CHICAGO – Regular use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may be associated with a modest reduction in risk for developing Parkinson disease, particularly among younger patients, according to a study in the March issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Statins are one of the most prescribed classes of drugs in the United States and some researchers have hypothesized that the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating effects of these medications may be neuroprotective. However, statins also may have unfavorable effects on lowering the level of ...

CHICAGO – Implementing a routine national glaucoma screening program for middle-age African American patients may be clinically effective; however its potential effect on reducing visual impairment and blindness may be modest, according to a computer-based mathematical model reported in the March issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Primary open-angle glaucoma is a chronic, degenerative disease that affects more than 2.2 million Americans and 1.9 percent of Americans older than 40 years," the authors write as background in the study. ...

CHICAGO – A behavioral intervention program appears to be associated with modest weight loss and improved blood pressure control in a high-risk, socioeconomically disadvantaged group of obese patients, according to a study published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Obesity is not sufficiently addressed in the U.S. primary care system and socioeconomically disadvantaged patients who seek care at community health centers are particularly affected by the limited availability of obesity treatments, the authors write in their ...

Providing personal mobile computers to medical residents increases their efficiency, reduces delays in patient care and enhances continuity of care, according to a "research letter" in the March 12, 2012, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. In November 2010, the University of Chicago Medicine became the first hospital in the country to provide residents with tablet computers on a large scale, supplying iPads to all 115 residents in internal medicine. When surveyed in 2011, more than three out of four of the residents reported that the portable computers allowed ...

Some home improvement projects fall short in return on investment. Premier Surfaces, a leading provider of granite countertops in Atlanta, is educating homeowners on the improvements that increase market value. As most realtors will tell you, kitchens and bathrooms are where the sale is made. The paint colors in a home are easily and inexpensively changed, and chances are that a homebuyer is going to change the wall colors anyway. Complete kitchen remodels certainly create a wow-factor that will boost the value of a home, but the cost is prohibitive for many homeowners, ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., March 12, 2012 – Children with multiple hereditary exostoses (MHE), an inherited genetic disease, suffer from multiple growths on their bones that cause pain and disfigurement. But beyond the physical symptoms of this condition, some parents have long observed that their children with MHE also experience autism-like social problems. Buoyed by the support of these parents, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) used a mouse model of MHE to investigate cognitive function. They found that mice with a genetic defect that ...

Smartphones are showing promise in disease surveillance in the developing world. The Kenya Ministry of Health, along with researchers in Kenya for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that smartphone use was cheaper than traditional paper survey methods to gather disease information, after the initial set-up cost. Survey data collected with smartphones also in this study had fewer errors and were more quickly available for analyses than data collected on paper, according to a study presented today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious ...

Alexandria, VA — Metastasis of tumors to level IIb lymph nodes is rare in patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC); this area can be ignored during selective neck dissection (SND) to avoid damaging the spinal accessory nerve (SAN), making this surgery more conservative and minimizing SAN morbidity, according to the March 2012 issue of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. The authors acknowledge that the medical literature stresses the importance of preserving the SAN to prevent postoperative limitations in shoulder function and pain in patients who undergo ...

AmeriPlan announced that they are giving away 10,000 Free RX Cards for a limited time. Each prescription card has a value of $49 annually and is not only free to an individual who receives the card but can be used by their entire household. AmeriPlan recognizes the financial burden that prescription costs can place on families in today's economy and hopes that this free RX card will help families reduce those costs. The AmeriPlan free Rx card can be used at over 56,000 participating pharmacy locations across the country, including most national chain pharmacies. Some ...

Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry and pathology and laboratory medicine have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs, a finding with implications for treating a host of mitochondrial diseases. Mutations in the human mitochondrial genome are implicated in neuromuscular diseases, metabolic defects and aging. There currently are no methods to successfully repair or compensate for these mutations, said study co-senior author Dr. Michael ...

The research group from Aragon that has the same name as the first Aragosaurus ischiaticus dinosaur discovered 25 years ago in Teruel reveals that it is 15 million years younger than originally believed. Its new dating now means that it was the ancestor of the Titanosauriforms, which includes the biggest dinosaurs. The Aragosaurus was the first sauropod dinosaur described in Spain some 25 years ago in Galve (Teruel), but its age was never clear. And now it has been discovered that it is 15 million years younger than previously thought. This would make it the only dinosaur ...

The biggest study into the treatment of urinary incontinence with botulinum toxin (trade name Botox) has demonstrated that it is effective in treating overactive bladder (OAB) - a debilitating common condition which can affect up to 20% of people over the age of 40. The study from the University of Leicester was led by Dr. Douglas Tincello, Senior Lecturer at the University and Honorary Consultant Gynaecologist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Dr Tincello, of the University of Leicester's Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine, has published ...

