Vietnam to curb smoking, raise tobacco tax
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Vietnam will ban smoking in all indoor public places next year and raise tariffs on tobacco products to reduce consumption, the government said.
Starting from January 1, smoking in schools, hospitals, libraries, cinemas, factories, offices and on public transport will be prohibited, a government statement seen on Tuesday said.
The ban will extend to all indoor public spaces by the end of 2010, the statement said, adding the government also plans to apply “high tariff levels” on tobacco products next year to cut consumption.
Minorities have poorer results, higher rates of inappropriate carotid-artery surgery to prevent stro
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Minorities have poorer results, higher rates of inappropriate carotid-artery surgery to prevent stroke
Minorities have poorer results and higher rates of unnecessary surgery from a common procedure used to remove plaque from inside the carotid artery, according to a UT Southwestern Medical Center doctor who is lead author of the study in the journal Stroke.
The multicenter study, available online and appearing in the July issue of the journal, found that higher rates of poor surgical outcomes for carotid endartectomy (CEA) — a procedure performed to prevent stroke — appeared to be due not only to elevated patient clinical risk in African-American and Hispanics, but also to the individual skill and experience of the doctor performing the operation.
“Identifying how various patient, physician and hospital-level factors may contribute to disparities has important implications for the design of clinical and health policy strategies for reducing them,” said Dr. Ethan Halm, chief of the William T. and Gay F. Solomon Division of General Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern.
Cancer Researchers, IT Specialists Win Bioinformatics Award
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A team of researchers and information technology specialists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center has won the caBIG® 2009 Deployment Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
The award honors the university’s progress towards adopting the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid®, or caBIG®. The project is a NCI-led, secure online resource of shared data and software used to improve and boost cancer-research collaboration. Today, more than 1,500 individuals from more than 450 research centers and organizations worldwide use caBIG and contribute to its projects.
“This team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham undertook a major initiative to adapt its existing data-entry system to work with caBIG tools and within the caBIG infrastructure,” NCI officials said at an award ceremony in July in Washington, D.C. “The pioneering efforts of the team have resulted in a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge about the adaptation process.
New treatment option for ruptured brain aneurysms
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Researchers in Finland have identified an effective new treatment option for patients who have suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm, a potentially life-threatening event. Results of the new study on stent-assisted coil embolization were published today in the online edition of Radiology.
An aneurysm is a bulge or sac that develops in a weak area of a cerebral artery wall. Subarachnoid hemorrhage occurs when an aneurysm ruptures, diverting oxygen-rich blood from vital areas to the space between the brain and the skull. The ruptured vessel can be repaired surgically or through a minimally invasive procedure called embolization, in which the sac is filled with metal coils in order to prevent repeat bleeding from the aneurysm and to restore normal blood flow in the artery.
“The treatment decision is complicated in cases of acutely ruptured aneurysms,” said the study’s lead author, Olli Tähtinen, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at Tampere University Hospital in Tampere, Finland.
Strong link found between concussions and brain tissue injury
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Concussions, whether from an accident, sporting event, or combat, can lead to permanent loss of higher level mental processes. Scientists have debated for centuries whether concussions involve structural damage to brain tissue or whether physiological changes that merely impair the way brain cells function, explain this loss. Now, for the first time, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have linked areas of brain injury to specific altered mental processes caused by concussions.
The research, described in the August 26 edition of Radiology, provides compelling evidence that concussions involve brain damage. The findings suggest that diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), the brain scanning method used by the Einstein scientists, could help in diagnosing concussions and in assessing the effectiveness of treatments.
“DTI has been used to look at other brain disorders, but this is the first study to focus on concussions,” said Michael Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center (MRRC) and associate professor of radiology, of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and of neuroscience at Einstein and lead author of the study. “It proved to be a powerful tool for detecting the subtle brain damage that we found to be associated with concussions.”
Mild glucose intolerance in pregnancy may be associated with cardiovascular risk
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Mild glucose intolerance in pregnancy may be an early identifier of women who are at increased risk of heart disease in the future, found a new study http://www.cmaj.ca/press/cmaj090569.pdf published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca.
In a large population-based cohort study, researchers from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) studied data on 435,696 women in Ontario, Canada, who gave birth between April, 1994 and March, 1998. All women were followed until March 31, 2008. The study excluded women with pre-existing diabetes.
As cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Canadian women, it is important to identify early predictors of future vascular risk. While women with gestational diabetes have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than those without, it previously has not been known whether mild glucose intolerance in pregnancy is associated with heart disease. The study sought to answer this question.
Landmark survey highlights needs of unpaid caregivers of people with diabetes
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The Hormone Foundation, the public education affiliate of The Endocrine Society, in collaboration with the National Alliance for Caregiving, today released key findings from a first-of-its-kind survey (http://www.hormone.org/Public/diabetes_caregiver.cfm) aimed at better understanding the daily needs and struggles of unpaid caregivers of people with diabetes.
The online survey completed by 1,002 respondents in April 2009 found that the major challenges in caring for those with diabetes include exercise and diet compliance, patient depression and maintaining target sugar levels. Caregivers reported that the physician is their top information source, followed by the Internet. However, while 73 percent of caregivers reported using the Internet to obtain diabetes information, many expressed frustration in evaluating the quality and reliability of online content.
