New oral anticoagulant drugs that treat and prevent clots offer a much-needed alternative to warfarin, which has been used for more than 6 decades and has serious shortcomings. A new article published in BJS (British Journal of Surgery) gives an overview of the major clinical trials and recommendations related to these new agents and will serve as a practical guide for their use in patients who require planned or emergency surgery. Warfarin has been the drug of choice to control blood clots in a variety of patients, including people with certain types of irregular heartbeats, ...

There is new, more definitive evidence implicating camels in the ongoing outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. Scientists at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, King Saud University, and EcoHealth Alliance extracted a complete, live, infectious sample of MERS coronavirus from two camels in Saudi Arabia. The sample matched MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) found in humans, indicating that the virus in camels is capable of infecting humans and that camels are a likely source of the outbreak. Results ...

PITTSBURGH, April 29, 2014 – People infected with HIV whose immune cells have low cholesterol levels experience much slower disease progression, even without medication, according to University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health research that could lead to new strategies to control infection. The Pitt Public Health researchers found that low cholesterol in certain cells, which is likely an inherited trait, affects the ability of the body to transmit the virus to other cells. The discovery, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is featured in today's ...

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have identified why some HIV-infected people experience much slower disease progression, even without medication, and it has to do with cholesterol levels in specific immune cells. They report their findings in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. "A fascinating aspect of the AIDS epidemic is that a small percentage of HIV-1-infected persons, termed nonprogressors or controllers, maintain a relatively normal number of CD4 T cells (Th cells) and low viral load for many years without ...

April 29, 2014 – Friday will mark the third anniversary of Osama bin Laden's assassination, a day when U.S. President Barack Obama famously stated "Justice has been done." But has it? A new study from a team of social psychology researchers led by Mario Gollwitzer of Philipps University of Marburg, has questioned whether this instance of vicarious revenge led to feelings of satisfaction and reestablished justice within the American public, including whether bin Laden's assassination ignited craving for more revenge. Justice achieved Vicarious revenge, where the need ...

When it comes to luxury brands, the ruder the sales staff the better the sales, according to new research from the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. The forthcoming Journal of Consumer Research study reveals that consumers who get the brush-off at a high-end retailer can become more willing to purchase and wear pricey togs. "It appears that snobbiness might actually be a qualification worth considering for luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Gucci," says Sauder Marketing Professor Darren Dahl. "Our research indicates they can end up having ...

Global health research and training efforts should focus on combatting the growing epidemic of noncommunicable diseases, better incorporating information technology into research and training, and more effectively converting scientific discoveries into practice in low-resource settings, according to the Fogarty International Center's new strategic plan, released today. Fogarty is the component of the National Institutes of Health solely focused on supporting global health research and training, and coordinating international research partnerships across the agency. As ...

New research looking at the success of clinical trials of stem cell therapy shows that trials appear to be more successful in studies where there are more discrepancies in the trial data. Researchers from Imperial College London conducted a meta-analysis of 49 randomised controlled trials of bone marrow stem cell therapy for heart disease. The study, published today in the British Medical Journal, identified and listed over 600 discrepancies within the trial reports. Discrepancies were defined as two (or more) reported facts that could not both be accurate because ...

1. Viral hepatitis remains a major health concern in the U.S. Experts comment on HHS 2014-2016 Viral Hepatitis Action Plan Untreated chronic viral hepatitis affects between 3.5 and 5.3 million Americans and continues to fuel rising incidences of progressive liver disease, liver failure, and liver cancer. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled the nation's first coordinated national approach to tackling viral hepatitis with the Action Plan for the Prevention, Care and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis in the United States. Priorities set ...

MINNEAPOLIS – A review by the American Academy of Neurology of available scientific research on the use of medical marijuana in brain diseases finds certain forms of medical marijuana can help treat some symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), but do not appear to be helpful in treating drug-induced (levodopa) movements in Parkinson's disease. Not enough evidence was found to show if medical marijuana is helpful in treating motor problems in Huntington's disease, tics in Tourette syndrome, cervical dystonia and seizures in epilepsy. The review is published in the April 29, ...

Children's exposure to violence and crime declined between 2003 and 2011. Rates of violent crime have declined in the United States since the 1990s. The authors previously completed three national telephone surveys of children and caregivers on children's exposure to violence in 2003, 2008 and 2011. In this study, the authors analyzed the surveys for changes over time from 2003 to 2011. The authors examined 50 specific trends in exposures to violence and crime and found 27 significant declines and no significant increases between 2003 and 2011. There were declines ...

Bottom Line: Children and young adults who start antidepressant therapy at high doses, rather than the "modal" [average or typical] prescribed doses, appear to be at greater risk for suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment. Author: Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues. Background: A previous meta-analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of antidepressant trials suggested that children who received antidepressants had twice the rate of suicidal ideation and behavior than children who ...

