Bariatric surgery can result in long-term weight loss and significant reductions in cardiac and other risk factors for some severely obese adults, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. The statement, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, is the first by the American Heart Association focused solely on bariatric surgery and cardiac risk factors, according to lead author Paul Poirier, M.D., Ph.D., director of the prevention/rehabilitation program at Quebec Heart and Lung Institute at Laval University ...

In the run up to World Malaria Day on the 25th April 2011, BioMed Central's open access journal Malaria Journal takes a long hard look at the development of natural compounds for use in the fight against malaria. There are over 200 million cases of malaria each year with 85% of all cases being children under five years old and, according to the World Health Organisation, in 2009 malaria was responsible for 781,000 deaths worldwide. Low cost treatment is available, 100 million children a year are treated with Artemisinin combination therapy at a cost of about 30 cents ...

A new legal high has emerged that seems to be replacing the banned substance mephedrone or "miaow miaow", warns a critical care paramedic in Emergency Medicine Journal. Mephedrone was banned in England, when it was reclassified as a class B drug in April 2010. The new drug in circulation is "ivory wave," also known as "purple wave," "ivory coast," or "vanilla sky." And its use has already been implicated in hospital admissions and deaths in various parts of England, says the author. Ivory wave is usually sold online as bath salts in packets of between 200 and 500 ...

Heavy drinking is not associated with one of the two most common types of gullet (oesophageal) cancer, suggests research published online in Gut. Gullet cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer death worldwide and occurs as one of two main types: squamous cell carcinoma or adenocarcinoma. But while rates of gullet adenocarcinoma have soared in many Western countries over the past three decades, those of squamous cell carcinoma have been falling. The squamous cell variety is strongly linked to alcohol consumption. The authors pooled data from 11 international studies, ...

The impact on mental health of a badly paid, poorly supported, or short term job can be as harmful as no job at all, indicates research published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Because being in work is associated with better mental health than unemployment, government policies have tended to focus on the risks posed by joblessness, without necessarily considering the impact the quality of a job may have, say the authors. They base their findings on seven waves of data from more than 7000 people of working age, drawn from a representative national ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study in Honduras suggests that climate-related weather disasters may sometimes actually provide opportunities for the rural poor to improve their lives. Researchers found that that the poorest inhabitants of a small village in northeastern Honduras increased their land wealth and their share of earnings relative to more wealthy residents after Hurricane Mitch devastated their village in October 1998. The findings offer a glimmer of hope from widespread concerns that the world's poor will suffer the most from shocks created by global climate change. "In ...

The research, published today (Tuesday March 15 2011) in The Journal of Physiology, shows a definite link between maternal and offspring obesity and is the first demonstration that this is the case in mammals which bear 'mature offspring' – as humans do. Professor Peter Nathanielsz, lead author of the research, said: "A relationship between maternal obesity and offspring obesity has been clearly identified in rodents but as their young are born immature, it was not clear whether the findings would apply to humans. "Lambs offer a more similar model to understand the ...

A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years, yet another indication that they weren't dimwitted brutes as often portrayed. The conclusion comes from the study of scores of ancient archaeological research sites in Europe that show convincing evidence of long-term fire control by Neanderthals, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Villa co-authored a paper on the new study with Professor Wil Roebroeks ...

An inexpensive type 2 diabetes drug that has been around for more than 15 years works just as well and has fewer side effects than a half-dozen other, mostly newer and more expensive classes of medication used to control the chronic disease, new Johns Hopkins research suggests. In their report, published online March 14 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the Hopkins team found that metformin, an oral drug that was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1995, not only controlled blood sugar, but was also less likely to cause weight gain or ...

SEATTLE – A wealth of maternal and child health data is being made immediately and freely accessible through a new collaboration between the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Division of Reproductive Health. The Division chose IHME's Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) to host its reports and datasets for an extensive series of reproductive health survey data from more than 30 countries that have received technical assistance from the Division from 1975 to the present. The datasets cover a wide ...

CHICAGO – Heavy alcohol consumption, specifically three or more glasses of liquor a day, is associated with an increased risk of death from pancreatic cancer, according to a report in the March 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Alcoholic beverage consumption – a modifiable lifestyle factor – is causally related to several cancers, including oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colorectum and female breast," the authors write as background information in the article. "Heavy alcohol consumption causes acute and chronic ...

CHICAGO -- A meta-analysis of nine previous studies found that quitting smoking shortly before surgery was not associated with an increased risk of postoperative complications, according to a report published online today that will appear in the July 11 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Cigarette smoking has been implicated as a risk factor for postoperative complications across a spectrum of surgical specialties," the authors provide as background information. "Compared with nonsmokers, smokers who undergo surgery have ...

CHICAGO – Patients with a recent onset of Parkinson disease have a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency, but vitamin D concentrations do not appear to decline during the progression of the disease, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Vitamin D is now considered a hormone that regulates a number of physiological processes. "Vitamin D insufficiency has been associated with a variety of clinical disorders and chronic diseases, including impaired balance, decreased muscle strength, mood and cognitive ...

