In a study that included nearly 65,000 older patients hospitalized with pneumonia, treatment that included azithromycin compared with other antibiotics was associated with a significantly lower risk of death and a slightly increased risk of heart attack, according to a study in the June 4 issue of JAMA. Pneumonia and influenza together are the eighth leading cause of death and the leading causes of infectious death in the United States. Although clinical practice guidelines recommend combination therapy with macrolides (a class of antibiotics), including azithromycin, ...

An examination of the benefit of preventive placement of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in patients with a less severe level of heart failure, a group not well represented in clinical trials, finds significantly better survival at three years than that of similar patients with no ICD, according to a study in the June 4 issue of JAMA. Although clinical trials have established the ICD as the best currently available therapy to prevent sudden cardiac death in patients with heart failure, some uncertainties remain regarding preventive use of ICDs in patients ...

June 3, 2014 – BRONX, NY – The study was led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI)─designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care and was published online today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). "Tests assessing metastatic risk can help doctors identify which patients should receive aggressive therapy and which patients should be spared," said Thomas Rohan, M.D., Ph.D., the lead and corresponding author of the study and professor ...

A frontier lies deep within our cells. Our bodies are as vast as oceans and space, composed of a dizzying number of different types of cells. Exploration reaches far, yet the genes that make each cell and tissue unique have remained largely obscure. That's changing with the help of a team led by Gregorio Valdez, an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. Valdez and his team designed a search engine – called EvoCor – that identifies genes that are functionally linked. The name, a portmanteau of "evolution" and "correlation," points to ...

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that new therapies for kidney disease could be developed more quickly by revising the definition of kidney disease progression used during clinical trials. If adopted, the new definition could shorten the length of some clinical trials and also potentially encourage more clinical trials in kidney disease. The findings will be published in the June 3, 2014 online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a worldwide public health ...

Faster electronic device architectures are in the offing with the unveiling of the world's first fully two-dimensional field-effect transistor (FET) by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Unlike conventional FETs made from silicon, these 2D FETs suffer no performance drop-off under high voltages and provide high electron mobility, even when scaled to a monolayer in thickness. Ali Javey, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and a UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer science, led ...

The 1.6 meter telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California has given researchers unparalleled capability for investigating phenomena such as solar flares. Operated by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), the BBSO instrument is the most powerful ground-based telescope dedicated to studying the star closest to Earth. On June 2, Distinguished Professor of Physics Haimin Wang joined NJIT colleagues at the 224th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), held in Boston, Massachusetts, to present intriguing data about solar flares — specifically, ...

Multi-wavelength observations of sunspots with the 1.6-meter telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California and aboard NASA's IRIS spacecraft have produced new and intriguing images of high-speed plasma flows and eruptions extending from the Sun's surface to the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, the corona. Operated by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), BBSO houses the largest ground-based telescope dedicated to solar research. On June 2, NJIT researchers reported on the acquisition of these images at the 224th meeting of the American Astronomical ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Eating, like breathing and sleeping, seems to be a rather basic biological task. Yet chewing requires a complex interplay between the tongue and jaw, with the tongue positioning food between the teeth and then moving out of the way every time the jaw clamps down to grind it up. If the act weren't coordinated precisely, the unlucky chewer would end up biting more tongue than burrito. Duke University researchers have used a sophisticated tracing technique in mice to map the underlying brain circuitry that keeps mealtime relatively painless. The study, ...

Tinkering with climate change through climate engineering isn't going to help us get around what we have to do says a new report authored by researchers at six universities, including Simon Fraser University. After evaluating a range of possible climate-altering approaches to dissipating greenhouse gases and reducing warming, the interdisciplinary team concluded there's no way around it. We have to reduce the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. "Some climate engineering strategies look very cheap on paper. But when you consider other criteria, like ...

Studying mice, researchers have found a way to prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the most common cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Blocking a path that delivers dietary fructose to the liver prevented mice from developing the condition, according to investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study appears in a recent issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. In people, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease often accompanies obesity, elevated blood sugar, high blood pressure and other markers of metabolic syndrome. Some ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —A Purdue University-led research team has figured out how to disable a part of the SARS virus responsible for hiding it from the immune system; a critical step in developing a vaccine against the deadly disease. The findings also have potential applications in the creation of vaccines against other coronaviruses, including MERS, said Andrew Mesecar, who led the research. "This is a first step toward creating a weakened and safe virus for use in an attenuated live vaccine," said Mesecar, Purdue's Walther Professor of Cancer Structural Biology and ...

