If it were up to Internet-savvy Americans, more of them would be emailing or sending Facebook messages to their doctors to chat about their health. That's the result of a national survey led by Joy Lee of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US. The findings¹ appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Surveys were sent to more than 4,500 customers of a retail pharmacy. The replies of the 2,252 respondents were included in the analysis. Respondents tended to be well educated, in good health, and frequent users ...

(Boston)--Medical students showed a greater acceptance of using approaches in genomic medicine, a key element in the practice of precision medicine, to treat patients as compared to physicians currently in practice according to a Brief Communication in the journal Medical Science Educator. The promise of genomic medicine, where personalized prevention and treatment becomes the health care norm, is poised to become a widespread reality. "The ability to take advantage of this approach to patient care will rest heavily on having appropriately trained physicians," explained ...

This news release is available in German. Supermassive black holes pull in gas with great force from their surroundings. As the gas rotates around the black hole, it becomes progressively hotter through friction and begins to radiate. This is how the brightest objects in the universe, active galactic nuclei (AGN), are formed. They often shine brighter than the hundreds of billions of stars in their galaxy. In the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way there is also such a black hole that, according to some studies, shone as an AGN a few millions of years ago. ETH ...

June 24 -- More Americans are using soft contact lenses -- especially daily disposable lenses -- and taking advantage of new designs targeting vision problems that were difficult to correct with previous contact lenses, reports the July issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. Recent prescribing trends reflect ongoing advances in contact lens materials and capabilities, according to the survey study by Nathan Efron, Ph.D., DSc, of Queensland University of Technology, Australia, ...

Researchers have found that smoking may increase the risk of dying early in premenopausal women with breast cancer. In a prospective study of 848 women with breast cancer who were followed for a median of 6.7 years, premenopausal women who smoked for more than 21.5 years had a 3.1-times higher risk of dying from any cause as well as a 3.4-times higher risk of dying from breast cancer. These links were not apparent among post-menopausal women. There was also some suggestion that the increased risks seen in premenopausal women were especially relevant to women whose cancers ...

New York, NY, June 24, 2015 - The results of a study assessing safety and efficacy of sTMS therapy with the NEST® device in adult patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) have been published in the Elsevier journal Brain Stimulation and are now available online on Science Direct. In the study, over 200 subjects were analyzed across 17 leading academic and private psychiatric institutions in the United States; enrollment included both treatment naïve and treatment-resistant patients as prior exposure to antidepressant medication was not a requirement for ...

Milan, Italy - 24 June 2015: The first ESC recommendations for patients with cardiac arrhythmias and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are presented today1 at EHRA EUROPACE - CARDIOSTIM 2015 and published in EP Europace.2 The paper was produced by the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and is endorsed by the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) in the US and the Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS). Professor Giuseppe Boriani, chair of the writing group, said: "CKD occurs in more than 10% of adults and has ...

Milan, Italy - 24 June 2015: A unique consensus paper on patient preferences for arrhythmias management is presented today1 at EHRA EUROPACE - CARDIOSTIM 2015 and published in EP Europace.2 "Patients live with the consequences of treatments so it's reasonable that they should have some say." The document was produced by the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and is endorsed by the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) in the US, the Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS) and Sociedad Latinoamericana de Estimulación ...

Philadelphia, PA, June 24, 2015 - One American dies from suicide every 12.8 minutes, making suicide the tenth leading cause of death in the United States according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. There is consensus that if we could better predict who was at risk for suicide, then we could more effectively intervene to reduce this terrible burden on individuals, families and public health. A new analysis of existing studies strongly supports the idea that there are increased levels of chemicals, called cytokines, in the body and brain that promote inflammation ...

A University of Colorado Boulder scientist unexpectedly discovered two lichen species new to science in the same week while conducting research in Boulder Colorado, near the city's eastern limits. After a day of fieldwork inventorying lichens at White Rocks Open Space, Erin Tripp was walking back to her car when an unfamiliar lichen caught her eye. Later that week, Tripp spotted a second species of lichen that she suspected might also be a new species. Tripp, curator of botany for the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and assistant professor of ecology ...

A study of how people can quickly spot animals by sight is helping uncover the workings of the human brain. Scientists examined why volunteers who were shown hundreds of pictures - some with animals and some without - were able to detect animals in as little as one-tenth of a second. They found that one of the first parts of the brain to process visual information - the primary visual cortex - can control this fast response, rather than more complex parts of the brain being required, as previously thought. The findings suggest that when people look at a scene for ...

South African and Argentinian palaeontologists have discovered a new 200 million year old dinosaur from South Africa, and named it Sefapanosaurus, from the Sesotho word "sefapano". The researchers from South Africa's University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), and from the Argentinian Museo de La Plata and Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio made the announcement in the scientific journal, Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society. The paper, titled: A new basal sauropodiform from South Africa and the phylogenetic relationships ...

Boulder, Colo. -- The 26 December 2004 Mw ~9.2 Indian Ocean earthquake (also known as the Sumatra-Andaman or Aceh-Andaman earthquake), which generated massive, destructive tsunamis, especially along the Aceh coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, clearly demonstrated the need for a better understanding of how frequently subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis occur. Toward that end, Harvey M. Kelsey of Humboldt State University and colleagues present a study of earthquake history in the area. Using subsidence stratigraphy, the team traced the different modes of coastal ...

