CHICAGO – Living alone was associated with an increased risk of death and cardiovascular death in an international study of stable outpatients at risk of or with arterial vascular disease (such as coronary disease or peripheral vascular disease), according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Social isolation may be associated with poor health consequences, and the risk associated with living alone is relevant because about 1 in 7 American adults lives alone. Epidemiological evidence suggests that social isolation ...

CHICAGO – A study that examined national outcome differences between laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass suggests that the minimally invasive laparoscopic procedure was associated with greater safety and used fewer resources because of shorter hospital stays and less cost, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of Surgery, a JAMA Network publication. A major public health concern, obesity has been associated with such adverse health conditions as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and some cancers. Bariatric ...

CHICAGO – A survey of surgical interns suggests many of them believe that new duty-hour restrictions will decrease continuity with patients, coordination of care and time spent operating, as well as reduce their acquisition of medical knowledge, development of surgical skills and overall educational experience, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of Surgery, a JAMA Network publication. In July 2011, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented new resident duty-hour standards, including more supervision and a 16-hour shift ...

CHICAGO – Among well-functioning older adults without dementia, diabetes mellitus (DM) and poor glucose control among those with DM are associated with worse cognitive function and greater cognitive decline, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Neurology, a JAMA Network publication. Findings from previous studies have suggested an association between diabetes mellitus and an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia, including Alzheimer disease, but this association continues to be debated and less is known regarding incident DM in late ...

CHICAGO – A population-based study from the United Kingdom suggests that the common skin condition psoriasis may be a risk factor for the development of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), according to a report published Online First by Archives of Dermatology, a JAMA Network publication. Psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by scaling of the skin, affects 2 percent to 4 percent of the adult population, according to the study background. Rahat S. Azfar, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues used data from The Health Improvement ...

Continuing an annual tradition, trucking transport company Refrigerated Food Express, Inc. will once again donate the use of one of their 53-foot long refrigerated trailer for the 2012 Pan Mass Challenge. Refrigerated trailers are traditionally used for food transport and storage, and will be utilized for that purpose once again this year. With the trailer provided by Refrigerated Food Express, cyclists from across Massachusetts will have energy and refreshment as they engage in the important fight against cancer. The Pan Mass Challenge is a large-scale fundraiser presented ...

CHICAGO – Smoking appears to be associated with an increased risk of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma skin cancer, according to a report of a meta-analysis and review of available medical literature published Online First by Archives of Dermatology, a JAMA Network publication. About 97 percent of skin cancers are epithelial (cells that cover the skin) in origin and are either basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) or squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), which are collectively known as nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC). The incidence of NMSC is increasing worldwide with an estimated 2 ...

CHICAGO – Among patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas, a history of chronic inflammation in the mouth (periodontitis, i.e. gum disease) may be associated with an increased risk of tumors positive for human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a report published Online First by Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, a JAMA Network publication. The National Cancer Institute has reported a steady increase in the prevalence of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States since 1973, despite a significant decline in tobacco use since 1965, according to ...

Do away with the DJ and scrap the composer. A computer program powered by Darwinian natural selection and the musical tastes of 7,000 website users may be on the way to creating a perfect pop tune, according to new research published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Scientists from Imperial College London have devised a way of producing music from noises without a composer. They programmed a computer to produce loops of random sounds and analyse the opinions of musical consumers, who decided which ones they liked. The result ...

Nutrilys Del Mar's new generation of anti-aging skincare supplement program for summertime, Nutricosmet, is making a splash this summer with an incredible sale. From June 18 to July 2, this revolutionary natural and organic marine-based supplement system promotes a sun-kissed luminous beauty through the summer months and beyond will be offered at 50 percent off. For a short time only, its $147 price tag will drop to $73.50. It's a perfect time to stock up. "Our mission behind this summer sale was to make this sensational program available to everyone so ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A study by researchers at Stanford University Medical Center has found that a popular weight-loss operation is safer and reduces hospital bills when done with minimally invasive techniques rather than open surgery, which requires a large abdominal incision. The authors say that, to their knowledge, this is the first time the open and minimally invasive approaches have been compared at a national level. "There have been single-center randomized trials that support the greater safety and efficacy of the minimally invasive approach, but what our study ...

A new study by an international team of scientists led by researchers from the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and CosmosIDTM Inc., College Park, have found two distinct strains of cholera bacteria may have contributed to the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak. The team published its results June 18, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The researchers say that the findings of their study, ...

BETHESDA, MD — June 15, 2012 — A transparent member of the minnow family is providing researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City with insight into human melanoma – a form of skin cancer – that may lead to new or repurposed drug treatments, for skin and other cancers. The experiments will be reported at the "Model Organisms to Human Biology: Cancer Genetics" Meeting, June 17-20, 2012, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is sponsored by the Genetics Society of America. The meeting will bring together investigators who study cancer-relevant ...

