Body

People who sleep less than six hours a night appear to have a higher risk of developing impaired fasting glucose — a condition that can precede type 2 diabetes, researchers reported at the American Heart Association's 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

NEW YORK (March 10, 2009) – With the help of a non-invasive method of monitoring human activity, doctors and researchers at Columbia University Medical Center are shedding new light on a syndrome affecting nearly 40 percent of older adults with heart failure: anergia.

Anergia, or lack of energy, is a newly delineated, criterion-based geriatric syndrome that is often overlooked or dismissed by doctors and patients alike as simply a natural tiredness associated with "old age."

Batavia, Ill.—Scientists of the DZero collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have achieved the world's most precise measurement of the mass of the W boson by a single experiment. Combined with other measurements, the reduced uncertainty of the W boson mass will lead to stricter bounds on the mass of the elusive Higgs boson.

Low levels of vitamin D were associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure, high blood sugar and metabolic syndrome in teenagers, researchers reported at the American Heart Association's 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

In the study, researchers analyzed 3,577 adolescents, 12 to 19 years old (51 percent boys), who participated in the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted from 2001�.

Just as President Obama is promising major health reform, huge cutbacks in the news business are creating new challenges for health journalists who are trying to report on those policy issues, according to the survey and report written by Gary Schwitzer, associate professor in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism & Mass Communication. The report was released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation at a Washington, D.C. briefing.

Explaining trends in heart attack: prevention has improved, mortality rates are down, hospitalisation remains the same

HOUSTON -- (March 11, 2009) -- A Rice University study of microbes from a Houston-area cow pasture has confirmed once again that everything is bigger in Texas, even the single-celled stuff. The tests revealed the first-ever report of a large, natural colony of amoebae clones -- a Texas-sized expanse measuring at least 12 meters across.

The research is available online and featured on cover of the March issue of Molecular Ecology.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--A gas used for fumigation has the potential to contribute significantly to future greenhouse warming, but because its production has not yet reached high levels there is still time to nip this potential contributor in the bud, according to an international team of researchers.

NEW YORK (March 11, 2009) -- One in seven American adolescents is vitamin D deficient, according to a new study by researchers in the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College. The findings are published in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics and were presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies' Annual Meeting in May 2008.

In children, vitamin D deficiency can interfere with bone mineralization, leading to rickets. In adults, it is linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, immune dysfunction and hypertension.

WASHINGTON, Mar. 11— A group of scientists in California is trying to develop a cheaper, less invasive way to spot the early stages of retinal damage from diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness in American adults, before it leads to blindness. As described in the special Interactive Science Publishing (ISP) issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal, the scientists are using beams of light to measure blood flow in the back of the eye.

Inflammation, the body's earliest response to damage or infection, can aid the healing process and trigger an immune response against invading pathogens. But inflammation gone awry can also undermine health, as in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or asthma.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have identified a novel pathway that controls the activity of a key protein involved in inflammation. Their findings could have important implications for the treatment of diseases or conditions linked to chronic inflammation.

Tucson, AZ–-March 11, 2009—Human problems rarely occur in a vacuum, but persist as part of ongoing social interaction in which causes and effects are interwoven. One person's behavior can set the stage for what another does. A new study in the journal Family Process reveals that smoking can promote emotional connection for couples when both partners smoke. Health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking or weight gain, may sometimes persist because they preserve stability in a vital close relationship.

(Boston) Researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found that a single-screening question recommended by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) accurately identifies unhealthy alcohol use in primary-care patients. This research supports the use of the brief screen in the primary-care setting. The BMC study appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Somerville, MA/Providence, RI -- Truck crashes are a significant public health hazard causing thousands of deaths and injuries each year, with driver fatigue and sleepiness being major causes. A new study has confirmed previous findings that obesity-driven testing strategies identify commercial truck drivers with a high likelihood of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and suggests that mandating OSA screenings could reduce the risk of truck crashes.

Washington, D.C.—Ever since the Bronze Age, humans have experimented with combining different metals to create alloys with properties superior to either metal alone. But not all metals readily form alloys – for some pairs of elements the atoms are too dissimilar. Now researchers in an international team have discovered that previously impossible alloys can be created by subjecting atoms to high pressure―opening up possibilities for new materials in the future.