Public Health
Rare Double Transplant Saves 23-Year-Old Woman
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A new heart, a new liver, a new life. These are the poignant words Robert Jaunsen penned in an email sent to family and friends announcing that his daughter, Kelli, 23, would finally be heading home after a double organ transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center—quite literally, her last hope. After nearly seven weeks of hospitalization, Kelli was discharged Wednesday, to begin a new chapter in a life nearly cut short.
In a 16-hour procedure that spanned Feb. 1-2, two organ transplant teams performed Cedars-Sinai’s second heart/liver transplant—the fifth in the Western U.S. Though many of the nation’s top transplant centers had been contacted by Kelli’s family, only Cedars-Sinai was willing to take on such a complex case with so many inherent risks.
Hearing loss: Is there a cure?
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How do you protect your ears from abuse in our increasingly noisy world? And once the damage is done, can you fix it? Jeremy Laurance sounds out the facts
Deafness, unlike blindness, has always been a bit of a joke. The flesh-coloured box behind the ear emitting periodic whistling sounds is, like the mother-in-law often found wearing it, easily mocked. Embarrassment and denial are the first reactions of those losing their second most important sense. As a result, most people are ignorant about the causes of hearing loss - and the cures.
Last week, the Government published new guidance to the NHS advising it to set up one-stop shops to speed up the assessment and fitting of hearing aids and to use the private sector to help tackle demand. But there is little guidance for individuals on how to protect their hearing and, when protection fails, how to navigate a market in which hearing aids range in price from less than £300 to almost £3,000.
Emergency Medicaid for Immigrants Goes to Childbirth
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An analysis of state Emergency Medicaid spending contradicts assumptions about emergency care provided to recent immigrants, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence have found.
The study appears in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Annette DuBard, a research associate at UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, will present the results Tuesday (March 13) at a JAMA media briefing on access to care at the National Press Club.
Middle-Aged Adults Most Likely to Use Complementary Medicine
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Even though older adults generally have poorer health, middle-aged adults are most likely to turn to complementary and alternative medicine, a new study shows. The study also found that adults of different races or ethnic backgrounds use these self-care methods in similar proportions.
“You’d expect that older adults and ethnic minorities would be the greatest users of complementary and alternative medicine because they tend to have more illness and relatively less money and often hold different beliefs about medicine. But, in fact, they don’t,” said lead author and sociologist Joseph Grzywacz, Ph.D.
Heart attack patients with financial barriers have poorer recovery and quality of life
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About one in five heart attack patients report having financial barriers to health care services, and these patients are more likely to have a lower quality of life and increased rate of rehospitalization, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on access to care.
Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D., S.M., of the Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., presented the results of the study today at a JAMA media briefing on access to care at the National Press Club.
Stroke patients admitted to hospitals on weekends may be more likely to die
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Patients admitted to hospitals for ischemic stroke on weekends had a higher risk of dying than patients admitted during the week, in a Canadian study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
A “weekend effect” has been previously documented when looking at other conditions such as cancer and pulmonary embolism; however, little is known of its impact on stroke death.
U.S. Child Health System Needs Total Overhaul, UCLA Researchers Say
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When it comes to health care for our kids, we live in a hardscrabble world that is only going to get tougher. That is the underlying message from three UCLA professors who are calling for a complete overhaul of the U.S child health care system, which they describe as a “patchwork of disconnected programs, policies and funding” that lacks “clear accountability or performance goals.”
In their report, which appears in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs, Dr. Neal Halfon, director of the Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities at UCLA’s School of Public Health, and his co-authors argue that even as Congress, the nation’s governors and the Bush administration debate federal spending on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers low-income uninsured children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, our leaders are not tackling more fundamental challenges facing the nation’s child health system.
