ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Only 68 percent of corporate executives took their cholesterol lowering medication as prescribed by a doctor, a new study shows.
Overall, the executives who took their medication even sporadically were twice as likely to meet their cholesterol goals. The study finding also questions the prevailing wisdom that income is a primary factor in medication adherence.
The benefits of using insulin to treat diabetes far outweigh the risks, but a review just published online by IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice, suggests that commonly used diabetes therapies may differ from each other when it comes to their influence on cancer risk.
Cancer expert Professor Michael Pollak from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, teamed up with diabetes expert Professor David Russell-Jones from The Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, UK, to review more than three decades of laboratory and population studies.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---With concern over mercury contamination of tuna on the rise and growing information about the health effects of eating contaminated fish, scientists would like to know exactly where the pollutant is coming from and how it's getting into open-ocean fish species.
A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology uses chemical signatures of nitrogen, carbon and mercury to get at the question. The work also paves the way to new means of tracking sources of mercury poisoning in people.
The next 10 to 20 years could be extremely significant for restoring wild populations of American bison to their original range, including the Canadian Rockies; but for this to happen, more land must be made available for herds to roam free, government policies must be updated and the public must change its attitude towards bison, according to a new international study on the species co-authored by University of Calgary experts.
BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, MARCH 1, 2010 – A two-year study led by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) found that healthy, long-term weight loss diets can significantly reverse carotid (main brain artery) atherosclerosis, a direct risk factor for strokes and heart attacks. The study is one of the first to prove the potential of moderate weight loss as a strategy to reverse atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) in overweight and mildly obese people.
A study published in PLoS Medicine this week examines why poor countries are falling behind with the UN Millennium Development Goals for health, finding that noncommunicable diseases and HIV prevalence are strongly associated with the difficulty countries have meeting these targets.
Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that a protein from a soil bacterium used to kill insects naturally on organic crops is a highly effective treatment for intestinal parasitic roundworms. These parasites, which include hookworms and whipworms, infect about two billion people in underdeveloped tropical regions and are cumulatively one of the leading causes of debilitation worldwide.
Why do domestic dogs vary so much in size, shape, coat texture, color and patterning? Study of the dog genome has reached a point where the molecular mechanisms governing such variation across mammalian species are becoming understood. In an essay published in the March 2, 2010 issue of PLoS Biology, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) researchers discuss advances in understanding the genomic mechanisms controlling canine morphology.
The remains of an extraordinary fossil unearthed in 67 million-year old sediments from Gujarat, western India, provide a rare glimpse at an unusual feeding behavior in ancient snakes. An international paleontological team led by the University of Michigan's Jeff Wilson, and the Geological Survey of India's Dhananjay Mohabey, publish their discovery this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The remains of an extraordinary fossil unearthed in 67-million-year-old sediments from Gujarat, western India provide a rare glimpse at an unusual feeding behavior in ancient snakes.
An international paleontological team led by the University of Michigan's Jeff Wilson and the Geological Survey of India's Dhananjay Mohabey will publish their discovery online March 2 in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.
West Nile virus set the country abuzz when it rapidly spread from coast to coast just a few years after arriving in the United States. Most experts assumed birds were responsible for moving the virus across the country, but a paper published today in the journal Molecular Ecology finds that smaller wings may be to blame.
"This is one of the first studies to suggest that mosquitoes may have played a greater role in the rapid movement of West Nile virus," said Jason Rasgon, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of the study.
Patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis do perceive a benefit from thiopurine treatment. A report in the open access journal BMC Gastroenterology has demonstrated improved health-related quality of life in 92 IBD patients.
Heart failure is by far the most prevalent chronic cardiac condition. Around 30 million people in Europe have heart failure and its incidence is still increasing: more cases are being identified, more people are living to an old age, and more are surviving a heart attack but with damage to the heart muscle.
As a result, heart failure represents one of the most common reasons for hospital admission today. However, one of its many challenges is that, following admission, there remains a high likelihood that many patients will be readmitted or die within one year.
Fossil corals, up to half a million years old, are providing fresh hope that coral reefs may be able to withstand the huge stresses imposed on them by today's human activity.
Reef ecosystems were able to persist through massive environmental changes imposed by sharply falling sea levels during previous ice ages, an international scientific team has found. This provides new hope for their capacity to endure the increasing human impacts forecast for the 21st century.
Each year, two in every 100,000 young athletes succumb to sudden cardiac death, fueling a debate over what constitutes a comprehensive health screening prior to sports participation. A new study by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Heart Center found the addition of electrocardiogram (ECG) testing to the standard medical history and physical examination for young athletes may better identify key cardiovascular abnormalities responsible for sports-related sudden death.