Body

Boston, MA – A new study of men with prostate cancer finds that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of overall mortality and of death due to prostate cancer. The Harvard School of Public Health and University of California, San Francisco researchers also found that men who did more vigorous activity had the lowest risk of dying from the disease. It is the first study in men with prostate cancer to evaluate physical activity after diagnosis in relation to prostate cancer-specific mortality and overall mortality.

Enrique García Artero, the principal author of the study and researcher at the University of Granada pointed out that, "Our objective was to analyse the relationship between the duration of breastfeeding babies and their physical condition in adolescence". "The results suggest further beneficial effects and provide support to breast feeding as superior to any other type of feeding".

Medical experts have issued a warning about the common practice of tablet splitting, after a study found that nearly a third of the split fragments deviated from recommended dosages by 15 per cent or more.

Their study, published in the January issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing, points out that the practice could have serious clinical consequences for tablets that have a narrow margin between therapeutic and toxic doses.

And they are calling on manufacturers to produce greater dose options and liquid alternatives to make the practice unnecessary.

AT A GLANCE

[EMBARGOED FOR JAN. 5, 2011] Two doses of the varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine provide excellent protection in children against this highly contagious and, in some cases, severe disease. To be published in the February 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the findings support the two-dose vaccine regimen recommended in the United States since 2006. (Please see below for a link to the study online.)

New Haven, Conn.—Long before the knights of medieval Europe wielded flails or martial artists brandished nunchucks, it appears that a flightless prehistoric bird used its own wings as a similar type of weapon in combat.

Couple-and treatment-specific factors can be used to provide infertile couples with an accurate assessment of the likelihood of having a successful outcome following in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

While some community-based interventions to prevent the 3.2 million annual deaths due to stillbirth have proved effective in controlled settings and specific contexts, there is an enormous challenge in bringing these interventions to scale. A new analysis in this week's PLoS Medicine addresses this "implementation research challenge" by identifying key priorities for research and action.

In an analysis that included data from 9 studies, having higher measures of walking speed among older adults was associated with increased length of survival, according to a study in the January 5 issue of JAMA.

A study that included more than 100,000 patients who received implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) found that about 20 percent did not meet evidence-based guidelines for receipt of an ICD, and that these patients had a significantly higher risk of in-hospital death than individuals who met criteria for receiving an ICD, according to a study in the January 5 issue of JAMA.

University of Illinois research has resulted in the development of a novel and widely applicable molecular tool that can serve as a road map for making plant breeding easier to understand. Researchers developed a unified nomenclature for male fertility restorer (RF) proteins in higher plants that can make rapid advancements in plant breeding.

DURHAM, N.C. – A tiny light source and sensors at the end of an endoscope may provide a more accurate way to identify pre-cancerous cells in the lining of the esophagus.

Boston, Mass. – When pregnant women need medications, there is often concern about possible effects on the fetus. Although some drugs are clearly recognized to cause birth defects (thalidomide being a notorious example), and others are generally recognized as safe, surprisingly little is known about most drugs' level of risk. Researchers in the Children's Hospital Boston Informatics Program (CHIP) have created a preclinical model for predicting a drug's teratogenicity (tendency to cause fetal malformations) based on characterizing the genes that it targets.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the "Great Garbage Patch" between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.

Further claims that the oceans are filled with more plastic than plankton, and that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s are equally misleading, pointed out Angelicque "Angel" White, an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State.

BOSTON – (January 4, 2010) With life expectancy increasing in Latin America, age-related disease has become a pressing public health concern.