Medicare beneficiaries residing in areas with higher levels of primary care physicians per population have modestly lower death rates and fewer preventable hospitalizations, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA. "Strengthening the role of primary care is a key element in most proposals to improve the outcomes and efficiency of health care delivery in the United States. With the aging population and the waning interest in primary care by U.S. medical school graduates, some have projected a large shortage of general internists and family physicians to care ...

In a follow-up of participants from the Women's Health Study, seemingly healthy middle-aged women with new-onset atrial fibrillation had an associated increased risk of cardiovascular, noncardiovascular, and all-cause death, with some of the risk potentially explained by nonfatal cardiovascular events, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA. "Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, and its prevalence is markedly increasing over time. Substantial evidence exists that the risk of stroke, congestive heart failure (CHF), and cognitive dysfunction ...

Elderly patients with symptoms of heart failure and increased concentrations in the blood of the biomarker copeptin, or a combination of elevated concentrations of copeptin and the biomarker NT-proBNP, had an associated increased risk of all-cause death, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA. "A central part in evaluation of elderly patients with symptoms of heart failure is to identify simple tools that can aid the clinician in identifying high-risk and low-risk patients. Combining a biomarker produced locally in the myocardium [the muscle tissue of the heart] ...

For more than 40 years, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has published the Red List of Threatened Species describing the conservation status of various species of animals. They are now also including plants in their lists and the picture they present is dramatic. According to recent estimates, around 20 per cent of flowering plants are currently at risk of extinction – though the exact number is unknown since such a small proportion of plant species has even been measured. Now, however, research conducted in South Africa and the U.K. by an international ...

New information has come to light explaining how injured skin cells and touch-sensing nerve fibers coordinate their regeneration during wound healing. UCLA researchers Sandra Rieger and Alvaro Sagasti found that a chemical signal released by wounded skin cells promotes the regeneration of sensory fibers, thus helping to ensure that touch sensation is restored to healing skin. They discovered that the reactive oxygen species hydrogen peroxide, which is found at high concentrations at wounds, is a key component of this signal. The study, published on May 24th in the online, ...

Once there, exploring by bike means that you'll often stumble upon the lesser-known vineyards too (we'll point you in the right direction!), and you'll find that owners will welcome you as long-lost friends rather than fleeting tourists! Don't forget too that, if you have your car in the region with you, we offer a complimentary wine service where we'll collect any purchases and deliver them to your final hotel for you. So, if you enjoy wine, and fancy the idea of trying out old favourites, as well as making some new discoveries, here are 6 cycling holidays we think ...

A new and uniquely powerful tool for cutting-edge science is emerging on the crisp, high desert of western New Mexico. Outwardly, it looks much the same as the famed Very Large Array (VLA), a radio telescope that has spent more than three decades on the frontiers of astronomical research. The 27 white, 230-ton dish antennas still peer skyward, the 72 miles of railroad track still wait to transport the antennas across the arid plains, the familiar buildings remain, and crews still fan out across the desert to service the antennas. Functionally, however, everything has ...

A new study has gone some way to answering the question about whether or not a technique called lipofilling is safe for women who are having their breasts reconstructed after surgery for breast cancer. Lipofilling involves taking some fat from another area of a woman's body, such as her abdomen, and using it to fill in small defects or asymmetry that may occur during breast reconstruction. However, until now, there has been a lack of evidence as to whether or not the technique could trigger a recurrence of the original breast cancer, and so plastic surgeons have not ...

Boston, MA – Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that among women who are mostly healthy, those diagnosed with atrial fibrillation have an increased risk of death when compared to women without atrial fibrillation. These findings are published in the May 25, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "We knew that atrial fibrillation was associated with an increase risk of death in most cases, but in this study we found that even in a population of women who were mostly healthy and did not have established cardiovascular ...

In Wales, the NHS is set for a real budget cut of nearly 11% over four years, while England escapes the deepest cuts across the four nations, according to John Appleby, Chief Economist at the King's Fund on bmj.com today. In much of the discussion and debate about health care spending and reform, the "N" in NHS seems often to stand for England, writes Appleby. Yet around 10 million people in the UK do not live in England or use its health care services. Given the political arguments about whether the NHS budget has received a real increase in funding over the next ...

While moderate amounts of calcium (around 700 mg a day) are vital for maintaining healthy bones, there is no need to start increasing calcium intake in order to reduce the risk of fractures or osteoporosis in later life, finds a paper published on bmj.com today. As people age, their bones lose calcium and they are more at risk of fractures and osteoporosis - this is especially the case for women. As well as causing individual suffering, fractures are a huge drain on health services. With ageing populations, this burden will increase in the coming years and therefore ...

Direct injection of steroids into the middle ear for the treatment of sudden deafness was shown to be no more or less effective than oral steroids in restoring hearing levels in a large comparison study of patients. The study results appear in the May 25, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The multicenter clinical trial was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health. It is the largest treatment trial ever conducted to study the outcomes, over time, of patients ...

If one of your teeth has suffered significant damage or decay, your dentist may give you the option of whether you want to put a dental crown on the tooth or if you would like to have the tooth removed and have it replaced with a dental implant. Here are some important things to keep in mind when making this decision. When You Want to Get a Crown In most cases, you and your dentist should work together to preserve a damaged tooth. Although dental implants are good, nothing beats the strength of natural tooth structure. A dental crown allows you to protect and strengthen ...