The tooth plate of just some millimeters in size had been in a box for more than 40 years, without being recognized after the discovery and preparation of the fish it belonged to. Palaeontologists from Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands and the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, studied the fossil using high energy X-rays at the Swiss Light Source at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, revealing the structure and development of teeth and bones. Their findings are published today in Biology Letters. Teeth are important in our daily life, they are crucial ...

A digital map of the ageing brain could aid the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders in older people, a study suggests. The atlas created using images from MRI scans of older people could aid diagnosis by comparing the patients' scans with a detailed map of the healthy ageing brain. Most existing MRI atlases are based on the brains of young and middle-aged people, which don't reflect the normal changes that take place in the brain as we age, the team says. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh constructed a detailed atlas of ...

Various diagnostic imaging techniques are currently used for clinical imaging/disease diagnosis. The accuracy of diagnosis is mainly based on the type of energy used (such as X-ray, sound waves, photons and positrons) to derive the visual information, as well as the degree of spatial resolution (mesoscopic or microscopic) and the level of information that can be obtained (physiological, anatomical or molecular). Based on potential health hazards imposed by type of energy used, clinical imaging modalities can be broadly categorized as ionizing and non-ionizing modalities. ...

Milan, Italy - 24 June 2015: Uninterrupted treatment with novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs) during catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) is safe, reveals research presented today at EHRA EUROPACE - CARDIOSTIM 2015 by Dr Carsten Wunderlich, senior consultant in the Department of Invasive Electrophysiology, Heart Centre Dresden, Germany.1 Continuation of NOAC therapy was not associated with periprocedural bleeding or thromboembolic complications. The joint meeting of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and Cardiostim ...

TORONTO, ON - Adults who were exposed to childhood adversity, including witnessing parental domestic violence, childhood physical and sexual abuse have higher odds of experiencing migraine headaches in adulthood, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto. "We found the more types of violence the individual had been exposed to during their childhood, the greater the odds of migraine. For those who reported all three types of adversities--parental domestic violence, childhood physical and sexual abuse--the odds of migraine were a little over ...

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time the ability to rapidly, reliably and simultaneously identify the 'handedness' of different molecules in a mixture. The research, led by chemists at The University of Nottingham and the VU University Amsterdam, and published in the academic journal Nature Communications, could offer a new technique to easily distinguish whether a molecule is present in a left- or right-handed form. The breakthrough could be important in developing effective molecules for use in a wide range of industries -- everything from the development ...

Piscataway, N.J. -- A form of 'virtual-reality' therapy may help people with alcohol dependence reduce their craving for alcohol, a new study suggests. The findings, published in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, come from a small study of just 10 patients. But researchers said they are optimistic about the potential for virtual reality as a therapy for alcohol use disorders. 'This technology is already popular in the fields of psychology and psychiatry,' said senior researcher Doug Hyun Han, M.D., Ph.D., of Chung-Ang University Hospital ...

Changes in the gut bacteria of colon cancer patients indicate that some virulent bacteria could be linked to the progression of the disease, according to research published in the open access journal Genome Medicine. The findings could eventually be used to identify a virulence signature in these cancers and help doctors predict how bacterial changes in patients' guts could affect their prognosis. The human gut microbiome, the collection of microorganisms, their genomes and habitat that contributes to maintaining a healthy intestine, is thought to play an active role ...

Despite a general consensus among scientists and in the racing industry that racehorse speed has plateaued, a new study from the University of Exeter has found that racehorses are getting quicker. Further research is required to determine whether the increased speeds have a genetic basis or are the result of improved training, jockey tactics or other environmental factors. It had appeared that racehorse speeds were not improving and previous studies concluded that thoroughbred racehorses may have reached the limits of their abilities. However these studies only analysed ...

A single gene called Angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1) drives brain size and intelligence in fish according to a new study by researchers at UCL, Stockholm University and University of Helsinki. Fish with larger brains and higher intelligence had higher expression of Ang-1, and when expression levels of Ang-1 were experimentally reduced, brains shrunk. These trends were seen in two unrelated species of fish - guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and zebra fish (Danio rerio) - indicating expression of Ang-1 is important for brain growth and development in fish generally. The study, published ...

Living in an area with noisy road traffic may reduce life expectancy, according to new research published in the European Heart Journal. The findings suggest a link between long-term exposure to road traffic noise and deaths, as well as a greater risk of stroke, particularly in the elderly. The research was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in partnership with Imperial College London and King's College London. Researchers analysed data for 8.6 million people living in London between 2003 and 2010. They looked at levels of road traffic noise during ...

Drinking 3-5 cups of coffee per day could cut an individual's cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality risk by up to 21%, according to research highlighted in a EuroPRevent session report published by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), a not-for-profit organisation devoted to the study and disclosure of science related to coffee and health1. The finding is significant given that coronary heart disease and stroke remain the primary cause of death across Europe, responsible for 51% of all deaths in women and 42% of all deaths in men.2 Over four million ...