Among adults in the African country of Malawi offered HIV self-testing, optional home initiation of care compared with standard HIV care resulted in a significant increase in the proportion of adults initiating antiretroviral therapy, according to a study in the July 23/30 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on HIV/AIDS. The issue is being released early to coincide with the International AIDS Conference. In 2012, an estimated 35 million individuals were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) worldwide. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) substantially reduces the risk ...

Among heterosexual African couples in which the male was HIV positive and the female was not, receipt of antiretroviral pre-exposure preventive (PrEP) therapy did not result in significant differences in pregnancy incidence, birth outcomes, and infant growth compared to females who received placebo, according to a study in the July 23/30 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on HIV/AIDS. The authors note that these findings do not provide a definitive conclusion regarding the safety of PrEP therapy prior to pregnancy. The issue is being released early to coincide with the International ...

In a preliminary study, HIV-infected patients with excess abdominal fat who received the growth hormone-releasing hormone analog tesamorelin for 6 months experienced modest reductions in liver fat, according to a study in the July 23/30 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on HIV/AIDS. Patients infected with HIV demonstrate a high prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, estimated at 30 percent to 40 percent. The issue is being released early to coincide with the International AIDS Conference. In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, abdominal fat accumulation ...

LSTM Researchers found that offering adults in Malawi optional home initiation of care following HIV self-testing resulted in a significant increase in the proportion of adults initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) compared with standard HIV care. The results are part of a study that was funded by the Wellcome Trust and published in the July 23/30 issue of JAMA, which is HIV/AIDS themed and released early to coincide with the International AIDS Conference taking place in Melbourne, Australia next week. In 2012 it was estimated that 35 million people worldwide were living ...

A multicenter team of researchers report that in a phase III clinical trial, a combination drug therapy cures chronic hepatitis C in the majority of patients co-infected with both HIV and hepatitis C. "In many settings, hepatitis C is now a leading cause of death among HIV co-infected patients," says Mark Sulkowski, M.D., medical director of the Johns Hopkins Infectious Disease Center for Viral Hepatitis and professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Approximately one-third of HIV patients in the United States have hepatitis C, with an estimated ...

Manhassett, NY – Investigators at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have utilized a new image-based strategy to identify and measure placebo effects in randomized clinical trials for brain disorders. The findings are published in the August issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the US. Those who suffer from Parkinson's disease most often experience tremors, slowness of movement (bradykinesia), rigidity, and impaired balance and coordination. Patients may have difficulty walking, ...

A performance improvement initiative for physicians can significantly increase their use of evidence-based practices in screening for and treating depression, in the July Journal of Psychiatric Practice. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Led by Dr Michael E. Thase of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, the researchers evaluated a performance improvement continuing medical education (PI CME) program to increase physicians' use of practices that have been shown to improve diagnosis and care for depression. ...

Strong thunderstorms reaching toward the top of the troposphere circled Tropical Storm Matmo's center and appeared in a band of thunderstorms on the storm's southwestern quadrant. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed very cold temperatures that indicated the high cloud tops in the powerful storms. Tropical cyclones consist of hundreds of thunderstorms. When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Matmo on July 17 at 16:59 UTC (12:59 p.m. EDT) on July 17, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument obtained infrared data on the tropical cyclone. ...

Results from a clinical trial show that high doses of the corticosteroid fluticasone propionate safely and effectively induce remission in many people with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic inflammatory disease of the esophagus characterized by high levels of white blood cells called eosinophils. However, some trial participants did not respond to fluticasone even after six months of high-dose treatments, providing evidence that certain people with EoE are steroid-resistant. By analyzing gene expression—the degree to which certain genes are turned on or off—in esophageal ...

When a patient talks with a psychological therapist, what changes occur in the patient's brain that relieve mental disorders? UCLA psychology professor Michelle Craske says the honest answer is that we don't know. But, according to Craske and two colleagues, we need to find out. Mental health disorders — such as depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder and eating disorders — affect 1 in 4 people worldwide. Psychological treatments "hold the strongest evidence base for addressing many such conditions," but they need improvement, ...

In January of 2009, Barack Obama assumed the U.S. presidency in the midst of the most severe recession since the great depression of the 1930s. While many Americans hoped the new administration would take an active role in providing relief for those harmed by the economic collapse, a "Tea Party" movement emerged to oppose Obama's agenda. University of Notre Dame political sociologist Rory McVeigh, whose study, "Educational Segregation, Tea Party Organizations, and Battles over Distributive Justice," was recently published in the American Sociological Review, says "The ...

July 17, 2014, New Haven, CT – Yale Cancer Center researchers used a new molecular analysis tool to accurately detect the level of an important target for immunotherapy in early-stage breast cancers. The diagnostic test, using RNAScope, measures the amount of PD-L1 (programmed death ligand 1) mRNA in routine formalin-fixed cancer tissues and is devoid of many of the technical issues that plague antibody-based detection methods that have yielded conflicting results in the past. PD-L1 is the target of several novel immune stimulatory therapies in clinical trials. The findings ...

