The International Olympic Committee (IOC) should cut its ties with Coca Cola in the best interests of athletes, spectators, and the planet, urge Trish Cotter and Sandra Mullin of the international public health organisation, Vital Strategies, in an editorial to be published shortly in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.* The company’s sponsorship forces athletes to implicitly endorse unhealthy sugary drinks and provides Coca Cola with elite access to political and corporate leaders to exert its influence, insist the authors. Coca Cola has sponsored the Olympic Games for almost 100 years, they note. And there’s ...

Today, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a gift of $5 million in seed funding to support the creation of the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine (XOCOM), a newly established medical school in New Orleans founded by Xavier University of Louisiana and Ochsner Health. Earlier this year, Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black college and university (HBCU) with a strong track record of sending graduates into the medical field, and Ochsner Health, the Gulf South’s leading not-for-profit health system with a long academic ...

A recent study by László Zsolt Garamszegi from the Institute of Ecology and Botany, Centre for Ecological Research, Hungary, and Niclas Kolm from the Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Sweden, challenges the long-held notion that domestication is the primary driver of reduced brain size in domesticated animals, specifically dogs. The study employs a phylogenetic comparative method to analyze whether the domesticated dog (Canis familiaris) exhibits a uniquely small brain relative to its body size compared to other canid species. The prevailing belief has been that domestication leads to a significant ...

*Note this is an early release from the Annual Meeting of the European Association of the Study of Diabetes (EASD 2024, Madrid, 9-13 September). Please credit the meeting if using this material* Women who develop gestational diabetes are not more likely to go on to be diagnosed with breast cancer, according to a study of almost three-quarters of a million mothers to be presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) (Madrid, 9-13 September). Gestational diabetes, a type of diabetes that can develop during ...

New studies emphasize the vital role of fruits, vegetables, and their co-products in boosting human health and life expectancy. Packed with minerals, vitamins, and dietary fiber, these foods help prevent chronic diseases. Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables, such as vitamins and carotenoids, combat harmful free radicals. To get more information and to contribute to the research, visit: bit.ly/46zTKFX Combining various fruits like oranges, apples, grapes, and blueberries enhances antioxidant effects. Diets ...

A new University of Vermont study published today in Nature: Scientific Reports examines the social and psychological aspects of farmers’ decisions about whether or not to implement biosecurity measures on pig farms. This is the first study to look at human behavior in biosecurity adoption among swine producers.       Through survey data and simulations, the scientists found that it is largely farmers’ attitudes, which have the biggest impact on farmers’ decision-making strategies regarding implementing farm biosecurity.  Farmer’s attitudes ...

Dr. Eric Ravussin of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge was one of 38 scientists from five continents to present the first international consensus on fasting terminology and key definitions. Published in Cell Metabolism, the recent study reflects the increasing popularity of diets tied to fasting and a significant increase in scientific studies of fasting. While the application of fasting is rapidly growing, there was previously no globally established terminology.  The panel was the first to bring ...

TUCSON, Ariz., August 6, 2024 — Critical Path Institute’s (C-Path) Critical Path for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (CPA-1) consortium today announced the addition of several key advisory members. The new members, recognized experts in their respective fields and patient advocacy organizations, will contribute their significant expertise to the consortium’s mission to accelerate drug development for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD), a rare genetic disorder.  Joining the consortium are:  Alpha-1 Foundation  COPD Foundation  Global ...

By recruiting the immune system to combat tumor cells, immunotherapy has improved survival rates, offering hope to millions of cancer patients. However, only about one in five people responds favorably to these treatments. With a goal of understanding and addressing immunotherapy’s limitations, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis have found that the immune system can be its own worst enemy in the fight against cancer. In a new study in mice, a subset of immune cells – type 1 regulatory T cells, or Tr1 cells – did its normal job of preventing the immune system from overreacting but did so while inadvertently restraining immunotherapy’s ...

For thousands of years, plants have evolved in the presence of wildfires in the Cerrado, Brazil’s savanna-like biome. Scientists at São Paulo State University (UNESP) studied the effect of smoke on seed germination for 44 plant species typical of the Cerrado, as reported in an article published in Plant Ecology, where they stress that their findings could be used to optimize the restoration of degraded areas. The study was conducted by PhD candidate Gabriel Schmidt Teixeira Motta under the supervision of Rosana Marta Kolb, a professor at UNESP. “Previous studies focused on the effect of smoke on only a few ...

A study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows that 6.5 million Medicaid enrollees (12%) lived in states without coverage for routine adult eye exams; and 14.6 million (27%) resided in states without coverage for eyeglasses. The study based on 2022-23 coverage policies, published in Health Affairs, is among the first to provide a comprehensive, state-by-state analysis of adult Medicaid benefits for basic vision services in both fee-for-service and managed care. Medicaid provides health coverage to millions of Americans, including eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly ...

A new study emphasizes the vital role of fruits, vegetables, and their co-products in boosting human health and life expectancy. Packed with minerals, vitamins, and dietary fiber, these foods help prevent chronic diseases. Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables, such as vitamins and carotenoids, combat harmful free radicals. Interested in more information and in contributing to the topic, visit: bit.ly/46zTKFX Combining various fruits like oranges, apples, grapes, and blueberries enhances antioxidant effects. Diets rich in these foods can lower blood pressure, reduce heart disease and ...

