Health News

Care At The End Of Life: Room For Improvement, Ideas For Change

Date: May-23-2013
The decision to limit life support in patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) appears to be significantly influenced by physician practices and/or the culture of the hospital, suggests new findings from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference...

Risk Of Adult Obesity Increased By Maltreatment In Childhood

Date: May-23-2013
Children who have suffered maltreatment are 36% more likely to be obese in adulthood compared to non-maltreated children, according to a new study by King's College London. The authors estimate that the prevention or effective treatment of 7 cases of child maltreatment could avoid 1 case of adult obesity. The findings come from the combined analysis of data from 190,285 individuals from 41 studies worldwide, published this week in Molecular Psychiatry...

Mortality Risk Increased By Delayed Transfer To The ICU

Date: May-23-2013
Delayed transfer to the intensive care unit (ICU) in hospitalized patients significantly increases the risk of dying in the hospital, according to a new study from researchers in Chicago. "Early intervention improves outcomes for many of the conditions that are indications for inpatient transfer to the ICU. This suggests that delaying ICU transfer may increase the risk of death in these patients," said lead author Matthew Churpek, MD, MPH, of the University of Chicago Medical Center...

In Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, Racial Disparities Found In Surgical Management

Date: May-23-2013
The surgical management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in U.S. hospitals varies widely depending on the race of the patient, according to a new study. "In most patients, the initial treatment for Stage I and Stage II NSCLC is surgery," said researcher Jayanth Adusumalli, MBBS, of the Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. "In our study of more than 1,200,000 patients diagnosed with NSCLC in US hospitals between the years 2000 and 2010, we found statistically significant racial disparities in the surgical management of these patients...

Your Feet Are Home To Nearly 200 Types Of Fungi

Date: May-23-2013
Researchers have discovered that there are close to 200 different types of fungi species living on our feet - more than any other part of the body. Although fungi also inhabit other areas of the body - such as behind our ears - the researchers found that most of them are living between our toes. The study, carried out and published in the journal Nature, is the most extensive analysis of the body's fungal diversity to date. Although only about half of all types of fungi are harmful, they commonly live on the skin and can be a major cause of infection...

New Drug May Decrease Asthma Attacks By 87%

Date: May-22-2013
A novel, lab-made molecule was able to stick to certain inflammatory proteins and decrease and minimize acute breathing issues among people with moderate-to-severe asthma, according to new research by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and were also presented in Philadelphia at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society. Nearly 24.6 million Americans suffer from asthma, and 10 to 20% of them do not have good control of their symptoms even when taking medications...

Antidepressant Escitalopram Helps Heart Problem Caused By Stress

Date: May-22-2013
Researchers at Duke Medicine have revealed that a commonly prescribed antidepressant - escitalopram (Lexapro) - could be used to treat a heart condition caused by stress among people suffering from stable coronary heart disease. The findings of the study, published in the May 22/29, 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that people with stable coronary heart disease and mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia (MSIMI) taking escitalopram - a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) used to treat depression and anxiety - experienced lower rates of MSIMI...

Vitamin C Can Kill Drug-Resistant TB Bacteria

Date: May-22-2013
Vitamin C can kill drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in laboratory culture, according to a new, surprising discovery by experts at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The research, published in Nature Communications, indicates that adding vitamin C to existing TB drugs could shorten TB therapy. The finding calls attention to a novel area for drug design. TB results from infection with the bacterium M. tuberculosis. About 8.7 million people were affected by TB in 2011, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), while approximately 1...

Radioactive Bacteria Dramatically Reduce Spread Of Pancreatic Cancer In Mice

Date: May-22-2013
Using bacteria to ferry radioisotopes commonly used in cancer therapy directly into pancreatic cancer cells in mice, researchers in the US were able dramatically to reduce the number of secondary tumors that arise when the cancer spreads to other parts of the body (metastases). Claudia Gravekamp and colleagues at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York, write about their successful experiment in a paper that was published this week in the print issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

Life Expectancy Gap Widens Between Those With Mental Illness And General Population

Date: May-22-2013
But majority of deaths are due to physical conditions, not suicide The gap between life expectancy in patients with a mental illness and the general population has widened since 1985 and efforts to reduce this gap should focus on improving physical health, suggest researchers in a paper published today on bmj.com...