Veterans Affairs News and Research

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Eye color linked to high-risk for skin conditions

Eye color may be an indicator of whether a person is high-risk for certain serious skin conditions. A study, led by the University of Colorado School of Medicine, shows people with blue eyes are less likely to have vitiligo.

7 May 2012

Viewpoints: Limited choices for prescriptions; Health mandate is about liberty; VA fails to serve vets' mental health needs

Just a few years ago, so-called pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, like Medco would contract with most leading drugstore chains so people could fill their prescriptions almost anywhere they pleased. Then the PBMs realized they could operate more efficiently and profitably by limiting people's choices to a single drugstore - their own. So they laid down the law with consumers.

5 May 2012

Current research does not support use of smell tests for Alzheimer's dementia

Current research does not support the use of smell tests for predicting Alzheimer's dementia, according to a comprehensive review by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars at the University of Michigan and the VA Center for Clinical Management Research.

4 May 2012

State of health, not age, should decide treatment for cancer

In a study of patients 65 and older with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), younger patients were more likely to receive treatment than older patients, regardless of overall health and prognosis.

3 May 2012

The skills of VA nurses under examination after patient deaths

Earlier this month, a broader review by the VA inspector general of 29 VA facilities found only half had adequately documented that their nurses had the needed skills. ... The April 20 IG report also noted that previous inspections had found nurse competency issues in "dialysis, mental health, long-term care, spinal cord injury, endoscopy procedure areas, the operating room and the cardiac catheterization laboratory and with reusable medical equipment.

2 May 2012

ACE inhibitors or ARBs could treat and prevent PTSD

Traumatized people who take a class of common blood pressure medications tend to have less severe post-traumatic stress symptoms, researchers have found.

2 May 2012

Checklist for seniors to reduce risk of falls

For those 65 and older, falling can be fatal; in fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among this age group, and some 40 percent of seniors fall at least once each year. Additionally, one in four who sustains a hip fracture from a fall will die within a year, and another 50 percent will never return to their pre-fall level of mobility.

27 Apr 2012

Gas NO plays a fundamental regulatory role in controlling bacterial function

Bacteria provide a well-known playground for scientists and the evolution of these earliest life forms has shed important perspective on potential therapies for some of the most common, deadly diseases. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have now discovered that, the gas nitric oxide (NO), produced in all cells of the human body for natural purposes, plays a fundamental regulatory role in controlling bacterial function, via a signaling mechanism called S-nitrosylation (SNO), which binds NO to protein molecules.

27 Apr 2012

Report: 5% of Americans have a serious mental illness

According to figures from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Sevices Administration, an estimated 11 million people have some type of mental illness.

27 Apr 2012

University of Kentucky researchers make major breakthrough in GA

University of Kentucky researchers, led by Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, have made a major breakthrough in the "dry" form of age-related macular degeneration known as geographic atrophy.

27 Apr 2012

Veterans wait as long as 50 days for mental health services

An internal investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs concluded that almost half of veterans who seek mental health care face waiting times in excess of those generally cited by the department.

25 Apr 2012

CU School of Medicine researcher devises new exercise for BPPV

A CU School of Medicine researcher who suffers from benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and had to "fix it" before she could go to work one day was using a maneuver to treat herself that only made her sicker. "So I sat down and thought about it and figured out an alternate way to do it. Then I fixed myself and went in to work" and discovered a new treatment for this type of vertigo.

24 Apr 2012

SAMHSA celebrates 20 years of behavioral and mental health services

In 1992 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) was established and began its work to help address the nation's behavioral health needs - including those of our nation's military service members, veterans, and their families.

24 Apr 2012

Viewpoints: Myths about women voters; Stopping fake drugs; Medicaid innovation not easy; The war over women

Women vote based on "women's issues," such as abortion rights and contraception. A recent poll of voters in swing states showed that women's top priorities are health care, gas prices, unemployment and the deficit -- in that order -- with "government policies toward contraception" coming in last

24 Apr 2012

‘Brain freeze’ provides clue to migraine cause and therapy

According to latest reports by researchers the headache that is caused by eating something cold like an ice cream, may be caused by a sudden change in brain blood flow. The U.S. team of researchers add that this study may show targets to treat other, more troubling forms of headache such as migraine.

23 Apr 2012

Brain freeze may share common mechanism with other types of headaches

'Brain freeze' is a nearly universal experience—almost everyone has felt the near-instantaneous headache brought on by a bite of ice cream or slurp of ice-cold soda on the upper palate. However, scientists are still at a loss to explain this phenomenon. Since migraine sufferers are more likely to experience brain freeze than people who don't have this often-debilitating condition, brain freeze may share a common mechanism with other types of headaches, including those brought on by the trauma of blast-related combat injuries in soldiers.

23 Apr 2012

Viewpoints: Health law's legal peril; Barney Frank's misdiagnosis

Health-care reform, the impossible dream that seemed to become a reality in 2010, is now in mortal danger. Republicans want to repeal it even though the federal law is patterned after a Massachusetts law that their apparent presidential nominee signed in 2006. They can't do that, of course, unless they sweep the next election. So the clear and present danger comes from the Supreme Court, where a majority of justices seemed to snarl at the law in open session last month. Health-care reform is clearly in legal peril.

21 Apr 2012

VA plans big boost in mental health staff

The Department of Veterans Affairs will increase its corps of mental health professionals to try to cope with the increased demand from vets of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

21 Apr 2012

National award celebrates landmark discovery in gut flora and cardiovascular disease

Stanley Hazen, M.D., Ph.D., was recently honored with an inaugural Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award from an organization comprised of the nation's most acclaimed academic medical centers and other groups, in recognition of Dr. Hazen's Nature article, "Gut flora dependent metabolism of dietary phosphatidylcholine contributes to cardiovascular disease."

20 Apr 2012