OTTAWA, OCTOBER 13, 2009 – Early action, especially rapid rollout of vaccines, is extremely effective in reducing the attack rate of the H1N1 influenza virus, according to a simulation model of a pandemic outbreak reported in a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) www.cmaj.ca.
Culture
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown link between a mother's diet in pregnancy and a severe form of liver disease in her child.
In a study, published in the journal Hepatology today, researchers at the University of Southampton found that a high fat diet during a woman's pregnancy makes her offspring more likely to develop a severe form of fatty liver disease when they reach adulthood. The findings are another piece in the jigsaw for scientists who believe diets containing too high levels of saturated fat may have an adverse effect on our health.
Houses on stilts, small scale energy generation and recycling our dishwater are just some of the measures that are being proposed to prepare our cities for the effects of global warming.
A three-year project led by Newcastle University for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has outlined how our major cities must respond if they are to continue to grow in the face of climate change.
WASHINGTON – Retirees who transition from full-time work into a temporary or part-time job experience fewer major diseases and are able to function better day-to-day than people who stop working altogether, according to a national study. And the findings were significant even after controlling for people's physical and mental health before retirement.
Spain is the second country in the world where divorce is better accepted socially, only exceeded by Brazil. Likewise, 79 per cent of the Spanish people think that, when a couple is not able to solve their marital problems, divorce is the best solution, which places our country far ahead of the countries of the north of Europe, traditionally considered to be more liberal in the social acceptation of divorce.
Cells could be orientated in a controlled way on a micro-patterned surface based upon a delicate material technique, and the orientation could be semi-quantitatively described by some statistical parameters, as suggested by the group of DING from Fudan University, Shanghai, CHINA. The study is reported in Issue 18, Volume 54 (September 2009) of the Chinese Science Bulletin as one of the papers in a special issue about Biomedical Materials in this journal.
New findings reveal a large gap between US and UK researchers in terms of policy, attitudes, practices and experiences in relation to including ethnic minorities in asthma research. The study, published this week in the open access journal PLoS Medicine, shows that US researchers were more positive than their UK counterparts about the importance and logistics of including ethnic minorities in health research.
SEATTLE – For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct.
An outbreak of bloodstream infections appears to have been caused by the contamination of pre-filled heparin and saline syringes made by a single company, according to a report in the October 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The subsequent investigation revealed that the company was not in compliance with safety regulations and identified challenges and areas for improvement in medication monitoring systems.
Critical illness among Canadian patients with 2009 influenza A(H1N1) occurred rapidly after hospital admission, often in young adults, and was associated with severely low levels of oxygen in the blood, multi-system organ failure, a need for prolonged mechanical ventilation, and frequent use of rescue therapies, according to a study to appear in the November 4 issue of JAMA. This study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at a meeting of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine.
Critical illness from 2009 influenza A(H1N1) in Mexico occurred among young patients, was associated with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock, and had a fatality rate of about 40 percent, according to a study to appear in the November 4 issue of JAMA. This study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at a meeting of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine.
CHAPEL HILL – Children with functional abdominal pain who used audio recordings of guided imagery at home in addition to standard medical treatment were almost three times as likely to improve their pain problem, compared to children who received standard treatment alone.
And those benefits were maintained six months after treatment ended, a new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University Medical Center researchers has found.
The world will miss its agreed target to stem biodiversity loss by next year, according to experts convening in Cape Town for a landmark conference devoted to biodiversity science.
The goal was agreed at the 6th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in April 2003. Some 123 world ministers committed to "achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the local, national and regional levels, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth."
BOSTON – Although a wide spectrum of human papillomavirus is seen across the population of India, HPV-16 and HPV-18 are the most common types and a vaccination targeting these types could eliminate 75 percent of the cervical cancers in the region, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Basic Cancer Research Meeting.
Cervical cancer caused by HPV is the most common cancer among Indian women, with an estimated 132,000 new cases and 74,000 deaths annually.
Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among children despite the widespread availability of effective child passenger restraint systems (CPRSs) such as child safety seats. However, even when provided with free CPRSs and education about how to use them properly, many caregivers do not make them a part of their daily routine, according to the authors of a new study published in the Wisconsin Medical Journal (Vol. 108, No. 7).