Girls who are told by a parent, sibling, friend, classmate or teacher that they are too fat at age 10 are more likely to be obese at age 19, a new study by UCLA psychologists shows. The study looked at 1,213 African-American girls and 1,166 white girls living in Northern California, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., 58 percent of whom had been told they were too fat at age 10. All the girls had their height and weight measured at the beginning of the study and again after nine years. Overall, the girls labeled fat were 1.66 times more likely than the other girls to be ...

A graduate student in Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and two of his undergraduate trainees, were selected by the Council on Undergraduate Research to present their original research on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Wesley Kerr, whose graduate studies will be completed in the UCLA Department of Biomathematics, and his trainees, Akash Patel and Sarah Barritt, will present their poster entitled "Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Epilepsy Using Clinical Information" outlining advances in the use of computational machine learning to help clinicians ...

A study led by Michael Worobey at the University of Arizona in Tucson provides the most conclusive answers yet to two of the world's foremost biomedical mysteries of the past century: the origin of the 1918 pandemic flu virus and its unusual severity, which resulted in a death toll of approximately 50 million people. Worobey's paper on the flu, to be published in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on April 28, not only sheds light on the devastating 1918 pandemic, but also suggests that the types of flu viruses to which people ...

Success really does breed success – up to a point - found researchers from UCL and Stony Brook University, following a series of unique on-line experiments. For decades, it has been observed that similar people experience divergent success trajectories, with some repeatedly succeeding and others repeatedly failing. Some suggest initial success can catalyse further achievements, creating a positive feedback loop, while others attribute a string of successes to inherent talent. To test these views the researchers conducted four experiments that measured the impact of experimental ...

Berkeley — There is a higher cost to steaks and hamburgers than what is reflected on the price tags at grocery stores and restaurants. Producing food – and beef, in particular – is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, which are projected to grow as rising incomes in emerging economies lead to greater demands for meat. But an encouraging new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and international collaborators finds that policies to support sustainable cattle ranching practices in Brazil could put a big dent in the beef and food ...

Brazil may be able to curb up to 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation by encouraging the intensification of its cattle production, according to a new study from researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and international collaborators. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that by subsidizing semi-intensive pasture-based cattle production or taxing conventional pastures Brazil may be able to deliver a substantial cut in global greenhouse gas emissions, even ...

The hormone oxytocin appears to increase social behaviors in newborn rhesus monkeys, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Parma in Italy, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The findings indicate that oxytocin is a promising candidate for new treatments for developmental disorders affecting social skills and bonding. Oxytocin, a hormone produced by the pituitary gland, is involved in labor and birth and in the production of breast milk. Studies have shown that oxytocin also plays a role in parental bonding, ...

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified natural human antibodies against the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a step toward developing treatments for the newly emerging and often-fatal disease. Currently there is no vaccine or antiviral treatment for MERS, a severe respiratory disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. In laboratory studies reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers found that these "neutralizing" antibodies ...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. April 28, 2014 – A morning and evening ritual of tart cherry juice may help you sleep better at night, suggests a new study presented today at the Experimental Biology 2014 meeting. Researchers from Louisiana State University found that drinking Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day for two weeks helped increase sleep time by nearly 90 minutes among older adults with insomnia. These findings were presented Monday, April 28, at the "Dietary Bioactive Components: Antioxidant and Anti-inflammatory Effects of Dietary Bioactive Components" section of ...

Populations of large wildlife are declining around the world, while zoonotic diseases (those transmitted from animals to humans) are on the rise. A team of Smithsonian scientists and colleagues have discovered a possible link between the two. They found that in East Africa, the loss of large wildlife directly correlated with a significant increase in rodents, which often carry disease-causing bacteria dangerous to humans. The team's research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 28. "Our study shows us that ecosystem health, wildlife ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The idea of a smart home sounds promising enough. Who doesn't want a house full of automated gadgets — from light switches to appliances to heating systems — that know exactly when to turn on, turn off, heat up or power down? But in order for all those devices to do what they're supposed to do, they'll need to be programed — a task the average homeowner might not have the interest or the tech-savvy to perform. And nobody wants to call tech support just to turn on a light. A group of computer science researchers from Brown and Carnegie ...

VIDEO: This animation of NOAA's GOES-East satellite data shows the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting seven central and southern US states on Apr. 27-28, 2014.... Click here for more information. NASA has just released an animation of visible and infrared satellite data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite that shows the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting seven central and southern U.S. states ...

WHAT: National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have developed an animal model of human hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in rhesus macaques, an advance that may lead to treatments, vaccines and improved methods of diagnosing the disease. The study, conducted by researchers at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. People become infected with hantaviruses by inhaling virus from the urine, droppings or saliva of infected rodents. This infection can progress to HPS, ...