Body

Philadelphia, January 12, 2021 - A special issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR), published by Elsevier, challenges conventional wisdom across the imaging community.

Deaths from ischemic heart disease and hypertensive diseases in the United States increased during the COVID-19 pandemic over the prior year, while globally, COVID-19 was associated with significant disruptions in cardiovascular disease testing. These findings are from two papers publishing in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that examined the indirect effects of the pandemic on cardiovascular disease patients and their care.

Scientists have used a "galaxy-sized" space observatory to find possible hints of a unique signal from gravitational waves, or the powerful ripples that course through the universe and warp the fabric of space and time itself.

The new findings, which appeared recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, hail from a U.S. and Canadian project called the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav).

What The Study Did: This randomized clinical trial compares the effects of two antibiotic strategies (oral moxifloxacin versus intravenous ertapenem followed by oral levofloxacin) on hospital discharge without surgery and recurrent appendicitis over one year among adults presenting to the emergency department with uncomplicated acute appendicitis.

Authors: Paulina Salminen, M.D., Ph.D., of Turku University Hospital in Turku, Finland, is the corresponding author.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Biomarkers in human sperm have been identified that can indicate a propensity to father children with autism spectrum disorder. These biomarkers are epigenetic, meaning they involve changes to molecular factors that regulate genome activity such as gene expression independent of DNA sequence, and can be passed down to future generations.

New research shows people who pursue meaningful activities - things they enjoy doing - during lockdown feel more satisfied than those who simply keep themselves busy.

The study, published in PLOS ONE, shows you're better off doing what you love and adapting it to suit social distancing, like swapping your regular morning walk with friends for a zoom exercise session.

Simply increasing your level of activity by doing mindless busywork will leave you unsettled and unsatisfied.

The Journal of the Institute of Materia Medica, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association, Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B (APSB) is a monthly journal, in English, which publishes significant original research articles, rapid communications and high quality reviews of recent advances in all areas of pharmaceutical sciences -- including pharmacology, pharmaceutics, medicinal chemistry, natural products, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical analysis and pharmacokinetics.

Featured papers in this issue are:

"The findings provide an increased understanding of how the virus gets through the stomach and intestinal system. Continued research can provide answers to whether this property can also be used to create vaccines that ride 'free rides' and thus be given in edible form instead of as syringes," says Lars-Anders Carlson, researcher at Umeå University.

NEW YORK, NY (Jan. 11, 2021)--A new study has found that up to 20% of glioblastomas--an aggressive brain cancer--are fueled by overactive mitochondria and may be treatable with drugs currently in clinical trials.

Mitochondria are responsible for creating the energy that fuels all cells. Though they are usually less efficient at producing energy in cancer, tumor cells in this newly identified type of glioblastoma rely on the extra energy provided by overactive mitochondria to survive.

For some years, an active substance from the leaves of an ornamental plant has been regarded as a possible forerunner of a new group of potent drugs. So far, however, it has been very laborious to manufacture it in large quantities. That could now change: Researchers at the University of Bonn (Germany) have identified a bacterium that produces the substance and can also be easily cultivated in the laboratory. The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

COVID-19 patients who also suffer from high blood pressure are more likely to fall severely ill with the disease, which also leaves them at greater risk of death. Scientists from the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, in collaboration with partners in Heidelberg and Leipzig, have now found that the immune cells of patients with hypertension are already pre-activated, and that this pre-activation is greatly enhanced under COVID-19.

Use of telehealth jumped sharply during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, with the approach being used more often for behavioral health services than for medical care, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Between mid-March and early May 2020, telehealth was used by more than 40% of patients with a chronic physical health condition and by more than 50% of those with a behavioral health condition, according to findings published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

In countries with a severe shortage of surgeons it is common for some operations to be carried out by medical staff with lower formal qualifications. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, have led an international study on the safety and efficacy of a common surgical procedure. The study, published in
JAMA Network Open, shows that inguinal hernia operations performed by associate clinicians at a hospital in Sierra Leone were just as safe and effective as those performed by doctors.

Pregnant women who exercise more during the first trimester of pregnancy may have a lower risk of developing gestational diabetes, according to a new study led by Samantha Ehrlich, an assistant professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and adjunct investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The analysis found that lower risk was associated with at least 38 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each day--a bit more than current recommendations of at least 30 minutes a day five days a week.

Two studies in today's Nature Neuroscience, led by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and Harvard Medical School (HMS), implicate mosaic mutations arising during embryonic development as a cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The findings open new areas for exploring the genetics of ASD and could eventually inform diagnostic testing.