Community health officers (health workers who are not trained midwives) can safely give injections of the drug oxytocin to prevent severe bleeding after delivery (postpartum hemorrhage) when attending home births in rural areas of Ghana, according to a study by US and Ghanaian researchers in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers, led by Cynthia Stanton from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US, also found that oxytocin injections halved the risk of postpartum hemorrhage in women who delivered at home -- an important finding given that ...

Extended follow-up of the two Women's Health Initiative hormone therapy trials does not support use of hormones for chronic disease prevention, although the treatment may be appropriate for menopausal symptom management in some women, according to a study in the October 2 issue of JAMA. The hormone therapy trials of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) were stopped after investigators found that the health risks outweighed the benefits. Menopausal hormone therapy continues in clinical use, but questions remain regarding its risks and benefits over the long-term for chronic ...

In a group of patients who took chronic opioids for noncancer pain and who underwent bariatric surgery, there was greater chronic use of opioids after surgery compared with before, findings that suggest the need for proactive management of chronic pain in these patients after surgery, according to a study in the October 2 issue of JAMA. "Bariatric surgery is used to treat obesity, as well as its comorbid conditions such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and chronic pain. Bariatric surgery-related weight loss is associated with improvements in osteoarthritis-associated ...

In Denmark between 2001 and 2010 there was an increase in bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) that was associated with an increase in survival following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, according to a study in the October 2 issue of JAMA. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest affects approximately 300,000 individuals in North America annually. "Despite efforts to improve prognosis, survival remains low, with aggregated survival-to-discharge rates less than 8 percent. In many cases, time from recognition of cardiac arrest to the arrival of emergency medical services ...

The researchers argue that more trials comparing the effectiveness of exercise and drugs are urgently needed to help doctors and patients make the best treatment decisions. In the meantime, they say exercise "should be considered as a viable alternative to, or alongside, drug therapy." Physical activity has well documented health benefits, yet in the UK, only 14% of adults exercise regularly, with roughly one third of adults in England meeting recommended levels of physical activity. In contrast, prescription drug rates continue to skyrocket, sharply rising to an average ...

The findings stress the important role of higher BMI in the increasing rates of death from cardiovascular disease in Asia, which could be managed by policy and prevention strategies, say the authors. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death globally and is predicted to steadily increase over the next few decades. Many Asian populations that used to be physically active with a low BMI now have some of the world's highest rates of obesity. Studies of BMI and CVD risk have generally been conducted in Europe and North America and no data is available ...

Colonies of rock ants (Temnothorax albipennis) need to find ideal homes for the safety and productivity of the queen mother and all of her offspring. They are regularly confronted with the dilemma of whether to move to a better property or remain in their current one, but unlike humans who are susceptible to housing bubbles, ants seem to invest in their housing market in ways that are consistent and rational. PhD student Carolina Doran and Professor Nigel R. Franks of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences showed experimentally that in order to be ahead of the game, ...

Boston, MA - A study of 41,133 mothers and their children in Arkansas has shown that high pregnancy weight gain increases the risk of obesity in those children through age 12. The findings, published Oct. 1 in PLoS Medicine, suggest pregnancy may be an especially important time to prevent obesity in the next generation. "From the public health perspective, excessive weight gain during pregnancy may have a potentially significant influence on propagation of the obesity epidemic," says the study's senior author David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, director of the New Balance Foundation ...

BOSTON (Oct. 1, 2013) — As Baby Boomers age, many experience difficulty in hearing and understanding conversations in noisy environments such as restaurants. People who are hearing-impaired and who wear hearing aids or cochlear implants are even more severely impacted. Researchers know that the ability to locate the source of a sound with ease is vital to hear well in these types of situations, but much more information is needed to understand how hearing works to be able to design devices that work better in noisy environment. Researchers from the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories ...

(New York City, October 1, 2013)- A study led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that the association between body fat and mortality due to cardiovascular disease differs between south and east Asians, a finding that has important implications for global health recommendations. Cardiovascular disease, a condition in which arteries thicken and restrict blood flow, kills more than 17 million people annually, making it the leading cause of death worldwide. In an analysis published today in the British Medical ...

DALLAS – Oct. 1, 2013 – A conservative approach to removing lymph nodes is associated with less harm for breast cancer patients and often yields the same results as more radical procedures, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. In the Oct. 2 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, lead author Dr. Roshni Rao, associate professor of surgery at UT Southwestern, and other investigators from the Harold C. Simmons Cancer Center reviewed studies on patient outcomes of women who had received various forms of surgical treatment, ranging ...

Flowering plants evolved from extinct plants related to conifers, ginkgos, cycads, and seed ferns. The oldest known fossils from flowering plants are pollen grains. These are small, robust and numerous and therefore fossilize more easily than leaves and flowers. An uninterrupted sequence of fossilized pollen from flowers begins in the Early Cretaceous, approximately 140 million years ago, and it is generally assumed that flowering plants first evolved around that time. But the present study documents flowering plant-like pollen that is 100 million years older, implying ...

