In a first-of-its-kind study in Canada, Kevin Bainey of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry has discovered that South Asians who live in Alberta with coronary disease experience a lower quality of life. This adds to prior data that this group lives with more severe disease. Using the APPROACH registry, which captures information about all patients who undergo a coronary angiogram in Alberta, the research team analyzed data about quality of life and health status of this population. The validated survey results showed that South Asians' overall quality of life scored ...

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a potent regulator of sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels. The new findings may help scientists find better treatments for type 2 diabetes, obesity and other health problems caused by the body's inability to properly regulate blood sugar. The research is published online Feb. 13 in PLoS ONE. Fat and muscle cells in patients with type 2 diabetes become resistant to insulin, which normally causes them to take in glucose from the blood. The protein studied ...

University of Melbourne researchers have found Wikipedia is the most highly rated website for accessing information on mental-health related topics. The researchers assessed a range of on-line and print material on mental health-related topics and found that in the majority of cases, Wikipedia was the most highly rated in most domains. Content about mental health was extracted from 14 frequently accessed websites, including Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and a psychiatry textbook. Text providing information about depression and schizophrenia was assessed. The ...

NEW ORLEANS – Simple tests such as walking speed and hand grip strength may help doctors determine how likely it is a middle-aged person will develop dementia or stroke. That's according to new research that was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012. "These are basic office tests which can provide insight into risk of dementia and stroke and can be easily performed by a neurologist or general practitioner," said Erica C. Camargo, MD, MSc, PhD, with Boston Medical Center. More ...

A new study has examined how smoking-cessation aide varenicline may reduce drinking. Results indicate that varenicline may reduce drinking by increasing alcohol's aversive effects. Specifically, varenicline may increase blood pressure, heart rate, as well as ratings of dysphoria and nausea. Varenicline is an effective smoking-cessation medication that may also reduce drinking. However, the means by which it might reduce drinking is unclear. A study of the effects of varenicline on subjective, physiological, and objective responses to low and moderate doses of alcohol ...

Alcohol abuse and dependence are common problems in the United States due to a number of factors, two of which may be social drinking by college students and young adults, and risk taking that may lead to heavier drinking later in life. A study of the neural underpinnings of risk-taking in young, non-dependent social drinkers has found that the caudate nucleus and frontal cortex regions of the brain show less activation in people who drink more heavily. Results will be published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently ...

Frequent drinking can establish changes in the processing of alcohol cues that can, in turn, facilitate renewed drinking unless the resulting impulse to drink is inhibited. A new study has looked at the interaction between automatically activated approach tendencies and adolescent ability and motivation to inhibit and reflect upon drinking behaviors. Results show that stricter parental rules about drinking are highly protective, especially for males. Frequent drinking can lead to changes in the processing of alcohol cues that can, in turn, facilitate renewed drinking ...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to heavy drinking, and alcohol outlet density to violence. A new study looks at links between alcohol outlet densities and IPV-related Emergency Department (ED) visits. Findings showed that bars are positively related to IPV-related ED visits, while there is no relationship between restaurant density and IPV-related ED visits. Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to heavy drinking, substance use by one or both partners, and living in a neighborhood characterized by poverty and social disadvantage. Alcohol ...

Women with peripheral artery disease, or PAD, are two to three times more likely to have a stroke or heart attack than those without it ― yet it's often unrecognized and untreated, especially in women, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement. The statement is published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The American Heart Association, in collaboration with the Vascular Disease Foundation and its Peripheral Artery Disease Coalition, recommends healthcare providers proactively increase awareness of and test women ...

Hamilton, ON - For decades, the blood thinner heparin has been used to prevent and treat blood clots. Could it be just as effective in treating cancer? In an editorial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from McMaster University and the University at Buffalo suggest conclusive answers to key questions on the benefits of low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) for cancer patients remain elusive - despite promising results from large studies. Co-authors of the editorial are Dr. Elie Akl, associate professor in the Department of Medicine in ...

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one-third of the world's population is currently infected with tuberculosis bacteria. The bacteria is incredibly resistant to treatment, and despite its prevalence, very little is known about why it is so stress tolerant. But, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have been developing a new way of culturing tuberculosis bacteria, which could lead to new insights and treatments. "This is a significant step forward in TB research," said paper-author Dr. Anil Ojha, "because it shows in a very reproducible way how to ...

The Taurus Molecular Cloud, in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), lies about 450 light-years from Earth. This image shows two parts of a long, filamentary structure in this cloud, which are known as Barnard 211 and Barnard 213. Their names come from Edward Emerson Barnard's photographic atlas of the "dark markings of the sky", compiled in the early 20th century. In visible light, these regions appear as dark lanes, lacking in stars. Barnard correctly argued that this appearance was due to "obscuring matter in space". We know today that these dark markings are actually ...

UPTON, NY - Brain scans of two strains of mice imbibing significant quantities of alcohol reveal serious shrinkage in some brain regions - but only in mice lacking a particular type of receptor for dopamine, the brain's "reward" chemical. The study, conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, now online, provides new evidence that these dopamine receptors, known as DRD2, may play a protective role against alcohol-induced brain damage. "This study clearly ...

