Infections are among the most frequent complications of a stay in hospital and raise the complication and mortality rates. Calculations based on data from the Hospital Infection Surveillance System (Krankenhaus-Infektions-Surveillance-System, KISS) showed an incidence of almost 60 000 newly acquired infections per year in intensive care units in Germany. This is the conclusion reached by Christine Geffers and her coauthor in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108 (6):87-93). KISS is a quality assurance tool for hospitals. More ...

Why, and when, do we learn to speak the way that we do? Research from North Carolina State University on African-American children presents an unexpected finding: language use can go on a roller-coaster ride during childhood as kids adopt and abandon vernacular language patterns. "We found that there is a 'roller-coaster effect,' featuring an ebb and flow in a child's use of vernacular English over the course of his or her language development," says Dr. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor of English Linguistics at NC State and co-author ...

A simple home urine test has been developed which can measure if patients with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are producing their own insulin. The urine test, from Professor Andrew Hattersley's Exeter-based team at the Peninsula Medical School, replaces multiple blood tests in hospital and can be sent by post as it is stable for up to three days at room temperature. Avoiding blood tests will be a particular advantage for children. The urine test measures if patients are still making their own insulin even if they take insulin injections. Researchers have shown that the test ...

February 24, 2011 ─ (BRONX, NY) ─ A study of more than 3,000 children shows that low vitamin D levels are associated with increased likelihood that children will develop allergies, according to a paper published in the February 17 online edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University headed the study. Researchers looked at the serum vitamin D levels in blood collected in 2005-2006 from a nationally representative sample of more than 3,100 children and adolescents and 3,400 ...

24th February, 2011 – In the most extensive study of macronutrient regulation yet undertaken on any carnivore, scientists have found that healthy cats regulate the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrate they consume, i.e. their macronutrient intake. Researchers at the WALTHAM® Centre for Pet Nutrition, the fundamental science centre supporting Mars Petcare brands such as WHISKAS® and ROYAL CANIN, have shown that cats consistently demonstrate a macronutrient target very close to that of their natural prey, such as mice and birds. This research furthers understanding ...

This release is available in Spanish. When the family doctor is a woman, patients expect her to let them get involved in the management of their health problem, especially when it is a family health problem or a cold. However, patients have even greater expectations of their family doctor "listening to them, keeping them informed and considering their opinions than in participating in decision making". This was the conclusion drawn of a study recently conducted by Ana Delgado, Luis Andrés López Fernández and Lorena Saletti Cuesta (Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública), ...

A new finding from scientists at the National Institutes of Health could help efforts to design vaccines and other prevention tools to block HIV in the early stages of sexual transmission, before infection takes hold. Researchers at the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have helped explain genetic differences that can distinguish some early-transmitting HIVs—viruses found in an infected individual within the first month after infection—from forms of HIV isolated later in infection. These genetic features help HIV bind tightly to a molecule called ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- At least seven million hospitalized Americans suffer from delirium each year, however the condition goes unrecognized in more than 60 percent of patients. Even if diagnosed, there is no effective way to treat the condition, which is a growing concern to medical professionals. Researchers, clinicians, and administrators from across the United States will meet in Indianapolis, June 5 - 7 for "Advancing Delirium Care through Research," the inaugural conference of the American Delirium Society, to discuss current and future research and therapy. The scientific ...

Researchers from Spain have identified a strain of probiotic bacteria that may be useful in treating ulcers caused by Helicobacter pylori. They report their findings in the February 2011 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. "H. pylori is considered one of the major risk factors underlying the development of gastritis and gastric and duodenal ulcers," write the researchers. "Currently, antibiotic-based treatment for H. pylori infection is neither sufficient nor satisfactory, with the most successful treatments reaching 75 to 90% eradication rates. ...

The key to dealing with some of the challenges life throws at us - including pain, suffering, illness, grief and loss - is to truly appreciate the positive aspects of our life, and not simply focus on the negative. It is important to acknowledge the setbacks, but equal attention and value need to be given to what is going well. This lesson in living, based on the teachings of Buddha, is given by Karen Hilsberg, from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health in California in the US, in an article published online in Springer's journal, Mindfulness. Her moving, ...

Many studies have suggested that males tend to be more physically and verbally aggressive than females. According to a new study, to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, it may not be the case that women are less competitive than men—they may just be using a different strategy to come out ahead. Specifically, women may rely more on indirect forms of aggression, such as social exclusion. To investigate how men and women respond when faced with a social threat, psychological scientist Joyce F. Benenson of Emmanuel ...

Scientists are eyeing a rare genetic glitch for clues to improved treatments for some people with schizophrenia – even though they found the mutation in only one third of 1 percent of patients. In the study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, schizophrenia patients were 14 times more likely than controls to harbor multiple copies of a gene on Chromosome 7. The mutations were in the gene for VIPR2, the receptor for vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) – a chemical messenger known to play a role in brain development. An examination of patients' blood ...

Family doctors can take more than a month to record ovarian cancer, once diagnosed by a specialist, in one in 10 cases, indicates research published in the launch issue of the new online journal BMJ Open. Ovarian cancer was also incorrectly or prematurely classified in 11% of cases, the data show. The authors base their findings on the "free text" data available in patient records, which are submitted to the General Practice Research Database (GPRD). The GPRD contains long term anonymised medical data on more than four million patients on the lists of a representative ...

