Washington, DC – Spending on health care for children covered by employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) increased between 2009 and 2012, rising an average 5.5 percent a year, with more dollars spent on boys than girls, and higher spending on infants and toddlers (ages 0-3) than any other children's age group, finds a new report released today by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). Per capita spending on children reached $2,437 in 2012, a $363 increase from 2009. The study shows a growth in prescription use by children through age 18, as well as a rise in the number of teens ...

[EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, FEB. 27] A simple change in how the hospital laboratory reports test results may help improve antibiotic prescribing practices and patient safety, according to a pilot, proof-of-concept study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and now available online. No longer routinely reporting positive urine culture results for inpatients at low risk for urinary tract infections (UTIs) greatly reduced unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and did not affect the treatment of patients who did need antibiotics, the study authors found. Urine cultures ...

(NEW YORK, NY, February 27, 2014) – Approximately one in five U.S. health facilities don't make alcohol-based hand sanitizer available at every point of care, missing a critical opportunity to prevent health care-associated infections, according to new research from Columbia University School of Nursing and the World Health Organization (WHO) published in the American Journal of Infection Control. The study, which examined compliance with WHO hand hygiene guidelines in the U.S., also found that only about half of the hospitals, ambulatory care, and long-term care facilities ...

Being awake at night and dozing during the day can be a distressing early symptom of Alzheimer's disease, but how the disease disrupts our biological clocks to cause these symptoms has remained elusive. Now, scientists from Cambridge have discovered that in fruit flies with Alzheimer's the biological clock is still ticking but has become uncoupled from the sleep-wake cycle it usually regulates. The findings – published in Disease Models & Mechanisms – could help develop more effective ways to improve sleep patterns in people with the disease. People with Alzheimer's ...

People in their 80s are often prescribed drugs to ward off a stroke when the risk of a stroke is not that high and the drugs have other side effects, finds a perspective published online in Evidence Based Medicine. People in this age group are being "over-treated," and doctors need to actively rethink their priorities and beliefs about stroke prevention, argues Dr Kit Byatt of the Department of Geriatric Medicine, The County Hospital in Hereford, UK. Statins and antihypertensive drugs were the most commonly prescribed cardiovascular drugs in the UK in 2006. And they ...

Despite prolonged combat missions to Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been no overall increase in mental health problems among UK soldiers, finds a review of the available evidence, published online in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps. But certain groups of soldiers do seem to be more vulnerable to mental ill health on their return home, while alcohol problems continue to give cause for concern among regulars, say the researchers from King's College London. They retrieved published research looking at the psychological impact of deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan ...

Passive smoking is linked to a significantly increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and ectopic pregnancy, finds a large observational study, published online in Tobacco Control. The risk appears to be cumulative, with risk heightened in parallel with the length of time exposed to second hand smoke, the findings indicate. It is well known that smoking during pregnancy significantly increases the risks of miscarriage and birth complications. What is less clear is whether passive smoking exerts similar effects, and if there are particularly critical periods of exposure ...

Two spotted seals orphaned as pups in the Arctic are now thriving at UC Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory, giving scientists a rare opportunity to learn about how these seals perceive their environment. In a comprehensive study of the hearing abilities of spotted seals, UCSC researchers found that the seals have remarkably sensitive hearing in both air and water. The findings, published February 26 in the Journal of Experimental Biology, are important for understanding how spotted seals might be affected by noise from human activities in the rapidly changing Arctic ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Secondhand smoking is linked with pregnancy loss, including miscarriage, stillbirth and tubal ectopic pregnancy, according to new research from scientists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) and the University at Buffalo (UB). The study findings, published online by the journal Tobacco Control, mark a significant step toward clarifying the risks of secondhand smoke exposure. "This study demonstrated that pregnancy outcomes can be correlated with secondhand smoking. Significantly, women who have never smoked but were exposed to secondhand smoke were ...

This news release is available in German. Most children ill with fever in Tanzania suffer from a viral infection, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows. A research team led by Dr. Valérie D'Acremont from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel and the Policlinique Médicale Universitaire in Lausanne systematically assessed the causes of febrile illnesses in Tanzanian children. According to the results, in most cases a treatment with antimalarials or antibiotics is not required. The finding has the potential to improve the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that a protein only recently linked to cancer has a significant effect on the risk that breast cancer will spread, and that lowering the protein's level in cell cultures and mice reduces chances for the disease to extend beyond the initial tumor. The team of medical and engineering researchers at The Ohio State University previously determined that modifying a single gene to reduce this protein's level in breast cancer cells lowered the cells' ability to migrate away from the tumor site. In a new study published in the journal ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report that one change in the sequence of the BDNF gene causes some people to be more impaired by traumatic brain injury (TBI) than others with comparable wounds. The study, described in the journal PLOS ONE, measured general intelligence in a group of 156 Vietnam War veterans who suffered penetrating head wounds during the war. All of the study subjects had damage to the prefrontal cortex, a brain region behind the forehead that is important to cognitive tasks such as planning, problem-solving, self-restraint and complex thought. The ...

Babies born by caesarean section are more likely to be overweight or obese as adults, according to a new analysis. The odds of being overweight or obese are 26 per cent higher for adults born by caesarean section than those born by vaginal delivery, the study found (see footnote). The finding, reported in the journal PLOS ONE, is based on combined data from 15 studies with over 38,000 participants. The researchers, from Imperial College London, say there are good reasons why many women should have a C-section, but mothers choosing a caesarean should be aware that ...

