SAN FRANCISCO (March 7, 2013) — Cholesterol levels seem to fluctuate significantly with the turning seasons, which may leave some people with borderline high cholesterol at greater cardiovascular risk during the winter months, according to research being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. While prior studies have shown that heart attacks and heart-related deaths increase during the winter months, researchers in Brazil were interested in finding out whether the prevalence of high cholesterol—a well-known cardiovascular risk ...

A new study from the University of Utah shows that individuals who describe themselves as being more mindful have more stable emotions and perceive themselves to have better control over their mood and behavior throughout the day. Higher mindful people also describe less cognitive and physiological activation before bedtime, suggesting that greater emotional stability during the day might even translate into better sleep. The study results will be presented later this month at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society. Prior studies of mindfulness—paying ...

SAN FRANCISCO (March 7, 2013)—New Orleans residents continue to face a three-fold increased risk of heart attack post-Katrina—a trend that has remained unchanged since the storm hit in 2005, according to research being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. The new data—an update to previous analyses comparing the behavioral and heart health of people before and after the storm—show this heightened risk persists even though post-Katrina patients are more likely to be prescribed medications known to prevent heart attacks such ...

A study from the University of Utah sheds new light on the health risks faced not only by military veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but by their partners as well. Results of the study will be presented later this month at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society. The study compared emotional and physiological responses of two groups of military veterans and their partners during and after engaging in a "disagreement task" set in a clinically-monitored environment. The veterans in one group had been diagnosed with PTSD, and those in the ...

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – Some cellular proteins have multiple, and occasionally opposing, functions. Professor Adrian Krainer [link: Faculty profile] and colleagues at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory demonstrate in a paper published online today in Molecular Cell [link: to paper via doi #] that the oncogenic protein SRSF1 can also trigger a stop in cell growth and prevent cancerous proliferation by stabilizing p53, the powerful tumor-suppressor protein. SRSF1 is a protein with many jobs. It was first described as necessary for the process in which mRNA, the messenger ...

In ten years time, routine preventive health care for adults may include genetic testing alongside the now familiar tests for cholesterol levels, mammography and colonoscopy. As genomic testing prepares to enter the realm of general medical care, an interdisciplinary team of researchers is suggesting in a commentary in the May 2013 issue of Genetics in Medicine, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), that now is the time to explore genetic testing to identify people at high risk for carefully selected, preventable disease. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (March 7, 2013) — Despite recommendations from leading medical groups, a surprising number of patients are not given aspirin before artery-clearing coronary angioplasty and stenting, and those patients have a significantly higher in-hospital death rate, according to research from a Michigan network being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. Aspirin use before angioplasty is a Class I recommendation of the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, the highest level of evidence for ACC/AHA guidelines. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (March 7, 2013) — Even minor weight loss is associated with worse health outcomes among patients implanted with a certain type of defibrillator known as cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator (CRT-D), according to research being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. People with symptoms of heart failure who have an implantable CRT-D device may believe that losing weight will ultimately improve their long-term health outcomes. However, in the first study to look at weight loss and subsequent health ...

SAN FRANCISCO (March 7, 2013) — Heart attack rates have spiked in Greece since the start of the country's financial crisis, especially among women and residents older than 45, according to a study of patient records being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. The study examined the medical records of 22,093 patients admitted to the cardiology department of the General Hospital of Kalamata over an eight-year span, with patients divided into a pre-financial crisis period from January 2004 through December 2007 or the crisis period, ...

SAN FRANCISCO (March 7, 2013) —The upheaval caused by Hurricane Katrina seems to have disrupted the usual timing of heart attacks, shifting peak frequency from weekday mornings to weekend nights, in a change in pattern that persisted a full five years after the storm, according to research being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. The study, which could inform decisions about hospital staffing after natural disasters, compared the timing of heart attacks in patients admitted to Tulane Medical Center six years before and five ...

The liver is one of the few organs in our body that can regenerate itself, but how it occurs is a biological mystery. New research from BRIC, University of Copenhagen and the Finsen Laboratory, Rigshospitalet, has identified a protein complex that acts as a molecular switch turning on a self-regeneration program in the liver. The protein complex furthermore fine tunes liver metabolism, allowing this to run efficiently in parallel with the tissue damage repair. The new knowledge challenges the current focus on stem cells and may point towards future simplification of treatments ...

Residents of new housing developments increased their exercise and their wellbeing when they had more access to shops and parks, a new University of Melbourne study reveals. The ten year study found that the overall health of residents of new housing developments in Western Australia, improved when their daily walking increased as a result of more access to parks, public transport, shops and services. Lead researcher Professor Billie Giles-Corti, Director of the McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne said the study provided ...

Does good behavior lead to more good behavior? Or do we try to balance our good and bad deeds? The answer depends on our ethical mindset, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychological scientist Gert Cornelissen of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and colleagues found that people who have an "ends justify the means" mindset are more likely to balance their good and bad deeds, while those who believe that what is right and wrong is a matter of principle are more likely to be consistent in ...

