Question: When does a Tropical Cyclone drop snowfall? Answer: When it makes landfall in India and the moisture moves over the Himalayas as Cyclone Hudhud has done. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Himalayan Mountains, the MODIS instrument captured this image of snow on the ground on Oct. 16 at 0705 UTC (3:50 a.m. EDT). Cyclone Hudhud made landfall in eastern India and moved over the Himalayas dropping snowfall in Nepal and southwestern China. INFORMATION: Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ...

Substance abuse is the fastest growing health concern for older adults. New findings show that drinking levels are high enough to be concerning and tend to spike around the times older adults receive their social security checks. These results may have prevention implications for social workers working with low-income seniors. Substance abuse is the fastest growing health concern for older adults, a segment of the population that is likewise rapidly increasing. Heavy drinking among older persons is associated with an increased risk of health problems like diabetes, ...

Most women reduce or stop drinking alcohol upon discovery of pregnancy. A new study looks at changes in alcohol use, and factors contributing to these changes, among women with unwanted pregnancies. Findings indicate that most women with unwanted pregnancies quit or reduce alcohol consumption once they discover their pregnancies, and that some may be substituting alcohol for drugs once they discover their pregnancies. Most women reduce or stop drinking alcohol upon discovery of pregnancy. However, little information exists about changes in alcohol use, and factors ...

Mexico is a nearby destination where younger U.S. residents can legally drink heavily. However, high levels of drinking on the U.S. side are not always linked to recent travel to Mexico. New findings show that higher levels of drinking among U.S.-Mexico border youth are closely linked to their patterns of bar attendance, but not to how they think about drinking. Due to a legal drinking age of 18 years, cheaper alcohol, and marketing tactics of local bars that specifically target youth, Mexico is an attractive and geographically nearby destination where younger U.S. ...

Researchers know that alcohol-dependent individuals (ALC) sustain neurocognitive impairment even after detoxification. A new study examines specific domains of cognitive recovery in conjunction with smoking status. Findings show that smoking status influenced the rate and level of neurocognitive recovery during eight months of abstinence in the ALC group. Numerous studies have shown that individuals with an alcohol use disorder perform worse than those without one on multiple neurocognitive domains of function following detoxification from alcohol, although the level ...

Boston, MA — Switching from nonprofit to for-profit status appears to boost hospitals' financial health but does not appear to lower the quality of care they provide or reduce the proportion of poor or minority patients receiving care, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Critics of for-profit hospitals have argued that they are worse at providing good care to patients and that therefore we should limit them," said Ashish Jha, professor of health policy and management at HSPH and senior author of ...

Medical practices in less competitive health-care markets charge more for services, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study, based on U.S. health-care data from 2010, provides important new information about the effects of competition on prices for office visits paid by preferred provider organizations, known more commonly as PPOs. PPOs are the most common type of health insurance plan held by privately insured people in the United States. The study will be ...

Searching a health service pricing website before using the service was associated with lower payments for clinical services such as advanced imaging and laboratory tests, according to a study in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA. Recent changes in the health care insurance market have resulted in commercially insured patients bearing a greater proportion of their health care costs. As patients have an increasing responsibility to pay for their care, they will likely demand access to prices charged for that care. Several state-administered initiatives have increased price ...

Hospital conversion from nonprofit to for-profit status in the 2000s was associated with better subsequent financial health but had no relationship to the quality of care delivered, mortality rates, or the proportion of poor or minority patients receiving care, according to a study in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA. During the past decade, there has been increasing attention to the growing number of nonprofit or public hospitals that have become for-profit. These conversions are controversial. Advocates argue that for-profit organizations bring needed resources and experienced ...

An examination of the relationship between physician competition and prices paid by private preferred provider organizations (PPOs) for common office visits finds that more competition is associated with lower prices paid to physicians in 10 large specialties, according to a study in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA. Physicians are increasingly moving away from solo and smaller practices toward larger organizations. These changes may be beneficial if larger practices with more resources are better able to coordinate care, adopt process improvements, increase use of information ...

From the perspective of the insurers and patients, between 2009 and 2012, hospital-owned physician organizations in California incurred higher expenditures for commercial health maintenance organization enrollees for professional, hospital, laboratory, pharmaceutical and ancillary services than did physician-owned organizations, according to a study in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA. Hospitals and multihospital systems are acquiring medical groups and physician practices as part of a strategy to build integrated delivery systems capable of providing the full range of ...

About two-thirds of FDA recalled dietary supplements analyzed still contained banned drugs at least 6 months after being recalled, according to a study in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiates class I drug recalls when products have the reasonable possibility of causing serious adverse health consequences or death. Recently, the FDA has used class I drug recalls in an effort to remove dietary supplements adulterated with pharmaceutical ingredients from U.S. markets. Prior research has found that even after FDA recalls, ...

Berkeley — The trend of hospitals consolidating medical groups and physician practices in an effort to improve the coordination of patient care is backfiring and increasing the cost of patient care, according to a new study led by the University of California, Berkeley. The counterintuitive findings, published today (Tuesday, Oct. 21) in the Journal of the American Medical Association, come as a growing number of local hospitals and large, multi-hospital systems in this country are acquiring physician groups and medical practices. "This consolidation is meant ...

