The use of tobacco cessation medication in a population may lead to reduced hospital admissions for heart attacks and for coronary atherosclerosis within the two years after use according to a study by Thomas Land and colleagues from the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston, USA, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The study found no reduction in hospitalizations for other diseases, in the same two year period. In July 2006, the Massachusetts Medicaid program (MassHealth) adopted ...

Second-hand smoke increases risk of invasive meningococcal disease in children Children exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to get invasive meningococcal disease than children who are not exposed, reports a study from Chien-Chang Lee at the Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, USA) and colleagues published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The authors also found a possible association of second-hand smoke exposure with invasive pneumococcal disease and Haemophilus influenzae type b. By reviewing and analysing published studies (30 case-control and 12 cross-sectional ...

Among smokers with military-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), integrating smoking cessation treatment with mental health care for PTSD resulted in higher rates of prolonged smoking abstinence, compared to referral for assistance with quitting smoking, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA. Nicotine dependence is more common among individuals with mental illness. "Posttraumatic stress disorder, a prevalent mental disorder, is highly associated with smoking (45 percent) and unsuccessful quit attempts. Individuals with PTSD smoke more heavily than ...

With the use of a highly sensitive test, detection of the blood biomarker cardiac troponin T, a cardiac-specific protein, is associated with structural heart disease and an increased risk of all-cause death, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA. Cardiac troponin T (cTnT) is a preferred biomarker for the diagnosis of heart attack, and increasingly it has been recognized that elevated troponin levels may be detected in several chronic disease states, including coronary artery disease (CAD), heart failure, and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Some research has ...

Use of low-dose aspirin prior to a newer type of fecal occult blood test is associated with a higher sensitivity for detecting advanced colorectal tumors, compared to no aspirin use, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA. "Screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) and its precursors by fecal occult blood tests (FOBTs), which has been shown to reduce CRC incidence and mortality in randomized trials, is widely recommended and applied in an increasing number of countries. Screening is mostly done in age groups in which use of low-dose aspirin for primary or secondary ...

DALLAS – Dec. 7, 2010 – A more sensitive version of a blood test typically used to confirm that someone is having a heart attack could indicate whether a seemingly healthy, middle-aged person has unrecognized heart disease and an increased risk of dying, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. In a study available online and in the Dec. 8 print issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that a new, highly sensitive test for a protein called cardiac troponin T (cTnT) could detect the protein in about 25 percent of blood ...

LA JOLLA, CA-Better known as the light sensor that sets the body's biological clock, melanopsin also plays an important role in vision: Via its messengers-so-called melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells, or mRGCs-it forwards information about the brightness of incoming light directly to conventional visual centers in the brain, reports an international collaboration of scientists in this week's issue of PLoS Biology. The findings reveal a new role for mRGCs during image-forming vision and suggest that these cells could make a significant contribution to assessing ...

Patients who need assistance to breathe through mechanical ventilation may benefit from listening to music, a new review published in The Cochrane Library shows. The researchers found that music listening may relax patients, potentially resulting in fewer complications. Mechanical ventilation often causes major distress and anxiety in patients. The sensation of breathlessness, frequent suctioning, inability to talk, uncertainty regarding surroundings or condition, discomfort, isolation from others, and fear all contribute to high levels of anxiety. Medications administered ...

Immunotherapy given as pills or drops under the tongue is a safe and effective way to treat hayfever-like allergies caused by pollen and dust mites, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The researchers say the approach is an attractive alternative to immunotherapy injections in children. Common treatments for hayfever-like symptoms caused by allergies include antihistamines and nasal corticosteroids. If these prove unsuccessful, doctors may recommend immunotherapy, a desensitisation approach that involves exposing patients to increasing doses of an allergen. ...

Vitamin A supplements are still an effective way to reduce childhood death and disease. A new study by Cochrane researchers strongly endorses the continuation of vitamin A supplementation programmes, which reduce the incidence of measles and diarrhoea and ultimately save lives. Vitamin A deficiency is a common problem in low and middle income countries. People whose diets do not include enough of the vitamin may have impaired body functions, and be more susceptible to blindness, infection and early death. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends vitamin A supplements ...

HACKENSACK, N.J. (December 7, 2010 at 7:30am) — The John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center announced today important research findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) taking place December 4-7, 2010 in Orlando, Florida. The ASH meeting is the world's leading scientific gathering of hematologists and hematology researchers. Research highlights from the 40 abstracts from the John Theurer Cancer Center include a comparison of treatment with stem cell transplantation versus continued combination drug ...

Sophia Antipolis, 8 December 2010: The prevalence of smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke among men in France has fallen by more than 15 per cent since the mid 1980s, but over the same 20-year period has increased among women. As a result, investigators from the World Health Organization French MONICA (MONItoring trends and determinants in CArdiovascular disease) centre say the divergent smoking trends predict changes in death rates from coronary heart disease in French men and women since 1985 - estimated as a decline in men of 10-15 per cent, but an increase among women ...

