Culture

Infectious diseases remain major public health challenges in the United States, according to a new report published in The Lancet as part of a new Series, The health of Americans [1]. Endemic conditions such as chronic viral hepatitis, human immunodeficiency virus, and other sexually transmitted infections continue to affect millions of individuals, with racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately affected. Emerging and re-emerging vector borne and zoonotic disease infections are threatening new areas and populations, as most recently observed with Chikungunya.

According to a report on chronic diseases by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, published in The Lancet as part of a new Series, The health of Americans [1], half of all adults in the USA suffer from at least one chronic condition, such as diabetes, heart disease, or obesity, and over a quarter of adults have two or more.

Today, doctors who really want to see if a wound is healing have to do a biopsy or some other invasive technique that, besides injuring an already injured patient, can really only offer information about a small area. But a technology called hyperspectral imaging offers doctors a noninvasive, painless way to discriminate between healthy and diseased tissue and reveal how well damaged tissue is healing over a wide area. The catch? A lack of calibration standards is impeding its use.

Use of a lower intensity bone marrow transplantation method showed promising results among 30 patients (16-65 years of age) with severe sickle cell disease, according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA.

Use of exome sequencing improved the ability to identify the underlying gene mutations in patients with biochemically defined defects affecting multiple mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes (enzymes that are involved in basic energy production), according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA.

Adults stop anti-rejection drugs after stem-cell transplant reverses sickle cell diseaseNIH trial success suggests a new treatment option for older, sicker patients

Use of catheter ablation is not only beneficial for treating atrial flutter but also can significantly reduce hospital visits – both inpatient and emergency – and lower the risk for atrial fibrillation, according to research by UC San Francisco.

The study is in the July issue of PLOS ONE and available online.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center used two relatively simple tactics to significantly reduce the number of unnecessary blood tests to assess symptoms of heart attack and chest pain and to achieve a large decrease in patient charges.

Mental illness accounts for 90 percent of all reported suicides and places the largest burden of any disease on social and economic infrastructures worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. There is a dire need for support services to assist clinicians in the evaluation and treatment of those suffering from mental illness.

July 1, 2014 - John D. Meyer, MD, MPH, of Icahn-Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, and Miriam Mutambudzi, PhD, MPH, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, studied the relationship between occupation and AUDs in workers followed up from early adulthood to middle age. The study focused on the "substantive complexity" of work as an indicator of work trajectory—whether individuals were progressing in their careers in terms of factors such as decision latitude and expanded work abilities.

HUNTSVILLE, TX (7/1/14) -- Cyberbullying creates fear among students about being victimized at school, a recent study by Sam Houston State University found.

While traditional bullying still creates the most fear among students, cyberbullying is a significant factor for fear of victimization at school among students who have experienced bullying or disorder At school, such as the presence of gangs. The fear from cyberbullying is most prominent in minority populations.

Munich, 1 July 2014: The rapid freezing technique of vitrification is set to revolutionise egg donation as a fertility treatment by enabling freeze-storage egg-banking. The cryopreservation of eggs was one of IVF's continuing challenges until the widespread introduction of vitrification; the older slow freezing methods induced the formation of ice crystals, which could cause damage to several structures of the egg.

Munich, 1 July 2014: With an ever-ageing female patient population, egg donation is an increasingly common treatment in infertility. ESHRE's own annual reports on fertility treatments in Europe show a rise in egg donation cycles from 15,028 in 2007 to 24,517 in 2010 (to 4.05% of all treatments). This proportion is still some way behind the USA, where egg donation now accounts for around 12% of all treatments.

In a new study of the causes underlying respiratory symptoms in military personnel returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, a large percentage of veterans had non-specific symptoms that did not lead to a specific clinical diagnosis. Most patients who did receive a diagnosis had evidence of asthma or nonspecific airway hyperreactivity, which may have been due in some cases to aggravation of pre-existing disease by deployment exposures.

OECD warns that "more and bigger" efforts will be needed to contain US health budget to prevent reversal of recent slowdown in health spending growth as economic growth improves

Growth in health expenditure in the USA slowed dramatically between 2000 and 2011, bringing the growth rate of the country's health budget in line with other high-spending countries, according to new research published in The Lancet as part of a new Series, The health of Americans.