A world first study revealing the presence of two antibodies in a sub-group of children experiencing their first episode of psychosis affirms a longstanding recognition that auto-immune disorders play a significant role in psychiatric illness. Antibodies defend the body against bacterial, viral, and other invaders but sometimes the body makes antibodies that attack healthy cells. In these cases, autoimmune disorders develop. These include conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes. This 'immune hypothesis' is supported by new ...

Almost every pig carries harmless strains of the S. suis bacterium - such strains are known as 'commensal' strains. However, a more virulent group of strains of the bacteria also exist, which cause disease in pigs worldwide and are a major driver of antibiotic use for prevention. Increasingly, this group of strains is also implicated in serious human diseases such as meningitis and septicaemia. In order to understand the genetic basis of disease in S. suis, an international study, led by the Bacterial Respiratory Diseases of Pigs-1 Technology (BRaDP1T) consortium, examined ...

New research from the University of Toronto has scientists re-thinking how a lethal fungus grows and kills immune cells. The study hints at a new approach to therapy for Candida albicans, one of the most common causes of bloodstream infections. Previously, scientists thought that Candida albicans spread by changing from a single, round cell to a long string of cells, or filaments. They thought this shape change allowed the fungus to move through the bloodstream and let its filaments penetrate tissues and destroy immune cells. But the new study, published today in Nature ...

Survey responses from 19,000 people in 18 European countries, including the UK, showed that "the notion that big welfare states are associated with widespread cultures of dependency, or other adverse consequences of poor short term incentives to work, receives little support." Sociologists Dr Kjetil van der Wel and Dr Knut Halvorsen examined responses to the statement 'I would enjoy having a paid job even if I did not need the money' put to the interviewees for the European Social Survey in 2010. In a paper published in the journal Work, employment and society they ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ - Children who get a taste of their parents' wine now and then may be more likely than their peers to start drinking by high school, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Researchers found that, of 561 students in a long-term study, those who'd "sipped" alcohol by sixth grade were five times more likely than their peers to down a full drink by the time they were in high school. And they were four times more likely to have binged or been drunk. The findings do not prove that early sips of alcohol are to blame, said lead ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 31, 2015 - Ultrasound technology has evolved dramatically in recent years. A group of noted obstetricians and gynecologists maintain that ultrasound is more cost-effective and safer than other imaging modalities for imaging the female pelvis and should be the first imaging modality used for patients with pelvic symptoms. Writing in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and supporting an American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM at http://www.AIUM.org) initiative, they urge practitioners to "put ultrasound first." In 2012, the ...

As the United States faces transplant waiting lists that continue to grow longer over time, there is increasing debate about the proper way to incentivize living donations. Transplant professionals are trying to find ways to eliminate any financial disincentives without crossing the line to paying for organs. A new article published in the American Journal of Transplantation highlights possible solutions discussed by leaders within the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) at a recent workshop. Due to organ shortages, ...

This news release is available in French. In addition to their physical injuries, women who are victims of domestic violence are also at a greater risk of mental health problems such as depression and psychotic symptoms. These are the findings of a study that was just published by a team of researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London in England, the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (IUSMM), and the University of Montreal. "We studied the impact of domestic violence on the risk of mental ...

Speaking in public is the top fear for many people. Now, researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Rochester have developed an intelligent user interface for "smart glasses" that gives real-time feedback to the speaker on volume modulation and speaking rate, while being minimally distracting. The Rochester team describes the system, which they have called Rhema after the Greek word for "utterance," in a paper that will be presented on Tuesday, March 31 at the Association for Computer Machinery's Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) conference ...

CLEVELAND - Tweet it. Snap it. Pin it. Post it...or however else you want to share it with the masses scouring the Internet searching for common ground connectivity. But, should doctors peer behind the privacy curtain of potential patients to help avert or discover more severe problems? University Hospitals Case Medical Center Psychiatrist Stephanie Pope, MD, examined the impact of social media on mental health care and treatment. She specifically investigated how the public forums could help diagnoses in clinical practice as well as serving as behavioral predictors. ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences used information collected from hundreds of skin swabs to produce three-dimensional maps of molecular and microbial variations across the body. These maps provide a baseline for future studies of the interplay between the molecules that make up our skin, the microbes that live on us, our personal hygiene routines and other environmental factors. The study, published March 30 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help further our understanding of ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Got milk? If you are overweight and have osteoarthritis, you may want to bone up on your dairy products that have vitamin D. According to a University of Florida study, higher levels of vitamin D may decrease pain and improve function in obese individuals with osteoarthritis. Findings published in the January issue of The Clinical Journal of Pain indicate that obese individuals who suffer from osteoarthritis and have adequate vitamin D levels could walk, balance and rise from sitting to standing better than obese participants with insufficient vitamin ...

Humans have been inspired by nature since the beginning of time. We mimic nature to develop new technologies, with examples ranging from machinery to pharmaceuticals to new materials. Planes are modelled on birds and many drugs have their origins in plants. Researchers at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering have taken it a step further: in order to develop an extremely sensitive temperature sensor they took a close look at temperature-sensitive plants. However, they did not mimic the properties of the plants; instead, they developed a hybrid material that ...

