States that have expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are capturing an increased number of people with previously undiagnosed diabetes, allowing them to begin treatment earlier, potentially reducing complications and other negative outcomes, according to a study being published online today and in the May issue of Diabetes Care. The release of the study coincides with the 5th anniversary of the ACA, which expanded Medicaid eligibility to reach nearly all non-elderly adults with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level ...

Coral Gables, Fla. (March 23, 2015) - A new study shows that providing women with skills to manage stress early in their breast cancer treatment can improve their mood and quality of life many years later. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest that women given the opportunity to learn stress management techniques during treatment may benefit well into survivorship. At the turn of the century, 240 women with a recent breast cancer diagnosis participated in a randomized trial that tested the effects ...

Scientists have found that genetic changes in bowel tumours are linked to the way the body's immune system responds to the cancer, according to research published today (Monday) in the journal Oncoimmunology*. For the first time, Cancer Research UK researchers at the University of Birmingham have found that certain genetic flaws in bowel cancer are more likely to trigger an immune response at the site of tumours, meaning that treatments to boost this immune response further could potentially be helpful for these patients. Finding out what's happening in a cancer patient's ...

Climate change could accelerate the emergence of vector-borne diseases such as chikungunya, dengue fever, and West Nile virus in the UK, warn leading public health experts Dr Jolyon Medlock and Professor Steve Leach from the Emergency Response Department at Public Health England, writing in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. Findings from the Review indicate that vector-borne diseases, which are transmitted by insects such as mosquitoes and ticks, are on the rise and have spread into new territories across Europe over the past decade (eg, malaria in Greece, West ...

A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) has found that for young, healthy women taking spironolactone to treat hormonal acne, frequent office visits and blood draws are an unnecessary health care expense. For the approximately 1,000 patients studied, blood tests to monitor potassium levels did not change the course of treatment, but the tests cumulatively totaled up to $80,000. The research team suggests that routine potassium monitoring should no longer be recommended for this patient population in order to improve the patient care experience, ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- Taking vitamin D supplements could slow or even reverse the progression of less aggressive, or low-grade, prostate tumors without the need for surgery or radiation, a scientist will report today. His team will describe the approach in one of nearly 11,000 presentations at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting is being held here through Thursday. If a tumor is present in a prostate biopsy, a pathologist grades its aggressiveness on a scale known as ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- Scientists will report in a presentation today that they have turned to the opossum to develop a promising new and inexpensive antidote for poisonous snake bites. They predict it could save thousands of lives worldwide without the side effects of current treatments. The presentation will take place here at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 11,000 reports on new advances in science and other topics. It is being held through Thursday. Worldwide, ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- Construction crews may someday use a plant molecule called lignin in their asphalt and sealant mixtures to help roads and roofs hold up better under various weather conditions. It also could make them more environmentally friendly, according to a researcher today at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The meeting, attended by thousands of scientists, features nearly 11,000 reports on new advances in science and other topics. It is being held here through Thursday. Currently, a by-product of crude ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- Chlorine, a disinfectant commonly used in most wastewater treatment plants, may be failing to completely eliminate pharmaceuticals from wastes. As a result, trace levels of these substances get discharged from the plants to the nation's waterways. And now, scientists are reporting preliminary studies that show chlorine treatment may encourage the formation of new, unknown antibiotics that could also enter the environment, potentially contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The research, which will be presented today at ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- Microbes may just be the next diet craze. Researchers have programmed bacteria to generate a molecule that, through normal metabolism, becomes a hunger-suppressing lipid. Mice that drank water laced with the programmed bacteria ate less, had lower body fat and staved off diabetes -- even when fed a high-fat diet -- offering a potential weight-loss strategy for humans. The team will describe their approach in one of nearly 11,000 presentations at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- A pair of air pollutants linked to climate change could also be a major contributor to the unparalleled rise in the number of people sneezing, sniffling and wheezing during allergy season. The gases, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone, appear to provoke chemical changes in certain airborne allergens that could increase their potency. That, in combination with changes in global climate, could help explain why airborne allergies are becoming more common. The findings will be presented today at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the ...

DENVER, March 22, 2015 -- One person's trash literally could become another's high-tech treasure, according to researchers who have developed a way to turn discarded packing peanuts into components for rechargeable batteries that could outperform the ones we use currently. They will report on the process for the first time today. The talk will be one of nearly 11,000 presentations here at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, taking place here through Thursday. A brand-new video on the research ...

A new paper by Zhi Da, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Notre Dame, find that residential electricity usage can track household production in real time and helps to price assets. "The importance of household production in economics has been recognized by Nobel Laureate Gary Becker back in 1960s but measuring what household produces at home has been an empirical challenge," Da said." For example, it has been a puzzle why certain industries such as consumer product, food, and clothing earn higher average returns than others such as steel ...

