Stark disparities by race, education and literacy Slower medication refills and access to lab results Harder to keep doctors informed about chronic conditions CHICAGO -- Online sites that offer secure access to one's medical record, often referred to as patient portals, are increasingly important for doctor and patient communication and routine access to health care information. But patient portals could widen the gap in health disparities among the most vulnerable patients, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Patients with low health literacy, less ...

University of Sydney geoscientists have helped prove that some of the ocean's underwater volcanoes did not erupt from hot spots in the Earth's mantle but instead formed from cracks or fractures in the oceanic crust. The discovery helps explain the spectacular bend in the famous underwater range, the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, where the bottom half kinks at a sixty degree angle to the east of its top half. "There has been speculation among geoscientists for decades that some underwater volcanoes form because of fracturing," said Professor Dietmar Muller, from ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Herceptin has been touted as a wonder drug for women with HER2-positive breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that is fueled by excess production of the HER2 protein. However, not all of these patients respond to the drug, and many who do respond eventually acquire resistance. A team of researchers led by Mayo Clinic has found a promising way to circumvent this obstacle. They identified a small site in the HER2 protein that enables it to form a molecular switch that sets off a cascade of events that turn normal cells cancerous. The researchers ...

Westport, CT, April 28, 2015 - In a time when the FDA and state attorneys general are questioning the ingredients and claims of dietary supplements, Americans are looking for assurance that any medicine they use will really work. Infirst Healthcare USA is taking steps, through clinical testing, to ensure that its over-the-counter liquid cold and cough relief medicines, made with FDA-authorized ingredients, are truly effective. Newly published in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (February 2015), the study - conducted by leading cough researcher, Peter Dicpinigaitis, ...

The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) today released updates to several of its recommendations for the ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely® campaign, which raises professional and public awareness about treatments and tests to question and discuss because they may lack efficacy or cause potential harm. The AGS's updates reflect an expert review of new research on several important conditions impacting older adults, including agitation, certain types of cancer, delirium, dementia, diabetes, insomnia, unintended weight loss, and certain other health concerns that may warrant ...

For reef-building corals, sponges do not make good neighbors. Aggressive competitors for space, sponges use toxins, mucus, shading, and smothering to kill adjacent coral colonies and then grow on their skeletons. A recent survey of coral reefs across the Caribbean shows that overfishing removes the predators of sponges, greatly increasing the threat of fast-growing sponges to an already diminished population of corals. A research team headed by Dr. Joseph Pawlik at UNC Wilmington surveyed reefs from 12 countries across the Caribbean, comparing 25 sites where fish abundance ...

SAN DIEGO - Girls are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) later than boys, possibly because females exhibit less severe symptoms, according to a study to be presented Tuesday, April 28 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego. To study gender differences in age at diagnosis and compare symptom severity between boys and girls, researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Md., analyzed data from the Institute's Interactive Autism Network. This online registry includes almost 50,000 individuals and family members affected ...

SAN DIEGO - Many suspected victims of child sexual abuse are sharing sexually explicit photos and videos via their cell phones and social media, and are receiving online sexual solicitations, according to a study to be presented Tuesday, April 28 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego. Previous research has shown that youths with a history of sexual victimization may be at increased risk for online sexual solicitations, leading to revictimization. Researchers, led by Corey Rood, MD, sought to describe the prevalence of "sexting" (sending ...

SAN DIEGO - Children who have been bullied by peers have similar or worse long-term mental health outcomes than children maltreated by adults, according to a study to be presented Tuesday, April 28 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego, and to be published in The Lancet Psychiatry at the same time. The mental health consequences of maltreatment by adults are well-documented. Being bullied also can lead to problems later in life. However, it is not known whether long-term mental health issues among victims of bullying are related to having ...

Being bullied in childhood has a greater negative impact on teenager's mental health than being maltreated [1], according to new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. The findings show that individuals who are bullied in childhood are around five times more likely to experience anxiety (odds ratio 4.9) and are nearly twice as likely to report more depression and self-harm at age 18 (odds ratio 1.7) than children who are maltreated. The study, led by Professor Dieter Wolke from the University of Warwick, UK, is the first of its kind to directly compare ...

A new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry shows that children who have been bullied by peers suffer worse in the longer term than those who have been maltreated by adults. The research is led by Professor Dieter Wolke from Warwick's Department of Psychology and Warwick Medical School. The study is due to be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego on Tuesday 28 April. There is already an established link between maltreatment by adults and the mental health consequences for children. Professor Wolke and his team wanted to examine ...

April 28, 2015, Stockholm, Sweden - In studying the molecular biology of brain development, a team of researchers led by Ludwig Stockholm director Thomas Perlmann has discovered how disruption of a developmental mechanism alters the very nerve cells that are most affected in Parkinson's disease. They have also explained how such disruption induces a lethal dysfunction in the internal, house-keeping processes of such neurons. The results of their study, which took nearly four years to complete and involved the exquisitely targeted manipulation of mouse genes to generate ...

A new paper by Oxford researchers argues that some countries in Western Europe, and the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand now have birth rates that are now relatively close to replacement, that the underlying trend in Europe is upwards, and that population ageing, although inevitable, is likely to be 'manageable'. The publication in the journal, Population Studies, by Professor David Coleman and Associate Professor Stuart Basten, provides a more optimistic demographic picture of the future in the West, in contrast to the commonly accepted narrative. Much has been ...

