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Recent controversies about maternal mortality rates mask a bigger need to improve the process of global health estimation, and they deflect attention away from the need for action to improve the health of the most vulnerable. These are some of the strong conclusions of a group of articles in this week's PLoS Medicine, authored by leading experts who provide insights and opinion on what estimates mean for global health and how to move forward with better data, measurement, coordination, and leadership.

A new finding out in the December 1st issue of Genes & Development offers insight into a new treatment avenue for two painful inflammatory diseases: Crohn's Disease and sarcoidosis.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---By digitally photographing the tiny, hair-like blood vessels in the back of our eyes, researchers can now look directly at how small blood vessels like those that bring blood to the heart respond to air pollution.

New digital photos of the retina revealed that otherwise healthy people exposed to high levels of air pollution had narrower retinal arterioles, an indication of a higher risk of heart disease.

One of the worst pests of corn in the world, the corn rootworm, may owe its worldwide success partly to its larvae's nasty, sticky blood.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) entomologist Jonathan G. Lundgren and his colleagues discovered this recently, working with CABI researchers in Delémont, Switzerland, and Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary. The discovery could lead to development of ways to overcome these defenses as part of sustainable, ecologically based pest management methods.

Preliminary research has found that children with autism are more likely to have impaired mitochondrial function (structures within cells responsible for energy production) and mitochondrial DNA abnormalities than typically developing children, according to a study in the December 1 issue of JAMA.

Death and length of stay are increased among hospitalized inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients who develop hospital-acquired infections, according to a study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. Also, health-care-associated and hospital-acquired infections are most frequent in patients with severe liver disease, according to an additional study published in the journal.

New Rochelle, NY, November 30, 2010—Access to quality reproductive healthcare for women around the globe is a fundamental aspect of a woman's human rights, freedom, equity, and right to control her own body. A Special Section on Global Women's Reproductive Health in the current issue of Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., explores the compelling medical, socioeconomic, and gender-based factors that impact global women's health issues. The Special Focus articles are available free online.

Boston, MA – A team of Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) scientists report finding a molecular "switch" that can "turn off" some cellular processes that are protective against aging and metabolic diseases. While more research is needed, the findings may open doors for new drug treatments to halt or slow development of metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes or heart disease. The research findings appear in the December 1, 2010 issue of Cell Metabolism.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) ― Researchers from the UC Davis Health System have found that compared with healthy controls, blood levels of vitamin D are significantly reduced in patients in the Sacramento area with metabolic syndrome, a constellation of disease risk factors that affects about one in three U.S. adults and predisposes them to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

(Garrison, NY) Should parents be able to use medical means to restrict the growth of profoundly disabled children to make them easier to care for at home? A working group convened to discuss the ethical and policy considerations of "growth attenuation" proposes some guidelines in an article in the Hastings Center Report.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — In what might be one of the world's first medicinal body piercings, UC Davis Health System surgeons announced today that they have successfully implanted an experimental device in the throat of a man that will enable him to manually control his ability to swallow. The device, which could offer an effective treatment option for people suffering from severe swallowing problems, is controlled by pulling on a tiny metal pin that extends through the skin in the neck. The post, when pulled forward, manually opens the esophagus and allows food and water to pass.

CHICAGO – Rush University Medical Center has just enrolled the first U.S. patient in an international clinical trial testing a novel drug to treat certain kinds of melanoma, a deadly skin cancer that in its advanced stages currently has few effective treatments.

Rather than blocking or killing all rapidly dividing cells, whether malignant or not, the drug, called nilotnib, is one of a new class of agents that have been designed to sabotage aberrant molecules characteristic of individual cancers – in this case, the c-kit protein.

PHILADELPHIA — Scientists working with the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary and The Academy ofNatural Sciences have made an important discovery in the Delaware River between Chester, Pennsylvania, andTrenton, New Jersey: beds of freshwater mussels. This includes several uncommon species, two of which werepreviously believed to no longer exist in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – New research shows the NSAID Celebrex may help prevent some non-melanoma skin cancers from developing in patients who have pre-cancerous actinic keratoses lesions and are at high risk for having the disease.