Children who were later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder had excessive cerebral spinal fluid and enlarged brains in infancy, a study by a multidisciplinary team of researchers with the UC Davis MIND Institute has found, raising the possibility that those brain anomalies may serve as potential biomarkers for the early identification of the neurodevelopmental disorder. The study is the first to follow the brain-growth trajectories from infancy in children who later develop autism and the first to associate excessive cerebrospinal fluid during infancy with autism. ...

Statins -- the popular class of cholesterol-lowering drugs used widely to prevent recurrent heart disease or stroke as well as risk for having a first cardiac or stroke event -- appear to cause few side effects, according to new research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Researchers conducted the largest meta-analysis on statin side effects to date, reviewing data from 135 previous drug studies to evaluate the safety of the seven statins on the market. They concluded "as a class, adverse events associated with statin therapy are not common." ...

The link between previous termination of pregnancy (abortion) and preterm delivery in a subsequent pregnancy has disappeared over the last 20-30 years, according to a study of data from Scotland published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, led by Gordon Smith from the University of Cambridge, found that abortion was a strong risk factor for subsequent preterm birth in the 1980s but over the next 20 years, the link progressively weakened and was no longer present among women giving birth from 2000 onwards. These findings are important as the current recommendations ...

Implementing smoke-free laws and increased tobacco taxes in India would yield substantial and rapid health benefits by averting future cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The results of this study, conducted by Sanjay Basu and colleagues of Stanford University, USA, suggest that specific tobacco control strategies would be more effective than others for the reduction of CVD deaths over the next decade in India and possibly in other low- and middle-income countries. Cardiovascular diseases are conditions that ...

New interventional cardiac catheterization services offered by U.S. hospitals generally duplicate existing programs and do not help patients gain access to timely emergency cardiac care, according to a new study. Examining new cardiac catheterization programs nationally from 2004 to 2008, researchers found the programs were most likely to be introduced in areas that had existing services, near populations that had higher rates of private health insurance and in states where there is little oversight of hospitals. The findings are published online by the journal Circulation: ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The idea that females are more resilient than males in responding to stress is a popular view, and now University at Buffalo researchers have found a scientific explanation. The paper describing their embargoed study will be published July 9 online, in the high-impact journal, Molecular Psychiatry. "We have examined the molecular mechanism underlying gender-specific effects of stress," says senior author Zhen Yan, PhD, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. "Previous studies have ...

A new study has shed light on the potential of birds to survive in the face of climate change. In the analysis, based on more than fifty years' detailed study of a population of great tits near Oxford, UK, a team of scientists were able to make predictions about how the birds could cope with a changing climate in the future. They found that for small, short-lived birds like the great tit, evolution can work fast enough for genetic adaptation to keep pace with a changing environment. However, even for such fast-evolving species, evolution on its own is not enough. By studying ...

Sexual reproduction is costly to those organisms that depend on it, like humans. For starters, only half of the population can bear offspring and the other half has to work hard to make sure they're included in the future gene pool. The payoff is that sexual reproduction allows the mixing of parental genomes to generate potentially beneficial new combinations of gene variants that had not previously coexisted on the same strand of DNA, or to separate beneficial mutations from detrimental ones. In contrast, bacteria reproduce by asexual reproduction—this is more efficient ...

Pre-eclampsia affects 3-5% of pregnant women and can lead to preterm delivery, prematurity, perinatal morbidity and mortality. Although preterm birth and low birth weight are associated with excess risk of CP, the causes remain largely unknown. Some studies have found an excess risk of CP in children born at term from mothers with pre-eclampsia while others have reported no association. Researchers from Norway therefore tested the hypothesis that pre-eclampsia poses a risk of CP in preterm and small babies. This is the first study to report that the association between ...

Dr Sidney Wolfe, founder and senior adviser to the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, says it is surprising that the adequacy of consent forms for nearly identical studies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and other countries with similar regulation of human research, has apparently not yet been examined. He argues that there may well be "serious problems" with such risk disclosure that must be addressed. The study, called SUPPORT, was funded by the US National Institutes of Health and took place at many universities across the US between 2005 and 2009. ...

In a multiethnic group of adults, low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease events among white or Chinese participants but not among black or Hispanic participants, results that suggest that the risks and benefits of vitamin D supplementation should be evaluated carefully across race and ethnicity, according to a study in the July 10 issue of JAMA. "Low circulating concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) have been consistently associated with increased risk of clinical and subclinical coronary heart ...

In a study that included nearly 6 million Medicare Advantage and Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries from 12 states, rates of angiography and percutaneous coronary interventions were significantly lower among Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and geographic variation in procedure rates was substantial for both payment types, according to a study in the July 10 issue of JAMA. "Treatment of cardiovascular disease is one of the largest drivers of health care cost in the United States, accounting for $273 billion annually. Cardiovascular procedures are major contributors ...

Among men who had undergone radical prostatectomy, daily consumption of a beverage powder supplement containing soy protein isolate for 2 years did not reduce or delay development of biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer compared to men who received placebo, according to a study in the July 10 issue of JAMA. "Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second most frequent cause of male cancer death in the United States and other Western countries but is far less frequent in Asian countries. Prostate cancer risk has been inversely associated ...