Parental separation or divorce is linked to a heightened risk of psychosomatic problems among the children in the family, indicates research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. But joint custody seems to be less problematic than sole custody, the findings suggest. Over the past 20 years, family break-up has become more common in developed countries, with an increasing tendency to award joint legal custody afterwards. In Sweden alone, joint custody has surged from 1-2% of children affected by divorce/separation during the 1980s to 40% ...

A study of more than 1.2 million children in Sweden has concluded that children of parents with any type of diabetes are more likely to develop type 1 diabetes (T1D), and that maternal overweight and obesity increases the risk of the child developing T1D when neither parent has diabetes. The results, published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes), clearly suggest that strategies to reduce overweight and obesity before and during pregnancy could reduce the incidence of T1D, which is currently increasing in children (and especially ...

1. New class of cholesterol drug proves safe and effective for patients with dyslipidemia Treatment with PCSK9 antibodies reduces mortality and produces profound reductions in LDL-cholesterol and lipoprotein in patients with dyslipidemia. The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis are being published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Having elevated LDL-cholesterol levels contributes substantially to the development of coronary artery disease and the risk of cardiovascular events. Current guidelines recommend that patients with elevated cholesterol be treated ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - April 27, 2015 - Refining the results of a 2013 study, researchers have found that atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat, is associated with only one type of heart attack - the more common of the two types. The study, led by Elsayed Z. Soliman, M.D., director of the Epidemiological Cardiology Research Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, is published in the April 27 issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Atrial fibrillation, or a-fib, is the most prevalent heart rhythm disorder, affecting as many as 6 million ...

Women with breast cancer who follow a physical exercise program during their chemotherapy treatment experience less side effects like fatigue, reduced physical fitness, nausea and pain. It is also less often necessary to adjust the dosage of their chemotherapy. This is shown by a study supervised by prof. dr. Neil Aaronson of the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI). Chemotherapy can be very burdensome for patients. Because of the side effects, not all patients are able to complete their chemotherapy as originally planned, but require a dose adjustment. There are some ...

Using a simple device for eight hours a night to treat sleep apnea can help people with prediabetes improve their blood sugar levels and may reduce the risk of progressing to diabetes, according to a new study published online in the April 21, 2015, issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. About 57 million Americans have prediabetes, a disorder marked by blood sugar levels that are elevated but not sufficiently high to be considered diabetic. Prediabetics are at increased risk for developing diabetes, which can damage the eyes, kidneys, ...

April 25, 2015, Vienna , Austria: Phase 3 results presented today at The International Liver Congress™ 2015 show that a combination of daclatasvir (DCV), sofosbuvir (SOF) and ribavirin (RBV) for 12 weeks was effective and well tolerated amongst patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with advanced cirrhosis and post-transplant recurrence. Sustained virologic response rates at 12 weeks (SVR12) were >90% in patients with Child-Pugh class A or B cirrhosis but lower in Child-Pugh class C. SVR12 was achieved by 94% of liver transplant recipients with HCV recurrence. ALLY-1 ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- In 2009, the year she won the Nobel Prize for economics, Elinor Ostrom proposed a framework to integrate both the institutional and ecological dimensions of a pervasive global challenge: achieving sustainability. Now researchers have put Ostrom's social-ecological systems theory into practice in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. The result is a map of regional strengths and weaknesses that can help guide fishers, conservationists, and other decision makers as they consider steps to preserve the peninsula's vital coastal marine ...

Reported emissions of a group of potent greenhouse gases from developed countries are shown to be largely accurate, but for the wrong reasons, according to new findings from an international team, led by researchers at the University of Bristol,UK. Until now, there has been little verification of the reported emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), gases that are used in refrigerators and air conditioners, resulting in an unexplained gap between the amount reported, and the rise in concentrations seen in the atmosphere. This new study shows that this gap can be almost ...

The ocean has been sucking up heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) building up in our atmosphere--with a little help from tiny plankton. Like plants on land, these plankton convert CO2 into organic carbon via photosynthesis. But unlike land plants that are held fast to terra firma, plankton can sink into the deep ocean, carrying carbon with them. Along the way they decompose when bacteria convert their remains back into CO2. It's called the "biological pump," and if it operated 100 percent efficiently, nearly every atom of carbon drawn into the ocean would be converted ...

A Simon Fraser University researcher has uncovered what may be the first quantified evidence demonstrating a relationship between upright locomotion and spinal health. Scientists have long pondered whether there is a link between walking upright and back problems, since people have more back pain than other primates such as chimpanzees, with whom we share 98 per cent of our DNA. Kimberly Plomp, a post-doctoral fellow and biological anthropologist, spent the past seven years studying ancient bones for the telltale signs of disease and injury that give archaeologists ...

Beginning in the 1880s, coastal dunes in the United States were planted with European beachgrass (Ammophila arenaria) in an attempt to hold the sand in place and prevent it from migrating. The grass did the job it was brought in to do. As it trapped sand in its deep roots, the dunes at the beachfront grew higher and steeper and less sand moved inland. But, like many attempts to control nature, this one had unintended consequences. Although dunes may look barren, they are actually reservoirs of biodiversity. "If you're a plant lover, the sand dunes are just spectacular," ...