Culture

July 13, 2012, New York, NY—Twenty percent of U.S. women (18.7 million) ages 19-64 were uninsured in 2010, up from 15 percent (12.8 million) in 2000, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report on women's health care. An additional 16.7 million women were underinsured in 2010, compared with 10.3 million in 2003. The report estimates that once fully implemented, the Affordable Care Act will cover nearly all women, reducing the uninsured rate among women from 20 percent to 8 percent.

At least, something is not being blamed on obesity. Or second-hand smoking. Or stereotype threat, or any other made-up nonsense.

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), in a study that combines statistical methods with genetic information, researchers dispel the false idea that being overweight has damaging educational consequences. Obesity is not to blame for poor performance in school.

Cardiologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a noninvasive imaging technique that may help determine whether children who have had heart transplants are showing early signs of rejection. The technique could reduce the need for these patients to undergo invasive imaging tests every one to two years.

The new method is described online in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

New discovery

Collagenase extracted from Clostridium histolyticum (trade name: Xiapex®) was approved in the beginning of 2011 for the treatment of people with Dupuytren's contracture. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether collagenase offers an added benefit in comparison with conventional regimens. However, such an added benefit cannot be inferred from the dossier, as the drug manufacturer presented either no data or unsuitable data.

An Australian study has criticized Hollywood's portrayal of menstruation, warning it's misinforming young girls and portraying periods as overly traumatic and humiliating.

Researcher Dr Lauren Rosewarne, from the University's School of Social and Political Sciences, has analyzed hundreds of representations of menstruation in film and television.

"The presentation of menstruation on screen is an overwhelmingly negative one," she said.

BALTIMORE, MD – As interest in concussion rates and prevention strategies at all levels continues to grow, one population that appears to have increasing head injury rates is collegiate football players. Research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Baltimore highlights that the concussion rate in three college football programs has doubled in recent years.

Deaths by suicide among mental health patients treated at home have reached 150 to 200 a year in England, latest national figures reveal – but suicides among patients on mental health wards continue to fall.

New Rochelle, NY, July 11, 2012—As athletes from around the world compete for medals at the Summer Olympics in London, the city will be striving to meet Olympic-level sustainability goals.

The Iberian wolf lives in increasingly humanised landscapes, with limited food resources and its presence is not always welcome. But, according to Spanish researchers, food availability plays a secondary role compared to landscape characteristics, which can offer refuge and allow wolves to remain in human-dominated environments in Galicia.

King penguins tolerate some human interference but we can't get too crazy, says a paper in BMC Ecology which investigates the adjustment of a king penguin colony on the protected Possession island in the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago after 50 years of constant human presence.

Treatment is delivered faster when emergency medical services (EMS) personnel notify hospitals a possible stroke patient is en route, yet pre-notification doesn't occur nearly one-third of the time. That's according to two separate Get With The Guidelines®– Stroke program studies published in American Heart Association journals.

Even as we spend more on healthcare every year, the number of people with chronic health problems continues to rise in developed countries like the United States. Most of these chronic health problems – such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease – can be addressed through lifestyle changes. But knowing that we should make a lifestyle change to improve our health and actually making that lifestyle change are two very different things.

Researchers from Spain established that liver stiffness, measured by transient elastography (TE), is an independent predictor of liver failure, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and mortality in cirrhotic patients coinfected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and hepatitis C virus (HCV).

New Rochelle, NY, June 3, 2012— Remote presence robots are used in intensive care units (ICUs) to help critical care physicians supplement on-site patient visits and maintain more frequent patient interactions. Physicians who employ this technology to supplement day-to-day patient care strongly support the positive clinical and social impact of using robots, according to a report published in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.