About 4,000 babies die each year from sleep-related deaths involving suffocation and strangulation in beds, despite recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics that infants always be placed on their backs to sleep, and that they share a room with parents but not a bed. These findings will be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Annual Meeting taking place May 3-6, 2014 in Vancouver, BC. According to the study, these deaths from SIDS or SUID (sudden unexpected infant death) are seen more often among black families. "We found that many infants ...

Chicago, IL (May 3, 2014) — An oral capsule that vibrates as it moves through the digestive tract has shown notable promise as a non-pharmacological treatment for constipation, according to new research presented today at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW). In the pilot study, the vibrating capsule was found to nearly double the weekly bowel movements of patients suffering from chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) and constipation predominant irritable bowel syndrome (C-IBS). "Despite the widespread use of medication to treat constipation, nearly 50 percent of patients are ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Pediatricians, social scientists, economists and policy experts will come together on Saturday, May 3, to discuss the critical problem that childhood poverty presents in the U.S. – and steps to end poverty. The group will take part in a state-of the-art plenary session titled 'Childhood Poverty and Its Consequences: Potential Solutions," at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. National and international experts will discuss ways to address poverty using government economic policy, innovative ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Living close to a supermarket appears to be a key factor in the success of interventions to help obese children eat better and improve their weight, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Urban neighborhoods and rural towns without access to fresh, healthy and affordable food are known as food deserts. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, food deserts sometimes have only fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. Few ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – When teens are caught drinking or using marijuana at school, a trip to the dean's office may not suffice. These students also should be screened for exposure to trauma, mental health problems and other serious health risks, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Researchers found that using substances at school was associated with increased odds of serious problems such as depression, intimate partner violence and attempting suicide. "At-school ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Each year, 4,000 babies die unexpectedly during sleep time from sudden infant death syndrome, accidental suffocation or unknown causes. To keep infants safe, the American Academy of Pediatrics advises caregivers to put babies to sleep on their backs and avoid sharing a bed, among other practices. Many families, however, are not following this advice, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Researchers surveyed a nationally representative ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Since 1994, parents have been urged to put their babies to sleep on their backs to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). It appears many caregivers have not gotten the message, and health care providers have not done enough to educate families. Rates of supine sleeping (being placed on the back for sleep) are as low as 50 percent in some states, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In addition, only about two-thirds ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Many children who are bullied suffer in silence. The trauma can lead to anxiety, depression, psychotic episodes and even suicide. There may be a way to identify victims of bullying before they experience serious mental health problems, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Researchers from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom found that nightmares or night terrors were more common in 12-year-olds who had reported ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – The vast majority of African-American and Afro-Caribbean youth face racial discrimination, and these experiences are associated with an increased risk of mental health problems, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. "Sixty years after Brown vs. Board of Education, racism remains a toxic stressor commonly experienced by youth of color," said lead author Lee M. Pachter, D.O., FAAP. "The fact that these experiences are encountered ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Higher rates of binge drinking by lesbian and gay adolescents compared to their heterosexual peers may be due to chronic stress caused by difficult social situations, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Research has shown that lesbian and gay people experience higher rates of physical and mental health problems. One explanation for these disparities is minority stress. According to this theory, chronic stress due to discrimination, ...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Women who smoke during pregnancy may be putting their newborns at risk for congenital heart defects, and the more they smoke, the higher the risk, according to a study to be presented Saturday, May 3, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Cigarette smoking during pregnancy has been linked to many birth defects, such as cleft lips and palates, and missing and deformed limbs. Some studies also suggest maternal smoking may be associated with heart defects. The authors of this study ...

VANCOUVER, BC --A recent study by pediatricians from the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York examined infants 0-3 years old that used touch-screen devices to determine if their use was of any educational benefit to infants and toddlers. The study showed that children who played non-educational games using touch-screen devices had lower verbal scores upon testing. The results also showed that although the majority of parents cited in the study believed their children received educational benefits by using smart phones, readers and tablets, there ...

VANCOUVER, BC – Two recent studies by investigators at the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York examined physicians' perceptions and knowledge of diversion of stimulant medications for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as well as practices physicians use to prevent diversion among their patients prescribed these medications. The results showed that while almost half of all physicians surveyed believe diversion is common among teens with ADHD, the majority never received training on the topic. Furthermore, about one-third of physicians rarely counsel ...

Reaching globally-agreed targets for health risks such as smoking and alcohol can prevent more than 37 million deaths by 2025. A new international study led by Imperial College London has estimated how achieving globally-agreed targets for six important health risks between 2010 and 2025 will reduce deaths caused by the big-four chronic diseases: cancers, diabetes, lung disease and cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke). Published in The Lancet the study finds that achieving the targets can prevent over 37 million deaths from these diseases by 2025. ...

