Health News

Four simultaneous interventions could lead to a 62 percent decrease in new HIV infections by 2040

Date: Mar-06-2014
A computer model has created the most effective formula for reducing the spread of HIV among drug users in New York City over the next 25 years. Developed by scientists at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Brown University, the model recommends a combination of interventions, including increased HIV testing, improved access to substance abuse treatment, increased use of needle and syringe exchange programs, and broad implementation of antiretroviral treatment as prevention. The result would lower new infections by more than 60% by 2040.

Guidance on hospital community benefit programs

Date: Mar-06-2014
A new analysis led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health offers insights for nonprofit hospitals in implementing community health improvement programs. In a special issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved that focuses on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a multidisciplinary team of Pitt researchers explore published research on existing community benefit programs at U.S. hospitals and explain how rigorous implementation of such programs could help hospitals both meet federal requirements and improve the health of the populations they serve.

Motion-sensing cells in the eye let the brain 'know' about directional changes

Date: Mar-06-2014
How do we "know" from the movements of speeding car in our field of view if it's coming straight toward us or more likely to move to the right or left?Scientists have long known that our perceptions of the outside world are processed in our cortex, the six-layered structure in the outer part of our brains. But how much of that processing actually happens in cortex? Do the eyes tell the brain a lot or a little about the content of the outside world and the objects moving within it?

Promising results from minimally invasive back surgery

Date: Mar-06-2014
Beaumont research findings published in the February online issue of Spine shows that patients who have a low back surgery called minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion, end up better off in many ways than patients who have more invasive surgery to alleviate debilitating pain."About 90 percent of adults experience low back pain in their lifetime, which can be caused by spinal instability, stenosis, spondylolisthesis, and symptomatic degenerative disc disease," says Mick Perez-Cruet, M.D.

Walking on a treadmill whilst working can boost productivity

Date: Mar-06-2014
Walking while you work may not only improve an employee's health, it may also boost productivity, according to new research from the University of Minnesota just published in PLOS ONE.Carlson School of Management professor of Work and Organizations Avner Ben-Ner and his coauthors studied employees using treadmills instead of office chairs as they work. The subjects were 40 employees of a Twin Cities financial services company. Their offices were refitted to have a computer, phone, and writing space on a desk in front of a treadmill to be operated by the employee at up to two mph.

The nerves that cause atrial fibrillation may be eased by alcohol

Date: Mar-06-2014
Doctors in the U.S. and Japan have devised a way to treat atrial fibrillation by adding a little alcohol to minimally invasive therapies that target a cluster of misbehaving nerves known to trigger arrhythmia. In the most recent Journal of the American College of Cardiology (online before print), the researchers say the new therapy may dull or stop the transmission of electrical impulses that cause atrial fibrillation.Principal investigator Miguel Valderrábano, M.D.

Discovery could lead to further advances against diseases tied to obesity and type II diabetes

Date: Mar-06-2014
Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that blocking the action of a key signaling molecule in the immune system known as Netrin-1 stalls chronic inflammation and insulin resistance tied to obesity and often derived from fatty diets.Reporting in this week's issue of Nature Medicine, the NYU Langone team showed in experiments in mice and human tissue that Netrin-1 signaling is propelled by fat tissue growth. The team previously discovered that Netrin-1 was secreted by the immune system clean-up cells, or macrophages, whose buildup leads to inflammation.

Cancer drug divide between England and Wales

Date: Mar-06-2014
Patients suffering from cancer in England are up to seven times more likely to be prescribed expensive cancer drugs than fellow sufferers in Wales, a new study assessing the impact of the Cancer Drugs Fund has revealed.Researchers from the University of Bristol compared the prescription of 15 cancer drugs in both countries to show the divide created by the introduction of the CDF in 2010 to help patients in England access certain drugs.

Nivolumab produces lasting remissions in melanoma patients

Date: Mar-06-2014
A drug that unleashes the immune system to attack cancer can produce lasting remissions and hold the disease in check- for more than two years, in some cases - in many patients with advanced melanoma, according to a new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and allied institutions.The study, published online by the Journal of Clinical Oncology, provides the longest-term look so far at how melanoma patients have fared since receiving the drug, nivolumab, in a phase I clinical trial.

Metabolic profiling of liver cells suggests new treatments for cirrhosis patients

Date: Mar-06-2014
In a new study that could help doctors extend the lives of patients awaiting liver transplants, a Rice University-led team of researchers examined the metabolic breakdown that takes place in liver cells during late-stage cirrhosis and found clues that suggest new treatments to delay liver failure.More than 17,000 Americans are awaiting a liver transplant, and of those, about 1,500 will die this year while still waiting, according to the American Liver Foundation. The new research, which appeared online Feb.