Culture

Old people today have more sex, are more likely to be divorced, are cleverer and feel better, reveals a long-term research project comparing what it is like to be old today with 30 years ago. "It's time to start talking about the 'new old age'," says researcher Ingmar Skoog.

The number of elderly is rising worldwide, and it is estimated that average life expectancy in Europe will reach 100 by the end of the century.

Unless action is taken, Sweden will soon have a large new group of poor pensioners – immigrants with a weak attachment to the labour market. This gloomy future scenario is revealed by a new government inquiry on the pension system carried out by researchers from the School of Business, Economics and Law of the University of Gothenburg on behalf of the Social Council at the Ministry of Social Affairs. But the inquiry also shows that there are ways of improving the expected standard of living.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have developed a new way to assess a common cause of chronic diarrhea, microscopic colitis, using the Microscopic Colitis Disease Activity Index. A study describing the index was released today during the American College of Gastroenterology 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course in Washington. The index provides a consistent way to assess the condition's severity.

While smoke-free policies on hospital grounds make sense for the objective of clean air, managing the tobacco withdrawal symptoms of hospitalized patients must also be addressed, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj110235.pdf.

The main challenge to providing patient-centred health care is education, as many patients do know how to access the health care system, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj111687.pdf.

While there are many resources available, many patients are unaware of what is available and how to access resources that can help with health issues.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Oct. 31, 2011 -- Tech-savvy teens with acne used their medicine more frequently when they also took part in a web-based survey, a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center finds.

Investigators at Wake Forest Baptist decided to test whether a weekly Internet-based communication could improve teenagers' use of topical acne therapy. And it did.

Magdeburg, Germany, October 31, 2011 - It has long been thought that blindness after brain lesions is irreversible and that damage to the optic nerves leads to permanent impairments in everyday activities such as reading, driving, and spatial orientation. A new study published in Elsevier's Brain Stimulation suggests that treating such patients with low levels of non-invasive, repetitive, transorbital alternating current stimulation (rtACS) for 10 days (30-40 min per day) significantly reduces visual impairment and markedly improves vision-related quality of life.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Contrary to popular belief, most college students don't gain anywhere near 15 pounds during their freshman year, according to a new nationwide study.

Rather than adding "the freshman 15," as it is commonly called, the average student gains between about 2.5 and 3.5 pounds during the first year of college.

And college has little to do with the weight gain, the study revealed. The typical freshman only gains about a half-pound more than a same-age person who didn't go to college.

Doctors should not only treat the heart muscle in chronic heart failure patients, but also their leg muscles through exercise, say researchers in a study published today in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

They're the prime demographic for developing eating disorders, yet new research out of the University of Cincinnati suggests that it could be difficult for college students to notice the warning signs. On Oct. 31, Ashlee Hoffman, a UC doctoral student in health promotion and education, will present her research, titled, "University Students' Knowledge of An Ability to Identify Disordered Eating, Warning Signs and Risk Factors," at the American Public Health Association's 139th annual meeting and exposition in Washington, DC.

UCLA mathematicians working with the Los Angeles Police Department to analyze crime patterns have designed a mathematical algorithm to identify street gangs involved in unsolved violent crimes. Their research is based on patterns of known criminal activity between gangs, and represents the first scholarly study of gang violence of its kind.

The research appears today on the website of the journal Inverse Problems and will be published in a future print edition.

Washington, DC -- Just one drink per day for women -- two for men -- could lead to small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and subsequently cause gastrointestinal symptoms like bloating, gas, abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhea, according to the results of a new study unveiled today at the American College of Gastroenterology's (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington, DC.

Washington, DC -- In four different studies presented at the American College of Gastroenterology's (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington, DC, researchers explored the effectiveness of probiotics for antibiotic-associated diarrhea; as an anti-inflammatory agent for patients with ulcerative colitis, psoriasis and chronic fatigue syndrome; and for people with abdominal discomfort and bloating who have not been diagnosed with a functional bowel disorder, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Patients who complain of upper gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms often face a diagnosis of either gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or functional dyspepsia. Because the two conditions often overlap, it can be difficult to distinguish between them and diagnose them properly. Yet ambulatory care facilities and hospitals have reported a dramatic increase in the number of GERD-related visits/discharges in recent years.

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 31, 2011) – Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare form of pulmonary hypertension (PH) that affects between 500-1,000 people each year - or 1 or 2 people out of one million people worldwide per year - most of whom are young women between the ages of 20 and 40. While the numbers may not seem significant, the disease itself has been a paradox for physician-researchers since in many cases, the causes of PAH remain unknown.