WASHINGTON, DC – November 7, 2013 – A drug currently used to treat intestinal worms could protect people from periodontitis, an advanced gum disease, which untreated can erode the structures—including bone—that hold the teeth in the jaw. The research was published ahead of print in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
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Atlanta, GA (November 8, 2013)—Adequate vitamin D levels are important for maintaining kidney transplant recipients' health, according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2013 November 5-10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.
In the study that included 264 kidney transplant recipients, researchers led by Yoshitsugu Obi, MD, PhD (Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, in Japan) measured patients' baseline blood levels of vitamin D and examined their links with kidney function decline, rejection episodes, and death.
BALTIMORE, MD. (November 8, 2013) – Expecting mothers who suffer from allergies may want to consider another vaccination in addition to the flu shot and Tdap. A study being presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) found pregnant women who receive allergy shots, also known as immunotherapy, during pregnancy may decrease their baby's chance of developing allergies.
BALTIMORE, MD. (November 8, 2013) – Asthma is the most common chronic illness and is responsible for 2.1 million emergency room visits annually. But according to a study being presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), these costly visits can be reduced by 55 percent when inhalers contain a simple dose counter.
Dose counters on rescue inhalers display the amount of medication remaining in the device, but are not standard for all meter dose inhalers.
BALTIMORE, MD. (November 8, 2013) – If you think your child's stuffy nose is due to an autumn cold, you might want to consider allergies, especially if you live in the southern region of the United States. A study being presented this week at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) found hay fever is more prevalent in children living in the southeastern and southern states.
BALTIMORE, MD. (November 8, 2013) – Have food allergies? If you answered yes, you know the best way to prevent a severe allergic reaction is to totally avoid the offending food. But according to a presentation at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), you may no longer have to avoid the food entirely.
Atlanta, GA (November 7, 2013)—Acute kidney injury (AKI) is the most common in-hospital diagnosis seen by US nephrologists, but patients with the condition may not be receiving sufficient follow-up care. That's the conclusion of a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2013 November 5-10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.
CINCINNATI—Two University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers, in collaboration with other investigators, have found that patients who suffered from acute kidney injury (AKI) in the two-year period prior to going on dialysis were 1 ½ times as likely to die in their first year of dialysis compared to those patients without AKI.
The findings will be presented Thursday, Nov. 7, at the American Society of Nephrology's Kidney Week in Atlanta.
BOSTON (Nov. 7, 2013) – More than a million Americans suffer from hemianopia, or blindness in one half of the visual field in both eyes as the result of strokes, tumors or trauma. People with hemianopia frequently bump into walls, trip over objects, or walk into people on the side where the visual field is missing.
URBANA, Ill. – Despite a 12-year action plan calling for reducing the hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico, little progress has been made, and there is no evidence that nutrient loading to the Gulf has decreased during this period. University of Illinois researchers have identified some of the biophysical and social barriers to progress and propose a way forward.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study by Brown University psychiatry researchers found that seven in 10 primary care patients with anxiety disorders eventually received potentially adequate medication or psychotherapy, but for many it took years to happen and it was considerably less likely for minorities.
In twenty-five of the largest television markets in the U.S., almost 1 in 4 alcohol advertisements on a sample of national TV programs most popular with youth exceeded the alcohol industry's voluntary standards, according to researchers from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Skeletal muscle has proved to be very difficult to grow in patients with muscular dystrophy and other disorders that degrade and weaken muscle. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital's Stem Cell Program now report boosting muscle mass and reversing disease in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, using a "cocktail" of three compounds identified through a new rapid culture system. Adding the same compounds to stem cells derived from patients' skin cells, they then successfully grew human muscle cells in a dish.
Bethesda, Md. (Nov. 7, 2013)—Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—a health problem in which the lungs lose their inherent springiness, making it progressively harder to breathe—can have a dramatic effect on the ability to exercise and even perform simple activities of daily life because of the disease's fallout effects on skeletal muscles. Several factors have been implicated in these muscle problems.
A recent prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial reports that calcium and vitamin D supplementation improves bone density in a group of male veterans with epilepsy who were treated chronically with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The results published in Epilepsia, a journal of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), suggest that risedronate, a bisphosphonate, may help to prevent new vertebral fractures when taken with calcium and vitamin D supplementation.