GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 17, 2013 – We may be closer to predicting who is at risk for a heart attack, according to a recently published Spectrum Health study.
Researchers with Spectrum Health's Frederik Meijer Heart & Vascular Institute used new imaging technology on patients being treated for heart attacks. The imaging technology allowed researchers to identify the characteristic makeup, or signature, of arterial plaque blocking an artery and causing a heart attack.
Extreme weather, sea level rise and degraded coastal systems are placing people and property at greater risk along the coast. Natural habitats such as dunes and reefs are critical to protecting millions of U.S. residents and billions of dollars in property from coastal storms, according to a new study by scientists with the Natural Capital Project at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Gene therapy researchers have produced a bioengineered decoy that fools the immune system and prevents it from mistakenly defeating the benefits delivered by a corrective gene. The decoy was effective in animal studies, and if the approach succeeds in humans, it offers a potential new treatment for genetic diseases such as hemophilia, while advancing the broader field of gene therapy.
A new Johns Hopkins research report says emergency room visits for severe dizziness have grown exponentially in recent years, with costs topping $3.9 billion in 2011 and projected to reach $4.4 billion by 2015. The investigators say roughly half a billion a year could be saved immediately if emergency room physicians stopped the routine and excessive use of head CT scans to search for stroke in dizzy patients, and instead used simple bedside physical exams to identify the small group of patients that truly needs imaging.
A paper in Health Affairs titled Brazil's Conditional Cash Transfer Program Associated With Declines In Infant Mortality Rates describes Brazil's Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer program, an example of recent actions by the Brazilian government to reduce poverty and inequality and increase access to health care among its poorer residents.
People with high blood pressure, who don't take their anti-hypertensive drug treatments when they should, have a greatly increased risk of suffering a stroke and dying from it compared to those who take their medication correctly.
There are six procedural things hospital teams can do to help heart failure patients avoid another hospital stay in the 30 days after they're discharged — and if all six are followed, patients are even more likely to avoid readmission, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Among patients who experienced in-hospital cardiac arrest requiring vasopressors (drugs that increase blood pressure), use of a combination therapy during cardiopulmonary resuscitation resulted in improved survival to hospital discharge with favorable neurological status, according to a study in the July 17 issue of JAMA.
It's easier to feel positive about the endangered tiger in your backyard if you live on the good side of town.
Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) study what influences people's attitudes toward the tigers that share their neighborhood in Nepal's Chitwan National Park, home to some 125 adult tigers. In the scientific journal AMBIO, the researchers took a novel approach to putting people's attitudes on a map.
CHICAGO – Sweet and salty flavors, repeat exposure, serving size and parental behavior are the key drivers in children's food choices, according to a July 15 panel discussion at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® held at McCormick Place.
A standing-room only crowd of more than 200 conference attendees heard new insights into how children choose the foods they eat, what their eating behaviors are and how the industry and parents can give children access to healthy food environments that shape those food choices.
Community pharmacists in the United States have a unique opportunity to consult with customers about HIV treatment when selling over-the-counter HIV tests, according to a study by researchers at the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention and Butler University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass- A team of MIT researchers has succeeded in carrying out the first systematic investigation of the factors that control boiling heat transfer from a surface to a liquid. This process is crucial to the efficiency of power plants and the cooling of high-power electronics, and could even lead to improvements in how vehicles travel through water.
People with pre-diabetes who lose roughly 10 percent of their body weight within six months of diagnosis dramatically reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the next three years, according to results of research led by Johns Hopkins scientists.
The findings, investigators say, offer patients and physicians a guide to how short-term behavior change may affect long-term health.
San Francisco, CA, USA – Jul 15, 2013 – Archimedes Inc., a healthcare modeling company, today announced the results of a two-year long collaboration with Novo Nordisk A/S, a world leader in diabetes care, which evaluated the effects of standardized vascular health checks on expected health outcomes.
Philadelphia, Pa. (July 16, 2013) – After switching to high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) in the US, men make fewer emergency department visits for even severe problems—which may lead to a later increase in hospitalization rates, suggests a study in the August issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.