U.S. facing severe shortage of heart surgeons
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The U.S. is likely to face a severe shortage of heart surgeons in the next 10 years, say representatives from medical schools and thoracic surgeons’ groups.
Writing in the journal Circulation, Dr. Atul Grover of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, DC and colleagues point out that the number of active cardiothoracic surgeons in the U.S. “has fallen for the first time in 20 years.”
More than half of today’s cardiothoracic surgeons are older than 50 years, and more than 15 percent are between the ages of 65 and 74 years, the researchers note.
Lasting marriage linked to better health
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People who get married and stay married may enjoy better health than the perpetually single, but losing a spouse could take a significant health toll, a new study suggests.
Historically, studies have found that married people as a group tend to be in better health than singles—though recent research suggests the health advantage of marriage may be fading.
In the new study, researchers found that middle-aged and older Americans who were currently married tended to give higher ratings to their health than their never-married counterparts. They also reported fewer depression symptoms and limits on their mobility.
Molecule Plays Early Role In Nonsmoking Lung Cancer
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The cause of lung cancer in never-smokers is poorly understood, but a study led by investigators at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and at the National Cancer Institute has identified a molecule believed to play an early and important role in its development.
The findings, published online recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to improved therapy for lung cancer in both never-smokers and smokers, including those with tumors resistant to targeted drugs such as gefitinib.
The study examined lung tumors from people who had never smoked and found high levels of a molecule called miR-21. The levels were even higher in tumors that had mutations in a gene called EGFR, a common feature of lung cancer in never-smokers.
Agent Orange linked to heart disease, Parkinson’s
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Agent Orange, used by U.S. forces to strip Vietnamese and Cambodian jungles during the Vietnam War, may raise the risk of heart disease and Parkinson’s disease, U.S. health advisers said on Friday.
But the evidence is only limited and far from definitive, the Institute of Medicine panel said.
“The report strongly recommends that studies examining the relationship between Parkinson’s incidence and exposures in the veteran population be performed,” the institute, an independent academy that guides federal policy, said in a statement.
NJ Hospital Network Pilots New National Cancer Data System
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What if the quality of cancer care could be assessed and improved in “real clinical time” instead of waiting the typical two years it takes for clinical data to be analyzed and changes implemented? That is an opportunity The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) Network of hospitals is exploring this summer, as it takes the lead in a national initiative to improve data collection on cancer treatment and create a new quality assessment system that can be utilized by health providers across the country. The CINJ Network of hospitals represents nearly a quarter of the 60 beta test sites from across the country that have been invited to help steer the effort. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
According to the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC), which is overseeing the project, “treatment information in current data collection systems is insufficient to assess the quality of (cancer) care.” That reality is among the reasons why the CoC developed the Rapid Quality Reporting System (RQRS), which the CINJ Network and others will be pilot testing for the remainder of this year.
The first phase, which tested the mechanics of the web-based data collection system, took place during the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009. Modifications based on that testing will be put into practice for this next phase, utilizing existing national 2006 and 2007 data on breast and colorectal cancers. This information will be used as a baseline against which the CoC and participating hospitals can monitor future performance rates. The CINJ Network will be responsible for entering 2008 and 2009 breast and colorectal data from patients at its respective hospitals.
U.S. drug agents raid Jackson doctor’s office
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U.S. drug enforcement agents and Los Angeles police on Wednesday raided a Houston clinic owned by Conrad Murray, the doctor who was with pop icon Michael Jackson when he died, searching for information on the singer’s use of the anesthetic, propofol.
Agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration entered the Armstrong Medical Clinic in north Houston to serve a search warrant in an effort to help Los Angeles police probing the death of the “Thriller” singer, said Rusty Payne, a Washington-based spokesperson for the agency.
Payne declined to give details because the Texas search warrant remained sealed.
The Pill may be less effective in obese women
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Oral contraceptives behave differently in the bodies of obese women than in normal-weight women, new research shows, suggesting that they may not work as well in preventing pregnancy.
But more research is needed before any recommendations can be made on contraceptive use based on a woman’s body mass index (BMI), a standard measure of the ratio between height and weight, Dr. Alison B. Edelman of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland and her colleagues say.
There’s been some evidence to suggest that the birth control pill may be less effective in obese women, but findings have not been consistent, Edelman and her team note in the journal Contraception. Very little is known about how drug metabolism in the body is affected by obesity, they add, while obese women have been excluded from most studies of oral contraceptives.
Obesity linked to rapid loss of knee cartilage
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Obesity is strongly associated with an increased risk of rapid loss of cushioning cartilage in the knee in people at risk for osteoarthritis or with early signs of the disease, researchers have found.
In osteoarthritis—the most common form of arthritis—the cartilage breaks down and, in severe cases, can completely wear away, leaving the joint without a cushion. The bones rub together, causing further damage, as well as pain and loss of mobility.
