Among patients with acute sciatica caused by a herniated lumbar disk (a condition also known as "acute radiculopathy"), a short course of oral steroids resulted in only modest improvement in function and no significant improvement in pain, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Acute sciatica, characterized by radiating buttock and leg pain, is most frequently associated with a herniated disk in the lower (lumbar) spine, and occurs in more than one in 10 people sometime in their lives. Although oral steroids are used by ...

Scientists have moved graphene -- the incredibly strong and conductive single-atom-thick sheet of carbon -- a significant step along the path from lab bench novelty to commercially viable material for new electronic applications. Researchers from the University of Manchester, together with BGT Materials Limited, a graphene manufacturer in the United Kingdom, have printed a radio frequency antenna using compressed graphene ink. The antenna performed well enough to make it practical for use in radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and wireless sensors, the researchers ...

Antidepressants are associated with better rates of treatment response and remission for women with postnatal depression, when compared to a placebo, according to a new systematic review by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London. Reports often focus on the risks of using antidepressants during pregnancy and the postnatal period but this paper, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), highlights the benefits that antidepressants can have for women with postnatal depression. Postnatal depression ...

Researchers determined DNA sequences from the Y chromosomes of 334 men belonging to 17 populations from Europe and the Middle East Study shows that almost two out of three (64%) modern European men belong to just three young paternal lineage Male-specific population expansion was widespread, and surprisingly recent, focusing interest on the Bronze Age Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that most European men descend from just a handful of Bronze Age forefathers, due to a 'population explosion' several thousand years ago. The project, which ...

The leading theory for why the blood of younger mice rejuvenates the muscles of older mice is now in contest. The vampiric exchange of young blood and old blood has long been reported to have anti-aging effects, but it was in 2013 when Harvard University researchers first linked GDF-11, a molecule that circulates in the blood, to this effect. Now, an analysis that set out to see how GDF-11 works in the muscles published May 19 in Cell Metabolism found just the opposite. The investigators showed first that GDF-11 was not specifically measured; the methods that were previously ...

Chicago -- May 14, 2015 -- Infants undergoing some types of surgery could have better recovery if they receive regional anesthesia rather than general anesthesia, according to two studies published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®). Researchers explored the differences between the two types of anesthesia by measuring the presence of apnea, a breathing complication, following hernia surgery. Experts have long examined the effects of anesthesia on infants and toddlers, ...

With the help of a computer program called "Rosetta," researchers at Vanderbilt University have "redesigned" an antibody that has increased potency and can neutralize more strains of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) than can any known natural antibody. Their findings, published online today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, suggest that computer-redesigned antibodies may speed the search for an effective therapy or vaccine for a virus that so far has eluded all attempts to eradicate it. "There's a consensus (in the HIV field) that the vaccine ...

WASHINGTON --The best remedy for severe salicylate poisoning is hemodialysis, according to a comprehensive systematic review of the medical literature published on Friday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Extracorporeal Treatment for Salicylate Poisoning: Systematic Review and Recommendations from the EXTIRP Workgroup"). Salicylate is an active ingredient in aspirin as well as hundreds of over-the-counter medications, and contributes to approximately 20,000 accidental or intentional poisonings and nearly 30 deaths reported to US Poison Control Centers every year. "Our ...

Using nature for inspiration, a team of Northwestern University scientists is the first to develop an entirely artificial molecular pump, in which molecules pump other molecules. This tiny machine is no small feat. The pump one day might be used to power other molecular machines, such as artificial muscles. The new machine mimics the pumping mechanism of life-sustaining proteins that move small molecules around living cells to metabolize and store energy from food. For its food, the artificial pump draws power from chemical reactions, driving molecules step-by-step from ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Patients with liver cancer can be cured with a liver transplant. But because of the shortage of donated organs, these patients often die waiting for a liver. That's because most transplant centers predominantly use livers from donors who die from brain death. But in the largest study of its kind, transplant physicians at Mayo Clinic in Florida have found that liver cancer patients have the same beneficial outcomes using organs donated by patients who died of cardiac death. The study was recently published online in the American Journal of Transplantation. MULTIMEDIA ...

(New York, May 19, 2015) -- The largest urban health systems, which serve as safety nets for large patient populations with lower socioeconomic status and greater likelihood to speak English as a second language, do worse on government patient satisfaction scores than smaller, non-urban hospitals likely to serve white customers with higher education levels, according to a new study by Mount Sinai researchers published this month in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Patient satisfaction scores, in part due to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, are a key part of the formula ...

ANN ARBOR--A class of FDA-approved cancer drugs may be able to prevent problems with brain cell development associated with disorders including Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome, researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute have found. The researchers' proof-of-concept study using fruit fly models of brain dysfunction was published today in the journal eLife. They show that giving the leukemia drugs nilotinib or bafetinib to fly larvae with the equivalent of Fragile X prevented the wild overgrowth of neuron endings associated with the disorder. ...

For the patient, surgery involves extreme physical stress, and in older patients especially this can lead to disorders of consciousness or cognition. The acute confusional state known as delirium, however, can often be prevented by specialist nursing care after the operation, as Torsten Kratz and co-authors show in an original article in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 289-96). In their study delirium liaison nurses were employed to help care for surgical patients aged 70 years and over. In every patient, the risk ...