An air-breathing bio-battery has been constructed by researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. The core element providing the new power source with relatively high voltage and long lifetime is a carefully designed cathode taking up oxygen from air and composed of an enzyme, carbon nanotubes and silicate. People are increasingly taking advantage of devices supporting various functions of our bodies. Today they include cardiac pacemakers or hearing aids; tomorrow it will be contact lenses with automatically changing ...

Geneva, Switzerland (07 March, 2013) – A new survey reveals that more than half of British women did not play competitive sport or spend any time on intensive workouts such as running or cycling, in a given week. Seven months on from the 2012 Olympics, British women are still less likely than their European counterparts to devote any time to competitive sport, with Britain trailing behind Germany, Denmark, Sweden and France, according to a new multi-national survey on sport and exercise habits. Following record turn-outs for women's football at the Olympics, the countdown ...

Geneva, Switzerland (07 March, 2013) – A new survey reveals that 1 in 3 Danish women did not play competitive sport or spend any time on intensive workouts such as running or cycling, in a given week. However, more Danish women were physically active than their European counterparts in Germany, France, Sweden and the UK, according to a new multi-national survey on sport and exercise habits. As the Danish women's football team prepare for this summer's UEFA Women's EURO in Sweden, the countdown to the championships offers an opportunity for women to kick start heart-healthy ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People with multiple sclerosis (MS) who have cognitive problems, or problems with memory, attention, and concentration, have more damage to areas of the brain involved in cognitive processes than people with MS who do not have cognitive problems, according to a study published in the March 6, 2013, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study used a type of MRI brain scan called diffusion tensor imaging along with regular MRI scans to compare brain measurements in 20 people with MS who had related cognitive ...

Contact: Chantal Wandja chantal.wandja@iucn.org 237-795-04667 Contact: Dan Klotz 301-280-5756 dklotz@burnesscommunications.com Burness Communications Contact: Jenna DiPaolo 202-412-0331 jdipaolo@rightsandresources.org Rights and Resources Initiative New reports: African governments giving land away quickly, recognizing land rights slowly Africa remains a target for land-grab developments worth billions; regional dialogue in Yaoundé focuses on the need for speed Yaoundé, Cameroon (7 March 2013) -- While African governments are moving gradually towards ...

The human brain can learn to treat relevant prosthetics as a substitute for a non-working body part, according to research published March 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Mariella Pazzaglia and colleagues from Sapienza University and IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia of Rome in Italy, supported by the International Foundation for Research in Paraplegie. The researchers found that wheelchair-bound study participants with spinal cord injuries perceived their body's edges as being plastic and flexible to include the wheelchair, independent of time since their injury ...

Subtle changes in messaging can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of charitable messages such as calls for blood donations, according to research published March 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Eileen Chou from the University of Virginia and co-author Keith Murnighan at Northwestern University. Though chronic shortages in U.S blood banks could be alleviated by a small increase in the number of blood donors, people are not always motivated enough to help. In the current study, researchers collaborated with the Red Cross to assess the effects of changing ...

Analysis of DNA extracted from a fossil tooth recovered in southern Siberia confirms that the tooth belonged to one of the oldest known ancestors of the modern dog, and is described in research published March 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Anna Druzhkova from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Russian Federation, and colleagues from other institutions. Human domestication of dogs predates the beginning of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, but when modern dogs emerged as a species distinct from wolves is still unclear. Although some previous ...

Most scientists are starting to agree that repeat, sub-concussive hits to the head are dangerous and linked to neurological disorders later in life. A new collaborative study, though, attempted to find out why – and discovered that damage to the blood-brain barrier and the resulting autoimmune response might be the culprit. Published in journal PLOS ONE by the University of Rochester Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic, the research suggests a new way of thinking about concussions: That the brain degeneration observed among professional football players (including ...

For the past few decades, health officials have been reporting increases in the incidence of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Now researchers at Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute have identified a prime suspect in the mystery — dietary salt. In the March 6 issue of the journal Nature, Yale researchers showed that salt can induce and worsen pathogenic immune system responses in mice and that the response is regulated by genes already implicated in a variety of autoimmune diseases. In accompanying papers in the ...

Astronomers survey the scale of the Universe by first measuring the distances to close-by objects and then using them as standard candles [1] to pin down distances further and further out into the cosmos. But this chain is only as accurate as its weakest link. Up to now finding an accurate distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way, has proved elusive. As stars in this galaxy are used to fix the distance scale for more remote galaxies, it is crucially important. But careful observations of a rare class of double star have ...

Adding the dietary supplements folate and vitamin B12 to treatment with antipsychotic medication improved a core symptom component of schizophrenia in a study of more than 100 patients. The study focused on negative symptoms of schizophrenia – which include apathy, social withdrawal, and a lack of emotional expressiveness. While the level of improvement across all participants was modest, results were more significant in individuals carrying specific variants in genes involved with folate metabolism. The report from a team based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will ...