Health News

CABG Surgery Generally Not Associated With Long-Term Cognitive Dysfunction

Date: Apr-03-2013
Nearly All Patients Recover Full Cognitive Function within 8 Weeks Post-Surgery The cognitive dysfunction observed in patients who undergo coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery usually disappears within 8 weeks following surgery, according to a study published in the April 2013 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Previously published estimates of the incidence of post-operative cognitive dysfunction vary widely, with some studies reporting lasting impairment in as many as 50% of patients...

Clinical Practice Guidelines Address Aortic Valve And Ascending Aorta Procedures

Date: Apr-03-2013
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) has released a set of clinical practice guidelines to address major advances in the evaluation and management of patients with aortic valve disease. An executive summary of the clinical practice guidelines on aortic valve and ascending aorta procedures appears in the April issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. The full guidelines will be published as a supplement in an upcoming issue of the journal...

Body Mass Index (BMI) And Coronary Heart Disease

Date: Apr-03-2013
Coronary heart disease (CHD) increases with BMI, as well as with age, finds an article published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine. The research from the Million Women Study indicates that increased weight increases risk of CHD equivalent to that caused by getting older. Researchers from the University of Oxford followed the health of 1.2 million women from England and Scotland for (on average) almost a decade...

Breathing New Life Into Inhalers

Date: Apr-03-2013
Development expertise of Cambridge Consultants leads to innovative new inhalerAn innovative dry powder inhaler (DPI) designed by product development firm Cambridge Consultants and Chiesi Farmaceutici has been launched onto the market. The patient-friendly NEXThaler® device has been developed for use in the treatment of asthma. Its creative design makes the device very intuitive - all the patient has to do is open it, breathe in, and close it again...

Purdue-Developed Technology Could Provide A Solution To Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, Save Lives

Date: Apr-03-2013
Through the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, several types of bacteria have become resistant to drugs that were designed to kill them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that some of these "superbugs" are linked to tens of thousands of deaths in the United States annually, including 14,000 for�C. Difficile�and 19,000 for MRSA. Technology developed by Purdue University researchers and commercialized through a Purdue Research Park-based firm could be effective against the increased number of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in the world...

Adults With Diabetes And Limited Health Literacy Less Likely To Adhere To Prescribed Antidepressants

Date: Apr-03-2013
Adult patients with diabetes who don't understand basic health information are significantly less likely to take newly prescribed antidepressant medication, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. In this study conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and the University of Washington School of Medicine, 72 percent of the 1,366 study participants had limited health literacy, and had significantly poorer adherence to newly prescribed antidepressants, compared to patients with no limitations...

"Health Halo Effect" Of Organic Labels

Date: Apr-03-2013
The word "organic" can mean many things to consumers. Even so, the power of an organic label can be very strong: studies have shown that this simple label can lead us to think that a food is healthier, through what is known as the 'health halo effect'. But can this bias go further? A study by Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab researchers Lee, Shimizu, Kniffin and Wansink set out to answer this question. Their study shows that an organic label can influence much more than health views: perceptions of taste, calories and value can be significantly altered when a food is labeled "organic"...

Muscle Regeneration Promoted In Mouse Model Of Muscular Dystrophy

Date: Apr-03-2013
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a degenerative skeletal muscle disease caused by mutations in the protein dystrophin. Dystrophin functions to protect muscle cells from injury and loss of functional dystrophin results in break down and loss of muscle cells. A cellular signal relay system, known as a MAP kinase cascade, regulates the function of muscle stem cells, serving as a source of the new cells that are required for muscle regeneration...

Increasing Compassionate Through Meditation

Date: Apr-03-2013
Scientists have mostly focused on the benefits of meditation for the brain and the body, but a recent study by Northeastern University's David DeSteno, published in Psychological Science, takes a look at what impacts meditation has on interpersonal harmony and compassion. Several religious traditions have suggested that mediation does just that, but there has been no scientific proof - until now...

Model May Be Used To Develop Potential Treatment Strategies To Counteract Early Cellular Changes In Parkinson's Disease

Date: Apr-03-2013
In a mouse model of early Parkinson's disease (PD), animals displayed movement deficits, loss of tyrosine-hydroxylase (TH)-positive fibers in the striatum, and astro-gliosis and micro-gliosis in the substantia nigra (SN), without the loss of nigral dopaminergic neurons. These findings, which may cast light on the molecular processes involved in the initial stages of PD, are available in the current issue of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience...