Culture

Despite living in the countryside, where open space is plentiful and there is often significant agricultural production, California's more than half a million rural elders are far more likely to be overweight or obese, physically inactive and food insecure than their suburban counterparts, according to a new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

All three conditions are risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and repeated falls — conditions also more prevalent among rural elders.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- An Oregon-pioneered program aimed at improving health care for those with advanced illness is now receiving national attention. AARP recently released a report about the Physicians Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, or POLST, program. The program was created to honor the treatment wishes of patients with advanced progressive illness or frailty.

If internal and international migrants comprised a separate nation, it would be the third most populous country in the world, just after China and India. Thus, there can be little doubt that population mobility is among the leading policy issues of the 21st century.

NEW YORK – Mental health screening has been demonstrated to successfully connect African-American middle school students from a predominantly low-income area with school-based mental health services, according to results of a new study led by the TeenScreen National Center for Mental Health Checkups at Columbia University. The study was published in a recent online early edition of the Community Mental Health Journal.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University researchers ditched many of their high-tech tools and turned to large stones, fire and some old-fashioned elbow grease to recreate techniques used by Native American coppersmiths who lived more than 600 years ago.

This prehistoric approach to metalworking was part of a metallurgical analysis of copper artifacts left behind by the Mississippians of the Cahokia Mounds, who lived in southeastern Illinois from 700 until 1400 A.D. The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science in May.

MONTREAL, June 14, 2011 – Patients posting their opinions about doctors on online ratings websites are much less likely to discuss physicians with low perceived quality and are more prone than offline populations to exaggerate their opinions, according to a paper being presented at a healthcare conference sponsored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

Every year, Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden takes a barometer reading of media use in Sweden. Media Barometer data were first collected in 1979. These are some of the findings of the 2010 survey.

Non-invasive tests for liver fibrosis, such as liver stiffness measurement or the FibroTest, can predict survival of patients with chronic hepatitis C, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a particular form of leukemia or cancer of the bone marrow, which can be treated with targeted imatinib. However, in some cases this medicine has no effect. Researchers at the VIB Vesalius Research Centre, K.U. Leuven, under the direction of Peter Carmeliet, have investigated the role of placental growth factor (PlGF) in mice with CML. Blocking this growth factor increases the life expectancy of these mice, even in those resistant to imatinib.

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)

DARIEN, IL – Perceived racial discrimination is associated with an increased risk of sleep disturbance, which may have a negative impact on mental and physical health, suggests a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 14, in Minneapolis, Minn., at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS).

DARIEN, IL – Getting six to nine hours of sleep per night is associated with higher ratings for quality of life and lower ratings for depression, suggests a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 14, in Minneapolis, Minn., at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS).

The number of heart attack deaths at Europe's sporting venues is set to significantly reduce if recommendations published today are widely adopted. In a special article published online today by the European Heart Journal (EHJ), minimum standards of cardiovascular medical expertise, available equipment, and emergency planning are defined for stadiums and mass participation events, including marathons and cycle sportives. The recommendations have been developed in response to a 2010 review¹ of cardiovascular safety at 190 major soccer arenas.

Even before the World Wide Web emerged in the mid-1990s, scientists dreamed of having the whole body of scientific peer reviewed literature freely available without any hindrance.

In the "Open Access" scenario each published article can be accessed by any reader worldwide, a model which is in contrast to the established subscription system, where access is only provided to those people who are able to pay for an annual subscription, usually libraries.

A new meta-analysis study, led by physician researchers at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and to be published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (embargoed until June 13, 4 p.m. EDT), shows that three-lead cardiac pacemakers implanted in those with heart failure fail to help up to 40 percent of patients with such devices.

CHICAGO – Among patients who have had an ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), type 2 diabetes was associated with an increased risk of recurrent stroke or cardiovascular events, but metabolic syndrome was not, according to a report published Online First today by Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.