Study Links Asthma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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For the first time, a study has linked asthma with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among adults in the community. The study of male twins who were veterans of the Vietnam era suggests that the association between asthma and PTSD is not primarily explained by common genetic influences.
The study included 3,065 male twin pairs, who had lived together in childhood, and who had both served on active military duty during the Vietnam War. The study found that among all twins, those who suffered from the most PTSD symptoms were 2.3 times as likely to have asthma compared with those who suffered from the least PTSD symptoms.
Cialis effective for men with spinal cord injury
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A long-acting drug for erectile dysfunction is safe and effective for men with spinal cord injuries who have difficulty achieving erections, a new study shows.
A total of 186 men were randomly assigned to receive treatment with Cialis or placebo for 12 weeks. The study was completed by 129 in the treatment group and by 34 in the placebo group. The subjects, who were an average of 38 years old, had experienced erectile dysfunction for six months or longer. They were instructed to take the drug when they planned to have sex.
Program helps moms get fussy infants to sleep
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Teaching new mothers strategies to help their babies overcome sleep problems yields significant benefits for both of them, according to a study conducted in Australia.
Among 328 moms who reported that their 7-month-old was having sleep problems, those who were randomly assigned to participate in a brief behavioral intervention noticed an improvement in their child’s sleep problem, and in their own sleep, and felt less depressed compared with those randomly assigned not to participate in the program.
Diabetes Dilemma: Most Older Patients Have Many Problems at Once
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As if diabetes weren’t enough to handle, a new study shows that 92 percent of older people with the disease have at least one other major chronic medical condition – and that nearly half have three or more major diseases besides their diabetes.
The sheer number, and the severity, of these other conditions appears to decrease patients’ ability to manage their diabetes. The type of co-existing condition also matters, as diabetes self-care lags most among patients with conditions that they think aren’t related to their diabetes.
New anemia measure predicts risk of death in dialysis patients
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A new indicator of variations in hemoglobin level over time is a strong predictor of the risk of death among patients receiving dialysis for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), reports a study in the December Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
“Hemoglobin variability—a measure of the stability of levels of hemoglobin among chronic hemodialysis patients—provides a novel way of thinking about and understanding the relationship between anemia and outcomes in ESRD,” comments Dr. Harold I. Feldman of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, one of the study authors.
Babies born 1-3 weeks early have higher death risk
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Babies born just a few weeks early are six times more likely to die in their first week of life than full-term babies and three times more likely to die before their first birthday, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
“The extent of the difference is quite surprising,” said Joann Petrini, director of the March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center, whose study appears in the Journal of Pediatrics.
Exercise found to ease chronic pain of fibromyalgia
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Regular walks and stretching exercises can help ease the chronic, depressing pain of fibromyalgia, a mysterious ailment with no obvious cure, researchers said on Monday.
Striking more than 3 percent of U.S. women and 0.5 percent of men, the illness’ primary symptoms are debilitating pain throughout the body—often with sensitivity and stiffness focused in the joints. Other symptoms include sleep problems, fatigue and depression.
Weight gain may make asthma control more difficult
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Weight gain is associated with an increased risk of poorly controlled asthma, according to findings presented in Grapevine, Texas, at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
In a 3-year study, the researchers observed 2,396 patients with severe or difficult-to-treat asthma. Those who gained 5 pounds or more between the beginning of the study and 1 year reported poorer asthma control and worse quality of life than patients who maintained their initial weight or lost 5 or more pounds during the same period, researchers reported.
Anti-smoking strategy targets fourth-graders, parents in rural and urban Georgia
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A smoking-prevention strategy that targets black fourth-graders and their parents is under study in urban and rural Georgia.
Researchers want to know if they can keep these children from smoking and help smoking parents quit, according to Dr. Martha S. Tingen, nurse researcher at the Medical College of Georgia’s Georgia Prevention Institute, and Interim Program Leader for Cancer Prevention and Control, MCG Cancer Center.
University Hospitals Case Medical Center finds new treatment holds promise for Tourette syndrome
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Research out of the Neurological Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center finds that Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) helps patients who suffer from Tourette Syndrome (TS). This first-of-its-kind study of five adults with TS determined that DBS can reduce tic frequency and severity in some people who have exhausted other medical treatments.
Tourette syndrome is a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by sudden, repetitive muscle movements (motor tics) and vocalizations (vocal tics). It often begins in childhood. By young adulthood the tics have usually diminished in frequency and severity. However, in some adults, like those that participated in this clinical trial, the tics become more disabling even with best medical therapy.
Mini-stroke: warning that major stroke is near
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Mini-strokes lead to a major stroke within one week in 1 out of 20 people and should be treated as a medical emergency, British doctors said on Sunday.
They said patients who are immediately treated for small strokes, called transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) had almost no risk of a major stroke soon afterward.
Medicaid strains US emergency rooms
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The U.S. government’s Medicaid program for the poor may put more financial burden on overcrowded hospital emergency rooms than the nation’s 47 million uninsured, according to a study published on Thursday.
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco and Stanford University found that the uninsured patients paid 35 percent of their overall emergency room bills in 2004, versus 33 percent for Medicaid.
Tobacco deaths to reach 10 mln a year by 2030: group
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Tobacco-related deaths are expected to double to 10 million a year by 2030, with most fatalities in developing countries, a senior World Lung Foundation (WLF) official said on Friday.
Judith Longstaff Mackay, the organization’s global tobacco control program coordinator, said while cigarette markets were getting smaller in advanced economies, the opposite was true for developing states, where the number of smokers and the volume each consumes is growing.
Dieting hardest for emotional eaters: study
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Emotional eaters—people who eat when they are lonely or blue—tend to lose the least amount of weight and have the hardest time keeping it off, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They said the study may explain why so many people who lose weight gain it all back.
Landmark Trial to Evaluate Cardioprotective Properties of Insulin
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The ability of insulin to limit heart-tissue damage during a heart attack will be tested in a landmark clinical trial led by Paresh Dandona, M.D., Ph.D., University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor in the departments of Medicine and Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
Approximately 600 patients at 90 centers in the U.S. and Latin America will be recruited to participate in the two-year INTENSIVE (Intensive Insulin Therapy and Size of Infarct as a Validated Endpoint by Cardiac MRI) trial. Patients in the trial, which is funded by sanofi-aventis, will be treated with two forms of insulin—insulin glargine and insulin glulisine.
