Bethesda, MD (Sept. 22, 2014) — The success of a colonoscopy is closely linked to good bowel preparation, with poor bowel prep often resulting in missed precancerous lesions, according to new consensus guidelines released by the U.S. Multi-Society Task force on Colorectal Cancer. Additionally, poor bowel cleansing can result in increased costs related to early repeat procedures. Up to 20 to 25 percent of all colonoscopies are reported to have an inadequate bowel preparation. "When prescribing bowel preparation for their patients, health-care professionals need to be ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Almost three-quarters (74%) of parents are aware of online rating sites for physicians, and more than one-quarter (28%) have used those online ratings to choose a healthcare provider for their children, according to U-M research published today in Pediatrics. Using the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, researchers surveyed 1,619 parents about how online ratings of physicians influenced their choices in seeking healthcare providers for their children. They found that parents had a higher level ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Less supportive and punitive parenting techniques used by some Chinese parents might lead to the development of low self-esteem and school adjustment difficulties in their children and leave them vulnerable to depression and problem behaviors, according to a paper recently published by a University of California, Riverside assistant professor and other researchers. The study, believed to be the first that provides empirical support to this idea, refutes the idea that the traditional, strict "Chinese" upbringing, which gained widespread attention in ...

If you're overweight, you may be at greater risk for stress-related diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to a new study by Brandeis University. It's long known that psychological stress can trigger biological responses similar to the effects of illness or injury, including inflammation. While normal inflammation is an important part of our body's healing response, runaway inflammation can contribute to chronic and life-threatening diseases. In a recently published paper in Brain, Behavior and Immunity, Brandeis researchers observed ...

Researchers have found that environment has a much stronger role than genetics in eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a severe, often painful food allergy that renders children unable to eat a wide variety of foods. Eosinophils are normal cellular components of the blood, but when the body produces too many eosinophils they can cause a variety of eosinophilic disorders. These are disorders involving chronic inflammation and resulting tissue damage, often in the gastrointestinal system. In an international collaboration involving multiple institutions, researchers at ...

Influenza infection can enhance the ability of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae to cause ear and throat infections, according to research published ahead of print in the journal Infection and Immunity. In the study, the investigators infected mice with either influenza alone, pneumococci alone, or both at once, and then monitored the populations of bacteria and virus over time. They also monitored the mice for development of middle ear infection. Influenza infection enhanced the bacterium's ability to colonize the nasopharynx, and to infect the normally sterile ...

Mobile robots could be much more useful in homes, if they could locate people, places and objects. Today's robots usually see the world with cameras and lasers, which have difficulty reliably recognizing things and can miss objects that are hidden in clutter. A complementary way robots can "sense" what is around them is through the use of small ultra-high frequency radio-frequency identification (UHF RFID) tags. Inexpensive self-adhesive tags can be stuck on objects, allowing an RFID-equipped robot to search a room for the correct tag's signal, even when the object is hidden ...

Fatigue, weight gain, chills, hair loss, anxiety, excessive perspiration — these symptoms are a few of the signs that the thyroid gland, which regulates the body's heart rate and plays a crucial role in its metabolism, has gone haywire. Now, new research from Tel Aviv University points to an additional complication caused by thyroid imbalance: congenital deafness. The study, published in Mammalian Genome, was conducted by Prof. Karen B. Avraham and Dr. Amiel Dror of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU's Sackler School of Medicine. Using ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Many parents whose kids participate in athletics will be asked to sign a waiver about concussion education, but that's not enough to ensure parents are confident about handling the injury, according to a new University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. In the poll, about half of the 912 parents of middle and high school children surveyed reported participation in some type of concussion education: 23% have read a brochure or online information 17% have watched a video or attended a presentation ...

Evacuations of 2,819 people have occurred in the wake of the huge King Fire blazing out of control near the Eldorado National Forest. The King Fire is burning in steep terrain in the South Fork of the American River Canyon, Silver Creek Canyon, and the Rubicon Canyon, north of the community of Pollock Pines. The fire has crossed into Placer County and burned onto the Tahoe National Forest north of the Eldorado National Forest. The anticipated spread is expected to be minimal on Sept. 22 due to thunderstorms that moved through the area overnight, bringing lightning and ...

A study led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers represents an important step forward in the accurate diagnosis of people who are experiencing the earliest stages of psychosis. Psychosis includes hallucinations or delusions that define the development of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Schizophrenia emerges in late adolescence and early adulthood and affects about 1 in every 100 people. In severe cases, the impact on a young person can be a life compromised, and the burden on family members can be almost as severe. The study published ...

During the week of Sept. 15, Hurricane Odile and its weakened remnants produced heavy rainfall that caused dangerous flooding over Mexico's Baja California peninsula and southwestern United States. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite gathers data on rainfall that was used to create a map that showed estimated totals that in one case neared almost three feet! Some of Odile's may have been welcomed in the U.S. Southwest where some areas have been experiencing extreme to exceptional drought conditions, but some was extreme and led to flooding. TRMM ...

In a big step for securing critical information systems, such as medical records in clinical settings, Dartmouth College researchers have created a new approach to computer security that authenticates users continuously while they are using a terminal and automatically logs them out when they leave or when someone else steps in to use their terminal. Dartmouth's Trustworthy Health and Wellness (THaW)/ researchers recently presented their findings at the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy. Common authentication methods based on passwords, tokens or fingerprints perform ...

