Boston, MA -- New federal standards launched in 2012 that require schools to offer healthier meals have led to increased fruit and vegetable consumption, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. The study, the first to examine school food consumption both before and after the standards went into effect, contradicts criticisms that the new standards have increased food waste. "There is a push from some organizations and lawmakers to weaken the new standards. We hope the findings, which show that students are consuming more fruits ...

Researchers have come a step closer to understanding how gonorrhea infections are transmitted. When Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacteria responsible for gonorrhea, are exposed to seminal plasma, the liquid part of semen containing secretions from the male genital tract, they can more easily move and start to colonize. The research, led by investigators at Northwestern University in Chicago, appears in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. "Our study illustrates an aspect of biology that was previously unknown," says lead study ...

1. Study of highly-motivated GenX physicians shows that women spend more time than men on parenting and household labor A survey of high-achieving young physician-researchers shows pronounced gender differences in domestic activities among those married with children, according to an article being published in Annals of Internal Medicine. It is known that female physician-researchers do not achieve career success at the same rate as men. Could differences in nonprofessional responsibilities explain some of the gap? Researchers surveyed 1,055 physician-researchers who ...

CINCINNATI—Findings by Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers show that levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in men's urine could be a marker of prostate cancer and that low levels of BPA exposure can cause cellular changes in both non-malignant and malignant prostate cells. This research, published in the March 3 edition of PLOS ONE, provides the first evidence that urinary BPA levels may help predict prostate cancer and that disruption of a cell duplication cycle through exposure to low-dose BPA may cause cancer development in the prostate. BPA, an environmental pollutant ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A new study finds gender differences in parenting and household labor persist among a group of highly motivated physician-researchers in the early stages of their career. The finding could shed light on why female academic physicians in general do not have the same career success as their male colleagues. "One might expect that within a highly educated Generation X population there would be a relatively even distribution of domestic labor. But what we found was that there still seems to be a difference in the expectations at home for men and women, ...

Griffith researchers have undertaken a study to clarify the number of species which existed of the extinct New Zealand moa. The findings have been published in 'Complex species status for extinct moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) from the genus Euryapteryx', in the open access journal PLOS ONE. Lead author Dr Huynen said the challenges of understanding extinct fauna can be formidable and particularly so when it comes to this ancient bird. "Despite more than 100 years of research being devoted to the issue, determining species status is challenging, especially where there ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Veterans exposed to explosions who do not report symptoms of traumatic brain injury (TBI) may still have damage to the brain's white matter comparable to veterans with TBI, according to researchers at Duke Medicine and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The findings, published in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation on March 3, 2014, suggest that a lack of clear TBI symptoms following an explosion may not accurately reflect the extent of brain injury. Veterans of recent military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan often have a history of exposure ...

Sexual aggression has become a common experience in bars. New findings show that approximately 90 percent of the incidents involve male initiators and female targets. The initiators' level of invasiveness was related to intoxication of the targets but not their own intoxication. This suggests that intoxicated women were being targeted, perhaps perceived as easier or more blameworthy. Meeting people within a bar scene is not usually difficult. Unfortunately, not all contact – whether romantic or sexual – is positive or consensual. In fact, sexual aggression has ...

Many people believe that hangovers can either delay subsequent drinking due to pain and discomfort, or hasten drinking to relieve hangover symptoms. A new study investigates if a hangover that follows a drinking episode can influence the time to next drink. Results indicate that hangovers appear to have a very modest effect on subsequent drinking. Many if not most people during their lives have experienced a hangover. Some people believe that hangovers might delay subsequent drinking through pain and discomfort, or perhaps hasten drinking to relieve hangover symptoms, ...

The bulk of knowledge about alcohol consumption and problems comes from high-income countries. The International Alcohol Control (IAC) study was established to collect and compare data from both high- and middle/low-income countries. New IAC results show that heavy-drinking New Zealanders tend to buy cheaper, off-premise alcohol, and purchase it at later times. The International Alcohol Control (IAC) study is a newly developed international collaborative project designed to collect comparative data on alcohol consumption and policy-relevant behaviors in both high- ...

Studies examining the potential health benefits of moderate drinking generally focus on average levels of drinking rather than drinking patterns. A new study shows that, among older moderate drinkers, those who binge drink have a significantly greater mortality risk than regular moderate drinkers. Numerous studies have highlighted the purported association between moderate drinking and reduced mortality. However, these analyses have focused overwhelmingly on average consumption, a measure that masks diverse, underlying drinking patterns such as weekend heavy episodic ...

A series of papers in the March issue of Health Affairs examines how the Affordable Care Act could affect two sectors of the most vulnerable Americans — those living with HIV/AIDS and people who have recently cycled through jail. The issue features several studies by researchers with the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, one of the nation's premier policy research centers dedicated to promoting health and value in healthcare delivery through innovative research and policy, including: When it comes to HIV treatment, timing is everything Dana P. ...