Preschoolers already recognize what it feels like to be left out when goodies are being shared. In a new study, Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich show that 3-year-olds can anticipate negative feelings in others, and adjust their own behavior in response. Why are we willing to share with others what we could just as well keep for ourselves? Willingness to allot a portion of a coveted resource to someone else is a behavioral pattern that can throw light on the origins and development of prosocial modes of response during childhood. In a new ...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Cells within a tumor are not the same; they may have different genetic mutations and different characteristics during growth and throughout treatment. These differences make treating tumors extremely difficult and often lead to tumor recurrence dominated by more aggressive tumor cells. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers are using mathematical modeling to characterize these differences within a tumor and hope that the results of their latest study will lead to better therapeutic treatments. "Many tumors exhibit different metabolic behaviors compared to normal ...

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found a significant link between the presence of persistent nightmares in childhood and psychotic experiences in later adolescence. In a new paper published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, a team based at the Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing at Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick found that persistent childhood nightmares both at an early age (between 2 and 9) and at age 12 were significantly associated with new incidences of suspected or definite psychotic experiences at age 18. The University ...

Escherichia coli O104 is an emergent disease-causing bacterium various strains of which are becoming increasingly well known and troublesome. The pathogen causes bloody diarrhea as well as and potentially fatal kidney damage, hemolytic uremic syndrome. Infection is usually through inadvertent ingestion of contaminated and incompletely cooked food or other materials, such as animals feces. Escherichia coli is a so-called gram negative bacterium, commonly found in the intestine of humans and other mammals. Entero-hemorrhagic strains including O157, O26, O103 and O111 and ...

The fungi (Rhizoctonia solani) is stealthy blight, becoming visible only shortly before the harvest infesting beets or corn at their roots. The fungal rot begins early in the season, working its way from the inside out, and only becoming visible in the fall, destroying the possibility of a harvest. Year after year crop failures due to attacks by pests and pathogens are reported in the media despite their being treated with pesticides. Crop failure is further exacerbated by pesticide treatments which cause the death of insects such as bees through neonicotinoids. "There ...

Because of their position on the food chain and their dietary habits, Griffon vultures from the Iberian Peninsula are exposed to accumulation of heavy metals in their tissues. A study benefiting from the participation of the Autonomous University of Barcelona reveals that, due to their diets, wild populations of Griffon vultures in Catalonia show the presence of a high amount of lead, which affects their immune systems and reproductive function. The population of wild birds is subject to the dangers resulting from the presence of toxic elements in the environment. Even ...

Scientists from the University of Leeds are investigating whether a molecule usually found in moisturisers and skin creams could improve IVF success rates in the UK. Embryologists running a clinical trial at the University are investigating whether hyaluronic acid, normally found in beauty products which are designed to maintain elasticity in the skin and keep hair and joints hydrated, helps sperm stick to the human egg when it is released from the ovary. The hyaluronic acid method relies on picking only mature and fertile sperm that stick to a specially coated plate ...

Even though much of the population in developing countries is involved in agriculture, food security is virtually out of reach. Often the only resort is to purchase a cow, buffalo, or sheep, to provide a steady supply of fresh milk, a nutritious staple of a daily diet. But how to preserve it safely? Refrigeration and boiling are costly -- and often impossible due to sporadic electricity. The answers may lie in new Tel Aviv University research published in Technology, which finds that short pulsed electric fields can be used to kill milk-contaminating bacteria. Through ...

May 19, 2015 - Teens with slower performance on a test of "cognitive processing speed" are more likely to have depression and anxiety symptoms as adults, reports a paper in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "Adolescents with slower processing speed may be at increased later risk of anxiety and depression," according to the new research by Catharine R. Gale, PhD, of Edinburgh University and colleagues. The results add new evidence that lower ...

May 19, 2015 - As more infants are born to mothers with dependence on prescription pain medications, the costs of treatment for babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) have increased dramatically, suggests a report in the March/April issue of the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "At our institution, costs associated with treating infants with NAS are exponentially higher than the costs associated with infants not affected," write Dr. Kay Roussos-Ross, ...

This news release is available in German. Diabetes is one of the scourges of modern society, and the number of cases is rising every year. Already, there are over 380 million diabetics around the world. The International Diabetes Foundation estimates that by 2030, over half a billion people will be suffering from type 2 diabetes. Today, Switzerland has more than 430,000 diabetics, 40,000 of them with type 1 diabetes. What both type 1 and type 2 diabetes have in common is a dying off of insulin-producing beta cells, which are found on the pancreas. This deprives the ...

This news release is available in French. Women who were born preterm have a higher risk of giving birth to preterm children, according to a study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, from researchers of the CHU Sainte-Justine and the University of Montreal. The researchers demonstrated that 13% of women born before 37 weeks of gestation gave birth prematurely at least once, compared to 9.5% of women born at term. Interestingly, this figure increased to 14% in women born before 32 weeks. "The difference is not alarming considering that according to ...