NEW YORK, March 15, 2015 - Most physicians are aware of the importance of lifestyle factors in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) -- and believe diet is as important as statin therapy and exercise, according to a new survey from NYU Langone Medical Center. Researchers found that a majority of doctors would welcome additional training in diet and nutrition so that they can effectively inform patients on the subject. The study will be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session as a poster presentation. The 28-question online survey, ...

NEW YORK, March 4, 2015 - Air pollution has been linked to a dangerous narrowing of neck arteries that occurs prior to strokes, according to researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center. The scientists analyzed medical test records for more than 300,000 people living in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. They found that people living in zip codes with the highest average levels of fine-particulate-matter pollution were significantly more likely to show signs of narrowing (stenosis) in their internal carotid arteries, compared to those living in zip codes with the lowest ...

March 16, 2015, New York, NY - Exploring the fundamental mechanism by which a cell-surface receptor transmits its signal, an international team of Ludwig researchers and their colleagues has established proof of concept for an entirely new approach to drug design. They report that a class of synthetic molecules known as diabodies can, from outside the cell, latch onto a target receptor and manipulate it in such a manner as to induce distinct and varying effects within cells and tissues. Led by Christopher Garcia of Ludwig Stanford, the researchers show in lab experiments ...

Carnivorous plants have strange-shaped leaves, and they can grow on nutrient-poor environments by trapping and eating small animals. Charles Darwin, often called "the father of evolution", was also interested in carnivorous plants, and he wrote a book titled "Insectivorous Plants" published in 1875. Since then a lot of researches have been done, but how such strange-shaped leaves were altered during evolution remained unknown. A research team in Japan has revealed how carnivorous pitcher leaves are formed in Sarracenia purpurea, a carnivorous plant native to North America. ...

Establishing protected areas in forests is one way to keep deforestation at bay and safeguard biodiversity. However, a study led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has revealed that such a measure is ineffective in the case of biodiversity-focused protected areas in Indonesia. The research, led by Assistant Professor Roman Carrasco of the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science and Assistant Professor Alex Cook of NUS' Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, found that the monitoring and prevention of road construction ...

According to a meta-analysis published in BMC Family Practice, high dose zinc acetate lozenges may help shorten diverse symptoms associated with the common cold. The common cold is an infection caused by over a hundred viruses, and it is a major cause of days off school or work and visits to a doctor. A previous meta-analysis of three randomized trials found that high dose zinc acetate lozenges shorten the duration of colds by 42%. Since all of the three studies reported the duration of diverse respiratory symptoms and of systemic symptoms such as muscle ache and headache, ...

To increase the biomass of fish, contemporary ecological theory predicts that either the amount of food or the quality of the food has to increase. In a recent experiment, researchers at Umeå University doubled the fish biomass under identical food supply and food quality by only controlling how much of total food supply that was channelled to juvenile and adult fish, respectively. The results have major implications for the exploitation (harvest) of fish populations and the coexistence of predatory fish and their prey. To increase the biomass of a population, contemporary ...

A means of reprogramming a flawed immune response into an efficient anti-tumoral one was brought to light by the results of a translational trial relating to breast cancer. Thanks to the innovative combination of mathematical modelisation and experimentation, only 20 tests were necessary, whereas traditional experimentation would have required 596 tests to obtain the same results. The study was jointly conducted by Doctor Marie-Agnès Doucey (Experimental oncology, Centre Ludwig de l'UNIL pour la recherche sur le cancer), Professor Ioannis Xenarios (UNIL, SIB, Vital-IT) ...

The Menetries's tiger moth (Borearctia menetriesii) is the most rare and enigmatic representative among the Palearctic Arctiinae. During an expedition in almost inaccessible wild taiga area of Eastern Siberia, Russian scientists had the luck to encounter it. During their studies they also recorded feeding larva of this mysterious species on a native devil's helmet host plant for the first time. The study was published in the open access journal Nota Lepidopterologica. The Menetries's tiger moth (Borearctia menetriesii) is the most rare and enigmatic representative among ...

Amsterdam, March 16, 2015 - Elsevier journal Maturitas, today announced the publication of a position statement by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) covering the ten- point guide to the integral management of menopausal health. This has been written to mark the 10th EMAS Congress in Madrid May 20-22, 2015. With increased longevity and more women becoming centenarians, management of the menopause and post-reproductive health is of growing importance as it has the potential to help promote health over several decades. Women have individual needs and the ...

The studies below will be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session the morning of Saturday, March 14. 1. Depression May Influence Cardiovascular Outcomes A new study adds to the evidence that depression may influence cardiovascular outcomes, prompting authors to call on cardiologists to pay closer attention to depression when managing patients with heart disease. Researchers at Care Institute of Medical Sciences in India found depression to be independently associated with a greater chance of cardiovascular death and lower quality ...

Patients with symptoms of heart disease have similar outcomes in terms of death and major cardiac conditions regardless of whether they undergo a functional stress test or a computed tomographic scan, but the scan may be better at ruling out the need for subsequent tests and procedures in patients who are free of heart disease, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session in San Diego. The PROMISE trial is the first-ever randomized controlled trial to compare clinical outcomes in patients receiving functional stress ...