Within all our cells lies two meters of DNA, highly ordered in a structure of less than 10 micro meters in diameter. Special proteins called histones act as small building bricks, organising our DNA in this structure. Preservation of the structure is necessary to maintain correct function of our genes, making histones detrimental for maintaining a healthy and functional body. The research group of Associate Professor Anja Groth from BRIC, University of Copenhagen, has just elucidated a function of the protein Codanin-1, shedding light on the rare anemic disease CDAI where ...

Scientists have produced a previously unseen uranium molecule, in a development that could help improve clean-up processes for nuclear waste. The distinctive butterfly-shaped compound is similar to radioactive molecules that scientists had proposed to be key components of nuclear waste, but were thought too unstable to exist for long. Researchers have shown the compound to be robust, which implies that molecules with a similar structure may be present in radioactive waste. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh, who carried out the study, say this suggests the ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan State University anthropologist who spent more than a year infiltrating the black market for human kidneys has published the first in-depth study describing the often horrific experiences of poor people who were victims of organ trafficking. Monir Moniruzzaman interviewed 33 kidney sellers in his native Bangladesh and found they typically didn't get the money they were promised and were plagued with serious health problems that prevented them from working, shame and depression. The study, which appears in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, ...

DeliveryMaps.com, a leading resource for delivery maps and applications, announced the Mobile Locater, a new application that helps customers find store locations and information across the US. The Mobile Locater joins a family of services for a wide range of browsers, tablets and smartphones and will be introduced during the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, NV. The Mobile Locater provides cross-platform support, allowing customers to find pizza store locations on their smartphones or tablets, or at home on their computers. Using this application, customers can ...

The system the UC3M researchers have created, with the collaboration of La Sapienze University of Rome (Italy), facilitates the search for photographs related to a specific theme, time or place that internauts post on social networks like Flickr. Afterwards, the application allows those images to be placed on maps based on their geographic coordinates, and filtered to include only those that the user is most interested in. The result is a digital story that can be shared with other users and which creates a visual summary that can aid in the understanding or documentation ...

Graft-versus-host disease is a life-threatening problem for many bone-marrow transplant recipients. New therapies are urgently needed to control the condition. This study identifies a molecule that controls severity of the disease; blocking the molecule could help control the condition. COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have identified a molecule that helps control the severity of graft-versus-host disease, a life-threatening complication for many leukemia patients who receive a bone-marrow transplant. The study, led by researchers with the Ohio State University Comprehensive ...

WASHINGTON — Children may perform better in school and feel more confident about themselves if they are told that failure is a normal part of learning, rather than being pressured to succeed at all costs, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. "We focused on a widespread cultural belief that equates academic success with a high level of competence and failure with intellectual inferiority," said Frederique Autin, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Poitiers in Poitiers, France. "By being obsessed with success, ...

BOSTON, MA—A new study by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) researchers found significant variation in the use of head computed tomography (CT) exams among doctors within the emergency department (ED). The study will be published in the April 2012 issue of The American Journal of Medicine. With advanced imaging as a driver of increasing health care costs, strategies to reduce variation in head CT use and other high-cost imaging studies may reduce cost and improve quality of care. This study is part of an effort by researchers at BWH to develop strategies for achieving ...

Lady@OUT is a top-up insurance product that provides female clients with a host of value-added benefits at a small additional premium. "Even though it's a much debated and somewhat controversial topic, statistics prove that women are in fact safer and more responsible drivers than men" says Ernst Gouws, Chief Executive of OUTsurance. "So, even though our female clients are already enjoying the benefit of lower insurance premiums, we realized that in order for us to stay ahead of the game, we'd have to think up a truly impressive product with benefits ...

Beliefs about nature and nurture can affect how patients and their families respond to news about their diagnosis, according to Penn State health communication researchers. Understanding how people might respond to a health problem, especially when the recommendations for adapting to the condition may seem contradictory to their beliefs, is crucial to planning communication strategies, said Roxanne Parrott, Distinguished Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Health Policy and Administration. People affected with known genetic or chromosomal disorders, such ...

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that 92 percent of more than 1,000 gastroenterologists responding to a survey believed that pressures to increase the volume of colonoscopies adversely impacted how they performed their procedures, which could potentially affect the quality of colon cancer screening. The findings, based on responses from members of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), are published in the March 2012 issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. "The number of colonoscopies has risen dramatically over the past fifteen ...

For the red pigmentation to develop, blood oranges normally require a period of cold as they ripen. The only place to reliably grow them on a commercial scale is in the Sicilian area of Italy around Mount Etna. Here, the combination of sun and cold/sunny days and warm nights provides ideal growing conditions. Scientists have identified the gene responsible for blood orange pigmentation, naming it Ruby, and have discovered how it is controlled. "Blood oranges contain naturally-occurring pigments associated with improved cardiovascular health, controlling diabetes and ...

A recent study led by Gergely Lukacs, a professor at McGill University's Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology, and published in the January issue of Cell, has shown that restoring normal function to the mutant gene product responsible for cystic fibrosis (CF) requires correcting two distinct structural defects. This finding could point to more effective therapeutic strategies for CF in the future. CF, a fatal genetic disease that affects about 60,000 people worldwide, is caused by mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), a ...