Former Arizona Cardinals NFL player, and Pro-Player Health Alliance Sleep Apnea Awareness Advocate, Mark Walczak, undergoes a live public sleep study presented by the American Sleep and Breathing Academy to help raise awareness for sleep disorder treatment and education. ASBA's first public sleep study will be webcast alongside a clinical rotation for sleep health professionals and will be open for observation by registered attendees of the American Sleep & Breathing Academy's Sleep and Wellness 2014: A Conference for Healthcare Professionals, held at the Radisson Ft. ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Imaging of the coronary arteries with computed tomography (CT) angiography provides an accurate assessment of arterial plaque and could have a dramatic impact on the management of diabetic patients who face a high risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular events, according to a new multicenter study published online in the journal Radiology. Plaque that forms in the arterial walls can restrict blood flow and, in some cases, rupture, leading to potentially fatal heart attacks. There is considerable evidence that calcified, or stable, plaque, is less ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a leading cause of respiratory failure after surgery. Patients who develop the lung disorder postoperatively are at higher risk of dying in the hospital, and those who survive the syndrome may still bear its physical effects years later. A Mayo Clinic-led study is helping physicians better identify patients most at risk, the first step toward preventing this dangerous and costly surgical complication. They found nine independent risk factors, including sepsis, high-risk aortic vascular surgery, high-risk cardiac ...

Manure from dairy cows, which is commonly used as a farm soil fertilizer, contains a surprising number of newly identified antibiotic resistance genes from the cows' gut bacteria. The findings, reported in mBio® the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, hints that cow manure is a potential source of new types of antibiotic resistance genes that transfer to bacteria in the soils where food is grown. Thousands of antibiotic resistance (AR) genes have already been identified, but the vast majority of them don't pose a problem when found in ...

1. Health care leaders and advocates call for patient-centered 'revolution' in medical education Patients and families should be included in the training environment not only as the recipients of care, but also as teachers and evaluators of residents and students, according to a new commentary being published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “Patients and families can provide invaluable insights and perspectives for changing and improving physician training programs,” says lead author Steven E. Weinberger, MD, FACP, executive vice president and chief executive officer ...

PHILADELPHIA – For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that narrowing of the carotid artery in the neck without any symptoms may be linked to problems in learning, memory, thinking and decision-making, compared to people with similar risk factors but no narrowing in the neck artery, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014. "To date, the focus of diagnosis and management of carotid artery blockages has been prevention of stroke since that was ...

Bottom Line: A third of Medicare beneficiaries assigned to accountable care organizations (ACOs) in 2010 or 2011 were not assigned to the same ACO in both years and much of the specialty care received was provided outside the patients' assigned ACO, suggesting challenges to achieving organizational accountability in Medicare. Author: J. Michael McWilliams, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues. Background: ACOs are intended to foster greater accountability in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program by ...

Bottom Line: Mammograms with false-positive results were associated with increased short-term anxiety for women, and more women with false-positive results reported that they were more likely to undergo future breast cancer screening. Author: Anna N.A. Tosteson, Sc.D., of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Lebanon, N.H., and colleagues. Background: A portion of women who undergo routine mammogram screening will experience false-positive results and require further evaluation to rule out breast cancer. How the Study Was Conducted: The ...

There appears to be an increased prevalence of celiac disease among children with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Recurrent abdominal pain affects 10 percent to 15 percent of school-aged children. The prevalence of celiac disease is as high as 1 percent in European countries and patients can present with a wide spectrum of symptoms, including abdominal pain, although the disease is often asymptomatic. The authors assessed the prevalence of celiac disease in 992 children with abdominal pain-related disorders: IBS, functional dyspepsia (indigestion) and functional abdominal ...

Parts of ancient Antarctica were as warm as today's California coast, and polar regions of the southern Pacific Ocean registered 21st-century Florida heat, according to scientists using a new way to measure past temperatures. The findings, published the week of April 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscore the potential for increased warmth at Earth's poles and the associated risk of melting polar ice and rising sea levels, the researchers said. Led by scientists at Yale, the study focused on Antarctica during the Eocene epoch, 40-50 million ...

PHILADELPHIA - When we get sick it feels natural to try to hasten our recovery by getting some extra shuteye. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that this response has a definite purpose, in fruitflies: enhancing immune system response and recovery to infection. Their findings appear online in two related papers in the journal Sleep, in advance of print editions in May and June. "It's an intuitive response to want to sleep when you get sick," notes Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology research associate Julie ...

What looked at first like a sort of upside-down planet has instead revealed a new method for studying binary star systems, discovered by a University of Washington student astronomer. Working with UW astronomer Eric Agol, doctoral student Ethan Kruse has confirmed the first "self-lensing" binary star system — one in which the mass of the closer star can be measured by how powerfully it magnifies light from its more distant companion star. Though our sun stands alone, about 40 percent of similar stars are in binary (two-star) or multi-star systems, orbiting their companions ...

