Despite no lapses in the disinfection process recommended by the manufacturer being identified, specialized gastrointestinal endoscopes called duodenoscopes had bacterial contamination associated with an outbreak of a highly resistant strain of E coli at a hospital in Illinois, according to a study in the October 8 JAMA, a theme issue on infectious disease. The duodenoscope is different than that used for routine upper gastrointestinal endoscopy or colonoscopy. The procedure associated with these specialized scopes is endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), ...

Study participants who reported tobacco use or had higher levels of biomarkers of tobacco exposure had a higher prevalence of the sexually transmitted infection, oral human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16), according to a study in the October 8 JAMA, a theme issue on infectious disease. Oral HPV-16 is believed to be responsible for the increase in incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell cancers in the United States. An association between self-reported number of cigarettes currently smoked per day and oral HPV prevalence has been observed, according to background information ...

Johns Hopkins scientists have shown a strong association between tobacco use or exposure and infection with oral human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16), the sexually transmitted virus responsible for mouth and throat cancers worldwide. The numbers of such cancers have increased 225 percent in the United States over the past two decades. HPV16 is found in 80 percent of cancers located in the back of the throat and is transmitted through oral sex. "The practice of oral sex is common, but this cancer is rare. So there must be cofactors in the process that explain why some ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A decade ago, America's health care community took on heart attacks with gusto, harnessing the power of research and data to make sure that every patient got the best possible care. It worked: Death rates for heart attack have dropped. The same has happened with heart failure and pneumonia. Now, say a pair of University of Michigan Medical School experts, it's time to do the same for sepsis. Sepsis may not have the same name recognition as heart attacks -- but it now affects more hospital patients, and leads to more hospital costs, than any ...

An experimental vaccine to protect people against H7N9 avian influenza prompted immune responses in 59 percent of volunteers who received two injections at the lowest dosage tested, but only if the vaccine was mixed with adjuvant—a substance that boosts the body's response to vaccination. Without adjuvant, immune responses produced by the investigational vaccine were minimal regardless of vaccine dosage, according to findings from a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The ...

A large, NIH-sponsored clinical trial of an experimental H7N9 avian influenza vaccine found an immune response that was believed to be protective in 59 percent of study participants who received two injections of the inactivated vaccine at the lowest dosage tested when mixed with an adjuvant – a component that boosts the body's immune response and enhances the effectiveness of inactivated influenza vaccines. Participants who received a vaccine without the adjuvant had a minimal immune response. The results are published in the Journal of the American Medical ...

VIDEO: This video shows the sole of a shoe as it appears from different perspectives in rendering software. The shoe was placed upside down on an optical table (seen as flat... Click here for more information. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a laser-based imaging system that creates high-definition 3D maps of surfaces from as far away as 10.5 meters.* The method may be useful in diverse fields, including precision machining ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)—University of Utah biochemists have reported a new drug discovery tool against the Ebola virus. According to a study published in this week's online edition of Protein Science, they have produced a molecule, known as a peptide mimic, that displays a functionally critical region of the virus that is universally conserved in all known species of Ebola. This new tool can be used as a drug target in the discovery of anti-Ebola agents that are effective against all known strains and likely future strains. The University of Utah (U of U) work, which was ...

The link between low average glucose blood levels and greater risk for severe hypoglycemia and hypoglycemic coma substantially declined between 1995 and 2012 in young Germans and Austrians with type 1 diabetes, according to a study published by Beate Karges and colleagues from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers obtained measurements of average blood glucose levels (measured as HbA1c) and the incidents of severe hypoglycemia and hypoglycemic coma from 37,539 children and young adults with type 1 diabetes between 1995 and 2012 ...

Treatment with dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA), an oral chelation agent, was linked to reductions in the amount of lead in blood in young children in Zamfara State, Nigeria following environmental lead contamination, according to a study by Jane Greig and colleagues from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers report findings from an MSF program initiated in May 2010 to reduce lead poisoning in children following widespread environmental lead contamination due to gold mining in Zamfara State, Nigeria, leading to ...

A fundamental question in neurobiology is how animals, including humans, make decisions. A new study publishing in the open access journal PLOS Biology on October 7 reveals how fruit fly females make a very important decision: to either accept or reject male courtship. This decision appears to be generated by a very small number of excitatory neurons that use acetylcholine as their neurotransmitter located in three brain regions. This study provides the framework to understand how decisions are generated and suggests that a decision is reached because that option is literally ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have, for the first time, clearly defined the epidemiology of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), which occur primarily in the lining of the stomach and small intestine. One key finding: Patients of Asian descent, who have not previously been identified as an at-risk population, are 1.5 times more likely than other patient groups to be diagnosed with this type of tumor. Results of the study were published this week in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association ...

