New Haven, Conn. – An estimated half a million cancers were prevented by colorectal cancer screening in the United States from 1976 to 2009, report researchers from the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy, and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) Center at Yale Cancer Center. Their study appears in the journal Cancer. During this more than 30-year time span, as increasing numbers of men and women underwent cancer screening tests — including fecal occult blood testing, sigmoidoscopies, and colonoscopies — colorectal cancer rates declined significantly, the researchers found. The ...

Holidaymakers are being urged to use insect repellent to protect themselves against bites and the diseases they can spread, as trends show travel to tropical countries is rising among Britons. With the World Cup starting in Brazil next week and holiday season about to get under way, scientists from repellent testing facility arctec at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine today launch Bug Off - the first ever Insect Repellent Awareness Day to highlight the issue. They recommend applying repellents containing 20-50% DEET to the skin when in countries with ...

Fetuses are more likely to show left-handed movements in the womb when their mothers are stressed, according to new research. Researchers at Durham and Lancaster universities say their findings are an indicator that maternal stress could have a temporary effect on unborn babies, adding that their research highlights the importance of reducing stress during pregnancy. However, the researchers emphasised that their study was not evidence that maternal stress led to fixed left-handedness in infants after birth. They said that some people might be genetically predisposed ...

New research presented at this year's Euroanaesthesia meeting in Stockholm suggests that gender plays a part in pain experienced after surgery, with men feeling more pain following major surgery while women feel more pain after minor procedures. The study is by Dr Andreas Sandner-Kiesling, Dept of Anaesthesiology & Intensive Care, Medical University of Graz, Austria, and colleagues. "The influence of gender and sexes is a key issue of today's research in medicine. However, current literature in the field of perioperative medicine rarely focuses on this question," says ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – UNC School of Medicine researchers have provided the first quantitative evidence that mucins – the protein framework of mucus – are significantly increased in cystic fibrosis patients and play a major role in failing lung function. The research, published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, shows that a three-fold increase of mucins dramatically increases the water-draining power of the mucus layer. This hinders mucus clearance in the CF lung, resulting in infection, inflammation, and ultimately lung failure. "Our finding suggests that ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University and three other institutions have taken issue with recent claims that "the case is closed" on whether or not a multivitamin/mineral supplement should be taken by most people to help obtain needed micronutrients. In a correspondence to be published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the researchers reasoned that this type of dietary supplement helps fill nutritional gaps, improves general health, might help prevent chronic disease, will cause no harm and is easily worth the ...

Women age 55 or younger may fare worse than their male counterparts after having a heart attack, according to new research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014. Researchers studied records and interviews of 3,501 people (67 percent women) who had heart attacks in the United States and Spain in 2008-12. One year after their heart attack, women were more likely than men to have: Poorer physical functioning Poorer mental functioning Lower quality of life More chest pain Worse physical limitations "Previous ...

Hispanics have reduced the gap with whites in taking prescribed heart medicines since the 2006 launch of Medicare's prescription drug benefit called Medicare Part D, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research 2014 Scientific Sessions. Researchers reviewed prescription drug data from the national Medical Expenditure Panel for African-American and Hispanic Medicare recipients to find trends in medication adherence in the four years after the launch of Medicare Part D (2001-10). After Part D, adherence rates ...

PITTSBURGH, June 2, 2014 – The federal government could save over $5 billion in the first year by changing the way the government assigns Part D plans for Medicare beneficiaries eligible for low-income subsidies, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. The results of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will be published in the June issue of the journal Health Affairs. Medicare Part D provides assistance to beneficiaries below 150 ...

ANN ARBOR—If all eye doctors prescribed the less expensive of two drugs to treat two common eye diseases of older adults, taxpayer-funded Medicare plans could save $18 billion over a 10-year period, say researchers at the University of Michigan. Further, patients with the wet form of macular degeneration or who have diabetic macular edema could keep $4.6 billion in co-pays in their wallets, and the rest of the U.S. health care system could save $29 billion in private insurance payments and other costs, according to the team led by David Hutton, assistant professor of ...

Bottom Line: The percentage of physicians making campaign contributions in federal elections increased to 9.4 percent in 2012 from 2.6 percent in 1991, and during that time physician contributors shifted away from Republicans toward Democrats, especially in specialties dominated by women or those that are traditionally lower paying such as pediatrics. Author: Adam Bonica, Ph.D., of Stanford University, California, and colleagues. Background: Few analyses have been done regarding the political behavior of American physicians, especially as the numbers of women physicians ...

Bottom Line: One in 8 American children (12.5 percent) is estimated to experience a confirmed case of maltreatment before age 18, and the cumulative prevalence is highest for black children (1 in 5) and Native American children (1 in 7). Author: Christopher Wildeman, Ph.D., of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and colleagues. Background: Childhood maltreatment (the neglect and physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children) is associated with negative physical, mental and social outcomes. A disparity exists between estimates of the prevalence based on retrospective ...

Bottom Line: Researchers found no evidence of an "obesity paradox" (some studies have suggested overweight or obese patients have lower mortality rates than underweight or normal weight patients) in patients with stroke. Author: Christian Dehlendorff, M.S., Ph.D., of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues. Background: Obesity often is associated with increased health related complications and death. But some studies have suggested an obesity paradox that may cause some to question striving for a normal weight. How the Study ...

