A new study published in The BMJ suggests that prehabilitation (also called prehab) may be able to reduce complications and length of hospitalization after surgery, while also improving quality of life and physical recovery. The systematic review and meta-analysis, which is the largest of its kind, examined data from more than 15,000 patients who participated in 186 randomized controlled clinical trials around the world. The researchers looked at various kinds of prehab, including exercise, nutritional enhancement, psychological support, cognitive ...

Actively preparing for major surgery by exercising and improving diet (known as “prehabilitation”) is associated with fewer complications, less time in hospital, and improved recovery and quality of life in adults, finds an analysis of clinical trials published by The BMJ today. The researchers stress that the certainty of evidence for all comparisons was generally low to very low, but they say prehabilitation based on exercise, nutrition, or exercise combined with other components, may be beneficial. Existing evidence suggests that prehabilitation can improve outcomes after surgery, but there’s a lack of clarity about which components, ...

Adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes who are given the sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor drug dapagliflozin alongside moderate calorie restriction achieve much higher rates of remission compared with calorie restriction alone, finds a trial published by The BMJ today. The researchers say this study provides a practical strategy to achieve remission for patients with early type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes affects over 400 million adults worldwide. It’s not necessarily a permanent condition and can be reversed by intensive weight management, ...

Gather around, and let Susan Hough tell you the tale of the Summerville Light. Legend has it that the strange orb sometimes seen hovering over the railroad tracks in the remote area around Summerville, South Carolina is a lantern borne by a ghost whose husband lost his head in a train accident. But Hough, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, wonders if there might be a less ethereal but no less intriguing possibility: is the source of the Summerville Light a phenomenon known as earthquake ...

(SACRAMENTO) — Nearly a quarter of adults in the U.S. have chronic pain, but a new study from the UC Davis School of Medicine shows a concerning drop in residents applying to pain medicine fellowship programs. The study was published in PAIN Practice. It found the number of anesthesiology residents applying for pain medicine fellowships — historically the key pool of applicants — dropped 45% between 2019 and 2023. “While the demand for pain specialists is growing in the U.S., the pipeline of new doctors to fill these roles is drying up,” said Scott Pritzlaff, the study’s ...

Key takeaways The team used the environmental circumstances and fecal samples collected from the six years prior to the El Niño drought to study the relationship between the endocrinologic stress response and survival in the white-faced capuchins. Monkeys who showed a steeper rise in these stress hormones during the mild droughts were more likely to survive the severe El Niño drought. As weather intensifies globally, longitudinal studies of how wild animals cope with changes in temperature, rainfall and food availability can help us understand which species ...

In a joint experimental-theoretical work, a team of researchers, including theorists from UC San Diego, have shown for the first time that heat transfer in the form of infrared radiation can influence chemical reactions more strongly than traditional convection and conduction methods. Using an optical cavity to confine infrared light waves, researchers focused on the thermal dehydration of an inorganic crystal, copper sulfate pentahydrate. They found that light-matter vibrational coupling (resulting in states known as polaritons) lowered ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A few things come to mind when we imagine the “alpha male” type. They’re the ones calling the shots, who get all the girls. But there’s a downside to being a strong and powerful alpha stud -- at least if you’re a baboon. Studies show that despite their high rank, the No. 1 males in baboon society are also some of the most stressed out, as measured by their high levels of glucocorticoids, the hormones involved in the ‘fight-or-flight’ response. But the leaders’ stress burden comes from a surprising source. New research reveals ...

Patients with atrial fibrillation are typically prescribed an anticoagulant, or blood thinner, to reduce the risk of stroke, but many may discontinue them or never receive a prescription due to concerns of increased risk of bleeding complications. Researchers from Mass General Brigham evaluated a drug that represents a new class of anticoagulants known as Factor XI inhibitors for treating patients with atrial fibrillation as part of the AZALEA-TIMI 71 Study. The trial was stopped early by the recommendation of the Data Monitoring Committee due to an overwhelming reduction in bleeding compared to ...

Maine’s lobster fishery — one that supports thousands of jobs statewide — is extensively monitored. Management efforts are informed by biological monitoring surveys observing changes in abundance and distribution of the lobster population, and dealer and harvester reporting from the industry. Yet these statistics don't tell the whole story of an industry shaken by supply and market disruptions and geopolitical conflict, or the welfare of the people and communities that rely on ...

People genetically susceptible to Huntington’s disease often see their movement, mood, and cognition decline slowly over time.  The cause is related to expansion of repeating DNA units, in which specific strings of genetic code—in this case, a series of cytosine-adenine-guanine nucleotides, or CAG, on one strand of the DNA and cytosine-thymine-guanine, or CTG, on the complementary strand—begin to repeat over and over, expanding to as many as 40 to 120 copies.  The extended copies create kinks in the DNA, making it more susceptible ...

SAN ANTONIO — January 22, 2025 —Four small suitcase-sized spacecraft, designed and built by Southwest Research Institute, have made a final Earth-side pit stop at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH, mission is sharing a ride to space with the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) observatory. “The PUNCH mission will integrate our understanding of the Sun’s corona, the outer atmosphere ...

