Health News

Cholera-Causing Bacteria's Response To Environmental Pressure

Date: Jun-26-2013
Cholera remains common in non-industrialized parts of the world today. It persists in part because V. cholera, the bacteria that causes the disease, is able to survive in diverse environments ranging from the intestinal lumen, to fresh water, to estuaries, to the sea. A study in The Journal of General Physiology provides new insights about the membrane components of V. cholera that enable it to withstand otherwise deadly increases in osmotic pressure resulting from changes in its surrounding environment. Like other bacteria, V...

Overall Hospital Mortality Rates May Be Linked To Performance On Publicly Reported Medical Conditions

Date: Jun-26-2013
Hospital performance on publicly reported conditions (acute myocardial infarction [heart attack], congestive heart failure, and pneumonia), may potentially be used as a signal of overall hospital mortality rates, according to a study by Marta L. McCrum, M.D., of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues. (Online First) Using national Medicare data from 2,322 acute care hospitals, the authors examined whether mortality rates for publicly reported medical conditions are correlated with hospitals' overall performance...

News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: June 24, 2013

Date: Jun-26-2013
Gene dysregulation underlies preeclampsia Preeclampsia is a medical condition affecting 4-8% of pregnancies that is characterized by high maternal blood pressure, excess protein in maternal urine, and reduced fetal growth. If left untreated, it can develop into eclampsia, which causes life threatening seizures. Apart from delivery, there is no known cure...

Potential New Tool To Detect Hydrogen Sulfide

Date: Jun-26-2013
University of Oregon chemists have developed a selective probe that detects hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels as low as 190 nanomolar (10 parts per billion) in biological samples. They say the technique could serve as a new tool for basic biological research and as an enhanced detection system for H2S in suspected bacterially contaminated water sources...

Screen All Baby Boomers And High-Risk Patients For Hep C: Task Force Recommendation

Date: Jun-26-2013
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends screening for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in persons at high risk for infection and one-time screening for all adults born between 1945 and 1965. Up to 3.9 million people in the United States are infected with HCV, a virus that can cause inflammation, permanent liver damage, and cancer. The most significant risk factor for HCV infection is past or current injection drug use. Receiving a blood transfusion before 1992 is also an established risk factor...

Parents Of Pediatric Patients Offered Smoking Cessation Assistance

Date: Jun-26-2013
Pediatrics, which has been posted online, shows that it is feasible for pediatric practices to incorporate into their normal routine efforts to inform patients' parents about services available to help them quit smoking. A research team led by MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) physicians describes how practices implementing a program through which parents who smoke receive assistance in quitting reached nearly half the smoking parents, while a control group not using the program helped only a few parents...

Teen Suicide Prevention And Intervention Via Texting

Date: Jun-26-2013
Teens and young adults are making use of social networking sites and mobile technology to express suicidal thoughts and intentions as well as to reach out for help, two studies suggest. An analysis of about one month of public posts on MySpace revealed 64 comments in which adolescents expressed a wish to die. Researchers conducted a follow-up survey of young adults and found that text messages were the second-most common way for respondents to seek help when they felt depressed. Talking to a friend or family member ranked first...

Boosting A Child's Vocabulary By Using Non-Verbal Clues About Words

Date: Jun-26-2013
The clues that parents give toddlers about words can make a big difference in how deep their vocabularies are when they enter school, new research at the University of Chicago shows. By using words to reference objects in the visual environment, parents can help young children learn new words, according to the research. It also explores the difficult-to-measure quality of non-verbal clues to word meaning during interactions between parents and children learning to speak...

Zebrafish Offer Potential To Identify New Genes And Drugs For Multiple Sclerosis

Date: Jun-26-2013
Myelin, the fatty coating that protects neurons in the brain and spinal cord, is destroyed in diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Researchers have been striving to determine whether oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce myelin, can be stimulated to make new myelin. Using live imaging in zebrafish to track oligodendrocytes in real time, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell discovered that individual oligodendrocytes coat neurons with myelin for only five hours after they are born...

Vaccination Not Found To Increase Risk Of Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Date: Jun-26-2013
Patients are not at increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome in the six-week period after vaccination with any vaccine, including influenza, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The retrospective study by researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center spanned 13 years and was controlled for seasonality. "If there is a risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome following any vaccine, including influenza vaccines, it is extremely low," said Roger Baxter, MD, co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center...