Drug delivery into muscle using an autoinjector, akin to the EpiPen used to treat serious allergic reactions, is faster and may be a more effective way to stop status epilepticus, a prolonged seizure lasting longer than five minutes, according to a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Status epilepticus is a potentially life-threatening emergency that causes 55,000 deaths each year. Anticonvulsant drugs are typically delivered intravenously (IV) as a first-line treatment. Starting an IV in a patient experiencing seizures can pose a challenge for paramedics ...

Oral nutritional interventions help increase nutritional intake and improve some aspects of quality of life (QOL) in malnourished cancer patients or those who are at nutritional risk, but do not effect mortality, according to a study published February 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The American Cancer Society estimated 12 million new cancer diagnoses worldwide in 2007, expecting this to more than double in the next 50 years. While international guidelines have suggested a nutritional intervention with dietary advice and/or oral nutritional supplements ...

Advisor Websites, a leading web-based software used by financial professionals to create and manage compliant websites, today announced the immediate release of its new mobile websites. The new feature gives advisory firms an edge in this extremely competitive market and meets the needs of the consumer. With Advisor Websites for Mobile, financial professionals can now reach the broadest possible audience using a mobile site that works on every popular mobile, tablet and e-reader. Advisor Websites for Mobile is the newest addition to Advisor Websites' growing list of ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (February 15, 2012) – Prions, the much-maligned proteins most commonly known for causing "mad cow" disease, are commonly used in yeast to produce beneficial traits in the wild. Moreover, such traits can be passed on to subsequent generations and eventually become "hard-wired" into the genome, contributing to evolutionary change. Prions were first found to produce heritable new traits more than a decade ago in laboratory studies of simple baker's yeast. The key discovery then was that some proteins could spontaneously switch from a normal shape into a ...

HOUSTON - Highly elevated platelet levels fuel tumor growth and reduce the survival of ovarian cancer patients, an international team of researchers led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer center reports in the New England Journal of Medicine. By pinpointing a powerful cause-and-effect relationship at the heart of a clinical observation that dates back more than 100 years, the team's findings reveal a new factor in cancer progression and new potential approaches for treatment. "We've long known that ovarian cancer patients often have markedly ...

Four new species of miniaturized lizards have been identified in Madagascar. These lizards, just tens of millimeters from head to tail and in some cases small enough to stand on the head of a match, rank among the smallest reptiles in the world. The full report can be found in the Feb. 15 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Frank Glaw of the Zoological State Collection of Munich in Germany, also conducted a genetic analysis to determine that the mini lizards, though similar in appearance, are in fact distinct species. The smallest of the ...

A recent study finds no statistically significant correlation between urinary mercury levels and autism, according to a Feb. 15 report in the open access journal PLoS ONE. There has been some concern that mercury may play a role in autism development. To investigate one aspect of this link, Barry Wright of North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust led a team of researchers in a study of 56 children with autism spectrum disorders, and mainstream, special school and sibling controls. The team found that the group with autism did not have elevated or reduced levels of ...

Organic farms produce strawberries with fewer malformations and a higher proportion of fully pollinated berries relative to conventional forms, according to a Feb. 15 report in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The study, led by Georg Andersson of Lund University in Sweden, investigated the effect of organic farming compared to conventional. They found that the pollination success increased greatly with organic farming, and speculate that this effect may be due to an increase in insect pollinator abundance and/or diversity. They also determined that this effect was apparent ...

BOSTON, MA—Mutations in TTN—the largest gene in the human genome—cause idiopathic (unknown cause) dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a common form of heart failure, according to a study by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) researchers. The TTN gene encodes a protein that functions as a scaffold for assembly of contractile proteins in muscle cells and also regulates the production of force in cardiac muscle cells. Because of its enormous size, the TTN gene was, until recently, too difficult to sequence and analyze in large numbers of patients. But with the development of ...

A medication commonly used to help people stop smoking may have an unanticipated positive side effect for an entirely different vice: drinking alcohol. A new study by University of Chicago researchers finds that varenicline, sold as Chantix, increases the negative effects of alcohol and therefore could hold promise as a treatment for alcoholism. A group of heavy-to-moderate social drinkers given a single dose varenicline three hours before an alcoholic beverage reported increased dysphoria and reduced "liking," even when researchers controlled for the effects of nausea ...

A team led by a University of British Columbia professor has developed a new class of drugs that completely suppress absence seizures – a brief, sudden loss of consciousness – in rats, and which are now being tested in humans. Absence seizures, also known as "petit mal seizures," are a symptom of epilepsy, most commonly experienced by children. During such episodes, the person looks awake but dazed. The seizures, arising from a flurry of high-frequency signals put out by the neurons of the thalamus, can be dangerous if they occur while a person is swimming or driving, ...

The ability to change vocal sounds (vocal plasticity) and develop an accent is potentially far more widespread in mammals than previously believed, according to new research on goats from Queen Mary, University of London. Vocal plasticity is the ability of an individual to modify the sound of their voice according to their social environment. Humans benefit from an extreme form of vocal plasticity which allows us to produce a wide range of sounds and accents, but in most other mammals (except, for example, bats and whales) vocalisations were thought to be genetically ...