Reducing or curbing just six modifiable risk factors—tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, salt intake, high blood pressure and blood sugar, and obesity—to globally-agreed target levels could prevent more than 37 million premature deaths over 15 years, from the four main non-communicable diseases (NCDs; cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory disease, cancers, and diabetes) according to new research published in The Lancet. Worryingly, the findings indicate that not reaching these targets would result in 38.8 million deaths in 2025 from the four main NCDs, 10.5 million ...

Observations of insects and their feeding marks on leaves in modern forests confirm indications from fossil leaf deposits that the diversity of chewing damage relates directly to diversity of the insect population that created it, according to an international team of researchers. "The direct link between richness of leaf-chewing insects and their feeding damage across host plants in two tropical forests validates the underlying assumptions of many paleobiological studies that rely on damage-type richness as a means to infer changes in relative herbivore richness through ...

LA JOLLA—Scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered the developmental source for a key type of neuron that allows animals to walk, a finding that could help pave the way for new therapies for spinal cord injuries or other motor impairments related to disease. The spinal cord contains a network of neurons that are able to operate largely in an autonomous manner, thus allowing animals to carry out simple rhythmic walking movements with minimal attention—giving us the ability, for example, to walk while talking on the phone. These circuits control properties such as ...

With the bursting of spring, pollen is in the air. Most of the pollen that is likely tickling your nose and making your eyes water is being dispersed in a sexually immature state consisting of only two cells (a body cell and a reproductive cell) and is not yet fertile. While the majority of angiosperm species disperse their pollen in this early, bicellular, stage of sexual maturity, about 30% of flowering plants disperse their pollen in a more mature fertile stage, consisting of three cells (a body and two sperm cells). And then there are plants that do both. So which ...

Researchers discovered several possibly threatened new species of ensign wasps from Sub-Saharan Africa -- the first known insects to exhibit transverse folding of the fore wing. The scientists made this discovery, in part, using a technique they developed that provides broadly accessible anatomy descriptions. "Ensign wasps are predators of cockroach eggs, and the transverse folding exhibited by these species may enable them to protect their wings while developing inside the cramped environment of cockroach egg cases," said Andy Deans, associate professor of entomology, ...

The icing on the cake for semiconductor nanocrystals that provide a non-damped optoelectronic effect may exist as a layer of tin that segregates near the surface. One method of altering the electrical properties of a semiconductor is by introducing impurities called dopants. A team led by Delia Milliron, a chemist at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a U.S Department of Energy (DOE) national nanoscience center, has demonstrated that equally important as the amount of dopant is how the dopant is distributed on the surface and throughout the material. This opens the door ...

PHILADELPHIA—Consumption of alcohol has long been associated with an increased risk of advanced liver fibrosis, but a new study published online in Clinical Infectious Diseases from researchers at Penn Medicine and other institutions shows that association is drastically heightened in people co-infected with both HIV and chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Even light ("nonhazardous") drinking—which typically poses a relatively low risk for uninfected persons—was linked to an increased risk of liver fibrosis in the co-infected group. Reasons for this are not fully ...

In the movies, humans often fear invaders from Mars. These days, scientists are more concerned about invaders to Mars, in the form of micro-organisms from Earth. Three recent scientific papers examined the risks of interplanetary exchange of organisms using research from the International Space Station. All three, Survival of Rock-Colonizing Organisms After 1.5 Years in Outer Space, Resistance of Bacterial Endospores to Outer Space for Planetary Protection Purposes and Survival of Bacillus pumilus Spores for a Prolonged Period of Time in Real Space Conditions, have appeared ...

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Autopsies have revealed that some individuals develop the cellular changes indicative of Alzheimer's disease without ever showing clinical symptoms in their lifetime. Vanderbilt University Medical Center memory researchers have discovered a potential genetic variant in these asymptomatic individuals that may make brains more resilient against Alzheimer's. "Most Alzheimer's research is searching for genes that predict the disease, but we're taking a different approach. We're looking for genes that predict who among those with Alzheimer's pathology will actually show ...

ATLANTA--Inhibiting enzymes that cause changes in gene expression could decrease chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer patients, researchers at Georgia State University and the University of Georgia say. Dr. Susanna Greer, associate professor of biology, and research partners at the University of Georgia have identified two enzymes that suppress proteins that are important for regulating cell survival and chemoresistance in ovarian cancer. Their findings are published in the journal, PLOS ONE. Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest gynecological cancers, with a ...