Health News

Reducing prostate cancer risk safely with finasteride

Date: Aug-16-2013
A long-term follow-up to a groundbreaking study led by the director of the Cancer Therapy & Research Center confirms that a drug shown to reduce risk of prostate cancer by more than a third has no impact on lifespan but further reduces the risk of prostate cancer. Reducing the risk of prostate tumors by about 30 percent - and low-grade tumors by 43 percent - means thousands of men can avoid a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatments that significantly affect quality of life, said Ian M. Thompson Jr., M.D...

Surgical Risk Calculator improves quality of care, shared decision making and patient-centered informed consent

Date: Aug-16-2013
The new American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) Surgical Risk Calculator is a revolutionary new tool that quickly and easily estimates patient-specific postoperative complication risks for almost all operations, according to research findings appearing online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The study will be published in a print edition of the Journal later this year.  Surgeons and patients have long been seeking an accurate decision-support tool to estimate patients' risks of complications after surgical procedures...

Maternal and infant care improved by Medicaid program

Date: Aug-16-2013
New research out of Michigan State University shows participation in a program aimed at Medicaid-eligible pregnant women improves maternal and infant care. And with Medicaid covering 40 percent of all births nationwide - 45 percent in Michigan - lead researcher Cristian Meghea of MSU's College of Human Medicine said the study reveals strong evidence that such a program can improve health care during pregnancy and after birth, particularly for disadvantaged families...

Improving fatty acid composition of rainbow trout

Date: Aug-16-2013
The health benefits of consuming omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids such as EPA and DHA are well established. The primary sources of these fatty acids in the human diet are through fish and seafood. Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, Department of Animal and Poultry Science, are studying new methods of improving the fatty acid composition of farmed fish...

Experience-sampling reveals declines in happiness on Facebook

Date: Aug-16-2013
Facebook helps people feel connected, but it doesn't necessarily make them happier, a new study shows. Facebook use actually predicts declines in a user's well-being, according to a University of Michigan study that is the first known published research examining Facebook influence on happiness and satisfaction. The study about the use of Facebook, a free networking website, appears online in PLOS ONE...

Study of testosterone spikes in non-competitive activities

Date: Aug-16-2013
The everyday physical activities of an isolated group of forager-farmers in central Bolivia are providing valuable information about how industrialization and its associated modern amenities may impact health and wellness. Studying short-term spikes in the testosterone levels of Tsimane men, UC Santa Barbara anthropologists Ben Trumble and Michael Gurven have found that the act of chopping down trees - a physically demanding task that is critical to successful farming and food production - results in greater increases in testosterone than does a directly competitive activity such as soccer...

Award-winning paper questions assumptions about how herniated discs happen

Date: Aug-16-2013
Herniated discs in the lower (lumbar) spine most often result from avulsion (separation) of the tissue connection between the disc and spinal bone, rather than rupture of the disc itself, according to a study in Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The results suggest that surgeons may need to pay more attention to failure of the vertebral end plate junction (EPJ) - the attachment between the spinal bone and discs - as the main cause of herniated lumbar discs. The study by Dr S...

Relapse in Crohn's disease patients not prevented by probiotics

Date: Aug-16-2013
Despite previous data showing beneficial effects, the probiotic Saccharomuces boulardii (S. boulardii) does not prevent clinical relapse in patients with Crohn's disease, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. As more people seek natural or non-drug ways to maintain their health, products containing probiotics have flooded the marketplace. While safe and tolerable, this study discovered that the probiotic S...

Triggering 'out-of-body experience' to help those with self-perception disorders

Date: Aug-16-2013
A visual projection of human heartbeats can be used to generate an "out-of-body experience," according to new research to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings could inform new kinds of treatment for people with self-perception disorders, including anorexia...

A pandemic may overwhelm E-Health services

Date: Aug-16-2013
National and international organizations are ill-prepared to exploit e-health systems in the event of the emergence of a major pandemic disease, according to a research paper to be published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology. E-health systems and associated information technology could radically alter the course of a pandemic disease, such as a major outbreak of influenza internationally...