Culture

UC Irvine Health urologists and health policy experts report in a new study that two written assessments that identify existing comorbidities – the patient-reported Total Illness Burden Index for Prostate Cancer (TIBI-Cap) and the physician-reported Charlson Comorbidity Index – can successfully target prostate patients who would not benefit from biopsy to discover possible cancer.

Philadelphia, PA, May 15, 2013 – Regular marijuana use is associated with favorable indices related to diabetic control, say investigators. They found that current marijuana users had significantly lower fasting insulin and were less likely to be insulin resistant, even after excluding patients with a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. Their findings are reported in the current issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

Contribution of helmet legislation “minimal” in context of existing safety campaigns, say researchers(BMJ 2013;346:f2674).

The benefit of helmet legislation to reduce admissions to hospital for head injuries is “substantially uncertain,” concludes a study published on bmj.com today.

The authors say that, while helmets reduce head injuries and their use should be encouraged, in the context of existing safety campaigns, the impact of legislation seems to be minimal.

A combination of two FDA-approved osteoporosis drugs with different mechanisms of action was found to increase bone density better than treatment with either drug alone in a small clinical trial. As reported in paper receiving Online First publication in The Lancet, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators found that treatment combining denosumab (Prolia) and teriparatide (Forteo) was superior to single-agent treatment in a 12-month trial in women with postmenopausal osteoporosis.

WASHINGTON, DC—A study released today by George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) researchers offers an in-depth look at hospitals nationwide and admissions to intensive care units (ICU). The study, published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine, finds a sharp increase—nearly 50 percent—in ICU admissions coming from U.S. emergency departments.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu)— The atom-sized world of carbon nanotubes holds great promise for a future demanding smaller and faster electronic components. Nanotubes are stronger than steel and smaller than any element of silicon-based electronics—the ubiquitous component of today's electrical devices—and have better conductivity, which means they can potentially process information faster while using less energy.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – African-Americans know the signs of stroke, but concerns about medical cost, ambulance response time and unfamiliarity with the need for prompt hospital care impacted whether they called 9-1-1 immediately.

A study that included 77 African-Americans in Flint, Mich., revealed barriers among adults and youth in getting help for stroke which is significantly higher among African-Americans and leads to more deaths and disability.

Boston, MA – In new research published online May 13, 2013 in Advanced Materials, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) are the first to report that synthetic silicate nanoplatelets (also known as layered clay) can induce stem cells to become bone cells without the need of additional bone-inducing factors. Synthetic silicates are made up of simple or complex salts of silicic acids, and have been used extensively for various commercial and industrial applications, such as food additives, glass and ceramic filler materials, and anti-caking agents.

Boston, MA, May 14, 2013—A new report assessing the economic viability of services provided by practicing midlevel dental providers in the U.S. shows that they are expanding preventive dental care to people who need it most: children and those who can't afford care. At the same time, they are providing that care at a reduced cost to the dental practice.

Breastfeeding has a positive impact on the physical and mental development of infants. A new study in Breastfeeding Medicine suggests that breastfeeding may protect against the development of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later in childhood.

Nurses will use extreme measures to save their patients and parents; but if they were dying, they prefer less aggressive ones for themselves, according to results from an international survey on nurses' end-of-life preferences.

The April issue of the International Nursing Review reported the findings about the end-of-life preferences of 1,089 nurses in the first multinational and cross-cultural view of nurses' end-of-life care choices.

Consumers experiencing relationship problems are more likely to prefer aesthetic experiences that reflect their negative mood, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Companies located in more economically-troubled states provide a greater opportunity for investors than companies in other states according to new research by the University of Miami School of Business Administration. The study reveals that investors in states with high unemployment and a relatively depressed housing sector tend to sell more stocks during these tough economic times, and because people invest disproportionately in companies close to home, the stock prices of firms in those states suffer disproportionately.

Hardware and software vendors are foolish to ignore the needs of the growing population of older computer and information technology users, the so-called "silver surfers". US researchers offer convincing evidence in a monograph to be published in the International Journal of Intercultural Information Management that from the business perspective, seniors represent a rapidly growing sector of the market with the most disposable income to spend on these companies' products.

The authors base their findings on more than 1100 adults who had sustained a stroke between 1999 and 2004 and had been admitted to hospital in the greater Boston area of Massachusetts in the US.

On admission, each patient's serum creatinine was measured. This is a by-product of muscle metabolism and is filtered out of the body by the kidney, known as the glomerular filtration rate or GFR. The GFR is therefore an indicator of the health of the kidneys and how well they are working.