A new study from Princeton University sheds light on the handing over of genetic control from mother to offspring early in development. Learning how organisms manage this transition could help researchers understand larger questions about how embryos regulate cell division and differentiation into new types of cells. The study, published in the March 12 issue of the journal Cell, provides new insight into the mechanism for this genetic hand-off, which happens within hours of fertilization, when the newly fertilized egg is called a zygote. "At the beginning, everything ...

Irvine, Calif., March 20, 2015 - A controversial decision in 2011 to blow up Mississippi River levees reduced the risk of flooding in a city upstream, lowering the height of the rain-swollen river just before it reached its peak, according to a newly published computer modeling analysis led by UC Irvine scientists. The work focused on a Missouri agricultural area called the New Madrid Floodway that was inundated when the levees were detonated. The researchers found that the region would have flooded anyway if the river had been allowed to overtop the levee banks. And ...

Banning sodas from school vending machines, building walking paths and playgrounds, adding supermarkets to food deserts and requiring nutritional labels on restaurant menus: Such changes to the environments where people live and work are among the growing number of solutions that have been proposed and attempted in efforts to stem the rising obesity epidemic with viable, population-based solutions. But which of these changes actually make an impact? To answer that question, many public health researchers take advantage of "natural experiments"--looking at people's calorie ...

BOZEMAN, Mont. - Scientists from Montana State University and Sweden have discovered an antioxidant system that helps sustain the liver when other systems are missing or compromised. Like a generator kicking in when the power fails or an understudy taking the stage when a lead actor is sick, the newly found system steps up during a crisis. It's fueled by methionine, an amino acid that can't be manufactured in the body and doesn't come from herbal teas or supplements. People get it only by eating protein. "This is an important finding," said Ed Schmidt, a professor in ...

BOSTON (March 20, 2015) - A study reported in this week's Science Translational Medicine found that qualified investigators are more likely to respond to opportunities for clinical trials if they are contacted by an institution-specific point person, or navigator. Jonathan M. Davis, MD, Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Director of Regulatory Affairs and Chief of Newborn Medicine at Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center and a multi-institution team of child health researchers instituted the Point-Person Project, a pilot study that ...

URBANA, Ill. - Distillers dried grains with solubles, or DDGS, are increasingly common in swine diets in the United States. In recent years, different types of DDGS have come on the market. "Ethanol plants use different procedures to produce DDGS, which results in different end products," said Hans H. Stein, a professor of animal sciences at University of Illinois. "To produce conventional DDGS, the corn is cooked to gelatinize starch prior to fermentation. However, uncooked DDGS can also be used if specific enzymes are used to pre-digest the starch prior to fermentation. ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - March 20, 2015 - Medicine obviously can't do much good if it sits on a pharmacy shelf. Yet more than one-quarter of the acne patients surveyed by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers didn't get medications prescribed by their dermatologists. Among the 143 acne patients who participated in the study, 27 percent failed to obtain all of their medications, including both prescription drugs and over-the-counter products. Those who were prescribed two medications had the highest rate of primary non-adherence - not getting a medication or not using ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 20, 2015 - A new study provides the first evidence that the mediator complex subunit 15 (MED15) may play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). MED15 overexpression was found to be associated with higher mortality rates in HNSCC patients with cancer recurrence, particularly in oral cavity/oropharyngeal tumors, according to the study published in The American Journal of Pathology. MED15 overexpression was also associated with heavy alcohol consumption, which is an HNSCC risk factor. HNSCC is the sixth ...

Researchers at the University of Rochester and their collaborators have developed a way to transfer 2.05 bits per photon by using "twisted light." This remarkable achievement is possible because the researchers used the orbital angular momentum of the photons to encode information, rather than the more commonly used polarization of light. The new approach doubles the 1 bit per photon that is possible with current systems that rely on light polarization and could help increase the efficiency of quantum cryptography systems. Quantum cryptography promises more secure communications. ...

FORT LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. - Tigers - they are some of nature's most beautiful, deadly and endangered species. In fact, living tigers are severely endangered in fragmented geographic areas across Asia - some reports show their numbers as low as 3,000 wild individuals. While there are efforts to help protect these magnificent creatures, more was needed in terms of research into the genetics of tigers. Nova Southeastern University researcher Stephen O'Brien was part of a team of research scientists from China, the United Kingdom, Israel, Russia and Qatar that looked at ...

A new study in Marketing Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), finds that most firms do not use the skimming or penetration strategies that deliberately overprice or underprice new products. Skimming or Penetration? Strategic Dynamic Pricing for New Products appears in the Articles in Advance Section of Marketing Science. The research was conducted by Martin Spann, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich; Marc Fischer, University of Cologne and University of Technology, Sydney; and Gerard J. Tellis, Marshall School ...

Measuring the concentration of leukemia cells in patient bone marrow during the first 46 days of chemotherapy should help boost survival of young leukemia patients by better matching patients with the right intensity of chemotherapy. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators led the research, which appears in the March 20 edition of the journal Lancet Oncology. The findings stem from a study of 498 children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) enrolled in a St. Jude-led protocol between 2000 and 2007. The clinical trial was the first to use ...