Putnam Valley, NY. (July 18th 2014) – The long-term, positive benefits of transplanted allogenic (other-donated) smooth muscle cells (SMCs) to repair cardiac tissues after myocardial infarction (MI) have been enhanced by the addition of interleukin 10 (IL-10) to the transplanted cells, report researchers in Canada. Their study with rats modeled with MI has shown that SMCs modified with IL-10 - a small, anti-inflammatory protein - benefitted cell survival, improved heart function, and also provided protection against the host's rejection of the allogenic SMCs. The study ...

The world is mostly neutral. That is, most of the atoms in our environment are electrically neutral. The number of electrons in the outer parts of atoms equals the number of protons at the centers of atoms. As one or more electrons are plucked away from the atoms, the remaining electrons feel a much stronger positive pull from the nucleus. This enhanced pull, causing the atoms to shrink in size, ensures that those electrons are less vulnerable to the distractions of their environment, making them potentially valuable for next-generation atomic clocks, for quantum information ...

Although countries with high levels of economic development generally have more personal automobile travel than less-affluent nations, income is not the only factor that determines a nation's demand for cars, according to a new study. Examining factors that may influence personal automobile use in developing nations, researchers found that government policies such as taxes that keep fuel costs high and the development of road systems can have important influence on levels of automobile travel. Shaping the personal use of automobiles is an important issue in developing ...

MIAMI – A Florida-based marine research team has developed a unique formal process and modeling framework to help manage South Florida's economically important coastal marine environments. The MARES project (Marine and Estuarine Goal Setting), led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) based at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, successfully integrated both ecosystem science and societal benefits into a marine ecosystem support tool to ...

New research provides an intriguing glimpse into the processes that establish connections between nerve cells in the brain. These connections, or synapses, allow nerve cells to transmit and process information involved in thinking and moving the body. Reporting online in Neuron, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a group of proteins that program a common type of brain nerve cell to connect with another type of nerve cell in the brain. The finding is an important step forward in efforts to learn how the developing brain ...

This news release is available in Portuguese. This news release is available in Portuguese. The identification of the genes and proteins involved in a biological process, as well as the way they interact, are essential for the understanding of that process. However, often little is known about the dimensions of molecular biological structures. Knowing how many molecules make up a structure and are required for its function are essential for our understanding of biological mechanisms. Yet, quantifying molecules of infinitesimal size poses a difficult challenge. ...

The mystery behind the movements of flocking starlings could be explained by the areas of light and dark created as they fly, new research suggests. The research, conducted by the University of Warwick and published in the journal PNAS, found that flocking starlings aim to maintain an optimum density at which they can gather data on their surroundings. This occurs when they can see light through the flock at many angles, a state known as marginal opacity. The subsequent pattern of light and dark, formed as the birds attempt to achieve the necessary density, is what provides ...

Bethesda, MD (July 18, 2014) — Dietary elimination is a successful method of treatment for adults with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), according to a new study1 in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. "By eliminating specific foods from patients' diets, symptoms improved in 71 percent of patients, and endoscopic appearance improved in 54 percent," said lead study author, W. Asher Wolf, MD, MPH, and co-author Evan S. Dellon, MD, MPH, from the division of gastroenterology and hepatology, ...

BOSTON – Aspirin is the gold standard for antiplatelet therapy and a daily low-dose aspirin is widely prescribed for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Now, a new study suggests that common genetic variation in the gene for catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) may modify the cardiovascular benefit of aspirin, and in some people, may confer slight harm. The findings, led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) appear online in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and ...

The tiny plastic particles polluting our seas are not only orally ingested by marine creatures, but also enter their systems through their gills, according to a new study led by the University of Exeter. Scientists also discovered that when microplastics are drawn in through this method they take over six times longer to leave the body compared with standard digestion. Lead author Dr Andrew Watts of the University of Exeter said: "Many studies on microplastics only consider ingestion as a route of uptake into animals. The results we have just published stress other ...

The 1500 mile Appalachian mountain chain runs along a nearly straight line from Alabama to Newfoundland—except for a curious bend in Pennsylvania and New York State. Researchers from the College of New Jersey and the University of Rochester now know what caused that bend—a dense, underground block of rigid, volcanic rock forced the chain to shift eastward as it was forming millions of years ago. According to Cindy Ebinger, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester, scientists had previously known about the volcanic rock structure under ...

Learning the role of immune-system cells in healthy digestive tracts and how they interact with neighboring nerve cells may lead to new treatments for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Researchers from Penn State College of Medicine, in collaboration with other scientists, have reported the role of macrophages in regulating the contractions of the colon to push digested material through the digestive tract. The muscular lining of the intestine contains a distinct kind of macrophage, an immune system cell that helps fight infections. The role of these cells in normal colon ...

New Haven, Conn. -- From the physics labs at Yale University to the bottom of a played-out gold mine in South Dakota, a new generation of dark matter experiments is ready to commence. The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and the National Science Foundation recently gave the go-ahead to LUX-Zeplin (LZ), a key experiment in the hunt for dark matter, the invisible substance that may make up much of the universe. Daniel McKinsey, a professor of physics, leads a contingent of Yale scientists working on the project. "We emerged from a very intense competition," ...