Body

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Adding a mental health component to school-based lifestyle programs for teens could be key to lowering obesity, improving grades, alleviating severe depression and reducing substance use, a new study suggests.

As a group, high-school students who participated in an intervention that emphasized cognitive behavioral skills building in addition to nutrition and physical activity had a lower average body mass index, better social behaviors and higher health class grades and drank less alcohol than did teenagers in a class with standard health lessons.

San Diego, CA, September 10, 2013 – New cases of diabetes continue to increase as does the health burden for those with diabetes. Law is a critical tool for health improvement, yet assessments reported in a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine indicate that federal, state, and local laws give only partial support to guidelines and evidence-based interventions relevant to diabetes prevention and control. The authors explore the role that law can play in serving as an effective health tool.

Philadelphia, PA, September 10, 2013 – A new study has found that a novel avian-origin H7N9 influenza A virus, which has recently emerged in humans, attaches moderately or abundantly to the epithelium of both the upper and lower respiratory tracts. This pattern has not been observed before for avian influenza A viruses. The report, published in the October issue of The American Journal of Pathology, suggests that the emerging H7N9 virus has the potential to cause a pandemic, since it may transmit efficiently in humans and cause severe pneumonia.

UK commercial baby foods don't meet infants' dietary weaning needs, because they are predominantly sweet foods that provide little extra nutritional goodness over breast milk, indicates research published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Furthermore, they are promoted for infants from the age of four months -- an age when they should still be on an exclusive breast milk diet, say the researchers.

A lack of clearly defined goals, a surfeit of box ticking and regulation, and highly variable staff support are stifling the almost universal desire to provide high quality care in the English NHS, finds the largest ever analysis of its culture and behaviours, published online in BMJ Quality & Safety.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — States that choose to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to millions of uninsured adults may see an increase in younger people and white men qualify for the coverage, a new University of Michigan study says. Potential new enrollees are also generally healthier than the current Medicaid population, with less prevalence of obesity and depression – but they are more likely to be smokers and heavy drinkers.

Women with ectopic pregnancies could be spared surgery if they are treated with a lung cancer drug, a study suggests.

Researchers treated ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants inside the Fallopian tube – by combining an existing treatment with a lung cancer therapy.

They found that prescribing both drugs together was more effective at helping cure an ectopic pregnancy than the conventional drug alone.

About 5 percent of U.S. children and teens are "severely obese" — a newly defined class of risk, according to an American Heart Association scientific statement published online in the journal Circulation.

"Severe obesity in young people has grave health consequences," said Aaron Kelly, Ph.D., lead author of the statement and a researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. "It's a much more serious childhood disease than obesity."

While childhood obesity rates are starting to level off, severe obesity has increased, Kelly said.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Nearly one in five older adults who have common operations will end up in the emergency department within a month of their hospital stay, a new study finds – a surprisingly high number found in the first national look at the issue.

What's even more surprising? The wide variation between hospitals, in keeping their older surgery patients from needing emergency care after surgery on their hearts, hips, backs, colons and major blood vessels. Some hospitals had four times the rate of post-surgery emergency care for their patients, compared with others.

An intervention to improve household routines known to be associated with obesity increased sleep duration and reduced TV viewing among low-income, minority children, and the approach may be an effective tool to reduce body mass index (BMI) in that population, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication.

Scientists from UC San Francisco have identified a new way to manipulate the immune system that may keep it from attacking the body’s own molecules in autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

The researchers, led by immunologist Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, a professor with the UCSF Diabetes Center, have discovered a distinctive type of immune cell called an eTAC, which puts a damper on immune responses.

While great strides have been achieved in cancer treatment, scientists are looking for the new targets and next generation of therapeutics to stop this second leading cause of death nationwide. A new platform for drug discovery has been developed through a collaborative effort linking chemists at NYU and pharmacologists at USC.

Mercenary soldiers are notoriously unreliable because their loyalty is as thin as the banknotes they get paid, and they may turn against their employers before moving on to the next dirty job. Not so in fungus-farming ants, where a new study reports that permanent parasites that are normally a chronic social burden protect their hosts against a greater evil.

"Our experiments show that the scouts can detect whether or not a host colony has a cohabiting guest ant colony before deciding to initiate a raid so the guest ants serve as an effective front line defense.

A new study has revealed that the stunning iridescent wings of the tropical blue Morpho butterfly could expand the range of innovative technologies. Scientific lessons learnt from these butterflies have already inspired designs of new displays, fabrics and cosmetics.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — With the "Valley of Death" looming as an increasingly serious obstacle to introducing better ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases, a noted scientist today described a new approach for moving promising discoveries out of laboratories and into the hands of patients and physicians. He spoke at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, being held here this week.