A new study led by researchers from the University of Cambridge has found that a common characteristic of autism – language delay in early childhood – leaves a 'signature' in the brain. The results are published today (23 September) in the journal Cerebral Cortex. The researchers studied 80 adult men with autism: 38 who had delayed language onset and 42 who did not. They found that language delay was associated with differences in brain volume in a number of key regions, including the temporal lobe, insula, ventral basal ganglia, which were all smaller in those with ...

Researchers at the University of Chicago have shown that after a long stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) only a handful of pathogenic microbe species remain behind in patients' intestines. The team tested these remaining pathogens and discovered that some can become deadly when provoked by conditions that mimic the body's stress response to illness. The findings, published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, may lead to better monitoring and treatment of ICU patients who can develop a life-threatening systemic infection ...

ATLANTA – September 23, 2014 –A new American Cancer Society study suggests that participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as the food stamp program, had lower dietary quality scores compared with income eligible non-participants. The authors say the findings emphasize the need to bolster programs aimed at enhancing the dietary quality of SNAP participants. The SNAP program aims to assist low-income individuals and households with the resources to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet. In 2013, approximately 47.6 million individuals, ...

OAKLAND, Calif., September 22, 2014 –Patients who were treated with a statin in the hospital after suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke were significantly more likely to survive than those who were not, according to a study published today in JAMA Neurology. This study was conducted by the same researchers who recently discovered that the use of cholesterol-lowering statins can improve survival in victims of ischemic stroke. Ischemic stroke is caused by a constriction or obstruction of a blood vessel that blocks blood from reaching areas of the brain, while hemorrhagic ...

The primary source of postnatal infection with cytomagelovirus (CMV, a common virus usually without symptoms) in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants appeared to be maternal breast milk because no infections were linked to transfusions of CMV-seronegative and leukoreduced blood products writes author Cassandra D. Josephson, M.D., of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and colleagues. Transfusion-transmitted CMV (TT-CMV) and breast milk-transmitted (BM-CMV) infection can cause serious illness and death in VLBW babies with immature immune systems. Using CMV-seronegative ...

Bottom Line: Hospitalized patients who took statins after a stroke caused by an intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH, bleeding in the brain) appeared to have better 30-day survival and were more likely to be discharged to their home or an acute rehabilitation facility than patients who did not use statins or whose statin use was discontinued in the hospital. Author: Alexander C. Flint, M.D., Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Redwood City, Calif., and colleagues. Background: Statins are known to reduce the risk of ischemic stroke among patients with a history ...

Premature infants, especially those born with very low-birth-weight (VLBW), are particularly vulnerable to cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection because of their immature immune systems. CMV infection can cause serious disease and, in severe cases, lead to death. Two important potential sources of CMV infection in premature infants are blood transfusions and breast milk. Neither source has previously been systematically examined in a large enough study, however, to quantify the specific risks of infection and identify risk factors to help guide prevention strategies. In ...

Bottom Line: A health care system reduced its use of telemetry (monitoring to detect irregular heartbeats) by 70 percent by integrating the American Heart Association's (AHA's) guidelines into its electronic ordering system. Author: Robert Dressler, M.D., M.B.A., of the Christiana Care Health System, Newark, Del., and colleagues. Background: The AHA recommendations for non-intensive care unit (non-ICU) cardiac telemetry divide patients into three groups: cardiac telemetry is indicated, it may provide benefit or it is unlikely to provide benefit. Non-ICU telemetry appeared ...

Generic discount drug programs (GDDPs, which charge nominal fees to fill prescriptions) have grown over time and their initial lower use by racial/ethnic minorities has evaporated., writes author Song Hee Hong, Ph.D., of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, and Sunghee H. Tak, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., of the University of Memphis, Tennessee. GDDPS can reduce medication costs and help patients get their drug therapy. However, the initial use of GDDPs was low in 2007 at 3.6 percent of patients receiving any prescription drugs, especially among minorities. ...

About one quarter of commercially-insured children who are treated with medication for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder also receive psychotherapy, and the percentage is far lower in many parts of the country, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Published as a research letter in the Sept. 22 edition of JAMA Pediatrics, the study is the first to document the substantial variation in receipt of talk therapy among U.S. children treated with ADHD medication, varying more than six-fold across counties in the United States. For many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity ...

What exercise program can best fight the "epidemic" of teen obesity? According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics, by combining aerobic exercise with resistance training. The Healthy Eating Aerobic and Resistance Training in Youth (HEARTY) study, led by researchers at the University of Calgary and University of Ottawa, involved 304 overweight teens in the Ottawa/Gatineau area between the ages of 14 to 18. All were given the same four weeks of diet counseling to promote healthy eating and weight loss before being ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A surprising new study pulls back the curtain on one of the most contentious issues in health care: differences in payment and income between physicians who perform operations, procedures or tests, and those who don't. Contrary to perception, the research indicates, the physician payment system is not inherently "rigged" to favor surgeons and other procedure-performing doctors. The new findings counter the widely held belief that a simple difference in pay per minute explains why doctors who perform procedures often earn nearly twice as much money ...