NEW YORK, NY (July 29, 2024) ---- Underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minority populations in cancer clinical trials persists partly because translation and interpretation services and resources are unavailable or inadequate in the United States, according to a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) study led by Columbia University School of Nursing. The updated study was published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Cancer Spectrum on July 25, 2024 and will appear in the August 2024 journal issue.  In 2019, 68 million people in the United States were reported to speak a language other than ...

Obesity is an epidemic in the United States. It has been increasing among adults of all races and ethnicities over the last two decades; however, obesity is higher among Non-Hispanic Black adults, Hispanic adults, and American Indian or Alaska Native adults, than their White and Asian counterparts, according to the National Institutes of Health. Adults with lower income also have higher risk of obesity than those with a high income.  A George Mason University College of Public Health team of interprofessional researchers analyzed the last five years ...

Blockchain technology has become one of the most hyped advancements in recent years, but there hasn’t been a clear understanding of the potential trade-offs for its use by multinational corporations (MNCs). A new study published in the Global Strategy Journal provides a better understanding of blockchain merits and drawbacks by focusing on three particular applications of the technology in this sector: financial transactions, collaboration, and data analytics. The study, “A perspective on three trade-offs of blockchain technology for the global strategy of the MNC,” was authored by Tuuli Hakkarainen of the University of Liverpool, Anatoli Colicev of the University ...

Increasing ventilation in child-care settings may not always be effective at preventing flu virus spread, according to a new study published by a team of researchers at Emory University, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Virginia Tech. The spread of flu viruses is commonly studied in animal models that don’t mimic the real-life scenarios of the human experience, making it difficult to evaluate strategies that will be effective in common places where disease spreads rapidly, such as childcare settings. As reported online and in a coming print issue of the journal Proceedings of the National ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – People who are lonely are more apt to have bad dreams, according to a collaboration that included an Oregon State University scientist. The findings are important because both loneliness and sleep disorders are serious public health issues, said OSU’s Colin Hesse. They are connected to increased risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death. In a paper published in the Journal of Psychology, Hesse and researchers at the University of Arizona, the University of Tampa and Whitworth University note that stress ...

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 6, 2024 — Researchers led by the University of California, Irvine have discovered how the TREM2 R47H genetic mutation causes certain brain areas to develop abnormal protein clumps, called beta-amyloid plaques, associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Leveraging single-cell Merfish spatial transcriptomics technology, the team was able to profile the effects of the mutation across multiple cortical and subcortical brain regions, offering first-of-their-kind insights at the single-cell level.   The study, recently published online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, compared the brains of normal mice and special mouse models that undergo ...

Inducible laryngeal obstruction is a breathing disorder characterized by unwanted vocal fold closure having the potential to restrict breathing at times. It’s estimated that between 3-12% of patients with dyspnea complaints have inducible laryngeal obstruction.  Patients with inducible laryngeal obstruction are thought to make up to 22% of patients with frequent emergency room visits due to sudden onset dyspnea.  While experts know how to treat the condition, there’s not much formal research about what patients with the disorder experience ...

Media  When clams gamble on living with a killer, sometimes their luck may run out, according to a University of Michigan study. A longstanding question in ecology asks how can so many different species co-occur, or live together, at the same time and at the same place. One influential theory called the competitive exclusion principle suggests that only one species can occupy a particular niche in a biological community at any one time. But out in the wild, researchers find many instances of different species that appear to occupy the same ...

In a new peer-reviewed article in The Journal of Population and Sustainability, demographic experts are urging the United Nations to reject the current “‘growth’ paradigm which treats Earth and its nonhuman inhabitants as mere resources” and to take the lead in “contracting the large-scale variables of the human enterprise” in order to “forge a path out of multiple environmental and social crises,” and “reverse our advanced state of ecological overshoot.”  Earth Overshoot Day, the date when humanity’s demand on nature’s resources surpasses Earth’s capacity ...

Outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), which causes fever and rash in young children, typically occur in the summer months. Similarly, historic cases of polio were observed in the summer months in the United States. Both diseases are caused by different species of enteroviruses, a large genus of RNA viruses. However, the drivers of the seasonal patterns of these diseases have remained somewhat unclear. A common set of drivers can explain the timing of outbreaks of both HFMD and polio according a recent study by researchers at Brown University, Princeton University ...

(Memphis, Tenn. – August 6, 2024) To effectively treat a disease or disorder, doctors must first know the root cause. Such is the case for developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs), whose root causes can be hugely complex and heterogeneous. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital demonstrated the value of DNA methylation patterns for identifying the root cause of DEEs, showing specific gene methylation and genome-wide methylation “episignatures” ...

URBANA, Ill. – Black Americans experience racial discrimination on a regular basis, and it is a cause of chronic and pervasive stress. It is known to contribute to elevated risk for poor mental health outcomes, but most research has focused on individuals. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looks at the interpersonal effects of discrimination on parents and their adolescent children. “A person’s experiences with racial discrimination are not just their own but may spill over into the ...

DETROIT — Mark Lumley, Ph.D., distinguished professor of psychology in Wayne State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was recently awarded the 2024 Nathan W. Perry, Jr. Award for Career Service to Health Psychology from the Society for Health Psychology. The Society for Health Psychology is a national nonprofit that seeks to improve the lives of individuals and society by promoting health, preventing illness and improving health care through research, practice, education, training and advocacy. “I’m delighted and greatly honored for this recognition,” ...