American physicians with waivers allowing them to provide office-based medication-assisted buprenorphine treatment to patients addicted to opioids were able to increase potential access to effective medication-assisted treatment by 74 percent from 2002 to 2011, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Published in the June issue of the journal Health Affairs, the study shows that the increased number and geographic distribution of physicians obtaining waivers to prescribe buprenorphine has widened potential access to effective treatment for those with addiction to heroin ...

Getting through the pollen season can now become easier for some of the approximately 500 million people worldwide who suffer from sneezing and a runny nose, watery eyes and drowsiness during the allergy season (seasonal allergic rhinitis). This is indicated by a controlled trial carried out by researchers from Aarhus University. The trial, which took place over two days, included 65 people with grass pollen allergies who were not receiving any medical treatment at that time. They were either equipped with a nasal filter or a placebo device. The conclusion was that the ...

Chicago, June 9, 2015 - A more aggressive approach to treating degenerative mitral valve disease, using earlier surgical intervention and less invasive techniques, is more beneficial to the patient than "watchful waiting," according to an article in the June 2015 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Key points Earlier surgical intervention using less invasive surgical techniques is better than watchful waiting for patients with degenerative mitral valve disease. Over the 25 years observed, mortality rates remained low, hospital length of stay was shorter, ...

Athens, Ga. - Researchers in the University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center are visually capturing the first process of chromosome alignment and separation at the beginning of mouse development. The findings could lead to answers to questions concerning the mechanisms leading to birth defects and chromosome instability in cancer cells. "We've generated a model that is unique in the world," said Rabindranath De La Fuente, an associate professor in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine. "Because we removed ATRX protein expression only in the oocyte, the female ...

The handling of agricultural crop residues appears to have a large impact on soil's ability to retain carbon, making land management practices increasingly important, especially under a scenario where cellulosic materials become more heavily used as a feedstock for ethanol production, according to a recently published study led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. "Plants and soil are carbon sinks," said Argonne climate scientist Beth Drewniak, who led the study. "Soils lock carbon away for long periods of time. But when plant ...

Computers and water typically don't mix, but in Manu Prakash's lab, the two are one and the same. Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and his students have built a synchronous computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets. The computer is nearly a decade in the making, incubated from an idea that struck Prakash when he was a graduate student. The work combines his expertise in manipulating droplet fluid dynamics with a fundamental element of computer science - an operating clock. "In this work, we finally demonstrate ...

One potential way to combat ongoing climate change, eliminate air pollution mortality, create jobs and stabilize energy prices involves converting the world's entire energy infrastructure to run on clean, renewable energy. This is a daunting challenge. But now, in a new study, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, and colleagues, including U.C. Berkeley researcher Mark Delucchi, are the first to outline how each of the 50 states can achieve such a transition by 2050. The 50 individual state plans call for aggressive changes ...

For the past several years, Anthony Wagner has been developing a computer program that can read a person's brain scan data and surmise, with a high degree of certainty, whether that person is experiencing a memory. The technology has great promise to influence a number of fields, including marketing, medicine and evaluation of eyewitness testimony. Now, Wagner, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Stanford, and his colleagues have shown that with just a little bit of coaching and concentration, subjects are easily able to obscure real memories, or even create ...

BARCELONA, Spain, June 9, 2015 -- Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company developing desensitization treatments for food allergies, announced today that a Phase 2 study (ARC001) evaluating the company's lead investigational product, AR101 for the treatment of peanut allergy, met its primary endpoint and additional endpoint of desensitizing patients to cumulative amounts of peanut protein of 443 mg and 1,043 mg, respectively. Of the 23 active-arm patients who completed the study, 100 percent tolerated exposure to 443 mg cumulative amounts ...

Los Angeles, CA (June 9, 2015) Children diagnosed with AD/HD can improve their behavior and social interactions in the classroom by playing a computer game that exercises their concentration, finds new research out today. The study marks the 1000th article published in SAGE Open, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal launched in 2011 which covers the full spectrum of the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities. The software studied in the research syncs with a wireless headband that monitors brainwaves during game-play, and works by adjusting the level of difficulty ...

In Kenya, where rape and violence against women are rampant, a short educational program produced lasting improvements in teenage boys' and young men's attitudes toward women, a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine has found. The boys and men in the study also were more likely to try to halt violence against women after participating in the program. The study will be published online June 9 in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The program was developed by No Means No Worldwide, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that works in the slums ...

New York, N.Y. (June 9, 2015) - The largest-ever multinational study of parental age and autism risk, funded by Autism Speaks, found increased autism rates among the children of teen moms and among children whose parents have relatively large gaps between their ages. The study also confirmed that older parents are at higher risk of having children with autism. The analysis included more than 5.7 million children in five countries. The study was published today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. "Though we've seen research on autism and parental age before, this study ...

A single dose of intravenous glutamine (GLN) administered immediately after a non-lethal lower limb ischemia reduces the reperfusion inflammatory reaction locally and systemically according to a new study. The study, published today in the OnlineFirst version of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN), the research journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.), used a mice model to compare the effects of GLN on hind limb ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury. The study subjected three groups of mice to 90 minutes of ischemia ...