PRINCETON, N.J.—If scientists want the public to trust their research suggestions, they may want to appear a bit "warmer," according to a new review published by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The review, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that while Americans view scientists as competent, they are not entirely trusted. This may be because they are not perceived to be friendly or warm. In particular, Americans seem wary of researchers seeking grant funding and do not trust ...

Thursdays to Sundays are when people both exercise more and drink more Study used smartphones to record daily alcohol intake and physical activity Findings differ from past research on physical activity and exercise CHICAGO --- A new Northwestern Medicine® study finds that on days when people exercise more -- typically Thursdays to Sundays -- they drink more alcohol, too. This is the only study to use smartphone technology and a daily diary approach for self-reporting physical activity and alcohol use. "Monday through Wednesday people batten down the hatches ...

Boston, MA – Up to 40 percent of patients undergoing breast cancer surgery require additional operations because surgeons may fail to remove all the cancerous tissue in the initial operation. However, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have successfully tested a tool they developed that will help surgeons better distinguish cancerous breast tissue from normal tissue, thereby decreasing the chances for repeat operations. The study is published online the week of September 22, 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The tool, known ...

Manufacturing biofuels from food crop by-products such as straw could be made quicker and cheaper thanks to the work of scientists in the UK and France. Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have discovered variant straw plants whose cell walls are more easily broken down to make biofuels, but which are not significantly smaller or weaker than regular plants. The discovery could help ease pressure on global food security as biofuels from non-food crops become easier and cheaper to make. The impact of carbon emissions ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Antarctic fishes that manufacture their own "antifreeze" proteins to survive in the icy Southern Ocean also suffer an unfortunate side effect, researchers report: The protein-bound ice crystals that accumulate inside their bodies resist melting even when temperatures warm. The finding is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We discovered what appears to be an undesirable consequence of the evolution of antifreeze proteins in Antarctic notothenioid fishes," said University of Oregon doctoral student Paul Cziko, who led ...

WASHINGTON (Sept. 22, 2014) — Following a healthy lifestyle, including maintaining a healthy weight and diet, exercise, not smoking and moderating alcohol intake, could prevent four out of five coronary events in men, according to a new study publishing today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. While mortality from heart disease has declined in recent decades, with much of the reduction attributed to medical therapies, the authors said prevention through a healthy lifestyle avoids potential side effects of medication and is more cost effective for population-wide ...

Pregnant women have an unusually strong immune response to influenza, an unexpected finding that may explain why they get sicker from the flu than other healthy adults, new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford has found. The results were surprising because immune responses are thought to be weakened by pregnancy to prevent the woman's body from rejecting her fetus. The study, which will be published online Sept. 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to examine the ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 22, 2014 – After human ancestors controlled fire 400,000 to 1 million years ago, flames not only let them cook food and fend off predators, but also extended their day. A University of Utah study of Africa's Kalahari Bushmen suggests that stories told over firelight helped human culture and thought evolve by reinforcing social traditions, promoting harmony and equality, and sparking the imagination to envision a broad sense of community, both with distant people and the spirit world. Researchers previously studied how cooking affected diets and ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 22, 2014 – University of Utah engineers discovered a way to create a special material – a metal layer on top of a silicon semiconductor – that could lead to cost-effective, superfast computers that perform lightning-fast calculations but don't overheat. This new "topological insulator" behaves like an insulator on the inside but conducts electricity on the outside and may pave the way for quantum computers and fast spintronic devices. The research, led by University of Utah materials science and engineering professor Feng Liu, was published today ...

Thanks to new LEGO®-like components developed by researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, it is now possible to build a 3-D microfluidic system quickly and cheaply by simply snapping together small modules by hand. Microfluidic systems are used in many fields including engineering, chemistry and biotechnology to precisely manipulate small volumes of fluids for use in applications such as enzymatic or DNA analysis, pathogen detection, clinical diagnostic testing, and synthetic chemistry. Traditionally, microfluidic devices are built in a cleanroom on a two-dimensional ...

Platelets, the tiny cell fragments whose job it is to stop bleeding, are very simple. They don't have a cell nucleus. But they can "feel" the physical environment around them, researchers at Emory and Georgia Tech have discovered. Platelets respond to surfaces with greater stiffness by increasing their stickiness, the degree to which they "turn on" other platelets and other components of the clotting system, the researchers found. "Platelets are smarter than we give them credit for, in that they are able to sense the physical characteristics of their environment and ...

Scientists have discovered a key molecular cog in a plant's biological clock – one that modulates the speed of circadian (daily) rhythms based on temperature. Transcription factors, or genetic switches, drive gene expression in plants based on external stresses – such as light, rain, soil quality, or even animals grazing on them. A team of researchers at USC has isolated one, called FBH1, that reacts to temperature – tweaking the rhythm here and there as needed while in keeping it on a consistent track. "Temperature helps keep the hands of the biological clock in the ...

Analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer identified distinct patterns of gene expression in several groups of CTCs, including significant differences from the primary tumor that may contribute to the ability to generate metastases. In their study reported in the Sept. 25 issue of Cell Reports, investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center identified several different classes of pancreatic CTCs and found unexpected factors that may prove to be targets for improved treatment of the deadly tumor. "Our ...