Treatment that consisted of shock wave (procedure using high-dose ultrasound)-mediated preconditioning of the target heart tissue prior to administration of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells was associated with significant, albeit modest improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction (a measure of how well the left ventricle of the heart pumps with each contraction) after 4 months in patients with chronic postinfarction heart failure, according to a study in the April 17 issue of JAMA. The results, which require confirmation in larger trials, demonstrate the potential ...

Two common conditions in pregnancy may be risk factors for future diabetes according to a Canadian study of over one million women published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers, led by Denice Feig from the University of Toronto, Canada, found that pre-eclampsia (a condition in which affected pregnant women have high blood pressure, fluid retention, and protein in their urine), and gestational hypertension (high blood pressure associated with pregnancy) could double the chance of being diagnosed with diabetes many years after pregnancy. Furthermore, the authors ...

Contrary to the positive findings of a previous pilot study, administration of a sodium bicarbonate-based infusion to induce urinary alkalinization during and after surgery does not reduce the incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) and may even cause harm in patients undergoing open heart surgery. These are the conclusions of a study by Anja Haase-Fielitz of the Otto-von-Guericke-University in Magdeburg, Germany, Rinaldo Bellomo of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues, published in this week's PLOS Medicine, that suggest an infusion of sodium ...

A partnership involving the public and private sector successfully addressed the mental health needs of people in the post-conflict regions of northern Uganda and could be used as a model in other post-conflict settings, according to a Health In Action article by Ugandan and US researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine as part of an ongoing series on Global Mental Health Practice. The authors, led by Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu from the University of Makerere in Uganda, explain how the Peter C. Alderman Foundation (a US organization with a mission to heal the ...

A new UCSF study has found a clear association between certain genes and the development of lymphedema, a painful and chronic condition that often occurs after breast cancer surgery and some other cancer treatments. The researchers also learned that the risks of developing lymphedema increased significantly for women who had more advanced breast cancer at the time of diagnosis, more lymph nodes removed or a significantly higher body mass index. The study is the first to evaluate genetic predictors of lymphedema in a large group of women using a type of technology, bioimpedance ...

Light drinking during pregnancy is not linked to adverse behavioural or cognitive outcomes in childhood, suggests a new study published today (17 April) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. This study collated data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a national study of infants born in the UK between 2000-2002, to assess whether light drinking (up to two units of alcohol per week) in pregnancy was linked to unfavourable developmental outcomes in 7-year-old children. Previous research has linked heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy with ...

The science of obesity: what do we really know about what makes us fat? If we are to make any progress in tackling the obesity crisis, we have to look again at what really makes us fat, claims an article published in this week's BMJ. Gary Taubes, co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative, argues that our understanding of the cause of obesity may be incorrect, and that rectifying this misconception is "absolutely critical" to future progress. "What we want to know," he says, "is what causes us to gain weight, not whether weight loss can be induced under different ...

Research: Strategy for detection of prostate cancer based on relation between prostate specific antigen at age 40-55 and long term risk of metastasis: case-control study Focusing prostate cancer testing on men at highest risk of developing the disease is likely to improve the ratio between benefits and the harms of screening, suggests a paper published today on bmj.com. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening is widely used for the early detection of prostate cancer, but remains highly controversial, as it became widespread long before evidence to prove its value. ...

A new study looking at the genomes of more than 1,500 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a rare and devastating lung disease, found multiple genetic associations with the disease, including one gene variant that was linked to an increase in the risk of death. The study, released early online in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, showed that a variant in a gene called TOLLIP was associated with an increased mortality risk. That variant resulted in decreased expression of TOLLIP in the lungs of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Because TOLLIP, ...

Aerobic exercise may help prevent and perhaps even reverse some of the brain damage associated with heavy alcohol consumption, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study. The study results indicated that regular aerobic exercise like walking, running or bicycling is associated with less damage to the brain's "white matter" among heavy alcohol users. White matter, along with gray matter, are the organ's two major physical components. White matter is composed of bundles of nerve cells that act as transmission lines to facilitate communication between various ...

Incomplete diagnostic investigation and failure to get the best treatment are the most likely reasons why survival for bowel cancer patients is lower in the UK than in other comparable countries, according to new research published in the journal Acta Oncologica. The research, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, was carried out in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK for the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP). The study included more than 310,000 bowel cancer patients diagnosed during 2000-07. Bowel cancer is sometimes ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (April 16, 2013) - Lower mortality and other improved patient outcomes achieved at designated "Magnet hospitals" are explained partly—but not completely—by better nurse staffing, education, and work environment, reports a study in the May issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Magnet hospitals have lower mortality because of investments in nursing," comments Matthew D. McHugh, PhD, JD, MPH, RN, of University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, lead author of ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (April 16, 2013) - Startup companies founded by physician entrepreneurs are an important source of patents used in developing innovative new medical devices, suggests a study in the May issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Device manufacturers gain more from the patents of physician-founded firms than from those of non-physician-founded firms in their subsequent invention and innovation efforts," according to the study by Sheryl Winston Smith, PhD, and Andrew Sfekas, PhD, ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories researchers Lisa Deibler and Arthur Brown had a ready-made problem for their computer modeling work when they partnered with the National Nuclear Security Administration's Kansas City Plant to improve stainless steel tubing that was too hard to meet nuclear weapon requirements. When steel is too hard it becomes brittle, so the plant ended up getting new tubing. However, Deibler said KCP needed a backup in case it couldn't find replacements in time to meet deadlines. Sandia's modeling, coupled with experiments, allowed ...