BOSTON -- Young adults who lack health care insurance are more likely to be diagnosed in advanced stages of cancer and have a higher risk of death, according to a study from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) and Harvard Medical School. Consequently, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, may improve cancer outcomes in young adults as it expands coverage to many who have been uninsured, said first author Ayal Aizer, MD, MHS, of the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program and senior author Paul Nguyen, MD, of Radiation Oncology at DF/BWCC in a report ...

By the time they reach age 18, about 12% of American children experience a confirmed case of maltreatment in the form of neglect, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, according to a new study by researchers at Yale University. The numbers are even more sobering for black and Native American children, with one in five black children and one in seven Native American children experiencing maltreatment during the time period studied. The results are published in the June 2 issue of the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The authors estimated the cumulative prevalence of confirmed ...

OAKLAND, Calif. June 2, 2014 – Patients with specific HER2+ breast cancer tumors had a low risk of the cancer recurring five years after diagnosis, even without chemotherapy or treatment with a common antibody, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Researchers reviewed 16,975 cases of breast cancer diagnosed in Kaiser Permanente patients between 2000 and 2006. They found that for patients with the smallest HER2+ tumors (0.5 centimeters or less) who did not receive treatment with the antibody trastuzumab or chemotherapy, ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Aphids are devastating insect pests and cause great losses to agriculture worldwide. These sap-feeding plant pests harbor in their body cavity bacteria, which are essential for the aphids' fecundity and survival. Buchnera, the bacterium, benefits also because it cannot grow outside the aphid. This mutually beneficial relationship is sabotaged, however, by the bacterium which proceeds to betray the aphid, a research team led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside has found. "Although this betrayal is unintentional, it nevertheless ...

LEBANON, NH (June 2, 2014) – In spite of early concerns that hospitals' economic strengths would lead them to dominate the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a new study published in the June issue of Health Affairs reveals the central role of physician leadership in the first wave of ACOs. "The broad reach of physician leadership in ACOs has important implications for the future of health care reform", said Carrie Colla, PhD, lead investigator of the study. "A central role for physicians in the leadership of ACOs is likely to have a powerful influence ...

A new Yale-led study challenges the long-held assumption that climate is the primary driver of how quickly organic matter decomposes in different regions, a key piece of information used in formulating climate models. In a long-term analysis conducted across several sites in the eastern United States, a team of researchers found that local factors — from levels of fungal colonization to the specific physical locations of the wood — play a far greater role than climate in wood decomposition rates and the subsequent impacts on regional carbon cycling. Because decomposition ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — A widely available dietary supplement that had been considered safe — and that some claim provides anti-aging and other health benefits — caused significant developmental abnormalities in the pancreas of offspring of pregnant monkeys who were given the supplement, according to a study published today in the FASEB Journal, from the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology. Because of the results, authors of the study strongly recommend that pregnant women or women who might get pregnant avoid taking the supplement. The supplement contains ...

Mucin concentration contributes to a sticky situation in cystic fibrosis Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) accumulate thick, sticky mucus in the lungs that clogs the airways and leads to life-threatening lung infections. It has recently been proposed that differing concentrations of mucin with in mucus layers of the CF lung contribute to decreased mucus clearance; however, it has been challenging to accurately access mucin concentration. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Mehmet Kesimer and colleagues at the University of North Carolina applied size ...

Some 56 million years ago, a massive pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere sent global temperatures soaring. In the oceans, carbonate sediments dissolved, some organisms went extinct and others evolved. Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification played a part in the crisis—similar to today, as manmade CO2 combines with seawater to change its chemistry. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the extent of surface acidification from those ancient days, and the news is not good: the oceans are on track to acidify at least as much as they did ...

In the coming Atlantic hurricane season, watch out for hurricanes with benign-sounding names like Dolly, Fay or Hanna. According to a new article from a team of researchers at the University of Illinois, hurricanes with feminine names are likely to cause significantly more deaths than hurricanes with masculine names, apparently because storms with feminine names are perceived as less threatening. An analysis of more than six decades of death rates from U.S. hurricanes shows that severe hurricanes with a more feminine name result in a greater death toll, simply because ...

TEMPE, Ariz. — During the past few decades, the field of biology has dramatically expanded, incorporating many diverse sub-disciplines and specialty areas such as microbiology and evolutionary biology. However, teaching biology to undergraduate students has not kept pace with the changes, and core biology curriculum varies widely from university to university, and classroom to classroom. In an effort to both capture the diversity of biology and condense what is taught, an Arizona State University researcher is leading a grassroots effort to improve biology education throughout ...

Athens, Ga. – The promise of affordable transportation fuels from biomass—a sustainable, carbon neutral route to American energy independence—has been left perpetually on hold by the economics of the conversion process. New research from the University of Georgia has overcome this hurdle allowing the direct conversion of switchgrass to fuel. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, documents the direct conversion of biomass to biofuel without pre-treatment, using the engineered bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii. Pre-treatment ...