However, large-scale clinical trials have highlighted the beneficial effect of cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) in the improvement of symptoms and reduction of mortality, and CRT is now recommended in the major European and American guidelines for the treatment and prevention of heart failure.(1) Clinical trials, however, are performed in carefully selected subjects and their results are not always applicable to the general population. Large-scale registries or surveys, on the other hand, capture data from a much more heterogeneous population and are closer to everyday ...

With the share of married adults at an all-time low in the United States, new research by demographers at Cornell University and the University of Central Oklahoma unveils clues why couples don't get married – they fear divorce. Among cohabitating couples, more than two-thirds of the study's respondents admitted to concerns about dealing with the social, legal, emotional and economic consequences of a possible divorce. The study, "The Specter of Divorce: Views from Working and Middle-Class Cohabitors," is published in the journal Family Relations (December 2011) and ...

In an example of life imitating art, biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign composed of millions of bacterial cells that periodically fluoresce in unison like blinking light bulbs. Their achievement, detailed in this week's advance online issue of the journal Nature, involved attaching a fluorescent protein to the biological clocks of the bacteria, synchronizing the clocks of the thousands of bacteria within a colony, then synchronizing thousands of the blinking bacterial colonies to glow on and off in unison. A little bit of art with ...

Timeshare and fractional companies planning to enter the Perspective Magazine Awards Program, sponsored by Holiday Systems International, only have until the end of this week to submit their entries and become part of the most comprehensive, global awards program of its kind in the industry. Winners will be announced at the conclusion of the Global Networking Expo, GNEX 2012 - A Global Meeting of Minds, in Cancun, Mexico. Perspective Magazine ( http://perspectivemagazine.com ) created the awards program, with its exclusive online voting system, to allow companies from ...

Inner Mongolia and Shenzhen, China – Inner Mongolia Agricultural University (IMAU), Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities (IMUN) and BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, jointly announced the first complete sequencing of Mongolian genome. This genomic study will help researchers to better understand the evolutionary process and migration of Mongolians and their ancestors from Africa to Asia, which also lays an important genomic foundation for further development of human genetic diseases research. Nowadays, Mongol is a central Asian ethnic group mostly ...

Stabilizing the cell's power-generating center protects against Parkinson's disease (PD) in a rat model, according to a report published online this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (www.jem.org). Mitochondria—the energy production center of cells—are damaged in PD, leading to loss of dopaminergic neurons and degeneration of brain function. Taking advantage of the fact that viruses often stabilize mitochondria in order to ensure survival of the cells they infect, a team led by John Sinclair and Roger Barker at the University of Cambridge injected a viral ...

The Doubletree Hotel in Grand Junction will be the venue for a Saturday, January 14, 2012 Bridal Fair produced by CUMULUS Radio. Moab Utah Travel Council cojoin wedding businesses in a booth for Moab Destination Weddings. Thus far a sample of wedding services will be at the booth to describe Moab for outdoor wedding ceremonies, highlight reception venues, local wedding planner capabilities, full wedding destination services like wedding cakes and relaxation treatments. Moab Utah is home to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. A National Park wedding venue is not the ...

A simple physician notification system can help prevent further fractures in osteoporotic patients who have had already had fractures, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Patients who have had a major fracture because of osteoporosis do not undergo testing for bone mineral density or receive medications to help prevent additional fractures. Recent 2010 Canadian clinical practice guidelines for osteoporosis care noted this "care gap" for patients at risk of additional fractures. Researchers from the University of Manitoba and Manitoba ...

Mel Campbell, president and founder of Campbell, Harrington & Brear Advertising Agency, of York, has been invited to serve as one of three judges for the AAF-Coastal Carolinas ADDY Awards competition in Myrtle Beach, SC, in January of 2012. Campbell will help to select the most outstanding of 150-plus entries for the local ADDY Awards competition (covering Florence, Georgetown and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina), the first of a three-tier, national competition conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). The AAF ...

STANFORD, Calif. -- Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have shown that iPS cells, viewed as a possible alternative to human embryonic stem cells, can mirror the defining defects of a genetic condition — in this instance, Marfan syndrome — as well as embryonic stem cells can. An immediate implication is that iPS cells could be used to examine the molecular aspects of Marfan on a personalized basis. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, can't do this because their genetic contents are those of the donated embryo, not the patient's. This proof-of-principle ...

Routine criminal prosecutions for not disclosing HIV status should be abolished, write three HIV/AIDS experts in an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "In Canada, despite remarkable medical advances that have made HIV/AIDS a manageable illness, recent years have seen an escalation in the number of people prosecuted for allegedly exposing sexual partners to the virus," write M-J Milloy, Thomas Kerr and Julio Montaner of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, BC. "An upcoming case being heard in February ...

After the launch of its brand new website in October the London based IT outsourcing company Flat Rock Technology is now launching it in two more languages German and Bulgarian. This event is the result of the recent efforts of Flat Rock team of experts. Two months ago the Flat Rock Technology website, blog and e-magazine were freshly redesigned and launched in English. The new design represents and reflects the direction the company is headed and that is, namely, innovation and creativity as well as reflection of the work done to date. The multi-language website ...

