Health News

Severity Of Sleep Disordered Breathing Predicts Glycemic Health

Date: May-25-2012
The severity of sleep disordered breathing and nocturnal hypoxemia independently predict both glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), according to a new study. "Because people with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) are often overweight or obese it has been difficult to interpret earlier studies of the relationship between sleep disordered breathing and metabolic disorders," said Brian Kent, MBBCh, research fellow at St. Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin. "We found that obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) severity and low nocturnal oxygen...

Respiratory Function Improved In Lung Transplant Patients By Azithromycin

Date: May-25-2012
Researchers in the United Kingdom have determined that azithromycin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic that also has anti-inflammatory properties, can be an effective treatment option for patients suffering from bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), a life-threatening complication that occurs in the majority of patients following lung transplantation. BOS is the leading cause of mortality after the first year following transplantation, and occurs in part when the body repeatedly rejects the transplanted lung tissue. The syndrome causes the airways to become narrow and obstructed, resulting in a...

Link Between A Child's Body Fat And Vitamin D Insufficiency In The Mother

Date: May-25-2012
Children are more likely to have more body fat during childhood if their mother has low levels of Vitamin D during pregnancy, according to scientists at the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU), University of Southampton. Low vitamin D status has been linked to obesity in adults and children, but little is known about how variation in a mother's status affects the body composition of her child. Low vitamin D status is common among young women in the UK, and although women are recommended to take an additional 10μg/day of vitamin D in pregnancy, supplementation is...

How Patients Use Facebook To Solicit Kidney Donations

Date: May-25-2012
Loyola University Medical Center researchers are reporting one of the first studies to examine how patients and families are soliciting living kidney donors on Facebook. Researchers examined 91 Facebook pages that were seeking kidney donations for patients ranging in age from 2 to 69. Twelve percent of the pages reported receiving a kidney transplant and 30 percent reported that potential donors had stepped forward to be tested to determine whether they were compatible. One page reported that more than 600 people had been tested as potential donors for a young child. Results were reported at a...

Quality Standards For Heparin Further Strengthened

Date: May-25-2012
To help further secure a safe supply of the widely-used blood thinner heparin, a third round of revisions to quality standards for the drug has been advanced by the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP). USP's Expert Panel on Unfractionated Heparin ended a two-day meeting on May 16th, 2012, and recommended finalization of the proposed changes. The revisions are scheduled to appear in the November-December 2012 issue of Pharmacopeial Forum - USP's free-access, online publication for posting proposed standards and receiving public comments. The deadline for submitting comments on the revisions...

Risk Of Eye Infections Doubles With Use Of Common Acne Medication

Date: May-25-2012
Millions of teenagers suffer from acne, and they deal with the embarrassing skin blemishes by taking popular prescription medications such as Accutane or Roaccutane. Now, however, research from Tel Aviv University shows that these pills can also cause eye infections such as conjunctivitis (pink eye) or sties. According to Dr. Gabriel Chodick of TAU's School of Public Health at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, clinicians have long theorized a connection between acne and eye infections, but there was little available statistical research on the subject. "Acne itself can increase the risk of...

Protective Coating Transforms Silk Into A Weapon Against Anthrax And Other Microbes

Date: May-25-2012
The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series describes a simple, inexpensive dip-and-dry treatment can convert ordinary silk into a fabric that kills disease-causing bacteria - even the armor-coated spores of microbes like anthrax - in minutes. This new "killer silk" has many potential uses, including make-shift curtains and other protective coatings that protect homes and other buildings in the event of a terrorist attack with anthrax. Based on an article by Rajesh R. Naik, Ph.D., and colleagues in the journal...

IT Solution To Help Disabled Make Better Wheelchair Selections

Date: May-25-2012
A Wayne State University researcher has introduced computer technology that makes it easier for people who need wheelchairs to select one that best suits their needs. In "Remote Decision Support for Wheeled Mobility and Seating Devices," recently published online and set to appear in the June edition of Expert Systems with Applications, Kyoung-Yun Kim, Ph.D., associate professor of industrial and systems engineering in WSU's College of Engineering, introduces a Web-based decision support system for remotely selecting wheelchairs. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 3.3 million people age 15 and...

Atypical Femur Fracture Risk Linked To Bisphosphonate Usage

Date: May-25-2012
In a study published Online First by JAMA's Archives of Internal Medicine, Raphael P. H. Meier, M.D., and his team from Geneva's University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine in Switzerland declare: "Current evidence suggests that there is an association between bisphosphonate therapy and atypical femoral fractures, but the extent of this risk remains unclear." The researchers analyzed 477 patients' data, aged 50 years and older, who were hospitalized with a subtrochanteric or femoral shaft fracture at a single university medical center together with a random sample of 200 healthy individuals...

When Access To Drug Reps Is Restricted, Physicians May Be Slower To Drop 'Black Box' Drugs, Adopt New Therapies

Date: May-25-2012
After years of reducing their contact with pharmaceutical sales representatives, physicians now risk an unintended consequence: Doctors who rarely meet with pharmaceutical sales representatives - or who do not meet with them - are much slower to drop medicines with the Food and Drug Administration's "black box" warnings and to adopt first-in-class therapies. According to a study published in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, doctors whose access to pharmaceutical sales representatives is limited can take more than four times longer to change prescriptions based on new information than...