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Of the approximately half-million children and adolescents in foster care in the U.S., experts estimate that 42 to 60 percent of them have emotional and behavioral problems. Despite the prevalence of mental health problems among foster children, little is known about how pre-existing mental health conditions affect their outcomes in foster care.

A new study suggests that patients with hepatitis C (HCV) who need a liver transplant should not receive an organ with high levels of fatty deposits (a.k.a. hepatic steatosis). HCV recurrence was more frequent and earlier among those transplanted with such livers. These findings are in the January issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons. The article is also available online at Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

COLUMBIA, Mo. — More than 20 million Americans are living with diabetes, and that number is expected to increase by more than 5 million by 2010. One complication related to diabetes, Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy, (DM+PN), can cause individuals to develop foot ulcers and, in extreme cases, amputation might be necessary. Previously, doctors and scientists have recommended that individuals with this complication stay off their feet.

Nashville, TN – January 13, 2009 – A benchmarking study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine evaluated contemporary hospital glycemic management in United States academic medical centers, determining glucose control practices are suboptimal and do not meet current American Diabetes Association (ADA) hospital diabetes care standards.

DURHAM, N.C. – A protein that was first identified for playing a key role in regulating normal heart rhythms also appears to be significant in helping muscle cells survive the forces of muscle contraction. The clue was a laboratory mouse that seemed to have a form of muscular dystrophy.

Small changes can lead to big rewards, such as maintaining a healthy weight, American Society for Nutrition (ASN) President James O. Hill, PhD, describes in a recent report. The article, to be published in the February issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is written by Hill on behalf of a joint task force of ASN, the Institute of Food Technologists, and the International Food Information Council.

PITTSBURGH, Jan 13 – Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have successfully induced human insulin-producing cells, known as beta cells, to replicate robustly in a living animal, as well as in the lab. The discovery not only could improve models and methods for studying diabetes, but also opens up new possibilities for treating the condition.

Workers age 50-64 who received influenza vaccine lost substantially fewer days of work and worked fewer days while ill, according to a new study in the Feb. 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. Given the concerns about antiviral drug resistance among this year's flu strains, the study highlights the importance of vaccination to prevent influenza.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – College-age football players who gain weight to add power to their blocks and tackles might also be setting themselves up for diabetes and heart disease later in life, a new study suggests.

Nearly half of a sample of collegiate offensive and defensive linemen who underwent a battery of tests for the study had metabolic syndrome. This means the players had at least three of five risk factors that indicate a person has higher chances of developing heart disease and diabetes than those without the risk factors.

CHAPEL HILL – In many ways, Duplin County, N.C., and Queens, N.Y., are worlds apart.Duplin is rural, proudly southern and home to about 50,000 people. Queens is urban, counts immigrants from more than 100 nations among its residents and the number of babies born in the borough each year equals more than half of Duplin's entire population.

But from Tuesday (Jan. 13) onward, the two areas share common ground – as the first two locations to begin enrolling participants in the largest ever long-term study of children's health and development undertaken in the United States.

Tropical oceans are known as the deserts of the sea. And yet this unlikely environment is the very place where the rich and fertile coral reef grows. Dutch researcher Jasper de Goeij investigated how caves in the coral reef ensure the reef's continued existence. Although sponges in these coral caves take up a lot of dissolved organic material, they scarcely grow. However, they do discard a lot of cells that in turn provide food for the organisms on the reef.

General Practitioners (GPs) can delegate visits to patients and medical work to qualified employees. In this way, they can provide care to more patients. Neeltje van den Berg and coauthors from Greifswald and Neubrandenburg Universities present the "AGnES" project in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106[1-2]: 3-9).

You may never hear fruit flies snore, but rest assured that when you're asleep they are too. According to research published in the January 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org), scientists from the University of Missouri-Kansas City have shown that the circadian rhythms (sleep/wake cycles) of fruit flies and vertebrates are regulated by some of the same "cellular machinery" as that of humans.

A Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon has found strong evidence that women over 45 are significantly less likely to be placed on a kidney transplant list than their equivalent male counterparts, even though women who receive a transplant stand an equal chance of survival.

"As woman age, that discrepancy widens to the point where woman over 75 are less than half as likely as men to be placed on a kidney transplant list," says lead researcher and Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon Dorry Segev, M.D. "If the women have multiple illnesses, the discrepancy is even worse."

Researcher Kristina Djanashvili has developed a substance that enables doctors to get better MRI scans of tumours. On Tuesday 13 January, Djanashvili will be awarded a doctorate by TU Delft for her work in this field.