WASHINGTON, DC (March 3, 2014)—Under the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 4 million people who have spent time in jail will have better access to health coverage for conditions that might—if left untreated—result in higher health care costs and an increased risk of recidivism. That's the conclusion of an analysis by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). "Health reform gives people with a history of jail time access to continuous health care for the first time ever," says lead author Marsha Regenstein, PhD, ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The very premise of prison invites members of society to think of the people there as walled-off and removed. But more than 95 percent of prisoners will return to the community, often carrying significant health burdens and associated costs with them. In an article in the March issue of the journal Health Affairs, several experts who participated in a scientific workshop convened by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine recommend several steps and ideas consistent with health reform to improve care for prisoners ...

HOUSTON — For women with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy, yoga offers unique benefits beyond fighting fatigue, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The preliminary findings were first reported in 2011 by Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson, and are now published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This research is part of an ongoing effort to scientifically validate mind-body interventions in cancer patients and was conducted in collaboration with India's ...

People's racial prejudices are influenced by where they live, reports a new study led by Oxford University psychologists. The researchers found that levels of racial prejudice among white people drop significantly when they live in ethnically mixed communities, even when they do not have direct contact with minorities. Simply seeing white strangers interacting positively with ethnic minorities is enough to reduce racial prejudice. The researchers have called this positive effect 'passive tolerance', likening it to the negative effect of 'passive smoking' where a smoky ...

CALI, COLOMBIA (3 MARCH 2014)—A comprehensive new study of global food supplies confirms and thoroughly documents for the first time what experts have long suspected: over the last five decades, human diets around the world have grown ever more similar—by a global average of 36 percent—and the trend shows no signs of slowing, with major consequences for human nutrition and global food security. "More people are consuming more calories, protein and fat, and they rely increasingly on a short list of major food crops, like wheat, maize and soybean, along with meat and dairy ...

The surface of the sea takes up nitrogen oxides that build up in polluted air at night, new measurements on the coast of southern California have shown. The ocean removes about 15 percent of these chemicals overnight along the coast, a team of atmospheric chemists reports in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 3. Nitrogen oxides, formed by the burning of fossil fuels, generate photochemical smog. Atmospheric chemists would like to account for the fates of these molecules in a kind of budget that indentifies ...

Washington, D.C.— In many ways, plants act as chemical factories, using energy from sunlight to produce carbon-based energy and taking nutrients from the soil in order to synthesize a wide variety of products. Carnegie scientists asked the question: How much does the portfolio of chemicals generated by plants vary, depending on the surrounding environment, and what can this tell us about how we interact with forests? The answer involved climbing into the Amazonian canopy, resulting in the discovery that the forest's chemical portfolios form a rich mosaic that varies with ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Many Americans are confused about the best ways to conserve water and have a slippery grasp on how much water different activities use, according to a national online survey conducted by an Indiana University researcher. Experts say the best strategy for conserving water is to focus on efficiency improvements such as replacing toilets and retrofitting washing machines. However, the largest group of the participants, nearly 43 percent, cited taking shorter showers, which does save water but may not be the most effective action. Very few participants ...

Keck School of Medicine of USC neuroscientists have unlocked a piece of the puzzle in the fight against Lou Gehrig's disease, a debilitating neurological disorder that robs people of their motor skills. Their findings appear in the March 3, 2014, online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the official scientific journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. "We know that both people and transgenic rodents afflicted with this disease develop spontaneous breakdown of the blood-spinal cord barrier, but how these ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of scientists at Brown University reports a major step forward in determining the specific behavior of the ubiquitous enzyme PP1 implicated in a wide range of diseases including cancer. PP1, whose role is to enable the passage of molecular messages among cells, is found pretty much everywhere in the body. Its wide range of responsibilities means it is essential to many healthy functions and, when things go wrong, to diseases. But its very versatility has prevented it from ...

New York, NY – Prevention and reversal of chronic kidney disease is an urgent public health need. The disease affects 1 in 10 Americans, is debilitating and deadly, and existing drugs, at best, offer only mild delay in progression to end-stage kidney failure. New research led by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai investigators has uncovered abnormal molecular signaling pathways from disease initiation to irreversible kidney damage, kidney failure, and death. Results from their preclinical and human research are published online March 3 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. "Our ...

Researchers at New York University and the University of Texas at Austin have discovered that carbohydrates serve as identifiers for cancer cells. Their findings, which appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show how these molecules may serve as signals for cancer and explain what's going on inside these cells, pointing to new ways in which sugars function as a looking glass into the workings of their underlying structures. "Carbohydrates can tell us a lot about what's going on inside of a cell, so they are potentially good markers for ...

There have been great expectations regarding the production of a drug to block the enzyme LTA4 hydrolase, which plays a key role in the body's inflammatory response. However, in clinical trials, such molecules have proven to be only moderately effective. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have successfully refined their understanding of why previous substances have been less effective – and in so doing have produced a molecule that gets around the problem. Consequently, there is once again hope of a new anti-inflammatory drug based on the principal of blocking LTA4 ...