DETROIT -- You may be able to eat all of the ice cream you want after having your tonsils removed, but researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit say you don't necessarily need a prescription to reduce post-operative pain -- an over-the-counter pain-reliever is just as effective. The study shows over-the-counter ibuprofen manages pain after a tonsillectomy for children and adults as well as the prescription pain medications acetaminophen with hydrocodone and acetaminophen with codeine, which is no longer recommended for use in children. "Based on this study and ...

A study published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests an association between smoking during pregnancy and increased risk for developing bipolar disorder (BD) in adult children. Researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, in collaboration with scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California, evaluated offspring from a large cohort of pregnant women who participated in the Child Health and Development Study (CHDS) ...

Ever since cruise lines first began building mock suites for passengers to try out before installing the rooms on ocean liners in the 1940s, businesses have been devising trial runs for a small number of consumers to test merchandise prior to mass production. Today, companies still make important changes based on this "usability testing" before taking their goods to the wider market, and researchers now say that what works for cell phones and video games may also work for human services. Karen Blase, senior scientist at UNC's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, ...

Researchers at New York University and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have identified the mechanism that plays "traffic cop" in meiosis—the process of cell division required in reproduction. Their findings, which appear in the journal eLife, shed new light on fertility and may lead to greater understanding of the factors that lead to birth defects. "We have isolated a checkpoint that is necessary for a genome's viability and for normal development," said Andreas Hochwagen, an assistant professor in NYU's Department of Biology, who co-authored the paper ...

VIDEO: A droplet of silicone oil bounces in place on a vibrating fluid bath. Click here for more information. WASHINGTON, D.C. Oct. 1, 2013 -- A research team led by Yves Couder at the Université Paris Diderot recently discovered that it's possible to make a tiny fluid droplet levitate on the surface of a vibrating bath, walking or bouncing across, propelled by its own wave field. Surprisingly, these walking droplets exhibit certain features previously thought to be exclusive to ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. — Oct. 1, 2013 — A groundbreaking study of nearly 2,300 extremely obese diabetes patients, led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), has identified genes associated with unhealthy liver function. This is believed to be the nation's first large-scale genome-wide association study in overweight patients with diabetes. Results of the study, done in conjunction with the Geisinger Health System, will be presented at the 64th annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Nov. 1-5 at the Walter E. Washington Convention ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a paper titled "Estimated Drinking Water Fluoride Exposure and Risk of Hip Fracture: A Cohort Study." In this study a team of researchers, led by Peggy Näsman, Karolinska Institute, Department of Dental Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden, investigated possible adverse health effects on bone tissue from drinking fluoridated water. The study included a large cohort of Swedish residents chronically exposed to various fluoride levels, with the hypothesis of a possible ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. Oct. 1, 2013 -- A trio of researchers at North Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota have turned to computer modeling to help decide which of two competing materials should get its day in the sun as the nanoscale energy-harvesting technology of future solar panels -- quantum dots or nanowires. Andrei Kryjevski and his colleagues, Dimitri Kilin and Svetlana Kilina, report in AIP Publishing's Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy that they used computational chemistry models to predict the electronic and optical properties of ...

Troy, N.Y. – A new look at the early solar system introduces an alternative to a long-taught, but largely discredited, theory that seeks to explain how biomolecules were once able to form inside of asteroids. In place of the outdated theory, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute propose a new theory – based on a richer, more accurate image of magnetic fields and solar winds in the early solar system, and a mechanism known as multi-fluid magneto-hydrodynamics – to explain the ancient heating of the asteroid belt. Although today the asteroid belt between Mars ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — End-stage renal disease is one of the major public health problems among solid organ transplant recipients that is associated with death after transplant and high cost of care. Using the national data of 43,514 liver transplant recipients, researchers at University of Michigan researchers in collaboration with Arbor Research Collaborative for Health created and validated a risk score called renal risk index based upon the liver transplant recipient's characteristics at the time of transplant to predict the post- transplant end stage renal disease. ...

Out-of-pocket medical expenses will decline for most consumers who become newly insured or change their source of health insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The study found that overall the Affordable Care Act will have a varied impact on health spending by individuals and families, depending primarily on their income and whether they would have been uninsured in 2016 without the program. People who will be newly insured and do not qualify for government subsidies are those who are most likely to see increased ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The discovery of genetic differences affecting up to a third of the population could take the guesswork out of prescribing the correct dose of 25 percent of drugs currently on the market, researchers say. The scientists found two genetic variants that alter the activity level of an enzyme responsible for processing, or metabolizing, drugs ranging from the painkiller codeine to the breast cancer drug tamoxifen. The Ohio State University researchers who found these differences say that pending additional research, the variants are good candidates for ...

A person wielding a gun focuses more intently on the face of an opponent with a gun, presumably to try to determine that person's likelihood of pulling the trigger, according to a new study that builds on gun-in-hand research from the University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame Associate Professor of Psychology James Brockmole, who specializes in human cognition and how the visual world guides behavior, conducted the research at Notre Dame with Adam Biggs, currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and ...