There is no difference between brand-name and generic drug formulations of amiodarone — taken to control arrhythmia – in the incidence of thyroid dysfunction, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj101800.pdf.
Culture
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana University and Regenstrief Institute researchers report that it takes significantly longer for orders to forgo resuscitation in the event of cardiac arrest to be written for patients who had that decision made for them by a surrogate decision-maker compared to patients who made their own decisions, even though patients with a surrogate were sicker and the resuscitation issue might arise sooner.
Tel Aviv — Most marketing departments work hard to establish a flawless reputation for their product or service. But new research from Tel Aviv University is showing that perfection is not all it's cracked up to be.
TORONTO, Ont. — More patients are tested and treated for osteoporosis when fracture clinics have someone dedicated to screening for the bone disease, a new study has found. Those patients also do better when the clinic actually provides bone mineral density (BMD) testing or prescription drug treatment as part of its program rather than just referring fracture patients elsewhere.
Philadelphia, PA, July 11, 2011 – In people with Parkinson's Disease (PD), the inability to make quick movements limits basic functioning in daily life. Movement can be improved by various cueing techniques, such as providing visual or auditory stimuli when movements are started. In a study scheduled for publication in the August issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, researchers report that virtual reality (VR) and physical reality exercises can be used to provide effective stimuli to increase movement speeds in PD patients.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Which U.S. metro region is most likely to come out of the next recession, natural disaster or other regional "shock" relatively unscathed? Rochester, Minn. A little more battered might be College Station-Bryan, Texas.
These two regions are ranked first and last, respectively, by a new online tool measuring more than 360 U.S. metros for their "regional resilience," or capacity to weather acute and chronic stresses ranging from gradual economic decline to rapid population gains to earthquakes and floods.
DURHAM, N.H. – Rural workers have less access to sick leave, forcing them to choose between caring for themselves or family members, and losing pay or perhaps even their jobs when faced with an illness, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
College athletes tend to be less likely than their non-athlete peers to smoke marijuana. But when they do, they may have some different reasons for it, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
Past studies have shown that athletes generally smoke marijuana less often than other college students do.
"But there is still a pretty large number who choose to use it," said Jennifer F. Buckman, Ph.D., of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Rapidly, but expressively and with amazing ease, the guitarist's fingers move over the strings on the neck of the instrument. His fingertips move up and down and a vibrato resonates. From the guitar a cable leads to a laptop, which records the virtuoso performance in minute detail. The computer registers each vibrato, each bend precisely and almost instantaneously. Afterwards the guitarist can play back the digital recording and process it on a computer.
New research reports a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency among patients with psoriatic arthritis. Seasonal variation in vitamin D levels was not observed in patients in southern or northern locations. The findings published today in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), also show no association between disease activity and vitamin D level.
Researchers have discovered that obese adults undergoing surgery are less frequently developing respiratory insufficiency (RI) and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and that when they do, they are less likely to have fatal outcomes. The researchers say they have several theories of how obesity protects patients from mortality associated with RI/ARDS, and pinpointing the protective mechanism could help them develop interventions to help non-obese patients avoid adverse outcomes.
SAN DIEGO, CA – The onset of osteoarthritis may be related to a loss of knee motion after reconstructive ACL surgery, as noted in new research presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, July 7-10, 2011. Patients who showed motion limitations after surgery were more likely to develop arthritic changes in the knee.
Stocks of seabed-living fish in the Firth of Clyde have reached their highest level since 1927 – according to research by academics at the University of Strathclyde.
However, the report, produced by Professor Mike Heath and Dr Douglas Speirs of the University's Marine Population Modelling Group, shows that while fish are actually more abundant than ever, the majority are too small to be landed.
For patients suffering from epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a hereditary skin disease, even a gentle touch is extremely painful. Now Dr. Li-Yang Chiang, Dr. Kate Poole and Professor Gary R. Lewin of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch have discovered the causes underlying this disease. Due to a genetic defect, individuals with EB cannot form laminin-332, a structural molecule of the skin that in healthy individuals inhibits the transduction of tactile stimuli and neuronal branching (Nature Neuroscience, doi: 10.1038/nn.2873)*.
An analysis of heart disease and stroke statistics collected in 192 countries by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that the relative burden of the two diseases varies widely from country to country and is closely linked to national income, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.
Reporting in the journal Circulation, the UCSF scientists found that developing countries tend to suffer more death and disability by stroke than heart disease – opposite the situation in the United States and other countries with higher national incomes.