PHILADELPHIA - Patients who are divorced, separated or widowed had an approximately 40 percent greater chance of dying or developing a new functional disability in the first two years following cardiac surgery than their married peers, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published in this week's JAMA Surgery.
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An international group led by RIKEN in Japan and INSERM in France have found that retroviral long-terminal-repeat (LTR) promoters--a type of repetitive element that are widely distributed in the human genome--are highly activated in hepatocellular carcinomas, the most common type of liver cancer. Intriguingly, these areas--which are particularly activated in HCCs associated with viral hepatitis, are not normally activated in the liver but are in reproductive tissues such as testis and placenta.
Increasing cigarette exercise taxes may have the unintended consequence of encouraging consumers to seek higher nicotine content and more dangerous cigarette products, according to a study published in Marketing Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
Electric eels temporarily paralyze their prey by shocking them with electricity using a series of brief, high-voltage pulses, much as a Taser would do. Now, a researcher reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 28 has discovered that the eels can at least double the power of their electrical discharge by curling up their bodies. In bringing their tail up and around, the eels sandwich prey between the two poles of their electric organ, which runs most of the length of their long, flexible bodies.
Amsterdam, October 28, 2015 - Using e-cigarettes is related to problematic drinking, according to new research published in Addictive Behaviors. In a study involving around 1400 people, researchers also found that more women than men use e-cigarettes socially, opposite to patterns seen in regular cigarette smoking.
The authors of the new study, from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in the United States, say it's crucial to consider the knock-on effects of e-cigarette use when evaluating their safety, not just their direct health effects.
Among more than 1,500 adults who underwent cardiac surgery, those who were divorced, separated, or widowed were more likely to have died or develop a new functional disability after the surgery compared with the married participants, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery.
ROCHESTER, MINN. - A blue-ribbon project group funded by the National Institutes of Health has published the first consensus guidelines on how researchers should share genomic findings in research on adults and children with other family members. The recommendations, published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, offer direction on sharing information before and after the death of an individual research participant.
African American and white men who live in racially integrated communities and who have comparable incomes have far fewer differences when it comes to behaviors that contribute to poor health -- such as physical inactivity, smoking and drinking -- compared to African American and white men overall in the U.S., according to a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Kingston - Researchers from Queen's University, working with colleagues from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, have linked the localized near-extinction of a native crayfish species in four lakes in Algonquin Park to declining calcium levels, a long-term legacy of acid rain on forest soils and aquatic ecosystems.
The remains of an Iberian lynx specimen which lived 1.6 million years ago - the oldest ever discovered - were found resting in a cave in Barcelona (Spain). This discovery not only allows us to shed light on the origins of one of the world's most endangered feline species, but it also means that the emergence of this species on the Iberian Peninsula dates back half a million years earlier than what was originally believed.
With increased legalization of marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, interest is growing in the potential health effects of its secondhand smoke. A team now reports in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry the development of a urine screening method that is sensitive enough to detect even small amounts of chemicals that result from this exposure.
Strong painkillers known as prescription opioids appear to be overprescribed in some regions of British Columbia (B.C.), resulting in higher rates of overdose and death, according to a new study from UBC.
UBC researchers collected data about the amount of opioids prescribed across 79 of the local health areas of B.C from 2004 to 2013. They found significant variation in prescription rates. Researchers also found that areas with the highest volumes of prescribed opioid purchases were also the areas that experience the most overdose deaths involving prescribed opioid drugs.
New studies of the public health workforce reveal signs of unprecedented change ahead. Notably, 38 percent of state public health workers plan to leave the public health workforce by 2020, either to retire or to pursue positions in other sectors.
"How could this have been prevented?" That was the first thought for University of Guelph sociology professor Myrna Dawson upon learning last month about a Winnipeg woman charged with killing her two-month-old daughter.
Dawson asked herself the same question this past summer after a Montreal man killed his 10-month-old-son and then himself.
And she pondered it again this month after hearing about a woman who threw her six-month-old child from a New York City apartment - the third such infant death in three months in that city.
October 28, 2015 - Researchers from around the world are working to improve soldiers' health and physical performance and health--with the goal of increasing military readiness and effectiveness, according to the November special issue of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.