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The chance that a person in cardiac arrest will survive increases when rescuers doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) spend more time giving chest compressions, according to a multi-center study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators do not appear to be associated with a reduced risk of death in women with advanced heart failure, according to a meta-analysis of previously published research in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Older adults who continue or begin to do any amount of exercise appear to live longer and have a lower risk of disability, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

"Physical activity is a modifiable behavior associated with health, functional status and longevity, and encouraging a physically active lifestyle has become an accepted public health goal," the authors write. However, most research on the benefits of physical activity has focused on middle-aged populations.

Web-based screening and personalized interventions for alcohol use may reduce drinking in undergraduate students, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Unhealthy alcohol use is becoming more prevalent among young adults in many countries, some experts believe. "Young people at university have a particularly high prevalence of unhealthy alcohol use and have been found to drink more heavily and to exhibit more clinically significant alcohol-related problems than their non-student peers."

Individuals whose occupation involves contact with pesticides appear to have an increased risk of having Parkinson's disease, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Individuals with mild cognitive impairment, often considered a transitional state between normal cognitive function and Alzheimer's dementia, those who have more difficulties performing routine activities appear more likely to progress quickly to dementia, according to a report in the issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Among patients undergoing cardiac surgery, postoperative strokes occurring in approximately 2 percent were not correlated with significant carotid artery narrowing. More common were patients who had combined cardiac and carotid procedures, according to a report in the Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Injecting the eye with the corticosteroid triamcinolone appears effective in improving the vision of some patients with retinal vein occlusion, an important cause of vision loss that results from blockages in the blood vessels in the retina, according to two reports in the September issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have found that the conserved protein d4eBP modulates cardiac aging in Drosophila (fruit flies). The team also found that d4eBP, which binds to the protein dEif4e, protects heart function against aging. This research enhances our understanding of the TOR and FoxO signaling pathways and provides a more specific target for further research into cardiac aging. Since the TOR and FoxO genes are conserved between Drosophila and humans, this work may lead to new, tissue-specific methods to protect the heart.

An individual with Down syndrome and a male calico cat have one thing in common: an extra chromosome. For animals, most instances of an extra chromosome result in birth defects or even death, but plants are another matter entirely. Many plants are able to survive the presence of an extra copy of their entire genome (known as polyploidy) and are often even more vigorous as a result. For plants, the process of polyploidy often results in a new species, making it an important mechanism in evolution. In fact, over 80% of plants may be a product of polyploidy.

Amputations trigger a molecular response that determines if a head or tail will be regrown in planaria, a flatworm commonly studied for its regenerative capabilities. Until now, no molecular connection between wounding and the decision to regenerate either a head or tail in planaria had been identified. Whitehead Institute scientists report this finding in PNAS.

While daily bathroom showers provide invigorating relief and a good cleansing for millions of Americans, they also can deliver a face full of potentially pathogenic bacteria, according to a surprising new University of Colorado at Boulder study.

A study comparing images of the knees in people who did and didn't have previous injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament suggests that people who tore their ACLs are more likely to have a smaller ligament than do similarly sized people who have never injured a knee.

Researchers calculated the total volume of the ligaments based on magnetic resonance images of human knees. The ACLs among those with previous injuries were, on average, about 10 percent smaller than were ACLs among those without an injury.

BETHESDA, Md. (September 14, 2009) – Fifty-one years ago the average American home cost $30,000, Elvis Presley wooed listeners with Hard Headed Woman, and the hula hoop was introduced. That same year, 1958, a team comprised of a groundbreaking engineer -- Dean Franklin -- in concert with two exceptional physicians -- Drs. Robert Rushmer and Robert Van Citters – was laying the foundation for what would eventually become a radical new approach to health care: the noninvasive imaging and treatment of the heart.

Conservation geneticists who study sea turtles have a new tool to help track this highly migratory and endangered group of marine animals: DNA barcodes. DNA barcodes are short genetic sequences that efficiently distinguish species from each other—even if the samples from which the DNA is extracted are minute or degraded.