Health News

Combination therapy for severe alcoholic hepatitis does not result in improved survival

Date: Sep-11-2013
Four weeks of treatment with a combination of the drug pentoxifylline and the corticosteroid prednisolone did not improve 6-month survival compared with prednisolone alone in 270 patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA.  Treatment of severe forms of alcoholic hepatitis is extremely challenging because of the poor outcome. European and U.S. guidelines recommend the use of prednisolone or pentoxifylline in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis...

Use of EHRs for patients with diabetes associated with reduction in rates of emergency department visits, hospitalizations, but not office visits

Date: Sep-11-2013
Among patients with diabetes, use of an outpatient electronic health record (EHR) in an integrated healthcare delivery system was associated with modest reductions in emergency department visits and hospitalizations, but was not associated with a change in office visit rates, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA.  The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act authorizes up to $27 billion during 10 years to promote meaningful use of EHRs, with penalties for lack of EHR use beginning in 2015...

Individual financial incentives, but not practice-level incentives, result in greater blood pressure control

Date: Sep-11-2013
In an examination of the effect of financial incentives on hypertension care at 12 outpatient clinics, physician-level (individual) financial incentives, but not practice-level or combined incentives, resulted in greater blood pressure control or appropriate response to uncontrolled blood pressure, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA. None of the incentives resulted in greater use of guideline-recommended medications compared with controls.  "As part of the Affordable Care Act, the U.S...

Pay-for-performance incentive program for small practices with EHRs results in improvement in cardiovascular outcomes

Date: Sep-11-2013
A pay-for-performance program in electronic-health-records-(EHR)-enabled small practices led to modest improvements in cardiovascular care processes and outcomes, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA.  "Most evaluations of pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives have focused on large-group practices," according to background information in the article...

Hypertensive smoking women have an exceptionally high risk of a fatal brain bleeding

Date: Sep-11-2013
Subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) is one of the most devastating cerebrovascular catastrophes causing death in 40 to 50% of the cases. The most common cause of SAH is a rupture of an intracranial aneurysm. If the aneurysm is found, it can be treated before the possible rupture. However, some intracranial aneurysms will never rupture - the problem is that the doctors don't know which aneurysms will and which will not. So, they don't know which patients should be treated and who can safely be left untreated...

MRI spectroscopy is highly sensitive for lipid-soluble metabolites from UC-MSCs

Date: Sep-11-2013
The water-soluble metabolite profile of human mesenchymal stem cells is known, but the lipid profile remains unclear. Haiyang Dai and colleagues from Shantou University Medical College used methanol-chloroform and perchloric acid to extract lipid-soluble metabolites and water-soluble metabolites, respectively. Furthermore, a dual phase extraction method using methanol-chloroform and water was used to obtain both water and lipid fractions simultaneously...

Social media and behavior psychology leads to HIV testing, better health behaviors

Date: Sep-11-2013
A UCLA study published Sept. 3 in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine demonstrates that an approach that combines behavioral science with social media and online communities can lead to improved health behaviors among men at risk of HIV infection. The evidence-based approach not only led to increased HIV testing and encouraged significant behavioral change among high-risk groups but also proved to be one of the best HIV-prevention and testing approaches on the Internet, according to the study's lead investigator, Sean D...

World Heart Federation calls on all countries to set a target year to end tobacco use

Date: Sep-11-2013
As the Tobacco End Game conference takes place in New Delhi, India, this week, The World Heart Federation calls on countries worldwide to follow the example set by nations such as Finland, New Zealand, and Scotland to set a target year to end tobacco use in their populations. Ending tobacco use in this sense means reducing population smoking levels to 5% or below, as well as implementing further measures in the international tobacco control treaty 'The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control...

Live imaging reveals for the first time gene motion in cell nucleus

Date: Sep-11-2013
An international team of scientists led by the UK's John Innes Centre and including scientists from Australia, Japan, the US and France has perfected a way of watching genes move within a living plant cell. Using this technique scientists watched glowing spots, which marked the position of the genes, huddle together in the cold as the genes were switched "off". "The movement of genes within the nucleus, captured here using live imaging, seems to play a role in switching their activity on and off", said first author Stefanie Rosa from the John Innes Centre...

Singapore scientists discover new RNA processing pathway important in human embryonic stem cells

Date: Sep-11-2013
Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), in collaboration with their counterparts from Canada, Hong Kong and US, have discovered a protein mediator SON plays a critical role in the health and proper functioning of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) . This finding was reported on 8th September 2013 in the advanced online issue of the prestigious science journal Nature Cell Biology. Correct expression of genes is essential for a cell to stay alive and to perform other cellular and physiological functions...