Culture

Researchers have taken a step toward personalized medicine for Parkinson's disease, by investigating signs of the disease in patient-derived cells and testing how the cells respond to drug treatments. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Istanbul, 4 July 2012: A policy of single embryo transfer (SET) reduces the risk of perinatal mortality in infants born as a result of IVF and ICSI. The conclusion emerged from an analysis of more than 50,000 births recorded in the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Technology Database between 2004 and 2008, where the introduction of an SET policy has been associated with a reduction in overall perinatal mortality for IVF and ICSI babies.

"The obesity crisis is made worse by the way industry formulates and markets its products and so must be regulated to prevent excesses and to protect the public good," writes an advocate in this week's PLoS Medicine, which has apparently been taken over by social authoritarians, given the number of editorials asking for more government bans.

Under pressure from civil society organizations and social authoritarians, the Brazilian government has introduced legislation to mandate its food system. They are protecting public health from transnational food companies, argue advocates writing in this week's PLoS Medicine, who are convinced that poor people having access to cheap food makes them fat - rather than eating too much

CHICAGO – Although some have suggested that patients receiving medication for immune-mediated diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis may be at increased risk of herpes zoster (HZ; shingles) shortly after receipt of the vaccine, an analysis that included nearly 20,000 vaccinated Medicare beneficiaries finds that the live zoster vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of HZ shortly after vaccination in patients currently treated with biologics, and that it is associated with a significantly reduced longer-term risk of HZ in patients with an immune-mediated disease, accord

A study led by Hospital for Special Surgery researchers has demonstrated that women who have a specific type of antibody that interferes with blood vessel function are at risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes and that other antibodies in the same family thought to cause pregnancy complications do not put women at risk.

A slim waist and normal weight are usually associated with better health outcomes, but that's not always the case with heart failure patients, according to a new UCLA study.

Researchers found that in both men and women with advanced heart failure, obesity — as indicated by a high body mass index (BMI) — and a higher waist circumference were factors that put them at significantly less risk for adverse outcomes.

The study findings are published in the July 1 online issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.

A new study by medical scientists coordinated from the University of Manchester has for the first time used patients' results to establish that "safety indicators" for people taking anticoagulant drugs to regulate a common heart condition are correct.

More than 760,000 patients in the UK have atrial fibrillation (AF), a defect that causes an irregular heart rate. It is also known to increase the risk and severity of stroke.

WASHINGTON, July 3—Using the compound eyes of the humble moth as their inspiration, an international team of physicists has developed new nanoscale materials that could someday reduce the radiation dosages received by patients getting X-rayed, while improving the resolution of the resulting images.

Istanbul, 3 July 2012: Women with a higher intake of dietary saturated fats have fewer mature oocytes available for collection in IVF, according to results of a study from the Harvard School of Public Health funded by the US National Institutes of Health. The study investigated the effect of dietary fat (classified as total, saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, omega 6, omega 3 and trans) on a range of preclinical and clinical outcomes in women having IVF.

The use of an electronic medical record (EMR) for reviewing portal images dramatically improves compliance with timeliness and record keeping, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Portal images are used to verify the positioning of patients during daily radiation treatments to improve the accuracy of the radiation field placement, to reduce exposure to normal tissue and to deliver accurate dose to tumor volumes.

A new approach to testing medical treatment options could ensure that more patients get the most beneficial treatment for them – but still yield valuable research results that stand up to scientific scrutiny.

The approach tries to overcome a huge chicken-and-egg problem in medical research: Not enough people volunteer for studies of new treatments partly because researchers can't promise the studies will help them -- but without enough volunteers, researchers can't study new treatment options.

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J., July 2, 2012 – Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVNT) today announced a new publication showing that adult patients with refractory chronic gout (RCG) treated bi-weekly with KRYSTEXXA® (pegloticase) experienced statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in health-related quality of life (HRQOL), pain and physical function. The article confirms that chronic gout, especially refractory chronic gout, is associated with decline in HRQOL and physical functioning compared to patients without chronic gout.

London, (July 02, 2012). Is social media censorship a means to quell a modern uprising? Some politicians and law enforcers during the political turbulence of 2011 thought so but recent research suggests that uncensored citizens experience less violence and longer periods of peace between outbursts than communities subject to censorship. These new findings appear in the Bulletin of Sociological Methodology, published by SAGE.

Istanbul, 2 July 2012: While many small studies have shown a relationship between infertility and psychological distress, reporting a high prevalence of anxiety, mood disorders and depressive symptoms, few have studied the psychological effect of childlessness on a large population basis.