WASHINGTON (Oct. 7, 2014) — Nearly 20 percent of Americans have a disability, yet only 25 percent of medical schools include in their curricula caring for people with disabilities. Numerous reports have documented that people with disabilities have poorer health and receive inferior care. In a Narrative Matters essay published in Health Affairs, Leana Wen, M.D., director of patient-centered care research and assistant professor of emergency medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, shares her own experiences to highlight ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A molecule that helps cancer cells evade programmed self-destruction, an internal source of death, might also help malignant cells hide from the immune system, an external source of death. 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) shows that a molecule called nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) helps cancer cells by inhibiting the immune system's ability to detect and destroy them. The molecule regulates genes ...

DALLAS – Oct. 7, 2014 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found an "Achilles heel" in a metabolic pathway crucial to stopping the growth of lung cancer cells. At the heart of this pathway lies PPARγ (peroxisome proliferation-activated receptor gamma), a protein that regulates glucose and lipid metabolism in normal cells. Researchers demonstrated that by activating PPARγ with antidiabetic drugs in lung cancer cells, they could stop these tumor cells from dividing. "We found that activation of PPARγ causes a major metabolic ...

State policies can influence the number of physicians licensed to prescribe buprenorphine, a drug that can treat addiction to heroin and other opioids in outpatient settings, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Examining county-level numbers of physicians approved to prescribe buprenorphine, researchers found a significant link between the number of approved physicians and both specific state guidance regarding the use of buprenorphine and the distribution of clinical guidelines for buprenorphine treatment. The findings were published online by the Journal of ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Poor oral health and hygiene are increasingly recognized as major risk factors for pneumonia among the elderly. To identify modifiable oral health-related risk factors, lead researcher Toshimitsu Iinuma, Nihon University School of Dentistry, Japan, and a team of researchers prospectively investigated associations between a constellation of oral health behaviors and incidences of pneumonia in the community-living of elders 85 years of age or older. This study, titled "Denture Wearing During Sleep Doubles the Risk of Pneumonia in Very Elderly," ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. — Even among contemporary U.S. distance runners, men are still much more likely than women to have a competitive orientation, according to researchers at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. The findings were published in the online journal, Evolutionary Psychology at http://www.epjournal.net/articles/u-s-masters-track-participation-reveals-a-stable-sex-difference-in-competitiveness/ The new research, led by Robert Deaner, associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley State, shows that, on average, American men participate at ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a microRNA molecule as a surprisingly crucial player in managing cell survival and growth. The findings, published in the October 7 issue of Cell Metabolism, underscore the emerging recognition that non-coding RNAs – small molecules that are not translated into working proteins – help regulate basic cellular processes and may be key to developing new drugs and therapies. Specifically, principal investigator Albert R. La Spada, MD, PhD, professor of cellular and molecular ...

From AGU's blogs: Detecting avalanches from sounds we can't hear http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2014/10/07/detecting-avalanches-sounds-cant-hear/ Researchers have developed a new avalanche monitoring method that uses sound below the range of human hearing to detect and track these deadly and destructive snow slides. The technique can detect an avalanche from the moment it starts, picking up the unheard thump of a rupture in the snowpack that can precede the snow cascade. It can then track the avalanche's path second by second down the mountain. In a new study published ...

When kids say "the darnedest things," it's often in response to something they heard or saw. This sponge-like learning starts at birth, as infants begin to decipher the social world surrounding them long before they can speak. Now researchers at the University of Washington have found that children as young as 15 months can detect anger when watching other people's social interactions and then use that emotional information to guide their own behavior. The study, published in the October/November issue of the journal, Cognitive Development, is the first evidence that ...

LAWRENCE — Scientists have been laboring to detect cancer and a host of other diseases in people using promising new biomarkers called "exosomes." Indeed, Popular Science magazine named exosome-based cancer diagnostics one of the 20 breakthroughs that will shape the world this year. Exosomes could lead to less invasive, earlier detection of cancer, and sharply boost patients' odds of survival. "Exosomes are minuscule membrane vesicles — or sacs — released from most, if not all, cell types, including cancer cells," said Yong Zeng, assistant professor ...

You're obese, at risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and so motivated to improve your diet that you've enrolled in an intensive behavioral program. But if you need to travel more than a short distance to a store that offers a good selection of healthy food, your success may be limited. A new study from UMass Medical School and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health finds that not having close access to healthy foods can deter even the most motivated dieters from improving their diet, suggesting that easy access to healthy food is as important as personal ...

Imagine attempting to trace your genetic history using only information from your mother's side. That's what scientists studying the evolution of the red fox had been doing for decades. Now, University of California, Davis, researchers have for the first time investigated ancestry across the red fox genome, including the Y chromosome, or paternal line. The data, compiled for over 1,000 individuals from all over the world, expose some surprises about the origins, journey and evolution of the red fox, the world's most widely distributed land carnivore. "The genome and ...

Typhoon Vongfong strengthened into a Super typhoon on Tuesday, October 7 as NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead. On Oct. 7 at 0429 UTC (12:29 a.m. EDT) the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder called AIRS that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured cloud top temperature data on Super typhoon Vongfong. AIRS data very strong thunderstorms circling Vongfong's clear 27 nautical-mile wide eye. Those cloud top temperatures were colder than -62F/-53C indicating that they were high in the troposphere and capable of generating heavy rainfall. The bands of thunderstorms circling ...