The magnitude 7.9 Bonin Islands earthquake sequence, which ruptured deep within the earth near the base of the upper mantle, did not include an aftershock that extended to record depths into the lower mantle, according to a study in The Seismic Record. When Hao Zhang of the University of Southern California and colleagues re-examined the aftershock sequence of the May 2015 earthquake, they did not find evidence for a 751-kilometer-deep aftershock as reported by previous researchers. This aftershock has been called the deepest earthquake ever recorded. Instead, their study found a distribution of aftershocks that is compatible with a 12-kilometer sliver of a mantle mineral called olivine ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Researchers from Michigan State University’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies revealed that sleep patterns may vary across different racial and ethnic groups — notably for non-white and multiracial children. Yijie Wang is an associate professor of human development and family studies in the College of Social Science, and her research team published a ...

MINNEAPOLIS — Pregnant people with multiple sclerosis (MS) have a higher chance of experiencing mental illness both during their pregnancy and in the first years after they give birth than those without MS, according to a study published in the January 22, 2025 online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Previous studies have shown that women with MS are more likely to have depression, anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder compared to women without MS,” said study author Ruth Ann Marrie, MD, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and ...

Toronto, ON, January 22, 2025 – People with multiple sclerosis (MS) face a significantly higher risk of perinatal mental illness compared to those with other chronic conditions, according to a new study analyzing over 890,000 births in Ontario.   The research, published online in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, sheds light on the mental health challenges faced by people with MS during pregnancy and the first year after childbirth. Using population-based health ...

Two West Virginia University researchers have designed a curriculum to engage liberal arts faculty in discussions on the social, ethical and technical aspects of artificial intelligence and its role in classrooms. Through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Erin Brock Carlson, assistant professor of English, and Scott Davidson, professor of philosophy, both at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, have designed an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional program to facilitate conversations among faculty about the ...

Investigators from Mass General Brigham have found that a method originally designed for cancer detection can also identify and monitor even tiny amounts of SARS-CoV-2 intact viral particles in blood and other fluids from patients with acute COVID-19 infections, creating the potential for guiding future treatment of patients. The research is published in Science Advances.   “During the early days of the pandemic, we wanted to see if our approach for isolating small cancer vesicles could be adapted to isolate SARS-CoV-2 virus from biofluids like blood, stool, and ...

MADISON — University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have developed a promising technique for treating osteoarthritis using therapeutic blood clots activated by messenger RNA.  Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, affecting roughly 33 million adults in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It occurs when cartilage in key joints like the knees and hips deteriorates, causing pain and stiffness and impeding mobility. In a paper in the journal Bioactive Materials ...

Three NASA sounding rockets are set to launch from Poker Flat Research Range as early as Tuesday to learn more about three types of aurora — black, flickering and fast-pulsating. The launch window is Jan. 21 through Feb. 5. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute owns Poker Flat, located at Mile 30 Steese Highway, and operates it under a contract with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, part of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The launches will be the first of the season. As of April 2024, Poker Flat had launched 350 major sounding rockets and ...

The Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) has named Jared M. Kutzin, DNP, MS, MPH, RN, the Senior Director of the Simulation Teaching and Research (STAR) Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital, as its new President. He was elected this month during the annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in Orlando, Florida. He is the first Mount Sinai faculty member to hold this position and will serve as the 20th President of SSH. Health care simulation is the practice of using immersive and innovative technology in ...

Study Title: CD45-PET is a robust, non-invasive tool for imaging inflammation Publication: Nature, January 22, 2025 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute authors: Ali Salehi Farid, PharmD, Jennifer E. Rowley, Harris H. Allen, Isabella G. Kruger, Soheil Tavakolpour, Kyle Neeley, Min Cong, PhD, Haneyeh Shahbazian, MD, Niki Dorafshani, Achraf Berrada, MS, Mohammad Rashidian, PhD Summary: Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a breakthrough method to detect inflammation in the body using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. This innovative probe targets CD45, a marker abundantly expressed on all immune cells but absent from other cell types. ...

Certain proteins found in the human brain have long been known to be critical to controlling how brain cells communicate with each other. So-called GABAA receptors are proteins that control the flow of ions into and out of cells. As they play such a vital role in how neurons slow down or stop firing, they have become the targets of many drugs for conditions such as epilepsy, anxiety, depression and insomnia. Yet due to technical limitations and the delicate nature of studying human brain tissue, scientists have lacked a complete picture of how GABAA receptors, and their 19 subunits, ...

People whose parents divorced during their childhood may be at a greater risk of stroke later in life, according to a new study published January 22, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Esme Fuller-Thomson of University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.  Each year, approximately 795,000 individuals in the U.S. have a stroke. Previous work has established many sociodemographic risk factors for stroke, as well as connections between adverse childhood events and stroke. In the new study, researchers looked specifically at the ...

Data on almost 57,000 people from 65 countries suggests that the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS)—a widely used research tool—generally holds up well when applied across diverse groups of people, underscoring its potential value in research and policymaking. Viren Swami of Anglia Ruskin University, U.K., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on January 22, 2025. Life satisfaction is linked to a broad range of life areas, such as physical health, employment, and mortality. The SWLS is a questionnaire that measures an individual’s life ...