How eating less might make you live longer
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Caloric Restriction in non-obese people translates into less oxidative damage in muscle cells, according to a new study by Anthony Civitarese, Eric Ravussin, and colleagues (Pennington Biomedical Research Center). As oxidative damage has been linked to aging, this could explain how limiting calorie intake without malnutrition extends life span.
A calorie-restricted diet provides all the nutrients necessary for a healthy life but minimizes the energy (calories) supplied in the diet. This type of diet increases the life span of mice and delays the onset of age-related chronic diseases such as cancers, heart disease, and stroke in rodents. There are also hints that people who eat a calorie-restricted diet might live longer than those who overeat. In addition, calorie-restricted diets beneficially affect several biomarkers of aging, including decreased insulin sensitivity (a precursor to diabetes). But how might caloric restriction slow aging? A major factor in the age-related decline of bodily functions is the accumulation of “oxidative damage” in the body’s proteins, fats, and DNA. Oxidants - in particular, chemicals called “free radicals”- are produced when food is converted to energy by cellular structures called mitochondria. One theory for h ow caloric restriction slows aging is that it lowers free-radical production by inducing the formation of efficient mitochondria.
Italian doctors transplant HIV-infected organs
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Italian doctors mistakenly transplanted organs from an HIV-positive donor into three recipients, the head of a Florence hospital said on Tuesday.
Doctors at Careggi hospital told reporters that an infected woman’s liver and kidneys were transplanted after a laboratory biologist incorrectly wrote on her medical records that she had tested negative for HIV.
Older Adults May be Unreliable Eyewitness, Study Shows
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A University of Virginia study suggests that older adults are not only more inclined than younger adults to make errors in recollecting details that have been suggested to them, but are also more likely than younger people to have a very high level of confidence in their recollections, even when wrong. The finding has implications regarding the reliability of older persons’ eyewitness testimonies in courtrooms.
The study, “I misremember it well: Why older adults are unreliable eyewitnesses,” is published in a recent issue of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Mental health bill moves forward in Congress
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A bill that would require health insurers to cover more of the costs of treating mental health conditions moved forward in Congress on Wednesday with wide backing from employers and insurers.
The Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 cleared the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and now goes to the full Senate for a vote.
Shunning midday sun may not boost a child’s weight
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Parents can protect their children from harmful ultraviolet radiation by encouraging them to stay inside during midday, without increasing their odds of becoming overweight from reduced activity, a new study from Australia suggests.
Experts advise everyone, especially fair-skinned people, to limit their time outdoors during peak UV radiation hours—typically between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. A potential problem is that those are also peak playtime hours for children, and there’s been some concern that keeping them indoors will cut out exercise time and spur excess weight gain.
India to create HIV “safe zones” for migrants
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India will map out high-risk migration corridors and create safe spaces in cities where migrant workers congregate to protect them from the HIV virus, the head of its anti-AIDS agency said on Thursday.
India has the world’s highest caseload with around 5.7 million people living with the virus, according to the United Nations, and migrants are considered a very high-risk group.
An estimated one-quarter of India’s 1.1-billion population, mostly the poor from its villages and towns, moves around the country in search of a livelihood every year.
Older people take bad news in stride: study
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Older people are able to take bad news more in stride than their children or grandchildren, which can make them more risky gamblers as losses don’t scare them, according to a U.S. study.
Research funded by the National Institute of Aging has found evidence that older adults process negative information differently from their younger counterparts and are less responsive to unpleasant information.
World’s oldest woman dies in Canada -media reports
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Julie Winnefred Bertrand, the world’s oldest woman, died early on Thursday at the age of 115 in a Montreal nursing home, CanWest News Service reported.
Bertrand, who was born on Sept. 16, 1891, in the Quebec town of Coaticook, passed away in her sleep, CanWest reported, citing Bertrand’s 73-year-old nephew, Andre.
Last month, Bertrand was proclaimed the world’s oldest living woman and its second oldest person by Guinness World Records after the death of Tennessee woman Elizabeth Bolden, who was born Aug. 15, 1890.