Specific survey findings include:
Evidence-based guideline ‘Incontinent Urostomy’ published
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The European Association of Urology Nurses (EAUN) presented their ‘Incontinent Urostomy; Good Practice in Health Care’ document last March in Stockholm (Sweden) during the 10th International EAUN meeting, held in conjunction with the 24th Annual EAU Congress.
The aim of this document is to provide the best and most up-to-date information on this topic and thereby assist nurses working in the urological field.
This is the first time ever an evidence-based guidelines document on incontinent urostomy has been published. A multi-disciplinary group of nurses were involved in the development of the text: Hanny Cobussen-Boekhorst (NL), Sharon Fillingham (GB), Sharon Holroyd (GB), Berit Kiesbye (DK), Susanne Vahr (DK) and Veronika Geng (DE).
Binge drinking a problem for older adults too
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Binge drinking is usually seen as a problem of college campuses, but many older adults may be overindulging in alcohol as well, a study published Monday suggests.
Using data from a government survey of nearly 11,000 Americans age 50 and up, researchers found that 23 percent of men between the ages of 50 and 64 admitted to binge drinking in the past month, as did roughly 9 percent of women.
Among adults age 65 and older, more than 14 percent of men and 3 percent of women reported bingeing—defined as having five or more drinks on one occasion, on at least one day in the past month.
WHO chief urges swine flu vigilance
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The world must remain on its guard against H1N1 influenza, which has been mild so far but could become more serious as the northern hemisphere heads into winter, the head of the World Health Organization said on Sunday.
Margaret Chan, on a visit to Tanzania, noted that most people infected with swine flu had suffered only mild symptoms but it affected certain groups such as pregnant women and people with underlying medical conditions much more severely.
“Looking ahead in the weeks and months ahead, especially for countries in the northern hemisphere, when they will be going into the winter, we need to maintain our vigilance and see how the disease will evolve,” Chan told reporters.
Obesity increases risk of prostate cancer recurrence for both blacks and whites
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A new look at a large database of prostate cancer patients shows that obesity plays no favorites when it comes to increasing the risk of recurrence after surgery: Being way overweight is equally bad for blacks and whites, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Studies have shown that obesity is linked to generally worse outcomes in many cancers, including prostate cancer. Because blacks are more likely than whites to develop and die from prostate cancer – and because there is a higher prevalence of obesity among black men with prostate cancer, compared to whites – some studies have suggested that obesity might be a more ominous risk factor for blacks than whites.
“Not so,” says Stephen Freedland, M.D., an associate professor of urology and pathology in the Duke Prostate Center and the senior author of the study appearing in the journal Cancer. “Obesity leads to worse cancer in both groups.”
Getting a new knee may boost quality of life
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People with severe osteoarthritis of the knee who have knee replacement surgery are apt to see significant improvements in their “health-related” quality of life, new research shows.
Knee osteoarthritis—the wear-and-tear form of arthritis in which the cartilage cushioning the joints gradually breaks down and, in severe cases, can completely wear away—is a major cause of pain and disability, particularly in aging individuals.
“The demand for total knee replacement is increasing as patients gain considerable pain relief and increased mobility and health-related quality of life,” Dr. Montserrat Nunez, from the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues note in a report in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism.
Study traces steady declines in U.S. cancer deaths
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Improvements in cancer screening and better treatments have resulted in steady declines in cancer death rates over the past three decades, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They said younger adults—those aged 35 to 45 years old—have experienced the steepest declines in cancer death rates, but all age groups have shown some improvement.
“Essentially, the younger you are, the faster your rates are declining,” said Dr. Eric Kort of the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, whose study appears in the journal Cancer Research.
A Window into the Brain
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When we absorb new information, the human brain reshapes itself to store this newfound knowledge. But where exactly is the new knowledge kept, and how does that capacity to adapt reflect our risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of senile dementia later in our lives?
Dr. Yaniv Assaf of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Neurobiology is pioneering a new way to track the effect of memory on brain structure. “With a specific MRI methodology called ‘Diffusion Imaging MRI,’ we can investigate the microstructure of the tissue without actually cutting into it,” he explains. “We can measure how much capacity our brain has to change structurally, what our memory reserve is and where that happens.”
His study, presented at the Annual Meeting of the Human Brain Mapping Organization in San Francisco, has been pivotal to the way scientists view the effect of memory on the brain. Scientists used to believe that the brain took days or weeks to change its microstructure. Dr. Assaf’s new observations demonstrate that the microstructure can change in mere hours.
Fluent in Fun
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For therapists, knowing how to talk to their patients and understand them is critical. When a roadblock occurs between an adult patient and their doctor, it can be easy to work through, but for kids, it’s much more difficult. Many can’t express themselves in ways that adults understand; they might lash out, cry or withdraw entirely.
A core group of therapists say that this is because children speak their own language – the language of play. These mental health professionals are trained to observe how children play in a safe environment with the toys they choose, to reveal their deepest wishes, fears, and hopes.
“Play therapists use play as a way to help children who are experiencing difficulties return to a state of balance,” said Jean Camberg, RPT-S, an instructor of play therapy at Temple University Harrisburg. “It is this skill in understanding play as language that sets the trained play therapist apart.”
