Culture

Increasing levels of high-density lipoproteins, better known as HDL or "good" cholesterol, reduced the risk for heart attack and stroke among patients with diabetes. That's according to a new study appearing online today in The American Journal of Cardiology.

The observational study, one of the largest of its kind, examined the medical records of more than 30,000 patients with diabetes and also found that patients whose HDL levels decreased had more heart attacks and strokes.

New York, NY, October 7, 2011—A new set of strategies released today by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System claims it could dramatically improve how the U.S. health care system serves vulnerable populations—those in the U.S. who are uninsured, low-income, or members of racial and ethnic minority groups. If you believe the only reason the unemployment rate is not 15% is thanks to the efforts of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, this report is for you.

Amsterdam, NL, 7 October 2011 – In a new study published today in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease, Japanese researchers report that the ability to ride a bike can differentiate between atypical parkinsonism and Parkinson's disease, regardless of the environment or situations for bicycling.

Strong, incompatible views are common in biomedicine but are largely invisible to biomedical experts themselves, creating artificial barriers to effective modeling of complex biological phenomena. Researchers at the University of Chicago explored the diversity in views among scientists researching the process of cancer metastasis and found ubiquitous disagreement around assumptions in any model of the progression of cancer cells from their original location to other parts of the body.

October 6, 2011 -- Over 10 million people age 12 or older are estimated to have driven under the influence of illicit drugs in the prior year, according to a 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. While marijuana is the most commonly detected non-alcohol drug in drivers, its role in causing crashes has remained in question.

Be it at school, office, the neighborhood or the community people live in, conflicting situations amongst various groups might arise on an almost day to day basis. Today, the prevalence of these intergroup conflicts is on the rise and has resulted in minor disagreements amongst friends to waging full scale wars between countries.

A study published this week in the American Journal of Sociology finds that people who lack personal wealth in the form of a car or financial assets are significantly less likely to enter into a first marriage. The results, according to study author Daniel Schneider of Princeton University, shed light on recent changes in marriage patterns in the U.S.

Ancient structures uncovered in Turkey and thought to be the world's oldest temples may not have been strictly religious buildings after all, according to an article in the October issue of Current Anthropology. Archaeologist Ted Banning of the University of Toronto argues that the buildings found at Göbekli Tepe may have been houses for people, not the gods.

Andrew Fuligni and his colleagues want to understand the secret life of the American teenager. Their research has examined whether stress in the teen years affects kids' health as adults (it does), whether teens maintain their religious ties and beliefs as adults (they do) and if ethnic minority–based stigmatization affects how they perform in school (it does).

Continued participation in the Harrisburg Preschool Program (HPP) has led 5th-grade students to score higher on Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) literacy and math tests than peers who have not participated in the HPP program, according to the final evaluation of the HPP initiative by the Prevention Research Center at Penn State.

HPP is a collaborative program involving the Harrisburg School District and Capital Area Head Start, which provides comprehensive, high-quality preschool services to at-risk children in the Harrisburg area.

University of British Columbia research shows that managers should keep team members connected and engaged to avoid workplace sabotage. Co-authored by UBC Sauder School of Business Prof. Karl Aquino, the study reveals that envious employees are more likely to undermine peers if they feel disconnected from others.

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 6, 2011) – According to Anna R. Giuliano, Ph.D., program leader in cancer epidemiology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues in the Netherlands, earlier circumcision of males in South Africa may be a positive step in slowing the spread of both HIV and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Their commentary and data were published in a recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases (Vol. 11) 581-582.

6 October, 2011, Bad Gastein, Austria– Globally, people believe that friends and family have as much responsibility for their personal health as do health care providers, according to the Edelman Health Barometer 2011. After “themselves,” nearly half (43%) of respondents believe that their friends and family have the most impact on their lifestyle as it relates to health, and more than a third (36%) believe friends and family have the most impact on personal nutrition.

Where you live could play a larger role in health disparities than originally thought, according to a new study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They examined a racially integrated, low-income neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland and found that, with the exception of smoking, nationally reported disparities in hypertension, diabetes, obesity among women and use of health services disappeared or narrowed.

Hypothetically speaking, if someone told you that a hypothetical question could influence your judgments or behavior, would you believe them?