Culture

STANFORD, Calif. — Patients who participated in a smoking-cessation program during hospitalization for mental illness were able to quit smoking and were less likely to be hospitalized again for their psychiatric conditions, according to a new study led by a Stanford University School of Medicine scientist.

The findings counter a longstanding assumption, held by many mental-health experts, that smoking serves as a useful tool in treating some psychiatric patients.

Obesity is a lot more deadly than previously thought. Across recent decades, obesity accounted for 18 percent of deaths among Black and White Americans between the ages of 40 and 85, according to a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This finding challenges the prevailing wisdom among scientists, which puts that portion at around 5%.

In other words, the evolution that he and his team witnessed was repeatable, all the way down to the molecular level.

The researchers didn't set out with the goal to evolve hyperswarmers, but they did passage Pseudomonas aeruginosa on special plates over a period of days. On those plates, bacteria that could spread out had an advantage in harvesting nutrients from the surface, and within a matter of days, some of those bacteria started hyperswarming.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Decision-making by a surrogate for a family member who is unable to make medical decisions is more complicated than decision-making by patients themselves, according to a study from the Regenstrief Institute, Indiana University Center for Aging Research and the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics of Indiana University Health.

The researchers found that family decision-makers considered the cognitively impaired patient's wishes and interests. But they also took into account their own needs and preferences.

Philadelphia, Pa. (August 15, 2013) – A health risk score calculated automatically using routine data from hospital electronic medical records (EMR) systems can identify patients at high risk of unplanned hospital readmission, reports a study in the September issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Of all the dark forms that murder can take, the slaying of a family by the father is one of the most tragic and the least understood. This first ever study of British 'family annihilators', published in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, has analysed three decades of cases and reveals four new types of annihilator.

[EMARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, AUG. 15] Diabetic patients taking oral fluoroquinolones, a frequently prescribed class of antibiotics, were found to have a higher risk of severe blood sugar-related problems than diabetic patients taking other kinds of antibiotics, according to a recent study from Taiwan published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Philadelphia, August 15, 2013 – Research suggests that a patient's chronic pain affects a spouse's emotional well-being and marital satisfaction. In a novel study of behavioral health outcomes published in the journal PAIN®, researchers examined the effects of patients' daily knee osteoarthritis pain on their spouses' nightly sleep. They determined that couples who expressed a high degree of closeness in their marriage experienced a stronger association between pain levels and the spouse's ability to sleep restfully.

University of Washington geographer Kam Wing Chan is in China this week, explaining how that country can dismantle its 55-year-old system that limits rural laborers from moving to and settling in cities and qualifying for basic social benefits.

It's an idea that he says makes economic and moral sense.

A study by Johns Hopkins researchers shows that a fifth of U.S. neurologists appear unaware of serious drug safety risks associated with various anti-epilepsy drugs, potentially jeopardizing the health of patients who could be just as effectively treated with safer alternative medications.

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy reduces the mortality rate in people who have both chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which the authors refer to as "the overlap syndrome."

Financial incentives can be a very effective tool in encouraging employees to lose weight at companies that offer their workers those types of programs, research from a University of Texas at Arlington economics assistant professor shows.

Joshua Price, a UT Arlington assistant professor of economics, teamed with Cornell University Professor John Cawley to perform a case study on an employer-sponsored program that offered financial incentives for weight loss.

Bethesda, MD -- Despite previous data showing beneficial effects, the probiotic Saccharomuces boulardii (S. boulardii) does not prevent clinical relapse in patients with Crohn's disease, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

CHICAGO (August 14, 2013) — The new American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) Surgical Risk Calculator is a revolutionary new tool that quickly and easily estimates patient-specific postoperative complication risks for almost all operations, according to research findings appearing online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The study will be published in a print edition of the Journal later this year.

LAGUNA HILLS, California, USA -- Researchers at MetroLaser, Inc., have developed a new design for a digital streak camera that captures full-color images of projectiles traveling up to 3350 m/s, which is 10 times the speed of sound. This system was designed to replace the outdated film-based streak cameras that are still in use at high-speed test tracks.