In this week's PLoS Medicine, Jonathan Kimmelman from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and Alex London from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA argue that ethical reviewers and decision-makers pay insufficient attention to threats to validity in pre-clinical studies and consult too narrow a set of evidence. They propose a better way for ethical and scientific decision makers to assess early phase studies: first, to attend to reporting and methodological quality in preclinical experiments that support claims of internal, construct, and external validity; and ...

WASHINGTON, DC, March 3, 2011 — Communication technologies that help people stay connected to the workplace are often seen as solutions to balancing work and family life. However, a new study in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior suggests there may be a "dark side" to the use of these technologies for workers' health—and these effects seem to differ for women and men. Using data from a national survey of American workers, University of Toronto researchers asked study participants how often they were contacted outside the workplace by phone, e-mail, ...

Hidden financial conflicts-of-interest are sneaking into published drug research through the back door, warns an international team of investigators, led by researchers from the Jewish General Hospital's Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal. More and more, policy decisions and what medications doctors prescribe for their patients are being driven by large "studies of studies," called meta-analyses, which statistically combine results from many individual drug trials. Led by Dr. Brett Thombs and McGill graduate student Michelle ...

In a study that included more than 120,000 adults who were treated for trauma, 16 percent of these patients died within 3 years of their injury, compared to an expected population mortality rate of about 6 percent, according to a study in the March 9 issue of JAMA. The researchers also found that trauma patients who were discharged to a skilled nursing facility had a significantly increased risk of death compared with patients discharged home without assistance. Trauma can lead to significant illness or death. "To date, there have been few large studies evaluating long-term ...

Information concerning funding and author conflicts of interest disclosed in the original reports of randomized controlled trials is rarely disclosed when these data are combined in meta-analyses, according to an article in the March 9 issue of JAMA. "Conflicts of interest (COIs) related to the funding of biomedical research by pharmaceutical companies and financial relationships between researchers and pharmaceutical companies have come under increased scrutiny in recent years. COIs may influence the framing of research questions, study design, data analysis, interpretation ...

Study participants who viewed a brief hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) video were more likely to attempt CPR, and perform better quality CPR in an emergency than participants who did not view the short videos, according to research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Each year, almost 300,000 people suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the United States. Survival rates from these events tend to be extremely low. However, research has shown that bystander CPR can double — even triple — survival from out-of-hospital cardiac ...

Participants in the first hospital-initiated, low-intensity collaborative care program to treat depression in heart patients showed significant improvements in their depression, anxiety and emotional quality of life after 6 and 12 weeks, researchers report in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal. Depression is a common condition in cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients which can result in poor prognosis and quality of life. Collaborative care depression management programs use a non-physician care manager to coordinate ...

The quality of chronic disease care under the GP pay for performance system is poorer for residents of care homes than those living in the community, according to a study published on bmj.com today. The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) for general practice is a voluntary system of financial incentives, which has been in place since 2004. Part of the programme includes specific targets for GPs to demonstrate high quality care for patients with chronic diseases. The study found that, although pay for performance systems do not invariably disadvantage residents of ...

The coalition government's Health and Social Care Bill is a missed opportunity to deliver the improvements in children's health services in England that are urgently needed, warn experts in a paper published on bmj.com today. Ingrid Wolfe and some of the country's leading experts in child health propose a fundamentally different way of delivering children's health care that is long overdue in the UK. The authors argue that care provided by UK children's health services is inferior in many regards to that in comparable European countries. However, the government's proposals ...

UK trained doctors and medical students from minority ethnic groups tend to underperform academically compared with their white counterparts, finds a study published on bmj.com today. This attainment gap has persisted for many years and must be tackled to ensure a fair and just method of training and assessing current and future doctors, say the authors. A third of all UK medical students and junior doctors are from minority ethnic groups. Although universities and the NHS are legally required to monitor the admission and progress of students and staff by ethnic group, ...

Lowering cholesterol could help the body's immune system fight viral infections, researchers have found. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have shown a direct link between the workings of the immune system and cholesterol levels. Researchers found that when the body succumbs to a viral infection a hormone in the immune system sends signals to blood cells, causing cholesterol levels to be lowered. Cholesterol produced by our cells is needed for viruses and certain bacteria to grow. Limiting our body's production of cholesterol would therefore curb the opportunity ...

A study has gained new insight into the minds of domestic hens, discovering, for the first time, that domestic hens show a clear physiological and behavioural response when their chicks are mildly distressed. The research by academics at the University of Bristol's Animal Welfare and Behaviour research group, and funded by the BBSRC Animal Welfare Initiative, is published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The study is the first to demonstrate that birds possess one of the important attributes that underpins empathy, and the first study to use both ...

DURHAM, N.C., and SINGAPORE -- The powers that be in Las Vegas figured out something long before neuroscientists at two Duke University medical schools confirmed their ideas this week: Trying to make decisions while sleep-deprived can lead to a case of optimism. The scientists showed, using a functional MRI, that a night of sleep deprivation leads to increased brain activity in brain regions that assess positive outcomes, while at the same time this deprivation leads to decreased activation in the brain areas that process negative outcomes. Sleep-deprived individuals ...

