DURHAM, N.C. – Patients who received an implantable heart defibrillator in everyday practice had survival benefits on par with those who received the same devices in carefully controlled clinical trials, according to a new study that highlights the value of defibrillators in typical medical settings.
Culture
An analysis of nearly 100 studies that included approximately 3 million adults found that, relative to normal weight, overall obesity (combining all grades) and higher levels of obesity were associated with a significantly higher all-cause risk of death but being overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality, according to a study in JAMA (JAMA. 2013;309(1):71-82).
Researchers need more evidence to determine the connection between health care quality and cost. The nation's heath care costs are rising at an unsustainable rate, making it a priority to control costs. But there is uncertainty as to whether improvements in quality will cause costs to go up or down.
Doctors should consider the intentional addition of medicine to food as a potential cause of foodborne disease outbreaks.
The World Health Organization suggests possible sources of foodborne disease outbreaks are pathogenic bacteria, viruses, protozoa, parasitic worms, natural toxins, and chemicals, but not medicines. A 2010 foodborne disease outbreak in Beijing, China was a result of clonidine, a medication used to treat hypertension and ADHD, being intentionally added to lunch ingredients.
Distributing naloxone to heroin users to use to reverse overdose may be a cost-effective strategy to reduce overdose-related mortality. Opioid overdose is a leading cause of accidental death in the United States and accounts for half of the mortality among heroin users.
Boston, MA—Generic medications currently account for over 70 percent of prescriptions dispensed. However, while generic drugs are clinically bioequivalent to the brand-name version, they often differ in their physical characteristics, such as color and shape. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that some patients who receive generic drugs that vary in their color are over 50 percent more likely to stop taking the drug, leading to potentially important and potentially adverse clinical effects.
CHICAGO (December 28, 2012): When researchers from UCLA Medical Center investigated the link between racial disparities and appendicitis outcomes in children, they found that the type of hospital in which black, Hispanic and other minority patients receive care—community, children's or county—affects their odds of developing a perforated appendix. The study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons is a first-of-its-kind look at the role hospital type plays in race-based treatment variances among this patient subset.
By showing that tiny particles injected into a liquid crystal medium adhere to existing mathematical theorems, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have opened the door for the creation of a host of new materials with properties that do not exist in nature.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Garen Wintemute, a leading authority on gun violence prevention and an emergency medicine physician at UC Davis, believes broader criteria for background checks and denials on gun purchases can help prevent future firearm violence, including mass shooting catastrophes such as those that occurred at Sandy Hook, Aurora, Virginia Tech and Columbine.
Many of the most common inpatient surgeries in the United States are performed electively. These surgeries are expected to significantly increase with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. In a new perspectives article, published in the Dec.
The rate of people who seek preventive cancer screenings has fallen over the last ten years in the United States with wide variations between white-collar and blue-collar workers, according to a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine study published on December 27 in the open-access journal Frontiers in Cancer Epidemiology.
While earlier diagnoses and improved treatments have increased the number of survivors, cancer remains one of the most prominent chronic diseases and, last year alone, claimed the lives of more than 570,000 people in the U.S.
Nine to twelve-year-olds who perform kind acts are not only happier, but also find greater acceptance in their peer groups, according to research published December 26, 2012 in PLoS ONE by Kristin Layous and colleagues from the University of California, Riverside.
And now, some truly useless post-Christmas research.
In the virtual world of Second Life, female avatars expose substantially more skin than males, independent of their virtual body proportions, according to research published December 26 in PLOS ONE by Matthieu Guitton, who researches perception and human behavior in virtual spaces, and colleagues from Laval University, Canada.
The human tendency to cover up stems from climatic, environmental, physical and cultural constraints, so measuring people's propensity to reveal skin can be difficult in the real world.
Among deployed U.S. service members who died of combat or unintentional injuries between 2001-2011 and underwent autopsies, the prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis was 8.5 percent, with factors associated with a higher prevalence of the disease including older age, lower educational level and prior diagnoses of dyslipidemia, hypertension, and obesity, according to a study in the December 26 issue of JAMA.
Sustained virological response linked with improved survival for patients with chronic HCV infection
Among patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection and advanced hepatic fibrosis (development of excess fibrous connective tissue), sustained virological response (SVR) to interferon-based treatment was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with patients without SVR, according to a study in the December 26 issue of JAMA.