Health News

Brief exposure to research findings can reduce positive corporal punishment attitudes in parents and non-parents

Date: Jan-31-2014
Parents who spank their children believe it's an effective form of discipline. But decades of research studies have found that spanking is linked to short- and long-term child behavior problems.Is there any way to get parents to change their minds and stop spanking? Child psychologist George Holden, who favors humane alternatives to corporal punishment, wanted to see if parents' positive views toward spanking could be reversed if they were made aware of the research.

Report outlines state strategies to assist with health insurance transitions

Date: Jan-31-2014
A new culture of health care has been ushered in by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) but, for some, it may be even more complicated than some reports suggest. Americans with income fluctuations, such as those with multiple part-time jobs, may experience shifts in coverage, requiring them to "churn" between Medicaid and private insurance, potentially affecting affordability and continuous access to care. To address these issues, states have been working to implement programs that could reduce the impacts of such transitions.

Intensive analysis and computer modeling improves understanding of circadian rhythm

Date: Jan-31-2014
UC Santa Barbara researchers' new insight into mammalian circadian rhythms could lead to therapies for certain metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes.We've all heard about circadian rhythm, the roughly 24-hour oscillations of biological processes that occur in many living organisms. Yet for all its influence in many aspects of our lives - from sleep to immunity and, particularly, metabolism - relatively little is understood about the mammalian circadian rhythm and the interlocking processes that comprise this complex biological clock.

Subgroup of schizophrenia patients with motor disorders identified

Date: Jan-31-2014
Researchers led by Marta Barrachina, Institute of Neuropathology of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have identified a new subgroup of patients suffering from schizophrenia characterized by motor disorders.The study, which was conducted in collaboration with the research team Mairena Martin at the University of Castilla La Mancha at Ciudad Real and clinical researchers of the Health Park Sant Joan de Deu at Sant Boi de Llobregat, has been published in the online edition of the Journal of Psychiatric Research and was funded by the TV3 Marathon in its 2008 edition.

Poor breakfast during childhood linked to metabolic syndrome in adulthood

Date: Jan-31-2014
It is often said that breakfast is important for our health and a study conducted by Umeå University, published in Public Health Nutrition supports this claim.The study revealed that adolescents who ate poor breakfasts displayed a higher incidence of metabolic syndrome 27 years later, compared with those who ate more substantial breakfasts.Metabolic syndrome is a collective term for factors that are linked to an increased risk of suffering from cardiovascular disorders.

Genetic sequencing exposes diversity of microbial biodiversity in buildings

Date: Jan-31-2014
The location, connectedness, and human use patterns in a building may influence the types of bacteria they house, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Steven Kembel from the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada and colleagues.Humans spend a majority of their time in buildings, which have their own ecosystems of microorganisms. Microbes living in and on buildings or people may play a critical role in human health and wellbeing.

Obesity starts in kindergarten, study suggests

Date: Jan-31-2014
Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, conducted a study that suggests children who are overweight or obese by kindergarten are four times more likely to be obese in eighth grade, compared with their normal-weight counterparts. Focusing obesity-prevention efforts on younger children may be important, the team says.Led by Solveig A. Cunningham, assistant professor from Emory, the researchers published their results in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Promising new HIV therapy

Date: Jan-31-2014
People infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) can stave off the symptoms of AIDS thanks to drug cocktails that mainly target three enzymes produced by the virus, but resistant strains pop up periodically that threaten to thwart these drug combos.Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the National Institutes of Health have instead focused on a fourth protein, Nef, that hijacks host proteins and is essential to HIV's lethality.

What are the health benefits of asparagus?

Date: Jan-31-2014
Asparagus is considered to be one of the delicacies of the vegetable world. The spring vegetable is well known for its unique and strong savory taste.There are various different varieties of asparagus, including British and American varieties (which are green), French asparagus (which is purple), and Spanish and Dutch asparagus (which is white).1Asparagus is loaded with vitamins and minerals and it is also a diuretic.

Cognition improved by low levels of pro-inflammatory agent in rat model

Date: Jan-31-2014
Although inflammation is frequently a cause of disease in the body, research from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio indicates that low levels of a pro-inflammatory cytokine in the brain are important for cognition. Cytokines are proteins produced by the immune system.Jennifer Donegan, graduate student, and David Morilak, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology in the School of Medicine, found that neutralizing the cytokine interleukin-6 in the brain impaired reversal learning in both stressed and nonstressed rats.