Tropical Storm Fung-Wong weakened over the weekend of Sept. 20-21 as it moved over Taiwan and approached Shanghai, China. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Tropical Storm Fung-Wong when it was approaching Taiwan on Sept. 20 at 1:35 a.m. EDT. On Sunday, Sept. 21, Tropical Storm Fung-Wong was over Taiwan. It was centered at 26.0 north latitude and 122.0 east longitude, just 60 miles north-northeast of Taipei, Taiwan and moving to the north. Maximum sustained winds were near 50 knots (57 knots/92.6 kph). By Monday, Sept. 22, Fung-Wong's center was approaching ...

A person's face is the first thing that others see, and much remains unknown about how it forms — or malforms — during early development. Recently, Chong Pyo Choe, a senior postdoctoral fellow working in the lab of USC stem cell researcher Gage Crump, has begun to unwind these mysteries. In a September study published in the journal Development, Choe and Crump describe how a mutation in a gene called TBX1 causes the facial and other deformities associated with DiGeorge syndrome. During prenatal development, a series of segments form that eventually organize many features ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester have generated a new star-shaped molecule made up of interlocking rings, which is the most complex of its kind ever created. Known as a 'Star of David' molecule, scientists have been trying to create one for over a quarter of a century and the team's findings are published in the journal Nature Chemistry. Consisting of two molecular triangles, entwined about each other three times into a hexagram, the structure's interlocked molecules are tiny – each triangle is 114 atoms in length around the perimeter. The molecular triangles ...

Greenhouse gas emissions from the production and use of shale gas would be comparable to conventional natural gas, but the controversial energy source actually faired better than renewables on some environmental impacts, according to new research. The UK holds enough shale gas to supply its entire gas demand for 470 years, promising to solve the country's energy crisis and end its reliance on fossil-fuel imports from unstable markets. But for many, including climate scientists and environmental groups, shale gas exploitation is viewed as environmentally dangerous and ...

Scientists have found a way to find the proverbial needle in the cancer antigen haystack, according to a report published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. As cancer cells divide, they accumulate random mistakes (mutations). This process creates new versions of proteins, some of which are recognized as foreign invaders by immune cells called T cells, prompting the cells to attack and eliminate the cancer cells. With our current ability to identify all of the mutations in a patient's cancer and to understand which protein sequences can be recognized by T cells, ...

A program that helps teachers modify their interactions with students based on an individual's temperament helps shy children to become more engaged in their class work, and in turn, improves their math and critical thinking skills. Led by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, the study offers an evidence-based intervention to help shy children, who are often at risk for poor academic achievement. The findings appear in the Journal of School Psychology. Shy children are described as anxious, fearful, socially withdrawn, and isolated. ...

Due to global warming, larger and larger areas of sea ice melt in the summer and when sea ice freezes over in the winter it is thinner and more reduced. As the Arctic summers are getting warmer we may see an acceleration of global warming, because reduced sea ice in the Arctic will remove less CO2 from the atmosphere, Danish scientists report. "If our results are representative, then sea ice plays a greater role than expected, and we should take this into account in future global CO2 budgets", says Dorte Haubjerg Søgaard, PhD Fellow, Nordic Center for Earth Evolution, ...

Results of a survey of more than 30,000 nurses across Europe show that nurses who work longer shifts and more overtime are more likely to rate the standard of care delivered on their ward as poor, give a negative rating of their hospitals safety and omit necessary patient care. Led by researchers at the University of Southampton and the National Nursing Research Unit (NNRU) at King's College London, the RN4CAST survey of nurses in over 450 hospitals across 12 European countries, was part of an international research programme looking at links between nursing workforce ...

A novel study by the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) found that an increase in a gene known as Leo1 affects other genes that are directly implicated in acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML), increasing the incidence of cancer. Led by Associate Professor Chng Wee Joo, Deputy Director and Senior Principal Investigator at CSI Singapore and Director of the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore, the scientists discovered that inhibition of Leo1 and Leo1 downstream signalling pathways provide an avenue ...

Beverly, MA, September 22, 2014 – The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) has released new evidence-based guidelines for the prevention and treatment of perioperative and postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) and flutter for thoracic surgical procedures. The guidelines are published in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. "These guidelines have the potential to prevent the occurrence of atrial fibrillation in thousands of patients who undergo lung surgery in the United States each year. The AATS is committed to its goal of improving the ...

September 22, 2014 – Available research evidence supports the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who don't respond to other treatments, concludes a review in the October issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Based on evidence, two specific bilateral DBS techniques are recommended for treatment of carefully selected patients with OCD, according to a new clinical practice guideline ...

TORONTO, Sept, 22, 2014--Women who are about to be released from prison need to be more involved in their discharge planning if they are to successfully reintegrate into their communities and avoid returning to prison, according to a new study. Almost half of all female prisoners are back behind bars within one year of their release and most have multiple prison terms, mainly for drug-related offenses. Dr. Flora Matheson, a researcher at St. Michael's Hospital, conducted one-on-one interviews with women who were about to be released or had been recently released from ...