The tradition of fighting in hockey should be stopped, as research shows that repeated head trauma causes severe and progressive brain damage, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "The tragic story of Sidney Crosby's layoff due to concussions has not been sufficient for society to hang its head in shame and stop violent play immediately," writes Dr. Rajendra Kale, a neurologist and Interim Editor-in-Chief, CMAJ. A growing body of research on both hockey players and boxers indicates clearly that blows to the head cause irreversible damage, ...

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- In a major step that could revolutionize biomedical research, scientists have discovered a way to keep normal cells as well as tumor cells taken from an individual cancer patient alive in the laboratory — which previously had not been possible. Normal cells usually die in the lab after dividing only a few times, and many common cancers will not grow, unaltered, outside of the body. This new technique, described today online in the American Journal of Pathology, could be the critical advance that ushers in a new era of personalized cancer medicine, and ...

Philadelphia, PA -- The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has prepared a request to submit to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand coverage of medical nutrition therapy (MNT) for specific diseases, including hypertension, obesity, and cancer, as part of the CMS National Coverage Determination (NCD) Process. Most chronic health conditions can be controlled or treated with medical nutrition therapy, yet Medicare will only reimburse nutrition therapy services provided by a registered dietitian for individuals with diabetes and renal disease. "That's ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The impact of hatcheries on salmon is so profound that in just one generation traits are selected that allow fish to survive and prosper in the hatchery environment, at the cost of their ability to thrive and reproduce in a wild environment. These findings, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show a speed of evolution and natural selection that surprised researchers. They confirmed that a primary impact of hatcheries is a change in fish genetics, as opposed to a temporary environmental effect. "We've known for ...

New research shows 63% of women age 50 and older reported persistent, incident, or intermittent knee pain during a 12-year study period. Predictors for persistent pain included higher body mass index (BMI), previous knee injury, and radiographic osteoarthritis (OA). Details of this longitudinal study are available in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). According to the ACR more than 27 million Americans over age 25 suffer from OA—a leading cause of disability worldwide—with pain being ...

Drugs that enhance levels of small molecules derived naturally in the body from a major component of animal fats (small molecules known as epoxyeicosatrienoic acids [EETs]) are currently in clinical trials for the treatment of high blood pressure and diabetes. A team of researchers — led by Dipak Panigrahy and Mark Kieran, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston; Sui Huang, at the Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle; and Darryl Zeldin, at the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, Research Triangle Park — has now generated data in mice that raise concern ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is among the most common causes of death in the US. It is a smoking-related disease for which there are currently no disease-altering therapies. However, hope that one could be developed is now provided by the work of Enid Neptune and colleagues, at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in a mouse model of lung disease caused by exposure to cigarette smoke. Neptune and colleagues found that lostartan, a drug used widely in the clinic (e.g., to treat high blood pressure), reduced lung disease in mice caused by exposure to cigarette ...

EDITOR'S PICK: Potential concern about drugs in clinical trial Drugs that enhance levels of small molecules derived naturally in the body from a major component of animal fats (small molecules known as epoxyeicosatrienoic acids [EETs]) are currently in clinical trials for the treatment of high blood pressure and diabetes. A team of researchers — led by Dipak Panigrahy and Mark Kieran, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston; Sui Huang, at the Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle; and Darryl Zeldin, at the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, Research ...

Overeating may cause brain aging while eating less turns on a molecule that helps the brain stay young. A team of Italian researchers at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Rome have discovered that this molecule, called CREB1, is triggered by "caloric restriction" (low caloric diet) in the brain of mice. They found that CREB1 activates many genes linked to longevity and to the proper functioning of the brain. This work was led by Giovambattista Pani, researcher at the Institute of General Pathology, Faculty of Medicine at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart ...

Cognitive function may be a better indicator of the impact of aging on an economy than age-distribution, with chronological age imposing less of a social and economic burden if the population is "functionally" younger, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study finds that one standardized indicator of cognitive ability - memory recall - is better in countries where education, nutrition, and health standards are generally higher. Aging populations are of concern to many countries as it is often assumed that ageing ...

A 125-year debate on how nitrogen-fixing bacteria are able to breach the cell walls of legumes has been settled. A paper to be published on Monday by John Innes Centre scientists reports that plants themselves allow bacteria in. Once inside the right cells, these bacteria take nitrogen from the air and supply it to legumes in a form they can use, ammonia. Whether the bacteria breach the cell walls by producing enzymes that degrade it, or the plant does the work for them, has been contested since an 1887 paper in which the importance of the breach was first recognised. "Our ...

Boston – Researchers from Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that in low-income neighborhoods, misinformation about access to emergency contraception is a common occurrence. These findings appear as a research letter in the Dec. 19 on-line issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration facilitated access to emergency contraception among adolescents by making it available over-the-counter to individuals age 17 years and older. From September to December 2010, ...

Boston, Mass. – A group of small molecules called EETs – currently under scrutiny as possible treatment targets for a host of cardiovascular diseases – may also drive the growth and spread of cancer, according to researchers at the Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC) and other institutions. Their findings also raise the possibility that drugs that block EETs could serve as a new avenue for cancer treatment. This study, led by Dipak Panigrahy, MD, of DF/CHCC and the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston, appeared online December 19 ...