Body

Older people with comorbidities and those with multiple hospital admissions related to heart failure are unlikely to receive a meaningful survival benefit from implanted defibrillators, found a study in CMAJ by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts http://www.cmaj.ca/press/pg611.pdf.

Metabolic syndrome is the clustering of risk factors associated with diabetes and heart disease, such as obesity, high cholesterol, high glucose and hypertension. Aboriginal Canadians have a 3-5 times higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes compared with non-Aboriginal Canadians.

The 10-year study involved 492 residents from the Sandy Lake First Nation community in Ontario. It found that the 10-year incidence of diabetes was 17.5%, which increased with age from 10.5% among participants aged 10-19 years to 43.3% in people 40-49 years old.

Recommendations to increase fish consumption because of health benefits may not be environmentally sustainable and more research is needed to clarify the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, write Dr. David Jenkins of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and coauthors in an analysis in CMAJ http://www.cmaj.ca/press/pg633.pdf.

Headlines tell us the nation is getting fatter, and that obesity has become an epidemic. But there is more to the story, according to one University of Houston sociologist.

While she acknowledges that there has been a shift in body weight over the years, assistant sociology professor Samantha Kwan looks at obesity from a different perspective.

Obese patients with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 35 appear more likely to have cancer that has spread to their lymph nodes, lower rates of survival and higher rates of recurrence following surgery for pancreatic cancer, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Combing through a child's wet hair may lead to more accurate identification of active head lice infestation than visual inspection, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, visual inspection may yield a more precise assessment of the number of children who have eggs or nits (larvae) in their hair.

Injections with a new type of botulinum toxin appears to be well tolerated and may help to improve the appearance of moderate to severe forehead lines with no evidence of diminishing treatment response over 13 months, according to a report in the March/April issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Low-dose acitretin (a drug used to treat skin psoriasis) therapy appears to reduce nail psoriasis symptoms, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A nasal wash containing the corticosteroid budesonide appears to reduce symptoms of chronic rhinosinusitis without suppressing the function of the adrenal glands, a known complication of this type of drug that would indicate absorption throughout the whole body, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

(PHILADELPHIA) A novel signaling pathway plays a significant role in the production of aldosterone, a hormone that promotes heart failure after a myocardial infarction, according to a study conducted by Thomas Jefferson University researchers.

The findings, which will be published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that aldosterone production is mediated by a protein called beta-arrestin-1. Beta-arrestin-1 binds to angiotensin II receptors when they are activated by angiotensin II.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Researchers are studying some common soil bacteria that "inhale" toxic metals and "exhale" them in a non-toxic form.

The bacteria might one day be used to clean up toxic chemicals left over from nuclear weapons production decades ago.

Using a unique combination of microscopes, researchers at Ohio State University and their colleagues were able to glimpse how the Shewanella oneidensis bacterium breaks down metal to chemically extract oxygen.

Women who maintain a healthy weight and who have lower perceived stress may be less likely to have chromosome changes associated with aging than obese and stressed women, according to a pilot study that was part of the Sister Study. The long-term Sister Study is looking at the environmental and genetic characteristics of women whose sister had breast cancer to identify factors associated with developing breast cancer. This early pilot used baseline questionnaires and samples provided by participants when they joined the Sister Study.

LIVERMORE, Calif. - By reversing a process that converts electrical signals into sounds heard out of a cell phone, researchers may have a new tool to enhance the way computer chips, LEDs and transistors are built.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have for the first time converted the highest frequency sounds into light by reversing a process that converts electrical signals to sound.

Commonly used piezo-electric speakers, such as those found in a cell phone, operate at low frequencies that human ears can hear.