Violent video games “exhilarating escapism: survey
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Players of violent video games believe they are just “exhilarating” escapism that does not desensitise them to real-life mayhem, according to a new survey of one of the entertainment industry’s fastest growing sectors.
However gamers do concede that people “who are already unhinged in some way” may be pushed over the edge if they play violent games obsessively.
Raise drinking age to 21, says think tank
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Young people should be banned from drinking until they reach 21 or be forced to carry a card that records their alcohol intake, a think tank columnist claims yesterday.
Binge drinking has become such an “overwhelming” problem, argues journal of the left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research, that policy makers need to practice “tough love” and put drink out of the reach of youngsters.
How student doctor got personal experience of brain surgery
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As I walked into the neurologist’s office, I thought I knew what was coming. I didn’t. I’m a medical student and had looked up all of my symptoms; everything seemed to point to carpal-tunnel syndrome - a trapped nerve in my wrist. I sat down and, from the look on my doctor’s face, began to feel uneasy. He said that something unexpected had shown up on my MRI scan. The pins and needles, wasting and weakness that I had been experiencing in my left hand for nearly a year were, in fact, caused by a condition that I had never heard of called Chiari malformation.
This meant that I had been born with my cerebellum protruding through the base of my skull. The extra tissue had altered the pressure and flow of spinal fluid, causing it to get “dumped” into the middle of my spinal cord, a condition called syringomyelia, which was progressive.
Allergic diseases don’t affect fertility in women
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Women with asthma, hay fever or eczema are no less fertile than their peers who don’t suffer from these allergic conditions, UK researchers report. In fact, they may be slightly more likely to have children.
“This is an important finding for women with allergic disease and their clinicians,” Dr. L. J. Tata of the University of Nottingham and colleagues write in their report, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Intensive psychotherapy benefits bipolar patients
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Patients treated with drugs for bipolar disorder benefit greatly from the addition of intensive psychotherapy, according to findings published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
“Bipolar disorder is an extremely debilitating illness, in large part because of the difficulty in treating bipolar depressive disorders,” Dr. David J. Miklowitz, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues write. Clinical trials support the effectiveness of adding psychotherapy to drug treatment for preventing the recurrence of depressive and manic episodes. However, the effectiveness of various strategies has been unclear.
First ever study predicts outcome for limb-threatening infections in diabetes
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Researchers from the University of Washington, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Merck Laboratories, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine have released a study suggesting that specific laboratory and clinical tests can predict outcome of antibiotic therapy for infections in persons with diabetes.
“This study is unique in a couple of ways,” said Dr. David G. Armstrong, Professor of Surgery at Scholl’s Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR) at Rosalind Franklin University. “It comes from the largest-ever clinical trial of antibiotics for this type of infection, and it used very specific, day-to-day measures that can be done in any hospital, world wide.”
Brain Structure Changes Years Before Memory Loss Begins
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People who develop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease experience brain structure changes years before any signs of memory loss begin, according to a study published in the April 17, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers say these findings may help identify people at risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which leads to Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers performed brain scans and cognitive tests on 136 people over the age of 65 who were considered cognitively normal at the beginning of the five-year study. Participants were then followed annually with neurologic examination and extensive mental status testing. By the end of the study, 23 people had developed MCI, and nine of the 23 went on to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The brain scans of the 23 people with memory loss were then compared to the 113 people who remained cognitively normal.
Red and processed meat linked to breast cancer
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Women who eat a lot of meat, particularly red or processed meats, may be more likely to develop breast cancer, according to a large study of British women.
Researchers found that among 35,372 women, between the ages of 35 and 69 years old, who were followed for 8 years, those who ate the largest amount of meat were more likely than non-meat eaters to develop breast cancer before or after menopause.
First gene test for diabetes risk now available
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The world’s first genetic test to assess the risk of developing type 2 diabetes has been launched by Iceland’s Decode Genetics Inc.
The biotech company, which uses studies of the Icelandic population to find the genetic basis of common diseases, said on Sunday it would charge $500 to test for a genetic variation linked to a twofold risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Crohn’s disease has strong genetic link
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Scientists have identified a handful of genes that increase the risk of developing Crohn’s disease, confirming that the often debilitating inflammatory bowel disease has a strong genetic component.
U.S. and Canadian researchers scanned the entire genome—all 22,000 genes—of about 6,000 people. Approximately half had Crohn’s disease and half did not, they reported in the medical journal Nature Genetics.
Male births declining in the U.S. and Japan
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Mother Nature has always ensured that male births outnumber female ones, but the gap has been gradually narrowing over the past three decades in the U.S. and Japan, according to a new study.
Researchers suspect the decline in male births can be explained, at least in part, by paternal exposure to environmental toxins, such as certain pesticides, heavy metals, solvents or dioxins—chemical byproducts produced during incineration or the manufacture of other chemicals.
Childhood Obesity Among Quebec Cree Raises Concerns
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Childhood obesity is increasing among the general population in Canada, but the statistics are even more alarming among First Nations, Inuit and Métis children. In a study published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, University of Alberta researchers found that up to 65 per cent of Cree preschoolers in northern Quebec communities were overweight or obese.
Dr. Noreen Willows, a community nutritionist at the University of Alberta, and her colleagues also studied obesity levels in Cree schoolchildren aged 9 to 12 living in two Cree Nations north of Montreal, Canada.
Kids with head injury apt to have another
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Children who suffer a head injury are quite likely to have a similar injury subsequently, researchers report.
“We do not really understand the mechanism behind repetitive head injuries in children,” Dr. Bonnie R. Swaine, of the University of Montreal, Canada, told Reuters Health. “These results support anecdotal evidence of the phenomenon.”
Study Shows Hope for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s
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Research by faculty and staff at Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J.; the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; and Drexel University may lead to better diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
In a $1.1-million National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging study that team members conducted during the last three years, they determined early Alzheimer’s could be diagnosed with a high rate of accuracy evaluating electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. The study may lead to an earlier diagnosis, and therefore earlier treatment and improved quality of life, for people at the earliest stages of the disease.
Only one drug type now knocks out gonorrhea in US
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Due to drug resistance, one class of antibiotics should no longer be used to treat gonorrhea, officials with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday.
They no longer recommend antibiotics called fluoroquinolones—which include ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin—for treatment of gonorrhea because fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea is now widespread in the United States.
