Calcium can reduce fracture risk in elderly women
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Calcium supplementation is an effective public health intervention for preventing fractures in elderly women, but it is only effective if women are compliant. Unfortunately, most women do not comply with treatment over the long-term.
Increased dietary calcium intake has been proposed as a population-based public health intervention to prevent fractures due to the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, note researchers in a report in Archives of Internal Medicine.
In a study lasting five years, Dr. Richard L. Prince, of the University of Western Australia, and colleagues examined whether calcium supplementation decreases fracture risk in elderly women.
Brits warned against foreign IVF treatment
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British couples considering going abroad for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other types of fertility treatment have been warned against the practice.
According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which monitors fertility clinics in England and Wales, people who choose to have their treatment abroad should understand the potential risks and implications before booking an IVF holiday.
The HFEA says standards in many countries do not match those in the UK and patients should consider what happens if something goes wrong, whether their information is kept confidential, the legal position of donors of eggs or sperm and how they are recruited, screened and compensated.
Adolescents Need More Doctor Visits to Receive HPV Vaccine
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Most adolescents currently do not see their health care providers often enough to receive the series of shots for the human papillomavirus vaccine, according to preliminary research from the University of Rochester Medical Center. However, the additional visits required would give physicians and nurses the opportunity to provide more preventive and other care.
Two types of the human papillomavirus (16 and 18), which is sexually transmitted, cause 70 percent of cervical cancers. Vaccines against those types of the virus are expected to be approved and recommended in the next six to 12 months.
“The benefits of giving adolescents the HPV vaccine are two-fold: The vaccine will greatly reduce their later risk for cervical cancer, and it will give us the opportunity to provide more preventive care, such as counseling against risky behaviors or screening for depression,” said lead investigator Cynthia Rand, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the university’s Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong.
Small changes may stop kids’ ballooning waistlines
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Consuming one less soda or candy bar and walking an extra 2,000 steps every day may help prevent excessive weight gain in children, researchers report.
The findings, presented Sunday during the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco, are “really good news for families” in light of the widely-reported obesity epidemic among children, said Dr. James O. Hill of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
“With some very small changes you can begin to push back against childhood obesity,” he told Reuters Health.
New theory on how the brain detects motion
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Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered a neural circuit that is likely to play an important role in the visual perception of moving objects. Their finding, published in the April issue of the journal Neuron, forces neurobiologists to rethink the neural pathways that our brain relies on to detect motion.
It had long been assumed that sensory information about color and fine detail is relatively unimportant for the perception of moving objects. Mainly, because the neural pathways in the brain carrying color and fine detail information seemed to be completely separate from areas of the brain previously associated with motion processing.
In an elegant anatomical study, Salk researchers now show that a neural pathway carrying color and fine detail does connect to the motion processing areas of the cortex (the outer layer of the brain), and this information most likely helps the brain detect moving objects.
Prenatal Exposure to Cocaine, Alcohol, Tobacco All Affect Children’s Behavior
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Children exposed to cocaine in the womb are more likely to grow up with behavior problems - but so are those with prenatal exposure to legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco. These are the findings of a research paper by Dr. Henrietta S. Bada, chief, Division of Neonatology, professor of pediatrics, UK College of Medicine, and professor, UK School of Public Health, presented at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in San Francisco today.
When Bada and co-investigators from Brown University, University of Miami, University of Tennessee, Wayne State University, and Research Triangle Institute began their research, the effect of prenatal cocaine exposure on the behavior of children was unclear. With the presentation of Bada’s paper, “Prenatal Cocaine Exposure and Trajectories of Childhood Behavior Problems Through Age Nine Years,” scientists have more insight into how drug use by mothers can affect children later in life.
The nine-year study found that even adjusting for factors such as socioeconomic status, home environment, caretaker depression and other prenatal drug exposures, the trajectory of behavior outcomes for children exposed to cocaine during fetal development differed significantly across three categories—external, internal and total behavior problems—from those for children not exposed.
Forearm support may spare desk workers some pain
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Equipping office desks with a simple forearm support may help prevent the pain that can come with long days at a computer, new research suggests.
In a year-long study of 182 workers at a call center, researchers found that those who received forearm supports for their desks were less likely to suffer pain in the neck, shoulders, arm, wrist or hand.
They were also less likely to be diagnosed with a musculoskeletal injury in the neck or shoulders, according to findings published in the British Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
New method could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments
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Scientists from Imperial College London and Pfizer have developed a new method that could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments. The authors anticipate that the development will advance biomedical research further towards development of personalised medicines.
