Body

Having diabetes increases the risk of dying from the effects of a heart attack by around 50 per cent, according to a widespread study.

Researchers at the University of Leeds tracked 700,000 people who had been admitted to hospital with a heart attack between January 2003 and June 2013.

Of these, 121,000 had diabetes.

After stripping out the effects of age, sex, any other illnesses and differences in the emergency medical treatment received, the team found stark differences in survival rates.

An international team has discovered an elegant way to decouple organic nanosheets grown on metal surfaces. After iodine intercalation, measurements at the synchrotron source BESSY II of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin showed that a network of organic molecules behaved almost as it was free-standing. The strong influence of the metal on the network was reduced. This opens up new ways to transfer organic nanostructures from metal surfaces onto more suitable substrates for molecular electronics. The results have been published in Angewandte Chemie.

The DIABIMMUNE project followed the development of 39 Finnish infants from birth to the age of three. Half of the children received 9-15 antibiotic treatments during the research period, and the other half did not receive any such treatments. Stool samples were collected from the children monthly between the ages of 2 and 36 months, for a total of 1069 samples. The study involved researchers from Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Bees pollinate plants more frequently in the city than in the country even though they are more often infected with parasites, a factor which can shorten their lifespans. These were the findings of a study conducted by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in conjunction with the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). The findings were recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

One of the alterations that most affects the quality of life of the elderly is muscle wastage and the resulting loss of strength, a condition known as sarcopenia. At about 55 years old, people begin to lose muscle mass, this loss continues into old age, at which point it becomes critical. The underlying causes of sarcopenia are unknown and thus no treatment is available for this condition.

MONTRÉAL, June 22, 2016 - Years of research have shown that impulsivity in childhood is among the individual vulnerabilities leading to substance abuse, delinquency, as well as aggressive and antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Yet researchers from the CHU Sainte-Justine Mother-child Research Hospital and University of Montreal have discovered a reversal of this trend for those children when raised in a less coercive environment. "According to our results, labelling impulsive children as "vulnerable" should be reconsidered.

New radiotherapy regime for prostate cancer could save NHS tens of millions per year

A shorter course of prostate cancer radiotherapy, involving fewer hospital visits and higher individual doses of radiotherapy, is as effective as the current standard treatment for both survival and quality of life, a major new study reports.

Researchers leading the 14-year trial - published in The Lancet Oncology today (Monday) - believe the new treatment schedule would be more convenient for patients and could save the NHS tens of millions of pounds per year.

JCU's Dr Tasmin Rymer led a study that produced a template measuring several crucial factors, including an animal's physiology and environment, to determine how it would handle a severe drought.

Dr Rymer said scientists believe the current rate of climate change is unprecedented in Earth's history and will lead to more and worse droughts in many areas.

"So we developed a theoretical framework that allows researchers to estimate the likelihood that a species will be able to cope," she said.

The itchy, red welts that appear after being bitten by a mosquito may help any viruses the insect is carrying pass on to a new host. A mouse study published June 21 in Immunity suggests that the swelling and irritation that make mosquito bites so unpleasant may provide a mechanism by which viruses like Zika are able to replicate and spread.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, which edits a cancer patient's T cells to recognize their tumors, has successfully helped patients with aggressive blood cancers but has yet to show the ability to treat solid tumors. To overcome this hurdle, researchers genetically engineered human T cells to produce a CAR protein that recognizes a glycopeptide found on various cancer cells but not normal cells, and then demonstrated its effectiveness in mice with leukemia and pancreatic cancer. Their proof-of-concept study appears June 21 in Immunity.

DALLAS, June 21, 2016 - A blood test that leads to the rejection of donor hearts may be unnecessary in predicting whether a heart transplant will succeed or fail, according to new research in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.

In nationally representative surveys conducted between 1999 and 2012, several improvements in self-reported dietary habits were identified, such as increased consumption of whole grains, with additional findings suggesting persistent or worsening disparities based on race/ethnicity and education and income level, according to a study appearing in the June 21 issue of JAMA.

In a study appearing in the June 21 issue of JAMA, Peter Ganz, M.D., of the University of California-San Francisco, and colleagues conducted a study to develop and validate a score to predict risk of cardiovascular outcomes among patients with coronary heart disease using analysis of circulating proteins.

An analysis of more than 60 studies suggests that some plant-based therapies are associated with modest reductions in the frequency of hot flashes and vaginal dryness but no significant reduction in night sweats, according to a study appearing in the June 21 issue of JAMA.

SAN FRANCISCO - June 21, 2016 - A new study estimates that 9.6 million adults in the United States are highly myopic, or severely nearsighted. Of those, nearly 820,000 have a degenerative form of the disease and more than 41,000 suffer a complication called myopic choroidal neovascularization that could cause long-term vision loss, with women at higher risk. The findings are being published online today in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.