Culture

1. President Taft's letters to his physician show emerging modern approach to treating obesity

Doctors should evaluate your physical activity habits as routinely as checking your blood pressure and other risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, the American Heart Association recommends in a scientific statement published in its journal Circulation.

Compensation for chief executive officers at nonprofit hospitals varies around the country but averaged almost $600,000 in a study of top executives at nearly 2,700 hospitals, according to a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Little information is known about how hospital CEOs are paid and the factors that affect their compensation, according to the study background.

Much of Big Energy is guilty of an enculturated risk blindness that, unless action is taken, will lead to an inevitable global crash according to Jeremy Leggett.  As the World Energy Congress opens in South Korea, the man described as "Britain's most respected green energy boss" writes of wider risk-taking in energy – and financial markets, as he has seen it play out – often behind closed doors – since the oil price began its inexorable rise in 2004.

Psychological interventions halve deaths and cardiovascular events in heart disease patients, according to research from Athens, Greece, presented at the Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013.

The Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 is the annual meeting of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). It takes place 12-14 October in Madrid, Spain.

This news release is available in Spanish.

Madrid, Spain – 12 October 2013: System delay in treating patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) postpones their return to work and increases early retirement, according to research presented at the Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 by Kristina Laut, PhD student from Aarhus, Denmark.

Washington, DC (October 10, 2013) — Behavioral therapy provided chair-side to kidney failure patients while they're undergoing dialysis may help fight depression and improve patients' quality of life, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

American Chemical Society President Marinda Li Wu, Ph.D., said the budget impasse is effectively choking America's science innovation pipeline, strangling new discoveries, future economic growth and job creation.

Because if the government is not doing ... what, exactly ... for two weeks, science screeches to a halt, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of chemical science is done in the private sector

When a natural disaster strikes and too many people take to their mobile phones at once, cellular networks easily overload. But a University of British Columbia graduate student has developed a solution to ensure that calls don't get dropped and texts make it to their destination.

Polymers -- the essential component of plastics -- are found in countless commercial, medical, and industrial products. Polymers that are porous are called foam polymers and are especially useful because they combine light weight with rigid mechanical properties. Now a researcher at the University of Rochester has developed a process to grow highly customizable coatings of foam-like polymers.

Unlike our bones, the cartilage inside our joints is not vascularized (i.e., it has no blood vessels). This is one reason why cartilage does not heal well after an injury. In athletes in particular, joint injuries often result in cartilage degeneration and arthritis. The process is chronic and irreversible, and to this day, no effective treatment exists.

HONOLULU, October 11, 2013 — Young children whose parents used an integrated personal health record were more likely to attend six or more of the nationally recommended well-child care visits by 15 months of age, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in The Journal of Pediatrics. Using any Web-enabled device, PHRs allow patients to view parts of their medical record, including immunizations and after-visit instructions, manage appointments, refill prescriptions, check lab results, and securely communicate with their health care providers.

A study to assess whether patients prescribed smoking cessation drugs are at an increased risk of suicide, self-harm and treated depression compared with users of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has found no evidence of an increased risk. The findings, led by researchers from the University of Bristol, are published online in the British Medical Journal [BMJ] today [11 October].

Washington, DC (October 10, 2013) — Among younger kidney transplant recipients, a disproportionate number of African Americans and individuals with less education receive organs that are of lower quality or are considered marginal, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The findings suggest that there are racial and social disparities in the allocation of transplanted organs that need to be addressed.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified 13 metabolites – small molecules produced by cellular metabolism – that are significantly different in patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease compared to healthy controls.

Twelve of the 13 metabolites are linked to mitochondrial function, suggesting that suppression of mitochondria – the powerhouses of cells – is a fundamental characteristic of diabetic kidney disease. The findings are published in the November edition of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.