Body

Earlier this year, France passed a labor reform law that banned checking emails on weekends. New research--to be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management--suggests other countries might do well to follow suit, for the sake of employee health and productivity.

New York, NY, July 27, 2016 - Although active surveillance, or watchful waiting, for patients with low risk prostate cancer has become an increasingly acceptable strategy for disease management, many men opt for definitive therapies such as radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. A new study of more than 2,200 patients with low risk prostate cancer in an ethnically and economically diverse population revealed that ethnicity influences this decision.

ST. LOUIS - In research featured in the August edition of Obesity, Saint Louis University investigator Andrew Butler, Ph.D., and his team report that levels of the peptide hormone adropin vary based on carbohydrate consumption and appear to be linked to lipid metabolism.

Butler, who is professor of pharmacology and physiology at SLU, discovered adropin several years ago. Data from previous studies in mice suggest it plays a role in metabolic diseases of obesity; however, the function of the hormone in humans remains unclear.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Changes to HER2 testing guidelines for breast cancer in 2013 significantly increased the number of patients who test HER2-positive, according to a new study by Mayo Clinic researchers published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Cancers that have an excess of HER2 protein or extra copies of the HER2 gene are called HER2-positive and can be treated with drugs like Herceptin that target HER2. HER2 stands for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2.

The Journal of Pain Research has published the review "Effectiveness of the World Health Organization Cancer Pain Relief Guidelines: An Integrative Review".

Pneumonia is the most prevalent infection after open-heart surgery, leading to longer hospital stays and lower odds of survival.

But a new analysis of data from thousands of patients who had coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery at Michigan hospitals revealed ways people can prepare their bodies to reduce the risk of postoperative pneumonia -- a complication that occurred in 3.3 percent of patients in the observational review.

Researchers at The University of Queensland have contributed to the discovery of three new genes which increase the risk of motor neuron disease (MND), opening the door for targeted treatments.

Professor Naomi Wray from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute was involved in the data analysis as a part of an international study of more than 30,000 people.

"These three new genes open new opportunities for research to understand a complex and debilitating disease which currently has no effective treatments," Professor Wray said.

Research led by The Australian National University (ANU) has uncovered new insights into how the human genome gets through the daily grind with the help of RNA-binding proteins, in a discovery which could ultimately lead to a cure for heart disease.

Lead researcher Professor Thomas Preiss from The John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU said the finding opens new avenues of research into RNAs - short-lived copies of the genetic information stored in DNA.

Exercise alone can reduce the number of obese, pregnant women who develop gestational diabetes, a new study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has shown.

Women in the exercise group also had lower blood pressure than the control group towards the end of their pregnancy.

The study has just been published in PLOS Medicine.

In recent years, numerous diseases have been tied to variations in gut microbiota. The rapidly growing probiotics industry targets gut and intestinal health by developing products built mostly around enzyme cultures and bacteria. But a new study now suggests that the underlying health and physical forces of the gut are as important as the bacteria inside in shaping communities of intestinal microbiota, and offers insights into the problems experienced by humans with a birth defect called Hirschsprung's disease.

In a surprise finding, researchers working with breast cancer cells purchased at the same time from the same cell bank discovered that the cells responded differently to chemicals, even though the researchers had not detected any difference when they tested them for authenticity at the time of purchase.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has concluded that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of visual skin examination by a clinician to screen for skin cancer in asymptomatic adults. The report appears in the July 26 issue of JAMA.

This is an I statement, indicating that that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of the service. Evidence is lacking, of poor quality, or conflicting, and the balance of benefits and harms cannot be determined.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced today that it doesn't have enough evidence to recommend that clinicians perform visual screening for melanomas with patients with no known special risk for the skin cancer. In an invited commentary in JAMA -- the journal of the American Medical Association -- Drs. Martin Weinstock and Hensin Tsao agree that the evidence doesn't meet the task force's standards, but they also question whether those standards are appropriate.

Between 2006 and 2014, late preterm and early term birth rates decreased in the United States and an association was observed between early term birth rates and decreasing clinician-initiated obstetric interventions, according to a study appearing in the July 26 issue of JAMA.

Among children born with the chromosome disorders trisomy 13 or 18 in Ontario, Canada, early death was the most common outcome, but 10 percent to 13 percent survived for 10 years, according to a study appearing in the July 26 issue of JAMA. Among children who underwent surgical interventions, 1-year survival was high.