Multidisciplinary health care professionals who hold the Certified Nutrition Support Credential (CNSC) scored significantly higher on a survey about their approaches to nutrition support practice than those who do not hold the credential according to new study. The study, results of which were published today in the OnlineFirst version of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN), the research journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.), was targeted to health care professionals affiliated with A.S.P.E.N. The electronic ...

A new study finds that supplementing enteral nutrition with Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri) DSM 17938 as a probiotic may reduce the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature infants. NEC is a condition where portions of the bowel undergo tissue death. It is the second most common cause of death among premature infants. The study, published today in the OnlineFirst version of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN), the research journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.), is a systematic review of randomized ...

Deficiency of vitamin D is a common problem for patients with severe burn injuries and can lead to further health compromise. However, there are no evidence-based guidelines for vitamin D replenishment in such patients. A new clinical trial by researchers at Cincinnati's Shriners Hospital for Children compared the outcomes of vitamin D2 and D3 supplementation on pediatric burn patients. The results of that research was published today in the OnlineFirst version of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN), the research journal of the American Society for ...

Food wasted means money wasted which can be an expensive problem especially in homes with financial constraints. A new study from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and the Getulio Vargas Foundation, shows that the top causes of food waste in such homes include buying too much, preparing in abundance, unwillingness to consume leftovers, and improper food storage. "Fortunately," notes lead author Gustavo Porpino, PhD candidate at the Getulio Vargas Foundation and Visiting Scholar at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, "most of the factors that lead to food waste, can be easily remedied ...

Breast cancer patients are four times less likely to have potentially lifesaving surgery if diagnosed as an emergency rather than through an urgent GP referral, according to a new data* published today (Monday). This is the first study of its kind that looks at how treatment varies across cancers depending on the patients' route to diagnosis. The report from Cancer Research UK and Public Health England's National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) is being launched at the annual NCIN Cancer Outcomes Conference in Belfast. It presents the proportion of patients having ...

Housing improvements could reduce malaria cases by half in some settings, according to research published in the open access Malaria Journal. As mosquitoes become resistant to insecticides and malaria parasites become resistant to drugs, researchers looked at how making changes to houses might contribute to tackling the deadly disease. Researchers reviewed 90 studies in Africa, Asia and South America comparing malaria cases in traditional houses (mud, stone, bamboo or wood walls; thatched, mud or wood roofs; earth or wood floors) and modern houses (closed eaves, ceilings, ...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (June 8, 2015) - There are more boys than girls diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Now, a study led by a University of Miami (UM) researcher shows that behaviors relevant to autism are more frequently observed in boys than in girls, whether they're at risk of autism or not. "The results imply that there may be an overrepresentation of boys with autism, based on sex differences that affect all children," said Daniel S. Messinger, professor of psychology in the UM College of Arts and Sciences and principal investigator of the study. "In other ...

DURHAM, N.C. - How most babies are protected from acquiring HIV from their infected mothers has been a matter of scientific controversy. Now researchers at Duke Medicine provide new data identifying an antibody response that had long been discounted as inadequate to confer protection. Mother-to-child transmissions account for about 250,000 HIV infections per year worldwide, despite greatly expanded access to antiretroviral drug regimens that can interrupt transmission into low-resource settings. Ongoing problems with access to the drugs, late initiation of the drug regimens ...

At least two and a half million more workers will be needed to provide long-term care to older people in the United States between now and 2030, according to a study by UC San Francisco researchers published in the June 2015 issue of Health Affairs. The study authors predict that there will be little effect on this demand for new workers even if long-term care use among different racial and ethnic groups changes significantly or if there is a major shift from institutional care to home-based care. 'Even if 20 percent of elderly patients move out of nursing homes into ...

The June issue of Health Affairs, a variety issue, includes articles examining how health care markets function, both in the United States and elsewhere. One of the studies in the issue is by Zachary Wagner of the University of California, Berkeley, and coauthors, titled "PEPFAR Funding Associated With An Increase In Employment Among Males In Ten Sub-Saharan African Countries." It examines the economic impact of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief--or PEPFAR--in sub-Saharan Africa. PEPFAR has provided over 6.7 million people infected with HIV access to antiretroviral ...

Stem cell transplantation is used to treat hematologic malignancies, such as leukemia. Patients that receive donor cells are at risk of developing graft-versus host disease (GVHD). This potentially fatal complication results when naive T cells generated from the graft promote an immune response that attacks the recipient's tissues. Prophylactic treatment with immunosuppressive drugs is currently used to limit GVHD but does not reliably prevent disease. In mouse models, depletion of naive T cells from the stem cell graft prior to transplant reduces the occurrence and severity ...

New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital finds that physician characteristics are the strongest predictor of whether a patient will be referred to hospice care. Individual physicians are widely believed to influence the kind of care their patients receive at the end of life, but to date, there is little scientific evidence to support this belief. New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) indicates that the individual physician a patient sees is the strongest known predictor of whether or not he or she will enroll in hospice care, outweighing other known ...