SAN DIEGO (March 14, 2015) -- Adding the antiplatelet drug ticagrelor to aspirin as long-term therapy after a heart attack significantly reduced the rate of subsequent death from cardiovascular causes, heart attack or stroke, with the benefit appearing to accrue for nearly three years, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session. The double-blind PEGASUS-TIMI 54 trial recruited 21,162 patients who had experienced a heart attack in the previous one to three years. Each had another factor, such as age or diabetes, ...

SAN DIEGO (March 14, 2015) -- A study comparing the overall economics of computed tomographic angiography with functional stress tests for evaluating patients with symptoms suggestive of possible blocked coronary arteries found no significant differences in costs over three years. The study was presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session. Although the angiography, scans of the heart referred to as CT angiography, initially appeared to provide some cost savings, this didn't hold up once the costs of subsequent testing and procedures ...

The studies below will be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session the afternoon of Saturday, March 14. 1. Energy Drink Shown to Raise Resting Blood Pressure Medical reports have linked energy drink consumption to adverse cardiac events such as changes in heart rhythm, heart attacks and even deaths in otherwise healthy people. To investigate how energy drinks affect the heart, researchers alternately gave a can of commercially available energy drink or a placebo drink to 25 healthy young adults (age 19-40 years) and assessed changes ...

Scientists of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory have taken to kites that they fly above lava flows blanketing the Hawaiian landscape to unravel the past mysteries that shaped Mars. A kite, equipped with off-the-shelf instruments such as a camera, a GPS, and orientation sensors, scans the terrain from high above. The team then employs parallel computing and powerful software algorithms to assemble tens of thousands of images into extremely detailed and accurate 3D digital terrain models. In terms of studying volcanic landscapes, the project is ...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 16, 2015)-- As the nation's headlines turn more and more to issues of tolerance -- race, religion, free speech, same sex marriage -- research by San Diego State University Psychology Professor Jean M. Twenge shows that Americans are actually more tolerant than ever before. In a paper released this month by the journal Social Forces, Twenge, along with Nathan T. Carter and Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia, found that Americans are now more likely to believe that people with different views and lifestyles can and should have the same ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Some of social media's greatest stars aren't even old enough to tweet: Pictures of kids playing dress up, having meltdowns and even in the bathtub adorn Facebook walls. Diaper-donning toddlers dancing to the likes of Beyonce and Taylor Swift rack up YouTube views. Countless blogs share stories about everything from potty training to preschool struggles. Today's University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health finds that this so-called "sharenting" isn't going anywhere anytime soon, with more than half of mothers ...

After many years of speculation, it has finally been established that hydrazine is not a prevalent contaminant in contemporary smokeless tobacco products (STPs). The presence of hydrazine has only been reported once in a limited sample of cigarette tobacco and tobacco smoke some 40 years ago1. But this study has been cited many times as evidence that hydrazine is present in smokeless tobacco products. To date, no one has examined STPs for its presence. Hydrazine is found in maleic hydrazine, which is used as a sucker growth inhibitor on tobacco crops - suckers are ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Increasingly high prices for cancer drugs are affecting patient care in the U.S. and the American health care system overall, say the authors of a special article published online in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. "Americans with cancer pay 50 percent to 100 percent more for the same patented drug than patients in other countries," says S. Vincent Rajkumar, M.D., of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, who is one of the authors. "As oncologists we have a moral obligation to advocate for affordable cancer drugs for our patients." Dr. Rajkumar and his colleague, ...

In a world first, a research team including James Cook University scientists has discovered how geckos manage to stay clean, even in dusty deserts. The process, described in Interface, the prestigious journal of the Royal Society, may also turn out to have important human applications. JCU's Professor Lin Schwarzkopf said the group found that tiny droplets of water on geckos, for instance from condensing dew, come into contact with hundreds of thousands of extremely small hair-like spines that cover the animals' bodies. "If you have seen how drops of water roll ...

A rare and threatened Caribbean coral species has for the first time been successfully bred and raised in the lab, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Ecology. The study provides the first photos and documentation of juveniles of this species, and could provide information to help bolster local coral reef conservation. The team also plans to 'out-plant' these lab-grown juveniles in the wild which could help populations become more resilient to climate change. The findings will be presented in a talk at the annual TED Conference in Vancouver ...

New research has discredited the popular belief that street lighting is attractive to common bats. The study, carried out by scientists from the University of Exeter and Bat Conservation Ireland, found that bat activity was generally lower in street-lit areas than in dark locations with similar habitat. The findings have important implications for conservation, overturning the previous assumption that common bats benefited from street-lights because they could feed on the insects that congregated around them. The research, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions ...

Sunday, March 15, 2015, San Diego: Elderly patients once considered too frail or tool sick for aortic valve replacement surgery are living longer, with better quality of life, following a minimally invasive surgery, compared to patients who did not undergo surgery, according a study published in The Lancet today. Researchers at 21 medical centers followed 358 patients with severe aortic stenosis for five years. The patients, with a mean age of 83, were evenly divided into two study groups - one that underwent minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) ...

New Haven, Conn. -- In the first multicenter trial of its kind, Yale researchers tested a new device that lowers the risk of stroke and cognitive decline in patients undergoing heart-valve replacement. The preliminary findings of the DEFLECT III trial were presented by Alexandra Lansky, M.D., associate professor of medicine (cardiology) at Yale School of Medicine, on March 15 at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session in San Diego, CA. Stroke is a devastating complication of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a minimally invasive ...