Culture

CHICAGO --- If you hire a caregiver from an agency for an elderly family member, you might assume the person had undergone a thorough criminal background check and drug testing, was experienced and trained for the job.

You'd be wrong in many cases, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Today, nearly 4,000 adolescents in the United States will smoke their first cigarette, and about a fourth of those youth will become daily smokers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports. A recent study by a University of Missouri researcher found that African-American youths who live in public housing communities are 2.3 times more likely to use tobacco than other African-American youths.

Abiraterone (trade name: Zytiga®) has been approved since September 2011 for men with metastatic prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to hormone therapy and progresses further during or after therapy with the cytostatic drug docetaxel. 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 abiraterone offers an added benefit compared with the present standard therapy.

SAN ANTONIO (July 10, 2012) — Chemical intolerance contributes to the illnesses of 1 in 5 patients but the condition seldom figures in their diagnosis, according to clinical research directed by a UT Medicine San Antonio physician.

Richmond, Va. (July 9, 2012) – Patients who use an interactive personal health record (IPHR) are almost twice as likely to be up to date with clinical preventive services as those who do not, according to a new study led by Alex Krist, M.D., M.P.H., research member of the Cancer Prevention and Control program at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center.

A detailed picture of how Australia coped during the global financial crisis has been provided by the latest report from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, produced by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne.

This year's wide-ranging report has an emphasis on the implications of the global financial crisis and the health of Australians.

A series of factsheets have been developed to explain key findings, including:

John Pandolfi keeps his optimism alive despite the grim scientific evidence he confronts daily that the world's coral reefs are in a lot of trouble – along with 81 nations and 500 million people who depend on them.

The world-renowned coral scientist from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and University of Queensland has traced the story of the world's reefs over more than 50 million years and is deciphering delicate signals from the past to reveal what doomed them in previous extinctions – and how this compares with today.

STANFORD, Calif. — Government-funded community health centers, which serve low-income and uninsured patients, provide better care than do private practices, says a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

7/10/12, Zurich, Switzerland. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, introduces novel cost-effective strategies to facilitate healthy eating among weight-conscious consumers.

7/10/12, Zurich, Switzerland. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, sought to investigate personality traits that make some people more vulnerable to over-eating and weight gain.

San Diego, CA, July 10, 2012 – The federal government has committed $11 billion to expand the operating capacity of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which receive federal funding and enhanced Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement, and "look-alike" clinics that receive enhanced reimbursement but no federal grants.

A new study finds that the use of drug-eluting stents after angioplasty bears little relationship to patients' predicted risk of restenosis (reblockage) of the treated coronary artery, the situation the devices are designed to prevent. In an Archives of Internal Medicine paper receiving early online publication, a multi-institutional research team reports that the devices are used in treating more than 70 percent of patients at low risk of restenosis.

CHICAGO – A study based on more than 1.5 million percutaneous coronary intervention procedures (such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement to open narrowed coronary arteries) suggests that the use of drug-eluting stents varies widely among U.S. physicians, and is only modestly correlated with the patient's risk of coronary artery restenosis (renarrowing), according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

A new study suggests that echocardiography be included as part of screenings to help identify student athletes with heart problems that could lead to sudden death.

The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography, suggests adding a modified echo to the current practice of taking an EKG, getting a family history and having a physical exam.

A common belief in the West is that al Qaeda wishes to impose Islam everywhere. This might be a pipe dream for the group, but a new study of their use of religious texts suggests that Islamists' goals are much more modest.