BOSTON, MA—According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately one in seven American adults live alone. Social isolation and lack of social support have been linked to poor health outcomes. Now a new study at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows that living alone may be a risk factor for death, especially death due to cardiovascular problems, such as heart attack and stroke. The study is the first to prospectively compare the cardiovascular risk of living alone in an international outpatient population. It will be published online in Archives of Internal ...

BOSTON -- The state of acute confusion and disorientation known as delirium can stem from a serious illness, surgery or infection, and often develops while patients are in the hospital. Now a new study confirms that for patients with Alzheimer's disease, hospitalization and delirium pose a particular risk and can lead to adverse outcomes, including hastened cognitive decline, institutionalization and death. Led by researchers at Harvard Medical School affiliates Hebrew SeniorLife and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), the study appears in the June 19 on-line ...

Adults who had a common bariatric surgery to lose weight had a significantly higher risk of alcohol use disorders (AUD) two years after surgery, according to a study by a National Institutes of Health research consortium. Researchers investigated alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorders symptoms in 1,945 participants from the NIH-funded Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (LABS), a prospective study of patients undergoing weight-loss surgery at one of 10 hospitals across the United States. Within 30 days before surgery, and again one and two years after ...

North Grafton, MA, June 14, 2012 -- Researchers have unveiled a novel strategy for neutralizing unwanted molecules and clearing them from the body. The strategy employs chains of binding agents, like "beads on a string", which target two sites on one or more pathogenic molecules to neutralize their activity and promote their clearance by the body's immune system. The low-cost, easy-to-replicate tool has demonstrated applications against several different toxins, from those found in contaminated food to those used in bioterrorism, and may also prove effective in targeting ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new study proposes a communication routing strategy for the brain that mimics the American highway system, with the bulk of the traffic leaving the local and feeder neural pathways to spend as much time as possible on the longer, higher-capacity passages through an influential network of hubs, the so-called rich club. The study, published this week online in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves researchers from Indiana University and the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and advances ...

The ancient reserves of methane gas seeping from the melting Arctic ice cap told Jeff Chanton and fellow researchers what they already knew: As the permafrost thaws, there is a release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that causes climate warming. The trick was figuring out how much, said Chanton, the John W. Winchester Professor of Oceanography at Florida State University. The four-member team — whose findings were published in the respected journal Nature Geoscience (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo1480.html) — documented a large number ...

Sequencing the human genome was just the first step. The next challenge is of the kind that makes history: to decode the genome, and understand how the information needed to construct a human being can be packaged into a single molecule. And there are a lot more than loose ends in the way of a solution. A group of bioinformatics experts at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid have published findings which point to still unexplored coding potential within the genome. The substance responsible is chimeric RNA, formed not from one gene but from fragments ...

This press release is available in German. Finding new particles usually requires high energies – that is why huge accelerators have been built, which can accelerate particles to almost the speed of light. But there are other creative ways of finding new particles: At the Vienna University of Technology, scientists presented a method to prove the existence of hypothetical "axions". These axions could accumulate around a black hole and extract energy from it. This process could emit gravity waves, which could then be measured. Axions are hypothetical particles ...

Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the Folkhälsan Research Center, Finland, have identified the genetic cause of early-onset progressive cerebellar degeneration the Finnish Hound dog breed. The study, led by Professor Hannes Lohi, revealed a new disease mechanism in cerebellar degeneration. A mutation was identified in the SEL1L gene, which has no previous link to inherited cerebellar ataxias. This gene find is the first in canine early-onset cerebellar degeneration, and has enabled the development of a genetic test to help eradicate the disease from the breed. ...

Over the next 20 years the proportion of older people living within the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities in the UK will increase significantly. Most expect that their immediate family, particularly female family members, will provide the majority of care for them in their old age, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The research by Professor Christina Victor of Brunel University, found very few, at best five to ten per cent of the older people within these communities who were interviewed received any form of formal ...

Teaching and learning in the 21st century needs to be 'turbo-charged' by educational technology rather than using technologies designed for other purposes, according to a new report developed by the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Programme (TEL) - a five-year research programme funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The report System Upgrade: Realising the vision for UK Education is the work of academics, industry and practitioners from across the UK. They warn that to prosper in the ...

DENVER (June 18, 2012) – While marijuana use by teens has been increasing since 2005, an analysis of data from 1993 through 2009 by economists at three universities has found no evidence to link the legalization of medical marijuana to increased use of the drug among high school students. "There is anecdotal evidence that medical marijuana is finding its way into the hands of teenagers, but there's no statistical evidence that legalization increases the probability of use," said Daniel I. Rees, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver. Rees co-authored ...