(NEW YORK, NY, July 14, 2011) – In a study, Identification of unrecognized diabetes and pre-diabetes in a dental setting, published in the July 2011 issue of the Journal of Dental Research, researchers at Columbia University College of Dental Medicine found that dental visits represented a chance to intervene in the diabetes epidemic by identifying individuals with diabetes or pre-diabetes who are unaware of their condition.
Culture
When consumers taste a chocolate bar they think is made in Switzerland, they'll prefer it over one supposedly made in China, according to new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. But if you tell them where it's from after they taste the candy, they'll prefer the Chinese chocolate.
Consumers who are in a positive mood make quicker and more consistent judgments than unhappy people, according to a new study.
"There has been considerable debate about how affect (moods, emotions, feelings) influences the quality of people's decisions," write authors Paul M. Herr (Virginia Tech), Christine M. Page (Skidmore College), Bruce E. Pfeiffer (University of New Hampshire), and Derick F. Davis (Virginia Tech). "We join this debate by looking at affect's influence on a very basic element of decision-making: deciding if an object is liked or disliked."
DETROIT – In 2005, Jeffrey Martin, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology, health and sport studies in Wayne State University's College of Education, found that children living in underserved communities are less physically active than their higher-income counterparts. Now, in a follow-up study, Martin has found environmental factors that may affect underserved children's physical activity and fitness levels: classmate support, gender and confidence. The study was published in the June 2011 issue of Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport.
Whether patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus benefit from attempts to lower their blood glucose levels to near-normal levels through treatment ("intensive blood glucose control") remains an unanswered question. The studies currently available provide indications of a benefit but also of potential harm. This is the result of a report published by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).
Of 180 patients in this study in whom a reference committee later identified coronary heart disease (CHD), 31.7% had originally been misdiagnosed by their family doctors as not having CHD ("false negative"). Stefan Bösner and his colleagues present the results of their cross-sectional study in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[26]: 445-51).
MAYWOOD, Ill. -- For kidney disease patients, a large belt size can double the risk of dying.
A study lead by a Loyola University Health System researcher found that the larger a kidney patient's waist circumference, the greater the chance the patient would die during the course of the study.
The study by lead researcher Holly Kramer, MD, MPH, and colleagues is published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
Waist circumference was more strongly linked to mortality than another common measure of obesity, body mass index (BMI).
BOSTON – Placebos are "dummy pills" often used in research trials to test new drug therapies and the "placebo effect" is the benefit patients receive from a treatment that has no active ingredients. Many claim that the placebo effect is a critical component of clinical practice.
A new study by investigators from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine has confirmed the existence of a "trial effect" in clinical trials for treatment of HIV.
Trial effect is an umbrella term for the benefit experienced by study participants simply by virtue of their participating in the trial. It includes the benefit of newer and more effective treatments, the way those treatments are delivered, increased care and follow-up, and the patient's own behavior change as a result of being under observation.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Improving and maintaining health factors not traditionally associated with dementia, such as denture fit, vision and hearing, may lower a person's risk for developing dementia, according to a new study published in the July 13, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
For many reasons -- including the rising cost of health care and aging of the U.S. population -- health care is increasingly moving from formal medical facilities into patients' homes.
A wide range of procedures and therapies are now carried out far from any hospital or clinic, often with no health care professional on site.
Fewer Mexican immigrants returned home from the United States during 2008 and 2009 than in the two years prior to the start of the recession, a finding that contradicts the notion that the economic downturn has hastened return migration to Mexico, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
The study, published online by the journal Demography, is the first to track return migration trends by analyzing household survey information routinely collected by the Mexican government.
Hospitalized patients who had conversations about religion and spirituality with the healthcare team were the most satisfied with their overall care. However, 20 percent of patients who would have valued these discussions say their desires went unmet, according to a new study¹ by Joshua Williams from the University of Chicago, USA, and his colleagues. Their work appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study of political polarization in the United States suggests that changes in the labor market since the 1970s has helped create more Republican and Democratic partisans and fewer independents.
The growth in partisanship has to do with people's current income and – importantly – their expectations of job security, said Philipp Rehm, author of the study and assistant professor of political science at Ohio State University.
A health-care delivery model called patient-centered medical home (PCMH) increased the percentage of diabetes patients who achieved goals that reduced their sickness and death rates, according to health researchers.