Culture

A large Scandinavian study, that has been running for 30 years, has finally provided convincing evidence that the combined oral contraceptive pill does, indeed, alleviate the symptoms of painful menstrual periods reports scientists from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

A short spinning session can trigger the same biochemical indications as a heart attack – a reaction that is probably both natural and harmless, but should be borne in mind when people seek emergency treatment for chest pain, reveals a study from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois researchers determined that an adult stem cell present in muscle is responsive to exercise, a discovery that may provide a link between exercise and muscle health. The findings could lead to new therapeutic techniques using these cells to rehabilitate injured muscle and prevent or restore muscle loss with age.

There are ways in which patients who leave the hospital against medical advice wind up paying for that decision. Being saddled with the full cost of their hospital stay, however, is not one of them.

Insurance companies know this. Patients who walk out may know this. But many physicians, according to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, do not.

Much orthopaedic research has been devoted to determining why women are far more susceptible to knee ligament injuries than men. According to a new study, the answer may lie in geometry – the length and shape of a patient's knee bone – more than gender.

Research recently published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), compared magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of male and female athletes with non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries with those of athletes who participated in similar, at-risk sports but without a history of ligament injury.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Within a few years, a new generation of easy-to-use blood-thinning drugs will likely replace Coumadin for patients with irregular heartbeats who are at risk for stroke, according to a journal article by Loyola University Medical Center physicians.

Unlike Coumadin, the new drugs do not require patients to come in to the clinic on a regular basis to check the dose. Nor do the drugs require extensive dietary restrictions.

DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital study has found that using two types of common asthma medications in combination reduces severe asthma attacks.

Researchers say using long-acting beta-agonists (LABAs) in fixed-dose combination with inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) appear to reduce asthma attacks as well as or better than corticosteroids alone. Patient groups who had in greatest benefits were:

A study carried out by researchers at Universidad Carlos III of Madrid analyzes, for the first time, the independent label sector in Spain. It describes both the wide range of activities and strategies that these firms use, and their presence in new networks and digital services.

In one year alone, over 4,500 children in the United States were hospitalized due to child abuse, and 300 of them died of their injuries, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in a new study. The findings are published in the March 2012 issue of Pediatrics (published online Feb. 6).

Several measures have been used to track the national occurrence of child abuse, including data from Child Protective Services. But until now none quantified the severity of the abuse or whether the child was hospitalized as a result.

In the fight against child mortality in the developing world, simple things make a big difference. A new study by Stanford researchers recently published online by the journal Environmental Science and Technology shows that decreasing the amount of time families must walk to obtain clean water can help save the lives of young children.

In the largest and longest head-to-head comparison of two anti-clotting medications, warfarin and aspirin were similar in preventing deaths and strokes in heart failure patients with normal heart rhythm, according to late-breaking research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2012.

The great majority of geriatric patients in a German rehabilitation hospital were found to have vitamin D deficiency. Stefan Schilling presents his study results in this week's issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109[3]: 33-8).

In order to establish the vitamin D status in geriatric patients in Germany, the researchers measured 25-OH vitamin D in 1578 patients in the geriatric rehabilitation hospital in Trier after they had been examined on admission.

London, UK – A new editorial released this week offers clarity and structure on confusing drug and alcohol addiction terminology for prescribers, users and regulators. "Through a glass darkly: can we improve clarity about mechanism and aims of medications in drug and alcohol treatments?" is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the official journal of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, published by SAGE.

PHILADELPHIA (February 1, 2012)— Rates of diabetes vary widely across developing countries worldwide, according to a new analysis led by Dr. Longjian Liu of Drexel University's School of Public Health.

Worldwide, four in five people with diabetes now live in developing countries. Liu's study found that access to healthcare support for diabetes varied widely in developing countries, and that one in 10 diagnosed cases remain untreated. The study is available online and will appear in a future issue of the journal Diabetic Medicine.