A relatively new treatment for sudden hearing loss that involves injecting steroids into the middle ear appears to work just as well as the current standard of oral steroids, a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins and other institutions suggests. The findings, published in the May 25 Journal of the American Medical Association, could lead to more options for the 1 in 20,000 people who suffer from this often baffling and disabling condition each year. As the name implies, sudden hearing loss (SHL) is a dramatic loss of hearing that occurs over a short period, usually ...

TEMPE (May 24, 2011) - Schools were closed, restaurants shuttered and large public gatherings cancelled. The H1N1 virus was new, and most of the cases occurred among young people. Health professionals and scientists weren't sure at the onset what the world would encounter with the virus. Social distancing measures were enacted in Mexico where the pandemic affected different geographical areas of the country during three distinct waves. During the spring of 2009 when the virus affected the Mexico City area, officials choose to take measures to limit the virus' spread ...

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have published new data on why the aging brain is less resilient and less capable of learning from life experiences. The findings provide further insight into the cognitive decline associated with aging and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. The study is published in the May 25 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The Mount Sinai team evaluated the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that controls a wide range of cognitive processes and mediates the highest levels of learning. Nerve cell circuitry in the prefrontal ...

In recent years, the greatest danger on our nation's roads seemed to be the drunk driver. Now, you hear more about people texting while driving than you do drinking and driving. This new bad habit of texting while driving, which is a crime in some states, is taking even more lives and causing even more car accidents than drinking and driving. Studies have been conducted to compare the effects of alcohol on a driver's attention to the act of texting on a driver's attention. The results are remarkable. Texting while driving is riskier than driving under the influence ...

A study of tissue samples from 161 marine mammals that died between 2004 and 2009 in the Pacific Northwest reveals an association between severe illness and co-infection with two kinds of parasites normally found in land animals. One, Sarcocystis neurona, is a newcomer to the northwest coastal region of North America and is not known to infect people, while the other, Toxoplasma gondii, has been established there for some time and caused a large outbreak of disease in people in 1995. Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part ...

Last week, starting on May 15, it was Dog Bite Prevention week. Old news? Not if you've ever been the victim of a dog bite attack or other type of animal attack, or you've been threatened by an aggressive dog, you know that dog bite prevention is something that should be done year-round. We all love our dogs. But, simply put, some dog owners are negligent in the way they keep their pets. Depending on the breed of dog, and the animal's particular disposition - has the dog been known to display aggressive tendencies? - allowing dogs to roam free opens up dog owners to ...

A study of 1,455 U.S. men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer has found a link between brisk walking and lowered risk of prostate cancer progression, according to scientists at the University of California, San Francisco and the Harvard School of Public Health. The scientists found that men who walked briskly -- at least three miles per hour -- for at least three hours per week after diagnosis were nearly 60 percent less likely to develop biochemical markers of cancer recurrence or need a second round of treatment for prostate cancer. "The important point was ...

Bupa has joined forces with charity The Reader Organisation to encourage its care home residents to 'get into reading' with special reading aloud groups. The 'Get into Reading' groups will be piloted in eight Bupa care homes for six months from April 2011. Get into Reading aims to bring the benefits of reading aloud and of social interaction to people in health and care environments, such as residential homes or homes offering nursing care. Each group will enjoy shared reading led by a project worker from The Reader Organisation for an hour each week. Members will ...

A new study by Baylor University environmental health researchers found that zebra fish exposed to several different technical mixtures of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) – a common fire retardant – during early development can cause developmental malformations, changes in behavior and death. The study will appear in the June issue of the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and is the first to test multiple PBDE mixtures for changes in behavior, physical malformations and mortality on zebra fish. PBDEs are found in many common household products from ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Many kinds of algae and cyanobacteria, common water-dwelling microorganisms, are capable of using energy from sunlight to split water molecules and release hydrogen, which holds promise as a clean and carbon-free fuel for the future. One reason this approach hasn't yet been harnessed for fuel production is that under ordinary circumstances, hydrogen production takes a back seat to the production of compounds that the organisms use to support their own growth. But Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering, and postdocs ...

TORONTO, Ont., May 24, 2011—For every year a person is homeless, the odds of them having a family doctor drop by 9 per cent, according to a report by St. Michael's Hospital and Street Health. One of the key barriers to having a family doctor is the lack of a health card, often because it has been lost or stolen, the report found. The report, published today in the journal Open Medicine, www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/368/407, is an analysis of data collected for The Street Health Report 2007, a survey of the health status and needs of homeless people in downtown Toronto. ...

npower has announced that Royals' fan Mark Horseman will be the face of Reading FC when they take on Swansea City. Mark, 63, from Kennington, Oxford, will feature on a giant 24 x16 metre poster on the side of Wembley Stadium on Monday, May 30 - seen by thousands of people on their way into the ground for the npower Championship play offs Final. Mark won the competition - run by Football League title sponsors npower - after explaining what the Reading shirt means to him. There were more than three thousand entries from football fans across the country. He explained ...