ROCHESTER, Minn. -- It's one of the toughest questions patients and their loved ones can discuss with physicians: When is further medical treatment futile? The conversation can become even more difficult if patients or their families disagree with health care providers' recommendations on end-of-life care.
Culture
Philadelphia, PA, November 27, 2012 – Delayed wound healing is a major complication of diabetes because the physiological changes in tissues and cells impair the wound healing process. This can result in additional disease outcomes such as diabetic foot ulcer, a significant cause of morbidity in the growing population of diabetic patients. A new study has found that topically applied simvastatin accelerates wound healing in diabetic mice, suggesting important implications for humans with diabetes. This study is published in the December issue of The American Journal of Pathology.
In a new study published in the scientific journal Circulation, scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden show that an enzyme called arginase might have a key part to play in the development of cardiovascular disease in patients who already have type II diabetes. According to the team, arginase prevents the formation of protective nitrogen oxide in the blood vessels, and treatments that inhibit this enzyme reduce the risk of angina in diabetics.
One of the most important health problems in the United States is the failure of patients with chronic diseases to take their medications and do all that is necessary to control their illnesses.
Researchers have found no clear proof that any intervention reduces the risk for mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. More than 40,000 children are born to HCV-positive women each year.
PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 26, 2012 — Patients newly prescribed a cholesterol-lowering medication were more likely to pick it up from the pharmacy if they received automated phone and mail reminders, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine today. This is one of a few published studies to examine strategies for reducing primary nonadherence, which occurs when patients do not pick up new prescriptions.
Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. describes how the dramatic progress in autism research has paralleled increased recognition of autism's prevalence and financial impact in the December issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. "This issue of the journal features three articles on autism," she writes in her editorial. "A decade ago, the journal published about the same number of autism articles per year."
Implementation of the Affordable Care Act – now assured by the re-election of President Obama – is expected to result in up to 50 million currently uninsured Americans acquiring some type of health insurance coverage. But a study by researchers at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that a significant percentage of the primary care physicians most likely to care for newly insured patients may be not be accepting new patients.
For researchers who study Earth's past environment, disentangling the effects of climate change from those related to human activities is a major challenge, but now University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientists have used a biomarker from human feces in a completely new way to establish the first human presence, the arrival of grazing animals and human population dynamics in a landscape.
Johns Hopkins researchers report concrete steps in the use of human stem cells to test how diseased cells respond to drugs. Their success highlights a pathway toward faster, cheaper drug development for some genetic illnesses, as well as the ability to pre-test a therapy's safety and effectiveness on cultured clones of a patient's own cells.
DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital study has found that better use of commonly accepted diagnostic guidelines for detecting cervical spine injuries could reduce unnecessary CT scans and spare patients from radiation exposure.
The multi-phase study showed that a significant number of CT scans could have been avoided if physicians adhered to the National Emergency X-Radiology Study (NEXUS) criteria, which aid Emergency Department physicians with determining whether C-spine injuries exist. Key findings:
Rates of hemorrhage for older patients on warfarin therapy are much higher than rates reported in clinical trials, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
"The rate of hemorrhage in our study is considerably higher than those reported in randomized controlled trials of warfarin therapy, which have ranged between 1% and 3% per person-year," writes lead author Tara Gomes, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Toronto, with coauthors.
Montreal, November 26, 2012 – What if factory foremen treated their workers less like the machines they operate, and more like people, with personality strengths and differences? Surely the workers would benefit, but might the employers also see positive results in the workplace, as well as being able to cut costs?
That's what Concordia researcher Mohammed Othman set out to prove in his paper "Integrating workers' differences into workforce planning," recently published in the journal Computers & Industrial Engineering.
Published on 19 November, Britain in 2013 - the nation in focus, showcases the diversity of ESRC-funded research on the state of the nation. The magazine is a mixture of academic opinion pieces alongside informed journalistic writing, offering a concise analysis of research and topical issues concerning Britain today.
Britain in 2013 reflects on, and offers possible solutions to, the most pressing problems British society faces.
This year's magazine features articles on:
Los Angeles, CA (23rd November, 2012) – The academic and professional publisher SAGE, has announced an agreement with the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) to acquire its journals. 28 titles formerly published by the Royal Society of Medicine Press will now be published by SAGE.
The Royal Society of Medicine is one of the largest providers of continuing medical education in the UK, reaching medical professionals and students from around the world.