From AGU's blogs: How rain falls – not just how much – may alter landslide risk New research finds that it's not just the amount of rain that falls on a hillside, but the pattern of rainfall that matters when trying to determine how likely a slope is to give way. This new information could improve forecasts of landslides, which are typically hard to predict, said the scientists conducting the research. Different rainfall patterns—a short, heavy deluge, a light, steady downpour, or sporadic showers—will trigger different numbers of landslides ...

To reduce the risk of bone fractures and the complications arising from them, the United States Preventive Services Task force (USPSTF) recommends that all women age 65 and older be tested and treated for low bone mineral density. The task force also recommends that postmenopausal women aged 50 to 64, get bone mineral density screenings if their 10-year probability of suffering a hip, vertebral, humerus or wrist fracture is 9.3 percent or greater, based on the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool. A new UCLA-led study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, ...

Philadelphia, Oct. 21, 2014 – A case study published recently in the journal Pediatrics describes an innovative, minimally invasive procedure that treated plastic bronchitis, a potentially life-threatening disease, in a six-year-old boy with a heart condition. Using new lymphatic imaging tools and catheterization techniques, physician-researchers eliminated bronchial casts, which are an accumulation of lymphatic material that clogged the child's airway. "Our technique represents a new treatment option for plastic bronchitis, which is a rare but often fatal complication ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Playing violent video games in 3-D makes everything seem more real – and that may have troubling consequences for players, a new study reveals. Researchers found that people who played violent video games in 3-D showed more evidence of anger afterward than did people who played using traditional 2-D systems -- even those with large screens. The higher anger in 3-D players was connected to the fact that, compared to 2-D players, they were more likely to feel they were "immersed in the game," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The double-whammy of marital hostility and a history of depression can increase the risk for obesity in adults by altering how the body processes high-fat foods, according to new research. In the study, men and women with a history of depression whose arguments with spouses were especially heated showed several potential metabolic problems after eating a high-fat meal. They burned fewer calories and had higher levels of insulin and spikes of triglycerides – a form of fat in the blood – after eating a heavy meal when compared to participants ...

A new study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) identifies a new cell signaling pathway that contributes to the development and progression of inflammatory bone erosion, which occurs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects millions of adults worldwide. Bone erosion in joints is a major cause of disability in RA patients. The study, titled "RBP-J imposes a requirement for ITAM-mediated costimulation of osteoclastogenesis," was published online in the Journal of Clinical ...

A new approach for responding to and managing disease outbreaks is being proposed by a team of epidemiologists led by two Penn State University researchers. The team's flexible approach could save many lives and millions of dollars. The approach, called "adaptive management," allows decision-makers to use knowledge they gain during an outbreak to update ongoing interventions with the goal of containing outbreaks more quickly and efficiently. Current efforts to prevent or stem such outbreaks may fall short because of uncertainty and limited information about the real-time ...

Research by a team of epidemiologists from the UK and the USA has proposed a new approach for responding to and managing disease outbreaks. They say lives and money could be saved if decisions are adapted to relevant information about the dynamics of the current crisis and not based on retrospective analyses of prior crises, trials and interventions. Dr Michael Tildesley, a lecturer in infectious disease modelling in the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at The University of Nottingham and co-author of the paper, said: "Organisations involved in the outbreak of ...

What is the best way to handle a disease outbreak? Current efforts to prevent or stem such outbreaks may fall short because of uncertainty and limited information about the real-time dynamics of the specific disease outbreak. A team of epidemiologists, led by two Penn State University researchers, proposes a new approach for responding to and managing disease outbreaks -- a flexible approach that could save many lives and millions of dollars. The approach, called "adaptive management," allows decision-makers to use knowledge they gain during an outbreak to update ongoing ...

In 2005, in a landmark paper viewed well over a million times, John Ioannidis explained in PLOS Medicine why most published research findings are false. To coincide with PLOS Medicine's 10th anniversary he responds to the challenge of this situation by suggesting how the research enterprise could be improved. Research, including medical research, is subject to a range of biases which mean that misleading or useless work is sometimes pursued and published while work of value is ignored. The risks and rewards of academic careers, the structures and habits of peer reviewed ...

Cesarean delivery is the most common inpatient surgery in the United States. US cesarean rates increased from 20.7% in 1996 to 32.9% in 2009 but have since stabilized, with 1.3 million American women having had a cesarean delivery in 2011. Rates of cesarean delivery vary across hospitals, and understanding reasons for the variation could help shed light on practices related to cesarean delivery. Katy Kozhimannil (University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, USA) and colleagues S.V. Subramanian and Mariana Arcaya (Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, ...

personalised nutrition based on an individual's genotype - nutrigenomics - could have a major impact on reducing lifestyle-linked diseases such as obesity, heart disease and Type II diabetes a study of more than 9,000 volunteers reveals strict regulations need to be put in place before nutrigenomics becomes publicly acceptable due to people's fears around personal data protection led by Newcastle University, UK, and involving experts from the universities of Ulster, Bradford, Porto (Portugal) and Wageningen (Netherlands), the study is the first to assess consumer acceptance ...