“Osteoarthritis is a slowly progressive disorder, but a minority of patients with hardly any osteoarthritis at first diagnosis exhibit fast disease progression,” Dr. Frank W. Roemer from Boston University Medical Center noted in a statement.
Scientists discover key event in prostate cancer progression
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A study led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reveals how late-stage, hormone-independent prostate tumors gain the ability to grow without need of hormones.
The onset of hormone-independent growth marks an advanced and currently incurable stage of prostate cancer.
The study, published in the July 24, 2009, issue of the journal Cell, focuses on androgen receptors, molecules located in the nucleus of cells of the prostate gland and other tissues. Male sex hormones – androgens – bind with these receptors to activate genes that control cell growth.
The researchers show that in androgen-independent prostate cancer, androgen receptors are reprogrammed to regulate a group of genes involved in a different, later, phase of cell division, triggering rapid cell growth. They further show that a modification of a chief component of the chromosome is responsible for this reprogramming.
Common Cold Virus Efficiently Delivers Corrected Gene to Cystic Fibrosis Cells
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Scientists have worked for 20 years to perfect gene therapy for the treatment of cystic fibrosis, which causes the body to produce dehydrated, thicker-than-normal mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life threatening infections.
Now University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine scientists have found what may be the most efficient way to deliver a corrected gene to lung cells collected from cystic fibrosis patients. They also showed that it may take this high level of efficiency for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients to see any benefit from gene therapy.
Using parainfluenza virus, one of the viruses that causes common colds, the UNC scientists found that delivery of a corrected version of the CFTR gene to 25 percent of cells grown in a tissue culture model that resembles the lining of the human airways was sufficient to restore normal function back to the tissue.
“Go to the doctor? Only if I’m really sick…”
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African American men could be putting their health at risk by avoiding disease screening, in the belief that the results might threaten their masculinity. Because they prove their masculinity through their sexuality and sexual performance, seeking medical advice including HIV/AIDS testing goes against their notion of masculinity. Waverly Duck, a Post Doctoral Associate from the Department of Sociology at Yale University in the US, argues that current leading theories of gender and masculinity and health behavior models are not relevant enough to African American men and their distinctive notion of masculinity. His results are published online in Springer’s Journal of African American Studies.
Duck studied how African American men conceptualize masculinity and how it relates to their health behaviors. Through a combination of focus groups and in-depth interviews, he asked African American men about their own understanding of their gender identity and examined how that identity, as well as how it is achieved and maintained, relates to their health.
Drugs expose many premature babies to chemicals
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Premature babies are often exposed to additives in their medications that could put them at risk of brain and lung damage, according to a new study.
“Many liquid medications contain additives,” co-author Dr. Hitesh C. Pandya, of the University of Leicester, UK told Reuters Health. “Some of these are necessary to produce the medicine but many are not.”
“Some of these are thought to be toxic to small infants even in small quantities,” he added. “Furthermore, when small infants are given several drugs a day, there is a potential that they may be given quite large doses of a specific additive as a consequence of treatment.”
Healthcare reform needs better choices: report
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Telemedicine, workplace clinics and finding ways to help people stay healthier may be more important for reforming the U.S. healthcare system than insuring everyone, according to a report to be released on Tuesday.
Incentives will be needed to encourage people to change their ways before they develop heart disease, diabetes and other so-called lifestyle diseases that now eat up so many medical resources, consultant Pricewaterhouse Coopers said in the report.
“Cranking up supply to increase access is likely not the answer. The United States now spends more than any nation on healthcare and has a record number of clinicians in the workforce,” the company said in a statement.
Parent stress, air pollution up kids’ asthma risk
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Children with stressed-out parents may be more prone to developing asthma associated with environmental “triggers” such as high levels of traffic-related pollution and tobacco smoke, hints a study published today.
In the study, researchers found that children whose parents reported high levels of psychological stress and who were exposed to cigarette smoke in the womb and to traffic-related pollution early in life had a much higher risk of developing asthma, compared to children only exposed to pollution.
“We found that it was children exposed to the combination of air pollution and life in a stressful environment who were at highest risk of developing asthma,” Dr. Rob McConnell, deputy director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, told Reuters Health.
Researchers Discover Possible Therapeutic Target to Slow Parkinson’s Disease
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University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) researchers have discovered a therapeutic target that, when manipulated, may slow the progression of or halt Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that affects an estimated one million people in the U.S.
A team from the Center for Neurodegenerative and Neuroimmunologic Diseases in the Department of Neurology at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School carried out the study. M. Maral Mouradian, M.D., center director and William Dow Lovett Professor of Neurology, was its lead investigator. A paper on their findings, titled “Repression of a-synuclein expression and toxicity by microRNA-7,” appears in the July 20 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In this publication, the investigators report that the small RNA molecule microRNA-7, which is present in neurons, directly represses the expression of a-synuclein, a protein that, in excess, proves deleterious to certain types of brain cells.
