Culture

Large waist doubles risk of kidney disease mortality

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).

A closer look at the placebo effect

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.

New study confirms the existence of 'trial effect' in HIV clinical trials

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.

Keeping up your overall health may keep dementia away

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.

Health care in the home - new report July 18

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.

Number of Mexican immigrants returning home dropped during latest recession, study finds

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.

Talking about faith increases hospital patients' overall satisfaction

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.

Rise in risk inequality helps explain polarized US voters

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.

Health-care model improves diabetes outcomes, health

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.

Individualized cost-effectiveness analysis useful for clinicians and patients

In this week's PLoS Medicine, John Ioannidis and Alan Garber from Stanford University, USA, discuss how to use incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) and related metrics so they can be useful for decision-making at the individual level, whether used by clinicians or individual patients. The authors say that "Cost-effectiveness analysis offers a foundation for rational decision-making and can be very helpful in making health care more efficient and effective at the population level.

Stanford researchers suggest ways for physicians to individualize cost-effectiveness of treatments

STANFORD, Calif. — In an era of skyrocketing health-care costs and finite financial resources, health economists are increasingly called upon to determine which medical treatments are the most cost-effective. To do so, they compare the price of an intervention with the improvement it is expected to deliver. For example, a highly advanced cold medicine that costs $5,000 to deliver just one additional symptom-free day to the average patient would appear to be a less-wise investment than a new chemotherapy that costs $10,000 but delivers a year or more of life to most patients.

Alternative methods of smear collection are effective at diagnosing TB

Two studies by a team of researchers led by Luis E. Cuevas and Mohammed Yassin from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and jointly coordinated with Andrew Ramsay at WHO-TDR Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases are published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The studies have important implications for the ways in which diagnosis for the endemic infectious disease, tuberculosis (TB), can be done in poor countries.

Heart ultrasound helps determine risk of heart attack, death in HIV patients

An ultrasound test can tell if people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and heart disease are at risk of heart attack or death, according to new research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, an American Heart Association journal.

Stress echocardiography, better known as a "stress echo," is an ultrasound of the heart during rest and stress that determines risk of heart attack and death in patients with known or suspected blockages in the blood vessels supplying the heart.

Severity of spinal cord injury has no impact on how adults rate their health, WSU research finds

DETROIT – Severity of spinal cord injury in adults is not related to how they rate their health, Wayne State University researchers have found.

Study shows how an often illegal sales tactic contributed to housing crash

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A study of home purchases during the real estate boom years in Chicago shows how one ethically murky – and sometimes illegal - tactic used to sell homes may have contributed to the housing crash.

The tactic was inflating the selling price of a home, but offering the buyer some incentive – often cash back – to accept the inflated price. The buyer could then use the cash-back for a mortgage down payment or other purposes.