Culture

CHICAGO - Obese people who lose a substantial amount of weight can significantly slow the degeneration of their knee cartilage, according to a new MRI study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Men with Type 2 diabetes who have low testosterone levels can benefit significantly from testosterone treatment.

That is the conclusion of University at Buffalo researchers who conducted the first randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of testosterone treatment in Type 2 diabetic men that comprehensively investigated the role of insulin resistance and inflammation, before and after treatment with testosterone.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published online before print in Diabetes Care in November.

HUNTSVILLE, TX (11/30/15) -- Mothers who separate from their abusive partners are four times more likely to report threats to take or to harm their children than those who stay in the relationship, a study by Sam Houston State University found.

In "Indirect Abuse Involving Children During the Separation Process," Brittany Hayes, Assistant Professor at the College of Criminal Justice, said that victims of intimate partner violence continue to suffer from abuse after separation, but few recognize the indirect abuse of children during the process.

Cognitive behavioural therapy could help many people with a dental phobia overcome their fear of visiting the dentist and enable them to receive dental treatment without the need to be sedated, according to a new study by King's College London.

Experts have published a list of the most urgent priorities for researching a debilitating condition that affects more than 10 million people in the UK.

Published in The Lancet, the top 10 research priorities for tackling mild to moderate hearing loss aims to re-focus future studies on areas which could potentially have the greatest impact in furthering understanding of the condition and developing successful new treatments.

A person's history of phone communication can be used to infer aspects of his or her socioeconomic status, a new study suggests. The study, focused in Rwanda, reveals how cell phone metrics can be a source of "big data" in resource-constrained regions. Collecting data on basic economics quantities, such as wealth and income, is challenging in developing countries, making reliable quantitative data scarce; in much of Africa, for instance, national statistics on economic production may be off by as much as 50%, previous research suggests.

As doctors in England prepare for strike action next month, researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, USA) show that, in high-income countries, "patients do not come to serious harm during industrial action provided that provisions are made for emergency care."

Sophia Antipolis, 26 November 2015: Patients with heart disease who sit a lot have worse health even if they exercise, reveals research published today in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention.1

Get up and move every 30 minutes to improve health.

Ottawa, November 25, 2015 - Patients with heart disease who sit a lot have worse health even if they exercise, reveals research from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, and published today in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention.1

"Get up and move every 30 minutes to improve health."

Air pollution is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and some people may be more susceptible to its effects than others. Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health used data from a nationwide study of nurses to look for factors that made people more vulnerable to the effects of long-term air pollution exposure. One factor in particular stood out to the researchers: type 2 diabetes. The team reports its findings in a paper published November 25 in the Journal of the American Heart Association Report.

Arthritis patients could one day benefit from a novel form of medicine, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Their early study indicates that arthritic cartilage, previously thought to be impenetrable to therapies, could be treated by a patient's own 'microvesicles' that are able to travel into cartilage cells and deliver therapeutic agents.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of contact with nature for human well-being. However, despite strong trends toward greater urbanization and declining green space, little is known about the social consequences of such contact. In the December issue of BioScience, an international, interdisciplinary team reports on how they used nationally representative data from the United Kingdom and stringent model testing to examine the relationships between objective measures and self-reported assessments of contact with nature, community cohesion, and local crime incidence.

Patients with more severe obstructive sleep apnea are more likely to receive greater benefit from the surgical procedure known as maxillomandibular advancement, according to a study published online by JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

How does price impact your evaluation of a restaurant meal? Psychologists have long thought that we judge experiences based on their most intense moment (the peak) and the last part of the experience (end). However, a new Cornell study found that this rule can change dramatically depending on how much customers are paying for the experience.

November 25, 2015 - International nurse volunteers responding to the Ebola outbreak in West African encountered death on nearly every shift and worked under conditions that challenged their ingenuity in providing even basic care.