Culture | Page 1807 | Science Codex

Vanderbilt study finds hypertension-related visits to emergency rooms on rise in US

The number and percentage of patients treated at emergency departments for hypertension are on the rise across the United States, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published recently in the American Journal of Cardiology.

"We found that around 25 percent of all emergency department visits involved patients with hypertension, and that the rate of hypertension-related visits has gone up more than 20 percent since 2006," said Candace McNaughton, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of Emergency Medicine, one of the researchers.

New Kaiser Permanente survey shows email between patients and physicians improves health

OAKLAND, Calif., December 21, 2015 -- A third of patients with chronic conditions who exchanged secure emails with their doctors said that these communications improved their overall health, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the American Journal of Managed Care.

Women experiencing delay in labor willing to forsake their own birth plans

A new study of women's experiences of delay in labour has revealed that many mums-to-be are prepared to abandon their antenatal plans for how they wanted their labours and births to be.

Researchers from the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham found that women were willing to let go their ideal of choice when unanticipated complications occurred.

Review: PTSD resources lacking for nonveterans

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Post-traumatic stress disorder remains a difficult, urgent, and prevalent problem among combat veterans, but millions of nonveterans experience the condition too. A new study in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry finds that compared to what the Veterans Health Administration and Defense Department make available, treatment resources for nonveterans are much less cohesive and helpful.

Police shootings of black males: A public health problem

ST. LOUIS -- A Saint Louis University public health researcher is proposing immediate, concrete steps to stem police shootings of black males.

Keon Gilbert, DrPH, assistant professor of behavioral science and health education at Saint Louis University's College for Public Health and Social Justice, outlined his recommendations in an academic paper published Dec. 10, 2015 in the online edition of the Journal of Urban Health.

Nominations for 2016 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards now open

In 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to recognize landmark green chemistry technologies developed by industrial pioneers and leading scientists that turn climate risk and other environmental problems into business opportunities. EPA expects to give five awards for outstanding green chemistry technologies in traditional categories (Greener Synthetic Pathways, Greener Reaction Conditions, Greener Chemical Products, the Design of Greener Chemicals, Small Business, and Academic) and a sixth award for a green chemistry technology that addresses climate change.

People in states that rely heavily on ballot initiatives are happier

Ballot initiatives, those petition-driven public votes on contested issues, are often disparaged by liberals and conservatives alike for their avoidance of conventional representative democratic processes and their vulnerability to manipulation by well-financed and organized special interest groups.

Researcher studies fish populations at world's second largest freshwater lake

A University of Wyoming researcher is studying fish populations -- and their relationship with local fishing communities -- in Africa's largest lake.

Catherine Wagner, a UW assistant professor in the Department of Botany and the UW Biodiversity Institute, is studying interactions between the biodiversity of East Africa's Lake Tanganyika and the human communities that live around the lake. The work is conducted with the support of The Nature Conservancy and with collaborator Peter McIntyre, an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Limnology.

Insensitive irritable bowel syndrome

For the first time, biopsies of patients with irritable bowel syndrome have shown that the nerves in their gut wall respond poorly to a cocktail of inflammatory substances. This refutes the previous theory that patients with irritable bowel syndrome have an overly sensitive gut. The new study by scientists of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) was carried out in collaboration with several German hospitals.

New generation of synthetic bone grafts created

Scientists led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have developed a new type of synthetic bone graft that boosts the body's own ability to regenerate bone tissue and could produce better outcomes for patients.

The research, which is published in the Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine today (Friday 18 December) found that the new type of graft called Inductigraft was able to guide bone tissue regeneration in as little as four weeks.

Targeting frailty in pre-lung transplant patients might improve survival rates, patient outcomes

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Frailty can affect people of all ages and demographics. Defined simply as "an increased vulnerability to adverse health outcomes," frailty can affect a patient's chances of surviving a surgical procedure or needing a nursing home. A new study from physicians at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., published recently in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, is among the first to show a definitive connection between frailty and survival after a lung transplant procedure.

How anti-evolution bills evolve

An evolutionary biologist has analysed political opposition to evolution and found it has evolved.

Dr Nick Matzke from The Australian National University (ANU) analysed the text in anti-evolution legislation using software for building genetic family trees.

He found the different bills presented in different legislatures shared traits and relationships in a similar way to plants and animals.

Study: Safety net fails grandmother caregivers living in severe poverty

Increasing numbers of grandmothers across the United States are raising their grandchildren, many of them living in poverty and grappling with a public assistance system not designed to meet their needs.

LaShawnDa Pittman, an assistant professor in the University of Washington's Department of American Ethnic Studies, interviewed 77 African American grandmothers living in some of the poorest areas of south Chicago. Her findings were published in November in the first issue of The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.

Top risk factors for child undernutrition in India identified

Boston, MA -- In India, nearly 40% of all children are stunted--of extremely low height for their age--and nearly 30% are underweight. A new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has now pinpointed the five top risk factors responsible for more than two-thirds of the problem.

The study--the first to comprehensively analyze and estimate the relative importance of known risk factors for child undernutrition--appears online in Social Science & Medicine.

New report shows gains in health insurance across Texas fall behind rest of US

HOUSTON - (Dec. 17, 2015) - The rate of adults without health insurance across the U.S. dropped nearly twice as much as in Texas from 2013 to 2015, according to a new report released today by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF).

The report found that since enrollment began in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in September 2013, the adult uninsured rate in the U.S. fell by 41 percent. Researchers found Texas' uninsured rate dropped just 21 percent during the same time.