Cyclone Imelda has lost both her punch and her hurricane status as the storm moved into an area of higher wind shear and cooler waters in the Southern Indian Ocean. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an image of Imelda that showed wind shear that has been hammering the storm, had pushed the bulk of the storm's precipitation southeast of the center. Wind shear at higher levels has increased to as high as 30 knots (34.5 mph/55.5 kph), according to upper level analysis of the atmosphere that was conducted by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. That stronger wind shear is weakening ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Though they be but little, they are fierce. The most powerful batteries on the planet are only a few millimeters in size, yet they pack such a punch that a driver could use a cellphone powered by these batteries to jump-start a dead car battery – and then recharge the phone in the blink of an eye. Developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the new microbatteries out-power even the best supercapacitors and could drive new applications in radio communications and compact electronics. Led by William P. King, the Bliss ...

University of Missouri engineer Randy Curry and his team have developed a method of creating and controlling plasma that could revolutionize American energy generation and storage. Besides liquid, gas and solid, matter has a fourth state, known as plasma. Fire and lightning are familiar forms of plasma. Life on Earth depends on the energy emitted by plasma produced during fusion reactions within the sun. However, Curry warns that without federal funding of basic research, America will lose the race to develop new plasma energy technologies. The basic research program was ...

Three unusually long-lasting stellar explosions discovered by NASA's Swift satellite represent a previously unrecognized class of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Two international teams of astronomers studying these events conclude that they likely arose from the catastrophic death of supergiant stars hundreds of times larger than the sun. VIDEO: GRB 101225A, better known as the "Christmas burst, " was an unusually long-lasting gamma-ray burst. Because its distance ...

As Earth moves around the sun, it travels surrounded by a giant bubble created by its own magnetic fields, called the magnetosphere. As the magnetosphere plows through space, it sets up a standing bow wave or bow shock, much like that in front of a moving ship. Just in front of this bow wave lies a complex, turbulent system called the foreshock. Conditions in the foreshock change in response to solar particles streaming in from the sun, moving magnetic fields and a host of waves, some fast, some slow, sweeping through the region. To tease out what happens at that boundary ...

A previous study by the University of Colorado Cancer Center reported the common side effect of low testosterone in men treated with the recently approved lung cancer agent, crizotinib. A new study published this week in the journal Cancer confirms this finding in a multi-national sample, details the mechanism of reduced testosterone, and provides promising preliminary evidence that widely available hormone replacement therapies can alleviate this side effect in many patients. "This was a wonderful collaboration between multiple centers confirming a side effect that had ...

April 16, 2013 – San Francisco – Brain scans are increasingly able to reveal whether or not you believe you remember some person or event in your life. In a new study presented at a cognitive neuroscience meeting today, researchers used fMRI brain scans to detect whether a person recognized scenes from their own lives, as captured in some 45,000 images by digital cameras. The study is seeking to test the capabilities and limits of brain-based technology for detecting memories, a technique being considered for use in legal settings. "The advancement and falling costs ...

Overworked and stressed out? Look on the bright side. Some stress is good for you. "You always think about stress as a really bad thing, but it's not," said Daniela Kaufer, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. "Some amounts of stress are good to push you just to the level of optimal alertness, behavioral and cognitive performance." New research by Kaufer and UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby has uncovered exactly how acute stress – short-lived, not chronic – primes the brain for improved performance. In ...

Combining CT imaging findings with baseline serum lactate dehydrogenase levels is showing promise as a way to predict survival in patients with metastatic melanoma being treated with anti-angiogenic therapy. With the hope of predicting patient survival, researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson and at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus analyzed CT images and clinical data from 46 patients with metastatic melanoma that were treated with anti-angiogenic therapy. "The analysis found that initial post-therapy CT ...

The estimated size of chest lymph nodes and lung nodules seen on CT images varies significantly when the same nodes or nodules are examined using lower versus higher doses of radiation, a new study shows. The size of lymph nodes and lung nodules is an important determinant of treatment and treatment success. The study, conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, used a 3D image processing tool to quantitatively measure the volume of the lymph nodes and lung nodules. "We found that lymph node volumes were estimated at 30% lower in five cases and 10% higher in ...

Radiation dose reduction has moved to the forefront of importance in medical imaging with new techniques being developed in an effort to bring doses down as low as possible. What difference can these techniques make? Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine aimed to find out. "We conducted a study to quantify dose reduction, comparing two years' worth of data and 11,458 abdomen and pelvic CT exams," said Dr. Jonas Rydberg, lead author of the study. Data on 5,707 consecutive CT abdomen and pelvis exams without iterative reconstruction or longitudinal dose ...