Health News

Increased self-control and changes seen in the brains of smokers receiving integrative body-mind training

Date: Aug-07-2013
Addiction to smoking and other substances involves a particular set of brain areas related to self-control, according to numerous research. For a new study, researchers wondered if a training approach designed to influence this addiction pathway could influence smokers to reduce their tobacco use -- even if smokers did not intend to do so. It worked...

Bariatric surgery only half as likely for obese black Americans compared to their white counterparts

Date: Aug-07-2013
White Americans who are obese are twice as likely as black Americans to have surgery to tackle the problem, a study has found. Bariatric surgery is now recognised as a successful treatment for preventing serious complications of obesity such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The new study is one of the first to look at whether people who need surgery most are actually receiving it. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and Imperial College London studied rates of bariatric surgery in the US from 1999 to 2010...

Origin of inflammation-driven pancreatic cancer decoded by mayo clinic researchers

Date: Aug-07-2013
Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida have revealed the process by which chronic inflammation of the pancreas, pancreatitis, morphs into pancreatic cancer. They say their findings point to ways to identify pancreatitis patients at risk of pancreatic cancer and to potential drug therapies that might reverse the process. The study, published online in The Journal of Cell Biology, maps how inflammation pushes acinar cells in the pancreas -- those that produce digestive enzymes -- to transform into duct-like cells...

Quality of care in nursing homes indicated by consumer satisfaction

Date: Aug-07-2013
Consumer satisfaction surveys of nursing home residents and their families track closely with other quality of care measures. These results, which were published in the journal Health Affairs, indicate that the surveys could be a valuable tool to both inform consumer choice and reward homes for quality of care. "Satisfaction scores are clearly an important indicator of the quality of care in nursing homes," said Yue Li, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Public Health Sciences and lead author of the study...

Patient safety boosted by improved teamwork in operating room

Date: Aug-07-2013
Improving communication and strengthening teamwork among cardiac surgery teams are among recommendations for reducing preventable mistakes in the cardiac operating room, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association. The statement reviewed evidence-based research focused on communication within and between teams, the physical workspace and the organizational culture of the cardiac operating room and provides recommendations for improving patient safety. It is published in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association...

Smoking ban in Colorado casinos led to fewer ambulance calls

Date: Aug-07-2013
When smoking was banned from casinos in Colorado, ambulance calls to casinos in Gilpin County dropped about 20 percent, according to research reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. The drop in calls from casinos was similar to drops in ambulance calls from elsewhere two years earlier when Colorado banned smoking everywhere but casinos. How did the smoking ban lead to a reduction in ambulance calls? Partially by eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke, said Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., the study's lead author...

How soy foods protect against colon cancer

Date: Aug-07-2013
University of Illinois scientists have evidence that lifelong exposure to genistein, a bioactive component in soy foods, protects against colon cancer by repressing a signal that leads to accelerated growth of cells, polyps, and eventually malignant tumors. "In our study, we report a change in the expression of three genes that control an important signaling pathway," said Hong Chen, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. The cells in the lining of the human gut turn over and are completely replaced weekly, she noted...

Treatment for PTSD does not appear to increase risk of drinking among individuals with alcohol dependence and PTSD

Date: Aug-07-2013
In a trial that included patients with alcohol dependence and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), treatment with the drug naltrexone resulted in a decrease in the percentage of days drinking while use of the PTSD treatment, prolonged exposure therapy, was not associated with increased drinking or alcohol craving, according to a study in the August 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence/human rights.  "Alcohol dependence and PTSD are highly comorbid [co-existing], yet little is known about how best to treat this large, highly dysfunctional, and distressed population...

Locked-in patients can answer questions with the pupils of their eyes

Date: Aug-07-2013
Patients who are otherwise completely unable to communicate can answer yes or no questions within seconds with the help of a simple system - consisting of just a laptop and camera - that measures nothing but the size of their pupils. The tool, described and demonstrated in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on August 5 takes advantage of changes in pupil size that naturally occur when people do mental arithmetic. It requires no specialized equipment or training at all...

Duration of mother's breastfeeding leads to reduced risk for Alzheimer's

Date: Aug-07-2013
The report, newly published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, suggests that the link may be to do with certain biological effects of breastfeeding. For example, breastfeeding restores insulin tolerance which is significantly reduced during pregnancy, and Alzheimer's is characterised by insulin resistance in the brain. Although they used data gathered from a very small group of just 81 British women, the researchers observed a highly significant and consistent correlation between breastfeeding and Alzheimer's risk...