Body

Epidemiologists know that an important piece of evidence is often staring you in the face – but it's not always easy to see the forest for the trees.

Danish scientists recently teamed up with University of New Mexico researchers to test a powerful new method for predicting the progress of common diseases through time by teasing out previously undetected patterns from a very large data set – in this case, the health records of Denmark's entire population.

Coral reefs are home to a rich and diverse ecosystem, providing a habitat for a wide range of marine animals. But the increasing acidification of ocean water is jeopardizing the calcified foundations of these reefs, endangering the survival of thousands upon thousands of resident species.

UT Arlington physics researchers may have developed a way to use laser technology to deliver drug and gene therapy at the cellular level without damaging surrounding tissue. The method eventually could help patients suffering from genetic conditions, cancers and neurological diseases.

A new paper shows that while science plays a critical role in informing conservation action, scientists must move beyond the realm of their expertise into less familiar areas like public relations, education, and even politics, to ultimately meet America's conservation goals.

Dietary restriction is one of the most-researched methods for slowing the aging process. Now, a new article published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences helps explain the action of a drug that appears to mimic that method — rapamycin.

PHILADELPHIA — Imaging breast tumors using four approaches together can better distinguish malignant breast tumors from those that are benign, compared with imaging using fewer approaches, and this may help avoid repeat breast biopsies, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Caffeine, which was extensively researched for possible links to birth defects in animals and cardiovascular disease in humans over 30 years ago and then exonerated, has become the focus of renewed concerns as caffeine-containing energy drinks have surged in popularity. However, according to a June 23rd panel discussion at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® in New Orleans, a rich database of health evidence exists confirming the safety of caffeine for consumers at current levels of exposure.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Physicians using body mass index (BMI) to diagnose children as obese may be missing 25 percent of kids who have excess body fat despite a normal BMI, which can be a serious concern for long-term health, according to a Mayo Clinic study published online today in Pediatric Obesity.

WASHINGTON, DC, June 24, 2014 — As the United States grows more diverse than ever, organizations from Fortune 500 companies to political parties are scrambling to keep pace. But in doing so, they face the challenge of uniting people from very different backgrounds in a single purpose.

A new study led by a University of Connecticut sociologist suggests that if they want to succeed, they could learn a lot from how an unlikely practice — prayer — is used in one set of diverse organizations.

A first-of-its-kind study by researchers at the University of Minnesota (UMN) using snow during a Minnesota blizzard is giving researchers new insight into the airflow around large wind turbines. This research is essential to improving wind energy efficiency, especially in wind farms where airflows from many large wind turbines interact with each other.

The study by researchers at the UMN College of Science and Engineering's St. Anthony Falls Lab was published today in Nature Communications, a major scientific journal.

This is the first time that researchers have analysed big data relating to an entire country's disease development. The new ground-breaking results are based on data from 6.2 million Danes who were followed for 14.9 years – using state-of-the-art systems biology, researchers have boiled down the massive amount of data to 1,171 so-called thoroughfares with central information on the course of diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, arthritis and cardiovascular disease.

CHICAGO, IL—Obese patients with Type 2 diabetes who don't have excessive surgical risk may find that Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery can help them reduce their risk of heart disease, a new clinical trial shows. The results were presented Tuesday at ICE/ENDO 2014, the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society in Chicago.

CHICAGO, IL—Obese adults who lose at least 5 percent of their body weight report that they sleep better and longer after six months of weight loss, according to a new study. The results were presented Tuesday at the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society: ICE/ENDO 2014 in Chicago.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve and Dartmouth universities have shown that a class of small antioxidant molecules carries enormous promise for supressing colon cancer associated with colitis. These findings, published in an early June edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, offer hope that physicians ultimately will be able to reduce dramatically the number of sufferers of this inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who go on to develop colon cancer.

June 24, 2014 – New approaches and tools are needed to improve visual accessibility for people with low vision in the "real world," according to a special article in the July issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.