NEW YORK (June 2, 2014) -- Primary care doctors practicing in a model of coordinated, team-based care that leverages health information technology are more likely to give patients recommended preventive screening and appropriate tests than physicians working in other settings, according to research published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study comparing quality of care by physicians using a delivery model known as the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) to care from physicians in non-PCMH practices provides evidence that the previously unproven but popular ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers from Brown University have developed a new biochip sensor that can selectively measure concentrations of glucose in a complex solution similar to human saliva. The advance is an important step toward a device that would enable people with diabetes to test their glucose levels without drawing blood. The new chip makes use of a series of specific chemical reactions combined with plasmonic interferometry, a means of detecting chemical signature of compounds using light. The device is sensitive enough to detect differences ...

Prior to this survey, astronomers were in a curious position. They knew a lot about star formation occurring in nearby galaxies thanks to UV telescope facilities such as NASA's Galex observatory, which operated from 2003 to 2013. And, thanks to Hubble's near-infrared and visible capability, they had also studied star birth in the most distant galaxies. We see these distant galaxies in their most primitive stages due to the vast amount of time it takes their light to reach us. However, between 5 and 10 billion light-years away from us -- corresponding to a time period ...

BIOMETRICS – The eyes have it . . . By discovering and quantifying the "limbus effect," Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have advanced the state of the art for human iris recognition systems. While the iris is a proven and reliable biometric for verification or identification, non-ideal images -- such as those captured off axis -- are problematic. Reasons include cornea refraction and the limbus effect, causing iris recognition performance to decrease and in many cases fail entirely. Now, using an anatomically accurate human eye model and some slick math, a ...

Washington, DC—The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of two types of rare adrenal tumors – pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas – that can raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and even death if left untreated. The CPG, entitled "Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," appeared in the June 2014 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. Pheochromocytomas are rare, usually noncancerous tumors ...

Athens, Ga. – New research by University of Georgia ecologists sheds light on exactly what happens to coral during periods of excessively high water temperatures. Their study, published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, documents a coral bleaching event in the Caribbean in minute detail and sheds light on how it changed a coral's community of algae—a change that could have long-term consequences for coral health, as bleaching is predicted to occur more frequently in the future. Millions of people around the world depend on coral reefs and the services they provide. ...

TAMPA, Fla. (June 3, 2014) – Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, in collaboration with the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium, have developed a process to analyze mutated genes in lung adenocarcinoma to help better select personalized treatment options for patients. Adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer in the United States with approximately 130,000 people diagnosed each year. The study, published in the May 21 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, investigated 10 highly mutated and altered genes that contribute to cancer progression, ...

Philadelphia, PA, June 3, 2014 – Severe aortic stenosis (AS) has a grave prognosis with 25-50% of patients dying within a year once symptoms develop. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) represents a paradigm shift in the therapeutic options for these patients. Because of cost and availability issues, there are often waiting times for this procedure. Investigators have found that even modest increases in wait times have a substantial impact on the effectiveness of TAVR in individuals who need it the most: otherwise inoperable patients and high-risk surgical candidates. ...

PHILADELPHIA (June 3, 2014) – According to new research from the Monell Center, receptors for stress-activated hormones have been localized in oral taste cells responsible for detection of sweet, umami, and bitter. The findings suggest that these hormones, known as glucocorticoids, may act directly on taste receptor cells under conditions of stress to affect how these cells respond to sugars and certain other taste stimuli. "Sweet taste may be particularly affected by stress," said lead author M. Rockwell Parker, PhD, a chemical ecologist at Monell. "Our results may provide ...

Why are e-cigarettes so popular among Americans who want to quit smoking, even though so little is known about their safety or effectiveness? The answer lies in their marketing – they are simply "cooler" than nicotine inhalers. So says Michael Steinberg of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in the USA, leader of a pilot study¹ about the perception and use of these nicotine delivery devices. The findings appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Nicotine inhalers work when nicotine vapor is breathed in and absorbed through ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that night owls are more sedentary and feel that they have a harder time maintaining an exercise schedule. Results show that later sleep times were associated with more self-reported minutes sitting, and sleep timing remained a significant predictor of sedentary minutes after controlling for age and sleep duration. However, people who characterized themselves as night owls reported more sitting time and more perceived barriers to exercise, including not having enough time for exercise and being unable to stick to an exercise schedule ...

At least 10 percent of people who have a heart attack may have undiagnosed diabetes, according to new research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014. Researchers studied data on 2,854 heart attack patients who did not have a known diagnosis of diabetes in 24 U.S. hospitals to understand the prevalence and recognition of undiagnosed diabetes. They tested the patients' A1C levels, which is a standard test to determine blood sugar levels for the past 2-3 months. Researchers found: Among the patients, ...

Chinese stroke patients were less likely to acquire pneumonia or die from the stroke when hospitals followed treatment guidelines, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014. Closer adherence to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke led to a drop in pneumonia from 20 percent to almost 5 percent. However, only 55.5 percent of patients received all guideline-recommended treatments for which they were eligible. Developed with ...