Most "locked-in syndrome" patients say they are happy, and many of the factors reported by those who say they are unhappy can be improved, suggest the results of the largest survey of its kind, published in the launch issue of the new online journal BMJ Open. The findings are likely to challenge the perception that these patients can no longer enjoy quality of life and are candidates for euthanasia or assisted suicide, say the authors. The research team quizzed 168 members of the French Association for Locked in Syndrome on their medical history and emotional state, ...

A new article written by a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy calls on the intelligence community to jointly create a policy on cybersecurity and determine the degree to which the U.S. should protect intellectual property and national infrastructure of other nations. The author also comments on how aggressive the United States should be in its proactive cyber-spying activities. "Treasure Trove or Trouble: Cyber-Enabled Intelligence and International Politics" was authored by Chris Bronk, a fellow of information technology policy at the Baker ...

SAN ANTONIO (Feb. 24, 2011) — Mouse models are yielding important clues about the nature of autism spectrum disorders, which impact an estimated one in 110 children in the U.S.[1] In labs at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, researchers are studying strains of mice that inherently mimic the repetitive and socially impaired behaviors present in these disorders. Georgianna Gould, Ph.D., research assistant professor of physiology in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, is eyeing the role that serotonin plays in autism spectrum disorders. Serotonin is known ...

Loma Linda, California – A new research study from Loma Linda University (LLU) demonstrates that naturally occurring antioxidants in pecans may help contribute to heart health and disease prevention; the results were published in the January 2011 issue of The Journal of Nutrition. Pecans contain different forms of the antioxidant vitamin E—known as tocopherols, plus numerous phenolic substances, many of them with antioxidant abilities. The nuts are especially rich in one form of vitamin E called gamma-tocopherols. The findings illustrate that after eating pecans, gamma-tocopherol ...

After three years of exhaustive analysis led by a University of Alberta researcher, the list of known compounds in human blood has exploded from just a handful to more than 4,000. "Right now a medical doctor analyzing the blood of an ailing patient looks at something like 10 to 20 chemicals," said U of A biochemist David Wishart. "We've identified 4,229 blood chemicals that doctors can potentially look at to diagnose and treat health problems." Blood chemicals, or metabolites, are routinely analyzed by doctors to diagnose conditions like diabetes and kidney failure. ...

PITTSBURGH—A redesign of the nation's donor-liver distribution network developed by University of Pittsburgh researchers could result in several hundred more people each year receiving the transplants they need. The team reports in the journal INFORMS Management Science that donor livers currently are doled out to 11 national regions that evolved with little regard for geography and demographics, an arrangement that prevents many livers from getting to prospective recipients in time. The Pitt researchers instead trimmed the network down to six regions that better account ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - New findings by a University of Maryland-led team of scientists indicate that a genetically engineered fungus carrying genes for a human anti-malarial antibody or a scorpion anti-malarial toxin could be a highly effective, specific and environmentally friendly tool for combating malaria, at a time when the effectiveness of current pesticides against malaria mosquitoes is declining. In a study published in the February 25 issue of the journal Science, the researchers also say that this general approach could be used for controlling other devastating ...

SEATTLE – Full-term pregnancy has long been associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer, but a new study finds that the more times a woman gives birth, the higher her risk of "triple-negative" breast cancer, a relatively uncommon but particularly aggressive subtype of the disease. Conversely, women who never give birth have a 40 percent lower risk of such breast cancer, which has a poorer prognosis than other types of breast cancer and doesn't respond to hormone-blocking therapies such as tamoxifen. These findings, from a study led by Amanda Phipps, Ph.D., a postdoctoral ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There's more than one way to silence gene activity, according to a Michigan State University researcher. Downregulating activity is how healthy genes should shift out of their development cycle. The results, published in this week's Current Biology, discuss how specific repressor proteins – which researchers have named Hairy and Knirps – slow genes during development and how the process is comparable to slowing down a car, says molecular biologist David Arnosti. The binding of repressor proteins to DNA provides a molecular switch for such regulation. ...

As if the recent prediction that half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn't alarming enough, a new genetic discovery published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) provides a disturbing explanation as to why: we took an evolutionary "wrong turn." In the research report, scientists show that human evolution leading to the loss of function in a gene called "CMAH" may make humans more prone to obesity and diabetes than other mammals. "Diabetes is estimated to affect over 25 million individuals in the U.S., and 285 million ...

How severe can climate change become in a warming world? Worse than anything we've seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science. An international team of scientists led by Curt Stager of Paul Smith's College, New York, has compiled four dozen paleoclimate records from sediment cores in Lake Tanganyika and other locations in Africa. The records show that one of the most widespread and intense droughts of the last 50,000 years or more struck Africa and Southern Asia 17,000 to 16,000 years ago. Between 18,000 and 15,000 ...

Cambridge, MA- Adding particles to liquids to make currents visible is a common practice in the study of fluid mechanics. The approach was adopted and perfected by artist Paul Matisse in sculptures he calls Kalliroscopes. Matisse's glass-enclosed liquid sculptures contain an object whose movement through the liquid creates whorls that can be seen only because elongated particles trailing the object align with the direction of the current; light reflects off the particles, making the current visible to the viewer. Researchers at MIT recently demonstrated that this same ...