers if appropriate protections are implemented. The study, led by Penn State and Pennsylvania Game Commission researchers, published in the journal Molecular Ecology. According to the researchers, Pennsylvania’s ruffed grouse populations have declined by up to 70% since the early ...

The Ohio State University (OSU) has been awarded a $20 million Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science (TCORS) grant from the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products and National Institutes of Health. The OSU-TCORS grant is a collaboration of experts from the colleges of medicine, public health and law organized and implemented through the Center for Tobacco Research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – Having either high or low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, or “good” cholesterol, is tied to a small increased risk of dementia in older adults, according to a study published in the October 4, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This study does not prove that high or low levels of HDL cholesterol cause dementia; it only shows an association. “Previous studies on this topic have been ...

New research fueled in part by citizen scientists reveals that the meadow spittlebug—known for the foamy, spit-like urine released by its nymphs—can feed on at least 1,300 species of host plants, more than twice the number of any other insect. The study, which is published today in the journal PLOS ONE, could be especially important in the effort to stop the bug from spreading a type of bacterium that has caused the death of crops across the world, including olive trees in Italy, grapevines in California, citrus trees in South America, and almond trees in Spain. “Thirteen hundred host plants means 1,300 opportunities ...

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, and IEEE Computer Society have named Keshav Pingali, the W.A.”Tex” Moncrief Chair of Grid and Distributed Computing at the University of Texas at Austin, as the recipient of the 2023 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. The Ken Kennedy Award recognizes groundbreaking achievements in parallel and high performance computing. Pingali is cited for contributions to high-performance parallel computing for irregular algorithms such as graph algorithms. He is also cited for leadership on the Galois Project, which provides a unifying framework for parallelizing both irregular and regular algorithms. Pingali has made deep and wide-ranging ...

A survey of New York state residents found that nearly half of respondents increased the amount of time they spent on wild and backyard food in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, confirming anecdotes about increases in activities such as sourdough baking, fishing and gardening. People also tended to eat the food they produced, researchers found, possibly buffering the generally less healthful eating that was common at the time. “This was the period of 2020 when you couldn't find tomato cages, seeds were out of stock, and there were reports about record numbers of people hunting and ...

Winter is coming—eventually. And while the earth is warming, a new study suggests that the atmosphere is being pushed around in ways that cause long bouts of extreme winter cold or wet in some regions. The study’s authors say they have identified giant meanders in the global jet stream that bring polar air southward, locking in frigid or wet conditions concurrently over much of North America and Europe, often for weeks at a time. Such weather waves, they say, have doubled in frequency since the 1960s. In just the last few years, they have killed hundreds of people and ...