CHICAGO – Regular consumption of fish and omega-3 fatty acids found in fish is associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing age-related macular degeneration in women, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the June issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "An estimated nine million U.S. adults aged 40 years and older show signs of age-related macular degeneration (AMD)," the authors write as background information in the article. "An additional 7.3 million persons have early age-related macular degeneration, ...

CHICAGO – Patients with a disease known as retinal vein occlusion (RVO) have a significantly higher incidence of stroke when compared with persons who do not have RVO, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Retinal vein occlusion (RVO) is a retinal vascular disease in which a retinal vein is compressed by an adjacent retinal artery, resulting in blood flow turbulence, thrombus formation, and retinal ischemia," the authors write as background information in the article. "Although RVO is a significant cause ...

Children express the stereotype that mathematics is for boys, not for girls, as early as second grade, according to a new study by University of Washington researchers. And the children applied the stereotype to themselves: boys identified themselves with math whereas girls did not. The "math is for boys" stereotype has been used as part of the explanation for why so few women pursue science, mathematics and engineering careers. The cultural stereotype may nudge girls to think that "math is not for me," which can affect what activities they engage in and their career ...

Scientists from Monash University have uncovered a new understanding of how male puberty begins. The key to their findings lies with a protein known as SMAD3 and the rate at which it is produced. Researchers, Associate Professor Kate Loveland and Dr Catherine Itman from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences have discovered through laboratory testing that half as much SMAD3 protein results in faster maturation than the norm, and an inability to create SMAD3 results in abnormal responses to testosterone. "SMAD3 is a protein that translates signals from ...

Alum is an adjuvant (immune booster) used in many common vaccines, and Canadian researchers have now discovered how it works. The research by scientists from the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine is published in the March 13 online edition of Nature Medicine. The new findings will help the medical community produce more effective vaccines and may open the doors for creating new vaccines for diseases such as HIV or tuberculosis. "Understanding alum properties will help other vaccines because we are one step deeper into the mechanistic insight of adjuvants, ...

Research into how the brain transmits messages to other parts of the body could improve understanding of disorders such as epilepsy, dementia, multiple sclerosis and stroke. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have identified a protein crucial for maintaining the health and function of the segment of nerve fibres that controls transmission of messages within the brain. The study, published in the journal Neuron, could help direct research into neurodegenerative disorders, in which electrical impulses from the brain are disrupted. This can lead to inability to ...

Research commissioned by Cerebra, the charity that helps to improve the lives of children with brain conditions, and carried out by the Cerebra Research Unit (CRU) at the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry, has found little evidence to suggest that cranial osteopathy is of benefit to children with cerebral palsy. The research is published on-line in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Osteopathy has, over recent years, become a popular complementary treatment for children with cerebral palsy. Cerebra initially asked researchers at the CRU to investigate existing ...

The first major study of the wellbeing and inclusion of former politically motivated prisoners in Northern Ireland will be launched by Queen's University today (Monday 14 March). Ageing and Social Exclusion among Former Politically Motivated Prisoners in Northern Ireland and the border region of Ireland investigated the well being and social and economic inclusion of loyalist and republican former prisoners (aged 50 and over) as older people in Northern Ireland. The report will be launched at Parliament Buildings at Stormont this afternoon. The research was led by ...

International climate negotiations are deadlocked between the affluent global North and "developing" South, between political Left and Right, and between believers and deniers. Now, authors writing in the latest issue of the International Journal of Water argue that a more integrative analysis of climate should help resolve these conflicts. Land use changes and water management are highly relevant to climate change. To quote hydrologists Juraj Kohutiar and Michal Kravcik of the Slovak People and Water NGO: "Water evaporation is the most important agent of energy transformation ...

Potsdam/Bremerhaven, March 14th, 2011. Unusually low temperatures in the Arctic ozone layer have recently initiated massive ozone depletion. The Arctic appears to be heading for a record loss of this trace gas that protects the Earth's surface against ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This result has been found by measurements carried out by an international network of over 30 ozone sounding stations spread all over the Arctic and Subarctic and coordinated by the Potsdam Research Unit of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association ...

Calling it the "new periodic table for flies," researchers at North Carolina State University and collaborators across the globe have mapped the evolutionary history of flies, providing a framework for further comparative studies on the insects that comprise more than 10 percent of all life on Earth. The research, published today in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, plugs gaps in the 260-million-year history of the fly order Diptera, says Dr. Brian Wiegmann, NC State professor of entomology and primary investigator of the fly tree ...

Electric cars are the future – a view shared by government and the automotive industry alike. The German federal government aims to establish Germany as the lead market for electromobility. By 2020, a million passenger cars with an electric drive should be on the roads in Germany. The prospects of achieving that aim look good: As the ADAC, the German motoring organization, found out in a survey, 74 percent of those surveyed would buy an electric car if they did not have to compromise in terms of cost, comfort and safety. Consumers are not willing to compromise one iota ...