Culture

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- New research from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University shows there is substantial variation in the first-time divorce rate when it is broken down by race and education. But, there is also evidence that a college degree has a protective effect against divorce among all races.

(Boston) - In what is believed to be the first study of its kind to demonstrate an association between the antidepressant escitalopram and improved general pain, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), have found that opioid-dependent patients treated with escitalopram experienced meaningful reductions in pain severity and pain interference during the first three months of therapy. These findings appear in the journal Pain.

Disco Science is better than no music at all at helping to deliver the required number of chest compressions (CPR) to save a heart attack victim's life before s/he gets to hospital, reveals research published online in Emergency Medicine Journal.

But Disco Science, which featured in the soundtrack to Guy Ritchie's film Snatch in 2000, still doesn't improve the depth of compression, leading the authors to suggest that it's time to give up on trying to find the best musical track to aid the procedure.

Seclusion should always be the last resort when it comes to dealing with aggressive episodes involving young offenders with psychiatric disorders, according to staff who took part in a four-country study published in the November issue of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The conventional wisdom that says the 20th century was a disaster for crop diversity is nothing more than a myth, according to a forthcoming study by a University of Illinois expert in intellectual property law.

Law professor Paul Heald says overall varietal diversity of the $20 billion market for vegetable crops and apples in the U.S. actually has increased over the past 100 years, a finding that should change the highly politicized debate over intellectual property policy.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island Hospital physician/researcher will present findings from a study investigating whether legalizing medical marijuana in Rhode Island will increase its use among youths. Lead author Esther Choo, M.D., M.P.H., will present the findings of the study at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Exposition on November 2.

STANFORD, Calif. -- When given for hours as a continuous dose, the heart medication nitroglycerin backfires -- increasing the severity of subsequent heart attacks, according to a study of the compound in rats by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

There are claims that obesity is an affliction of the poor and it is due to economic inequality forcing them into junk food, but a new national study of eating out and income shows that fast-food dining becomes more common as earnings increase from low to middle incomes, weakening the popular notion that fast food should be blamed for higher rates of obesity among the poor.

A University of Missouri study of recent political blogs indicates politics are getting nastier due to digital media, which are segmenting people into polarized interest groups. The researcher recommends a balanced approach to finding information in order to return civility to political discourse, which is at the heart of democracy.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A newly published paper from Rhode Island Hospital reports that Web-based assessments for outcome measurements of patients in treatment for depression are valid and reliable. The findings indicate that the Internet version of the depression scale was equivalent to the paper version, and that patients preferred the Internet version. The paper is published in this month's edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

For the first time, scientists report a link between eating nuts and higher levels of serotonin in the bodies of patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS), who are at high risk for heart disease. Serotonin is a substance that helps transmit nerve signals and decreases feelings of hunger, makes people feel happier and improves heart health. It took only one ounce of mixed nuts (raw unpeeled walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts) a day to produce the good effects. The report appears in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research.

LOS ANGELES (Nov. 1, 2011) – Among the most commonly used treatments for irritable bowel syndrome – which affects as many as 20 percent of the United States population – a targeted antibiotic was shown to be the safest in a new study by Cedars-Sinai researchers, based on an analysis of 26 large-scale clinical trials.

Eating a Mediterranean diet combined with physical activity can help to improve some of the symptoms of sleep apnoea, according to new research.

The study, which is published online in the European Respiratory Journal, looked at the impact a Mediterranean diet can have on obese people with sleep apnoea, compared to those on a prudent diet.

Because clinical evaluation often depends on diagnostic tests, diagnostic physicians have a responsibility to notify referring clinicians when test results reveal urgent or unexpected findings. According to an article selected as the "CME Activity of the Month" in the most recent edition of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR), the rapid growth of diagnostic testing appears to be placing physicians at greater risk for medical malpractice claims for test communication failures.

SEATTLE – Age alone no longer should be considered a defining factor when determining whether an older patient with blood cancer is a candidate for stem cell transplantation. That's the conclusion of the first study summarizing long-term outcomes from a series of prospective clinical trials of patients age 60 and over who were treated with the mini-transplant, a "kinder, gentler" form of allogeneic (donor cell) stem cell transplantation developed at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The findings are published Nov. 2 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association.