The increased use of cardiac catheterization in New York relative to Ontario appears related to selecting more patients at low risk of obstructive coronary artery disease, with the subsequent diagnostic yield (i.e., the proportion of tested patients in whom disease was diagnosed) of this procedure in New York significantly lower than in Ontario, according to a study in the July 10 issue of JAMA. "The continuing increase in health care expenditures is threatening the sustainability of the health care system and the economy of many developed countries. Debates among the ...

Emmanouil S. Brilakis, M.D., Ph.D., of the VA North Texas Health Care System and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and colleagues conducted a review of medical literature regarding optimal medical therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries). The researchers identified 91 studies for inclusion in the review. "Percutaneous coronary intervention is commonly performed for coronary revascularization in patients with stable angina or acute coronary ...

"Because rare but potentially serious adverse events of prescription drugs are often discovered only after market approval, observational postmarketing studies constitute an important part of the U.S. drug safety system," write Kevin Fain, J.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and colleagues. "In 2007, Congress passed the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA), which authorized the FDA to require postmarketing studies for a prescription drug's approval and mandate adherence to study deadlines. We examined how fulfillment ...

The basics of how a muscle generates power remain the same: Filaments of myosin tugging on filaments of actin shorten, or contract, the muscle – but the power doesn't just come from what's happening straight up and down the length of the muscle, as has been assumed for 50 years. Instead, University of Washington-led research shows that as muscles bulge, the filaments are drawn apart from each other, the myosin tugs at sharper angles over greater distances, and it's that action that deserves credit for half the change in muscle force scientists have been measuring. "The ...

The algae, traditionally cultivated for the food sector, are accessible marine resources as they grow in coastal areas. These crops increase by 7.5% on average every year and have become an important part of marine aquaculture through the diversification of demand for products based on macroalgae for bioenergy, cosmetics and biomedicine. This and other conclusions are deduced from a study led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) that delves into the distribution of applications and products patents derived from macroalgae among countries all around the world. ...

Madagascar has long been known as a hotspot of biodiversity. Although it represents only one percent of the earth's area, it is home to about three percent of all animal and plant species on the planet. But research suggests the island's heyday of species development may be all but over. "A staggering number of species are found only on Madagascar," said Daniel Scantlebury, a Ph.D. student in biology, "but this research shows there are limits to the number of species the island can sustain, and Madagascar may currently be at those limits." Scantlebury's paper is being ...

PHILADELPHIA – Researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that, across a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, cerebrovascular disease affecting circulation of blood in the brain was significantly associated with dementia. The researchers contend that people already exhibiting clinical features of Alzheimer's disease and other memory impairments may benefit from effective therapies currently available to reduce vascular problems. Thus, early management of vascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, and ...

"Just say no" has been many a parent's mantra when it comes to talking to their children about drugs or alcohol. Schools echo that with specific policies against illicit use on school grounds. But do those school policies work? University of Washington professor of social work Richard Catalano and colleagues studied whether anti-alcohol policies in public and private schools in Washington state and Australia's Victoria state were effective for eighth- and ninth-graders. What they found was that each school's particular policy mattered less than the students' perceived ...

In May, the Los Angeles school board voted to ban suspensions of students for "willful defiance" and directed school officials to use alternative disciplinary practices. The decision was controversial, and the question remains: How do you discipline rowdy students and keep them in the classroom while still being fair to other kids who want to learn? A team led by Dara Ghahremani, an assistant researcher in the department of psychiatry at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior conducted a study on the Youth Empower Seminar, or YES!, a workshop for ...

Introductory chemistry students learn that oil and water repel each other. So do other hydrophobic substances, which carry no electric charge, and hydrophilic substances, which carry an electric charge that allows them to mix with water. In a study reported in the July 1, 2013 Angewandte Chemie, a group of University of Illinois bioengineers have found a way to strongly adhere hydrogels to hydrophobic silicone substrates, an innovation that provides a valuable new tool for microscale biotechnology. The article reporting the work was highlighted by the editors as a "Hot ...

VIDEO: On July 8, NASA's TRMM satellite saw Tropical Storm Chantal's heaviest rainfall happening at a rate of over 115.5 mm/hr. (~4.5 inches) near Chantal's center where thunderstorms reached heights of... Click here for more information. Two NASA satellites captured a look at Tropical Storm Chantal, from the inside and outside and revealed powerful, high thunderstorms dropping heavy rainfall. Later in the day at 1700 UTC (1 p.m. EDT) on July 8, the Moderate Resolution ...

Infants who get their first solid food before 4 months of age and after 6 months may have a higher risk of developing Type 1 diabetes, University of Colorado researchers have found. The researchers, from the Colorado School of Public Health and the CU School of Medicine's Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, also found that the risk goes down if the mother is still breast-feeding the baby when solid foods, particularly those containing wheat or barley, are introduced into the diet. The results were unveiled Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association publication ...