PHILADELPHIA - Nonsteroidal antinflamatory drugs (NSAIDs) that block an enzyme called COX-2 relieve pain and inflammation but can cause heart attacks, stroke, heart failure, and even sudden cardiac death. This has prompted a decade-plus search for safer, but still effective, alternatives to these commonly prescribed, pain-relieving drugs. Building on previous work that showed that deleting an enzyme in the COX-2 pathway in a mouse model of heart disease slowed the development of atherosclerosis, a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania ...

Cancer researchers have discovered a new 'dustman' role for a molecule that helps a drug kill cancer cells according to a study*, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), today (Monday). The new findings point to a possible test that could identify patients who would be most responsive to a new class of cancer drugs and also those who might develop resistance, as well as suggesting new approaches to discovering more effective drugs. The study, by Cancer Research UK-funded scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, shows ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A team of scientists has successfully identified the age of 120,000-year-old Antarctic ice using radiometric krypton dating – a new technique that may allow them to locate and date ice that is more than a million years old. The ability to discover ancient ice is critical, the researchers say, because it will allow them to reconstruct the climate much farther back into Earth's history and potentially understand the mechanisms that have triggered the planet to shift into and out of ice ages. Results of the discovery are being published this week in the ...

The process of metastasis – a tumor's ability to spread to other parts of the body – is still poorly understood. It is not easy to determine whether metastasis began early or late in the development of the primary tumor or whether individual metastatic sites were seeded directly from the original tumor or from an intermediate site. Now a research team has developed a simple assay that can reveal the evolutionary relationships among various tumor sites within a patient, information that may someday help with treatment planning. "If we could build a 'family tree' of all ...

Scientists have shown new genetic evidence that could strengthen the link between the role of dietary fats with colon cancer progression. The study, led by Arizona State University researcher and physician Dr. Raymond DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., has identified a molecular culprit, called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta (PPAR delta), which, when deleted in a mouse model of colon cancer, stopped key steps required for the initiation and progression of tumor growth. "This study has shown without a doubt there is a new function for a key molecule, PPAR delta, ...

A geostatistical approach for studying environmental conditions in stream networks and landscapes has been successfully applied at a valley-wide scale to assess headwater stream chemistry at high resolution, revealing unexpected patterns in natural chemical components. "Headwater streams make up the majority of stream and river length in watersheds, affecting regional water quality," said Assistant Professor Kevin J. McGuire, associate director of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center in Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment. "However, the ...

For the first time, researchers have studied the Black Death bacterium's entire family tree to fully understand how some of the family members evolve to become harmful. Contrary to popular belief, the team found pathogenic members of this bacterial family do not share a recent common disease-causing ancestor, but instead, have followed parallel evolutionary paths to become harmful. The Yersinia family of bacteria has many sub species, some of which are harmful and others not. Two of the most feared members of this bacterial family are Yersinia pestis, the bacterium ...

PITTSBURGH, April 21, 2014 – Malfunctions in the molecular "proofreading" machinery, which repairs structural errors in DNA caused by ultraviolet (UV) light damage, help explain why people who have the disease xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) are at an extremely high risk for developing skin cancer, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI). Their findings will be published this week in the early online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Previous research ...

(PHILADELPHIA) – Despite decades of common use for surgeries of all kinds, the precise mechanism through which general anesthesia works on the body remains a mystery. This may come as a surprise to the millions of Americans who receive inhaled general anesthesia each year. New research led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania investigated the common anesthetic sevoflurane and found that it binds at multiple key cell membrane protein locations that may contribute to the induction of the anesthetic response. Their findings will appear online ...

On Earth Week--and in fact, every week now--trees in mountains across the western United States are dying, thanks to an infestation of bark beetles that reproduce in the trees' inner bark. Some species of the beetles, such as the mountain pine beetle, attack and kill live trees. Others live in dead, weakened or dying hosts. In Colorado alone, the mountain pine beetle has caused the deaths of more than 3.4 million acres of pine trees. What effect do all these dead trees have on stream flow and water quality? Plenty, according to new research findings reported this ...

A team of scientists, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has successfully used a new technique to confirm the age of a 120,000-year-old sample of Antarctic ice. The new dating system is expected to allow scientists to identify ice that is much older, thereby reconstructing climate much farther back into Earth's history and potentially leading to an understanding of the mechanisms that cause the planet to shift into and out of ice ages. The use of a radiometric-Krypton-dating technique on ice from Antarctica's Taylor Glacier was documented in a paper published ...

Scientists are facing a number of barriers as they try to develop circuits that are microscopic in size, including how to reliably control the current that flows through a circuit that is the width of a single molecule. Alexander Shestopalov, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Rochester, has done just that, thereby taking us one step closer to nanoscale circuitry. "Until now, scientists have been unable to reliably direct a charge from one molecule to another," said Shestopalov. "But that's exactly what we need to do when working with ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A small gene that is embedded in a larger, well-known gene is the true leukemia-promoting force usually attributed to the larger gene, according to a new study by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). The findings are published in the journal Science Signaling. The larger host gene is called BAALC (pronounced "Ball C"). The smaller embedded gene is called microRNA-3151 (miR-3151). The study investigated the degree to which each ...