Research published today in Nature demonstrates the new ‘pharmaco-metabonomic’ approach that uses a combination of advanced chemical analysis and mathematical modelling to predict drug-induced responses in individual patients. The method is based on analysis of the body’s normal metabolic products, metabolites, and metabolite patterns that are characteristic of the individual. The authors hypothesize that these individual patterns can be used to diagnose diseases, predict an individual’s future illnesses, and their responses to treatments.
Not all drugs are effective in all patients and in rare cases adverse drug reactions can occur in susceptible individuals. To address this, researchers from Imperial College and Pfizer have been exploring new methods for profiling individuals prior to drug therapy. The new approach, if successful, requires the analysis of the metabolite profiles of an individual from a urine, or other biofluid, sample.
Autumn asthma peak driven by kids and colds
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A Canadian study provides more evidence that the spike in hospitalizations for asthma that comes around every September is closely related to children returning to the classroom after summer vacation—because they catch viruses there that are known to exacerbate asthma, and share them with younger siblings and parents.
“The bottom line,” Neil Johnston from Ontario said, “is that asthmatics, especially those exposed to children, may be at high risk for worsening asthma symptoms following return to school after the summer vacation. They should be prepared for this,” he said, “by having and taking asthma control medications before and during this period.”
Johnston and colleagues analyzed Canadian asthma hospital admission data over a 13-year period. Their goals were to better understand the sequence of timing of September asthma hospitalization epidemics in children and adults and determine whether school-age children transmit agents that cause these epidemics.
Respiratory training can help lung patients
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For people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) such as emphysema, a simple home-based training routine aimed at the muscles used for breathing, led to a significant improvement in exercise endurance and other benefits, Dutch researchers.
Dr. Ralph J. H. Koppers of Medical Center Leeuwarden and colleagues note that impaired exercise capacity is often a problem for COPD patients. Respiratory muscle endurance training based on increasing the level of carbon dioxide breathed can be helpful but requires complicated and expensive equipment.
The researchers developed a simplified approach in which a tube connected to a mouthpiece increases dead space and prompts rebreathing of exhaled carbon dioxide, according to their report in the medical journal Chest
Gene Variations Linked to Brain Aneurysms
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Variations in a gene seem to be linked to brain (cerebral) aneurysms, suggests research published ahead of print in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Brain aneurysms occur when a section of an artery bulges, often at a stress point, such as a branch or a bend. This weakens the wall and makes it prone to rupture and the discharge of blood into other areas of the brain.
The condition may affect up to 8% of the population, but inflammation is thought to have a key role.
Britain Must Embrace Psychological Therapy for Mental Health Problems
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Britain must embrace psychological therapies on a large scale if we are to tackle our mental health problems effectively, argues a leading economist in this week’s BMJ.
Depression and anxiety disorders cost the UK around £ 17bn in lost output. New drug treatments are now available to all, but psychological therapies are not. Yet the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends psychological therapy as a cost effective treatment.
So should the Treasury support psychological therapy?
Aspirin can prevent deafness in antibiotic use
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People treated with the antibiotic gentamicin can reduce the risk of permanent hearing loss, a possible side effect, by also taking aspirin, a study showed on Wednesday.
The finding could be especially important in poorer countries where gentamicin and similar drugs, known as aminoglycosides, are used widely because they are inexpensive and often available over the counter, the researchers said.
Millions of people take the drug worldwide each year and perhaps one in 10 permanently loses at least some hearing because of it, the co-author of the study, Jochen Schacht of the University of Michigan, told Reuters.
At-risk drinking risky for older men
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Elderly men who engage in “at-risk” drinking have higher mortality rates than those who abstain or drink safer amounts of alcohol, a report indicates.
The authors define at-risk drinking as excessive drinking or the “use of alcohol in amounts deemed risky in the presence of relevant comorbidities.” An example of excessive alcohol use alone would be 3 drinks per day on 4 or more occasions per week. At risk drinking would also encompass 2-3 drinks per day with anxiety disorder or gout, or while taking medication for pain or insomnia, for example.
Dr. Alison A. Moore, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues examined the effect of alcohol use and co-morbid illness on 20-year mortality in 4,691 adults who were at least 60 years of age.
Dual approach promising in advanced melanoma
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A new analysis of a group of patients with advanced metastatic melanoma treated with peptide vaccines after surgery shows an average survival of nearly 4 years—far longer than seen in previous trials.
“Patients with resected Stage IV melanoma can do a lot better than we thought,” Dr. Jeffrey S. Weber of the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. “We would want to do at least that well, if not better, in any future trials.”
Weber and his team analyzed survival for 41 patients with Stage IV melanoma because “a fair number of the patients had done very well,” he explained. The patients, who had participated in a total of five clinical trials, had all undergone resection of distant sites of disease followed by peptide vaccines therapy.
