Body

ROSEMONT, Ill.─A new study appearing in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) links the use of opioid pain relievers (prescription medications, such as Percocet) to less improvement and higher levels of dissatisfaction following spine surgery.

Washington, DC—African Americans taking the diabetes drug metformin saw greater improvements in their blood sugar control than white individuals who were prescribed the same medication, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Seattle, WA—Many children are obese these days, but what can be done about it? Research-proven treatments for obesity exist, but they rely on regular one-on-one meetings with a trained health coach. So these "behavioral" treatments are seldom available outside of research studies in specialty medical centers.

PITTSBURGH, June 12, 2014 – By boosting a protein that naturally exists in our cells, an international team of researchers led by the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), partner with UPMC CancerCenter, has found a potential way to enhance our ability to sense and inhibit viral infections.

The laboratory-based discovery, which could lead to more effective treatments for viruses ranging from hepatitis C to the flu, appears in the June 19 issue of the journal Immunity. The research is supported by the National Institutes of Health.

A time-lapse study of human embryonic stems cells has identified bottlenecks restricting the formation of colonies, a discovery that could lead to improvement in their use in regenerative medicine.

Biologists at the University of Sheffield's Centre for Stem Cell Biology led by Professor Peter Andrews and engineers in the Complex Systems and Signal Processing Group led by Professor Daniel Coca studied human pluripotent stem cells, which are a potential source of cells for regenerative medicine because they have the ability to produce any cell type in the body.

Measuring variability of heart rate may identify premature infants at risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis, a serious inflammatory condition that can lead to death, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

Necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, may lead to destruction of the intestinal wall and vital organ failure. It affects 6 to 10 percent of premature infants within the first two weeks of life.

The VicHealth-funded survey, published in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, could go some way to explaining the reduced quality of healthcare often reported by Indigenous communities. 

Led by Associate Professor Margaret Kelaher and researcher Angeline Ferdinand in collaboration with Professor Yin Paradies from Deakin University, the survey examined experiences of racism in health settings alongside other areas including workplaces, education and sport and their impact on mental health among Aboriginal Australians.

Systems containing self-propelling particles, such as bacteria or artificial colloidal particles, are always out of equilibrium but may show interesting transitions between different states, reminiscent of phase transitions in equilibrium. However, application of analytical and computational methodologies from equilibrium statistical mechanics is questionable to study properties of such active systems. An international team of researchers – including Dr.

New research reports that survivors of childhood liver transplant remain nutritionally compromised over the long-term. Findings published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, indicate that the recipients' return to normal weight post-transplant was due to an increase in fat mass as body cell mass remained low, indicating a slim body composition with little lean muscle mass or "skinny fat."

Obesity and diabetes are among the fastest growing health problems in the world, and the hunt is in for a pill that can fight the problem. Now a Danish/British team has come up with a smart tool that will speed up the scientific hunting process, and we may be one step closer to a pill against obesity.

The body has a variety of functions that decide if we get overweight or not. For instance hormones control our appetite and the uptake of food. In recent years science has taken on the quest of investigating these physiological functions and finding a medical way to fight obesity.

Children are showing signs of social withdrawal are more susceptible to parental influences than others. These children were also more prone to distress caused by the impacts of guilt-inducing parenting.

The studies, published in the acclaimed Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, show that 24 weeks of twice-weekly recreational football training sessions lower blood pressure and improves heart function in men with high blood pressure and men with type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, men with type 2 diabetes lost 12 % of their abdominal fat and reduced their blood sugar 20% more than inactive control subjects.

Certain processes used to sterilize blood products could potentially cause serious health issues in transfusion recipients, according to an international study published in the journal Platelets and led by Dr. Patrick Provost of Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine and the CHU de Québec Research Center. These processes purportedly alter the blood platelets to the extent of preventing them from carrying out their functions correctly and may be the cause of hemorrhages observed in patients having received treated blood.

BELLINGHAM, Washington (USA) — The Journal of Medical Imaging (JMI) has launched, with freely accessible articles on new research on earlier and more accurate diagnosis and monitoring of cancer and other diseases, image quality assessment, 3D imaging, and other topics. Published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, the quarterly journal is available online in the SPIE Digital Library, with each peer-reviewed article published as it is approved. JMI will also be issued in print.

The Antarctic Peninsula, the northern most region of Antarctica, is experiencing some of the most dramatic changes due to climate warming, including population declines of some penguin species.

This is not the first time that region has felt the effects of climate warming. How did penguins respond to the melting of snow and ice cover 11,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age?