"Mobility is hugely important in terms of older people being able to remain independent," explains Dr Lynn McInnes. "Reduced mobility can restrict a person's social life as well as limiting their access to shops, leisure and other activities. People fear not being able to look after themselves and being a burden on others. Often a cause of this dependence is a decline in mobility." The study used innovative methods, such as location awareness technologies for mapping the mobility of the oldest-old members (75 years and over) of an existing 25-year longitudinal study ...

Washington, D.C. (December 7, 2010) -- Geophysical phenomena such as the dynamics of the atmosphere and ocean circulation are typically modeled mathematically by tracking the motion of air or water particles. These mathematical models define velocity fields that, given (i) a position in three-dimensional space and (ii) a time instant, provide a speed and direction for a particle at that position and time instant. "Geophysical phenomena are still not fully understood, especially in turbulent regimes," explains Gary Froyland at the School of Mathematics and Statistics ...

Washington, D.C. (December 7, 2010) -- You've seen it in movies: the human-like, robot assassin quickly regenerates its structure after being damaged beyond recognition. This "Terminator" scenario is becoming less far-fetched as recent advances in structural health monitoring systems have led to a variety of ways to identify damage to a structural system. Now, in the Journal of Applied Physics, researchers at Arizona State University have created a material that may be able to not only sense damage in structural materials, such as cracking in a fiber-reinforced composite, ...

VIDEO: This movie shows laser beams being directed to a 5x5 array. The current paper uses only a 1x5 array, but with real atoms and quantum measurements of the internal rotations. Click here for more information. Washington, D.C. (December 7, 2010) -- A new laser-beam steering system that aims and focuses bursts of light onto single atoms for use in quantum computers has been demonstrated by collaborating researchers from Duke University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Described ...

CANCUN, MEXICO (7 December 2010)--An exclusive focus on forests—as opposed to the entire landscape—could lead to inequitable and destructive outcomes for the poor in developing countries, said a Nairobi-based agroforestry research organization today. Most deforestation and forest degradation is driven by forces outside forests, so capturing emissions and managing carbon stocks from land uses that involve the whole landscape, not just forests, must be included for the successful implementation of REDD+, according to World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). A recently published ...

For Immediate Release – December 7, 2010 (Toronto) – A new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy--using meditation—provides equivalent protection against depressive relapse as traditional antidepressant medication. The study published in the current issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry compared the effectiveness of pharmacotherapy with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) by studying people who were initially treated with an antidepressant and then, either stopped taking the medication ...

A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital examined exertional heat-related injuries that were treated in emergency departments between 1997 and 2006. Exertional heat-related injuries are injuries that occur as a result of exercise or physical activity during warm or hot temperatures. The study found that an estimated 54,983 exertional heat-related injuries, an average of 5,500 cases each year, were treated in emergency departments during the 10-year study period. Overall, ...

A new survey of court cases against battered women living abroad shows that when the women left their abusive partners and returned with their children to the United States, half of the time, U.S. courts sent the children back, usually to their fathers. The survey, co-authored by a University of Washington researcher, also shows that almost a third of these estranged husbands filed criminal kidnapping charges against their wives. Released in time for Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, the survey is intended to help to establish domestic violence as a factor in whether courts ...

In a world first, a new 'state of the art' climate change experimental facility has been completed at the University of Queensland's Heron Island Research Station. The Climate Change Mesocosm (CCM) project led by Associate Professor Sophie Dove and Dr. David Kline from the Global Change Institute's Coral Reef Ecosystems Laboratory is one of the largest and most accurately controlled ocean acidification and warming experimental systems in the world and simulates ocean temperatures and acidification levels predicted to occur on coral reefs in the next 50 to 100 years. Able ...

The UK has the capacity to develop new green industries for capturing harmful carbon dioxide emissions from industry and storing them deep underground, but more investment is needed to further develop the relevant technologies and infrastructure, say scientists in new research published today. The authors, from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, have published two briefing papers that highlight the potential opportunities associated with adopting Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) technologies and the challenges involved. The researchers ...

Photosynthesis, the formation of energy-rich chemical compounds with the aid of sunlight, is fundamental to life on Earth. In plants, sunlight is collected by so-called antennal complexes, consisting of proteins bound to the green pigment chlorophyll. The chlorophyll captures the light energy and relays it, virtually without loss, via several intermediate molecules, to the reaction centers, where it is converted into stable forms of chemical energy. The intermolecular transfer process is described by Förster theory. This postulates that pigments act as oscillating dipoles ...

Sophia Antipolis, 7 December 2010: 'Some progress, but the big challenges remain'. This was the verdict after the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) hosted the 2010 European Summit on CVD Prevention on 30 November. The summit was attended by a broad cross-section of medical experts, healthcare organisations, national societies, regulators and representatives from the European Union (EU). The aim of this bi-annual event is to encourage concerted action towards a harmonised strategy for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Europe. Much of the debate centred ...

Apros is already widely used for dependable analysis of combustion and nuclear power plants in particular but also of other industrial processes. Even the most difficult process failures can be simulated by using this software. Apros simulation software is the result of a quarter century's development work by VTT experts in co-operation with Fortum, and it is already used in 26 countries. Apros version 5.09 brings several new features for its end users. The separate phase thermal hydraulics calculation (6-equation model) of Apros has now been extended to cover all parts ...