Scientists have found a way to measure the unseen toll that environmental stress places on living creatures -- showing that they can rev up their metabolism to work more than twice as hard as normal to cope with change. Stresses from climate change such as rising temperatures and increasing ocean acidity can edge an organism closer and closer to the brink of death without visible signs. In fact, the researchers -- led by USC's Donal Manahan -- were surprised at just how good organisms can be at hiding the stress they're under. Manahan and his colleagues found that increasing ...

A study of peanut consumption showed that including them as a part of a high fat meal improved the post-meal triglyceride response and preserved endothelial function. "Peanuts are a healthy snack when eaten as part of a healthy diet," said lead researcher Xiaoran Liu, a graduate student in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University. The purpose of this research was to evaluate vascular function after a high fat meal challenge. Overweight males (n = 15) were randomized to either a peanut meal containing 3 oz. of ground peanuts (as ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new analysis reported in JAMA Psychiatry raises serious questions about the increasingly common use of second-generation antidepressant drugs to treat anxiety disorders. It concludes that studies supporting the value of these medications for that purpose have been distorted by publication bias, outcome reporting bias and "spin." Even though they may still play a role in treating these disorders, the effectiveness of the drugs has been overestimated. In some cases the medications, which are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, are ...

MADISON - Research has discovered a role for prolactin, the hormone that stimulates milk production in nursing mothers, in the bond between parents. The study relied on hormone analyses of urine from cotton-top tamarins, a small, endangered monkey native to Colombia. They live in monogamous family groups where both parents help care for the young, which is similar to humans. The study found a link between prolactin levels and sexual activity and cuddling among paired adults. Although this was a first for prolactin, it has previously been found for oxytocin, a hormone ...

The decades worth of data that has been collected about the billions of neurons in the brain is astounding. To help scientists make sense of this "brain big data," researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have used data mining to create http://www.neuroelectro.org, a publicly available website that acts like Wikipedia, indexing physiological information about neurons. The site will help to accelerate the advance of neuroscience research by providing a centralized resource for collecting and comparing data on neuronal function. A description of the data available and ...

MADISON - Even during a good year, soybean farmers nationwide are, in essence, taking a loss. That's because changes in weather patterns have been eating into their profits and taking quite a bite: $11 billion over the past 20 years. This massive loss has been hidden, in effect, by the impressive annual growth seen in soybean yields thanks to other factors. But that growth could have been 30 percent higher if weather variations resulting from climate change had not occurred, according to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison agronomists published last month in Nature ...

BOSTON -A study led by Boston Medical Center (BMC) researchers demonstrates that while new therapies to treat Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) are highly effective, they are cost-effective and provide the greatest value in specific groups of HCV-infected patients. The findings of the study, led by Benjamin P. Linas, MD, MPH, from BMC's section of infectious diseases and the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), are published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study focused on the combination of sofosbuvir and ribavirin for treatment of HCV genotypes 2 and 3, which ...

CLEVELAND - Adding to the clinical benefits and improved patient outcomes associated with minimally invasive surgery, Medtronic highlighted a study published in the March 25 online edition of JAMA Surgery. The new study demonstrated that patients who underwent laparoscopic colectomy procedures required fewer days of health care utilization and the health care system spent less on their acute and follow-up care than those who underwent traditional open surgery. "We found that the use of minimally invasive laparoscopic approaches in a select group of patients undergoing ...

(Boston, MA) March 30, 2015 - A new study presented today at Experimental Biology 2015 confirms that vegetable consumption is very low among women of childbearing age (WCBA), and that the nutrient-rich white potato is an important vegetable to this population's diet, particularly among subgroups with the lowest intake. The results are consistent with the Institute of Medicine findings that mean total vegetable consumption of women ages 19 to 50 years is extremely low--with intakes at just 50% of the 2.5 cup equivalents per day recommended for most WCBA by the 2010 Dietary ...

WASHINGTON D.C., March 30, 2015 - Plants living in arid, mountainous and humid regions of the planet often rely on their leaves to obtain the moisture they need for survival by pulling mist out of the air. But how exactly they manage this feat has been a bit of a mystery--until now. By studying the morphology and physiology of plants with tiny conical "hairs" or microfibers on the surface of their leaves, such as tomatoes, balsam pears and the flowers Berkheya purpea and Lychnis sieboldii, a team of researchers in Japan uncovered water collection-and-release secrets that ...

Cholesterol-lowering statins have transformed the treatment of heart disease. But while the decision to use the drugs in patients with a history of heart attacks and strokes is mostly clear-cut, that choice can be a far trickier proposition for the tens of millions of Americans with high cholesterol but no overt disease. Now a report from preventive cardiologists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere offers a set of useful tips for physicians to help their patients make the right call. The report, published March 30 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, combines ...

TORONTO, March 30, 2015 - In their latest brain imaging study on women at risk for Alzheimer's disease, York University researchers have found deterioration in the pathways that serve to communicate signals between different brain regions needed for performing everyday activities such as driving a car or using a computer. "We observed a relationship between the levels of deterioration in the brain wiring and their performance on our task that required simultaneous thinking and moving; what we see here is a result of communication failure," explains Professor Lauren Sergio ...