Body

New research from experts within the University of Minnesota School of Nursing has found teen girls at high risk for pregnancy reported being significantly less likely to participate in social bullying after participating in an 18-month preventive intervention program.

Scientists have devised a method for delivering tumor cell-killing enzymes in a way that protects the enzyme until it can do its work inside the cell. In their study in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers assembled microscopic protein packages that can deliver an enzyme called PEIII to the insides of cells. By attaching a protein called ubiquitin to the enzyme, they were able to protect it from degradation by the cell, allowing the enzyme to complete its mission.

A new virus that causes severe breathing distress and kidney failure elicits a distinctive airway cell response to allow it to multiply. Scientists studying the Human Coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Center, which first appeared April 2012 in the Middle East, have discovered helpful details about its stronghold tactics.

Their findings predict that certain currently available compounds might treat the infection. These could act, not by killing the virus directly, but by keeping lung cells from being forced to create a hospitable environment for the virus to reproduce.

Smoking prevention in schools reduces the number of young people who will later become smokers, according to a new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. For young people who have never smoked, these programmes appear to be effective at least one year after implementation.

Giving prescribers access to education and advice or imposing restrictions on use can curb overuse or inappropriate use of antibiotics in hospitals, according to a new Cochrane systematic review. This is important because unnecessary use of these life-saving drugs is a key source of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

Young men who are obese in their early 20s are significantly more likely to develop serious ill health by the time they reach middle age, or not even make it that far, suggests research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

It's well known that obesity in adulthood poses a risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but it's not been clear whether obesity in early adulthood strengthens that risk.

Window blind cords pose a particular risk of accidental strangulation for young children, doctors have warned in Archives of Disease of Childhood.

Children between the ages of 16 and 36 months seem particularly vulnerable, they say.

The warning comes after they treated a 22 month old boy who was brought into the emergency department. He had been found hanging on the pull chain of a window blind cord.

LA JOLLA, CA----In the spring following a forest fire, trees that survived the blaze explode in new growth and plants sprout in abundance from the scorched earth. For centuries, it was a mystery how seeds, some long dormant in the soil, knew to push through the ashes to regenerate the burned forest.

DURHAM, N.C. – Fueled in part by an inclination to speed new treatments to patients, research studies for cancer therapies tend to be smaller and less robust than for other diseases.

MINNEAPOLIS – The largest study to date finds that eating foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, chicken and salad dressing and avoiding saturated fats, meat and dairy foods may be linked to preserving memory and thinking abilities. However, the same association was not found in people with diabetes. The research is published in the April 30, 2013, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

A study by Jeffrey P. Brosco, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Miami, Florida, and colleagues examines the relationship between medical interventions in early childhood and the increasing prevalence of later intellectual disability (ID). (Online First)

A study by Jonathan I. Silverberg, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., of St. Luke's—Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, and colleagues suggests children living the in the United States but born outside the U.S. have a lower prevalence of allergic disease that increases after residing in the United States for one decade. (Online First)

Researchers from the Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute Foundation (IGTP), the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), and the Sant Joan de Déu de Martorell Hospital, has identified a new subtype of ataxia, a rare disease without treatment that causes atrophy in the cerebellum and affects around 1.5 million people in the world. The results have been published online on April 29 in the journal JAMA Neurology.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – among the most widely prescribed antidepressant medications – are associated with increased risk of bleeding, transfusion, hospital readmission and death when taken around the time of surgery, according to an analysis led by researchers at UC San Francisco and Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass.

The scientists looked at the medical records of more than 530,000 patients who underwent surgery at 375 U.S. hospitals between 2006 and 2008. Their results will be published on April 29 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Surgery is often recommended for skin cancers, but older, sicker patients can endure complications as a result and may not live long enough to benefit from the treatment.

A new study led by UC San Francisco focused on the vexing problem of how best to handle skin cancers among frail, elderly patients. In the study sample, the researchers found that most non-melanoma skin cancers were typically treated surgically, regardless of the patient's life expectancy or whether the tumor was likely to recur or harm the patient.