Health News

Feeling too sad for chocolate?

Date: Mar-13-2014
The instant gratification and the pleasure derived from consuming excessive chocolate and deep-fried foods can lead way to a double-edged sword of negative consequences ranging from weight gain to feelings of low self-esteem. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, combating this type of self-destructive behavior may be achieved simply by making a person feel sad.

Promising results reported for gene therapy to treat lysosomal storage disease

Date: Mar-13-2014
Several young children suffering from a severe degenerative genetic disease received injections of therapeutic genes packaged within a noninfectious viral delivery vector. Safety, tolerability, and efficacy results from this early stage clinical trial are reported in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Human Gene Therapy website.

Higher quality of nursing and patient care in Magnet hospitals

Date: Mar-13-2014
Magnet recognition is considered a leading source for measuring organizational success in nursing. Magnet hospitals show higher job satisfaction and lower odds of patient mortality than non-Magnet hospitals. However, only nine percent of American hospitals are recognized as Magnet. Currently, there is little research into the causes of the differences between Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals, research that could create an infrastructure for positive change in nurse and patient outcomes.

Seeking out the hiding place of a virus could lead to new treatments

Date: Mar-13-2014
Discovering where a common virus hides in the body has been a long-term quest for scientists. Up to 80 percent of adults harbor the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which can cause severe illness and death in people with weakened immune systems.Now, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine report that stem cells that encircle blood vessels can be a hiding place, suggesting a potential treatment target.In the American Journal of Transplantation (online ahead of print), senior scientist Graca Almeida-Porada, M.D., Ph.D.

Even in very different cultures, no one likes a copycat

Date: Mar-13-2014
Even very young children understand what it means to steal a physical object, yet it appears to take them another couple of years to understand what it means to steal an idea.University of Washington psychologist Kristina Olson and colleagues from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania discovered that preschoolers often don't view a copycat negatively, but they do by the age of 5 or 6. And that holds true even across cultures that typically view intellectual property rights in different ways.

A step closer to improving safety, effectiveness of lithium therapy

Date: Mar-13-2014
Lithium, one of the oldest and most widely used drugs to treat neuropsychiatric illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, has a serious drawback - toxicity. In a continued effort to find a safer form of lithium, researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) have discovered that lithium salicylate, an alternative salt form, might be the answer.The researchers found that oral lithium salicylate produced steady lithium levels up to 48 hours in rats without the toxic spike associated with the rapid absorption of current FDA-approved lithium carbonate.

Potentially dangerous employees given organizational socialization and close supervision to avoid tragedy

Date: Mar-13-2014
Two UT Arlington management professors argue that employers can prevent workplace violence by keeping dangerous employees positively engaged and closely supervising them to ensure they get the help they need.James Campbell Quick and M. Ann McFadyen of the College of Business management department analyzed FBI reports, case studies and human resource records to focus on the estimated 1 to 3 percent of employees prone to workplace acts of aggression, such as homicide, suicide or destruction of property.

Neuroimaging study of social interaction with delinquent adolescents

Date: Mar-13-2014
Adolescents with antisocial personality disorder inflict serious physical and psychological harm on both themselves and others. However, little is yet known about the underlying neural processes. Researchers at the University of Leiden and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have pinpointed a possible explanation: Their brain regions responsible for social information processing and impulse control are less developed.

Psychological questionnaires in employment uncover distinct stress hormone profiles

Date: Mar-13-2014
Your answers on psychological questionnaires, including some of the ones that some employers give their employees, might have a distinct biological signature. New research indeed demonstrates overlap between what workers feel and what their bodies actually manifest. This is an important occupational health issue when we consider that workplace stress is the leading cause of sick leave related to depression and burnout.

Complication rates for nonagenarian patients similar to those of younger patients undergoing total hip replacement surgery

Date: Mar-13-2014
As more Americans are living well into their 90s, the number of nonagenarian total hip replacement (THR) candidates continues to increase. In the study, "Total Hip Arthroplasty Proves Safe for Nonagenarian Patients," presented at the at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), researchers reviewed patient characteristics and rates of postoperative morbidity, mortality and readmission among patients who underwent elective THR surgery between April 2001 and December 2011.