Cows learn better when housed together, which may help them adjust faster to complex new feeding and milking technologies on the modern farm, a new University of British Columbia study finds. The research, published today in PLOS ONE, shows dairy calves become better at learning when a "buddy system" is in place. The study also provides the first evidence that the standard practice of individually housing calves is associated with certain learning difficulties. "Pairing calves seems to change the way these animals are able to process information," said Dan Weary, corresponding ...

Blunt force trauma to the skull of a mummy with signs of Chagas disease may support homicide as cause of death, which is similar to previously described South American mummies, according to a study published February 26, 2014 in PLOS ONE by Stephanie Panzer from Trauma Center Murau, Germany, and colleagues, a study that has been directed by the paleopathologist Andreas Nerlich from Munich University. For over a hundred years, the unidentified mummy has been housed in the Bavarian State Archeological Collection in Germany. To better understand its origin and life history, ...

A small piece of freshly cut sapwood can filter out more than 99 percent of the bacteria E. coli from water, according to a paper published in PLOS ONE on February 26, 2014 by Michael Boutilier and Jongho Lee and colleagues from MIT. Researchers were interested in studying low-cost and easy-to-make options for filtering dirty water, a major cause of human mortality in the developing world. The sapwood of pine trees contains xylem, a porous tissue that moves sap from a tree's roots to its top through a system of vessels and pores. To investigate sapwood's water-filtering ...

The convergent evolution of tail shapes in diving birds may be driven by foraging style, according to a paper published in PLOS ONE on February 26, 2014 by Ryan Felice and Patrick O'Connor from Ohio University. Birds use their wings and specialized tail to maneuver through the air while flying. It turns out that the purpose of a bird's tail may have also aided in their diversification by allowing them to use a greater variety of foraging strategies. To better understand the relationship between bird tail shape and foraging strategy, researchers examined the tail skeletal ...

If you've run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip, there's a simple solution: Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree, peel away the bark, and slowly pour lake water through the stick. The improvised filter should trap any bacteria, producing fresh, uncontaminated water. In fact, an MIT team has discovered that this low-tech filtration system can produce up to four liters of drinking water a day — enough to quench the thirst of a typical person. In a paper published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers demonstrate that a small ...

In the last year or two, you may have had some moments — during elections, sporting events, or weather incidents — when you found yourself sending out a flurry of messages on social media sites such as Twitter. You are not alone, of course: Such events generate a huge volume of social-media activity. Now a new study published by researchers in MIT's Senseable City Lab shows that social-media messages grow shorter as the volume of activity rises at these particular times. "This helps us better understand what is going on — the way we respond to things becomes faster ...

Remember that sound bite you heard on the radio this morning? The grocery items your spouse asked you to pick up? Chances are, you won't. Researchers at the University of Iowa have found that when it comes to memory, we don't remember things we hear nearly as well as things we see or touch. "As it turns out, there is merit to the Chinese proverb 'I hear, and I forget; I see, and I remember," says lead author of the study and UI graduate student, James Bigelow. "We tend to think that the parts of our brain wired for memory are integrated. But our findings indicate ...

BOSTON (Feb. 27) – A study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine potentially has significant implications for prenatal testing for major fetal chromosome abnormalities. The study found that in a head-to-head comparison of noninvasive prenatal testing using cell free DNA (cfDNA) to standard screening methods, cfDNA testing (verifi® prenatal test, Illumina, Inc.) significantly reduced the rate of false positive results and had significantly higher positive predictive values for the detection of fetal trisomies 21 and 18. A team of scientists, led by Diana W. Bianchi, ...

PHILADELPHIA – A simple vision test performed on the sidelines may help determine whether athletes have suffered a concussion, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014. The study provides more evidence that the King-Devick test, a one-minute test where athletes read single-digit numbers on index cards, can be used in addition to other tests to increase the accuracy in diagnosing concussion. For the study, 217 members of the University of Florida men's ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University study in collaboration with medical researchers from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm has found that advancing paternal age at childbearing can lead to higher rates of psychiatric and academic problems in offspring than previously estimated. Examining an immense data set -- everyone born in Sweden from 1973 until 2001 -- the researchers documented a compelling association between advancing paternal age at childbearing and numerous psychiatric disorders and educational problems in their children, including autism, ADHD, bipolar ...

Bethesda, MD — Pay-for-performance—reimbursing health care providers based on the results they achieved with their patients as a way to improve quality and efficiency—has become a major component of health reforms in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other affluent countries. Although the approach has also become popular in the developing world, there has been little evaluation of its impact. A new study, being released today as a Web First by Health Affairs, examines the effects of pay-for-performance, combined with capitation, in China's largely rural Ningxia ...

Stars, diamonds, circles. Rather than your average bowl of Lucky Charms, these are three-dimensional cell cultures generated by an exciting new digital microfluidics platform, the results of which have been published in Nature Communications this week by researchers at the University of Toronto. The tool, which can be used to study cells in cost-efficient, three-dimensional microgels, may hold the key to personalized medicine applications in the future. "We already know that the microenvironment can greatly influence cell fate," says Irwin A. Eydelnant, recent doctoral ...