University Park, Pa. -- Crabs, fishing, land use and pollution sources are frequently hot topics for researchers in the Chesapeake Bay area, but finding all the available information, especially remote sensing data, is frequently a chore. Now, ChesapeakeView, a project of the AmericaView consortium, brings together a variety of datasets and makes them available to anyone who needs them for research, planning or other studies. "No simple place existed to find remote sensing information about land use, habitat changes and biodiversity," said Maurie Caitlin Kelly, director ...

The researcher in question is Nadia Skorupa Parachin and the secret of her technique is enzymes that she extracted from garden soil. If ethanol can be successfully made from xylose then ethanol production could increase by over 20 per cent – to the benefit of cheaper environmentally friendly fuel. Ethanol is manufactured by fermenting sugars from plant material. At present, xylose is not used, despite being the second most common type of sugar found in nature. Succeeding with xylose requires good, quick enzymes that can get the yeast to also ferment the less appetising ...

Metabolomics is a post-genomic research field for analysis of low molecular weight compounds in biological systems, and its approaches offer an analysis of metabolite level changes in biological samples. Recently, metabolomic method has shown great potentials in identifying the new diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for cancers. However, metabolomic studies on cancer metastasis remain scarce. A research article to be published on February 14, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The authors used metabolomics, which is based on ...

Magnesium-containing cathartics are commonly used to treat chronic constipation. Although hypermagnesemia is a rare clinical condition, it can occur as a side effect of increased intake of magnesium salts. The Japanese government has recently reported fatal cases of hypermagnesemia in adults treated with magnesium oxide. It is now important for pediatricians to know whether hypermagnesemia can develop in children with functional constipation who are receiving daily magnesium oxide treatment. A research article to be published on February 14, 2011 in the World Journal ...

Biliary atresia (BA) is an inflammatory obliterative cholangiopathy with unknown etiology, leading to progressive fibrosis and cirrhosis. Microarray technology, emerged as an indispensable research tool for gene expression profiling, has been used to study the mechanism underlying BA, and allows the simultaneous analysis of thousands of transcripts within a single experiment. Some studies have been performed to investigate the gene expression profiling of livers from BA patients. However, none of them was designed to identify genes that play a key role in the pathogenesis ...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Western countries. Metastatic liver disease more frequently develops metachronous metastasis following treatment of CRC. It was reported that hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection finally reduces the risk of intrahepatic metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with a higher survival rate and therefore can be considered an important prognostic factor for HCC patients. Rare reports are available on the relation between HBV infection and hepatic metastasis of CRC. A research article ...

The structures inside animals' thigh bones that enable them to support huge loads whilst being relatively lightweight are revealed in research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers say their work could lead to the development of new materials based on thigh bone geometry. A team from Imperial College London and the Royal Veterinary College collected thigh bone samples from British museum collections and zoos, analysing specimens of the femur bone from 90 different species including the Asian elephant, Etruscan shrew, roadrunner, ...

Forget technology. The best prescription for patients with venous leg ulcers is good quality nursing care – and the occasional belly laugh! A five-year study led from the University of Leeds has shown that ultrasound therapy does nothing to speed up the healing process of leg ulceration – contrary to what had been expected. Traditional methods of nursing care, which are cheaper and easier to deliver, work just as well, the authors conclude. "The 'healing energy' of low-dose ultrasound can make a difference to some medical conditions but with venous leg ulcers, this ...

Research by the University of Liverpool has found that systemic inflammation caused by sepsis can be suppressed by a protein which occurs naturally in a type of roundworm. Sepsis is a serious inflammatory condition, caused by the body over-reacting to infection. The body becomes overwhelmed by bacteria, setting off a series of reactions that lead to inflammation and clotting. It affects around 20 million people worldwide each year, and accounts for a large proportion of intensive care unit admissions. For the past 30 years, sepsis has largely been treated by antibiotics ...

Closely contested major sporting events are followed by a significant increase in traffic fatalities for fans of the winning team, according to new research from North Carolina State University. It turns out there may be more on the line than many sports fans bargained for. "A previous study showed that traffic fatalities increased in the hours following the Super Bowl. We wanted to see if that held true for other high-profile sporting events and, if so, whether the number of fatalities was influenced by whether the game was a close one," says Dr. Stacy Wood, Langdon ...

A recent trial of rituximab in combination with a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor and methotrexate (MTX) in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) found the safety profile to be consistent with other RA trials with TNF inhibitors. While the trial reported no new safety risks, clear evidence of an efficacy advantage in RA patients receiving the combination therapy was not observed in this study sample. Results of the trial are published in the March issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Rheumatology. The National ...

Researchers in Europe reported that treatment with modified-release sildenafil significantly reduced the frequency of attacks of Raynaud's phenomenon in patients with limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis (lcSSc), also known as scleroderma. The double-blind, placebo-controlled trial found that sildenafil was well tolerated with only some subjects experiencing minor or moderate side effects. Full findings are available in the March issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). Raynaud's ...