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Infants of mothers born in the Philippines have low birth weights

Babies born in Ontario to mothers from the Philippines have significantly lower birth weights than those whose mothers were born in Canada or elsewhere in East Asia and are twice as likely to be classified as small for their gestational age, a new study has found.

29 Nov 2012

Medical and anthropological expertise can promote multicultural women's healthcare

Collaboration between medical and anthropological expertise can solve complex clinical problems in today's multicultural women's healthcare, shows Pauline Binder, a medical anthropologist, who will present her thesis on 1 December at the Faculty of Medicine, Uppsala University, Sweden.

29 Nov 2012

IPS examines undernourishment, efforts to reverse vitamin deficiencies

"Poverty is the leading cause of many vitamin deficiencies, especially vitamin A," and the problem is acute in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where food staples such as cassava and rice are high in calories but low in nutrients, Inter Press Service reports.

28 Nov 2012

State roundup: Conn. official says bulk buying prescription drugs could help budget

The state's chief fiscal watchdog is asking legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration to take a second look at how government purchases prescription medication -- and a proposal he believes could save more than $65 million over the next fiscal year.

28 Nov 2012

Medication reduces risk of criminal behaviour in people with ADHD

Criminal behaviour in people with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) dropped sharply during periods when they were on medication, according to a new extensive registry study conducted at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The study that contained of over 25,000 individuals is published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

23 Nov 2012

WHO presents updated health promotion strategy for Africa

The WHO "has unveiled a new set of priority actions to better address preventable health conditions in Africa," presented on Tuesday at the 62nd WHO Regional Committee for Africa session in Luanda, Angola, Devex reports.

22 Nov 2012

More to fetal alcohol exposure than previously thought

Children who have certain variants in alcohol metabolizing genes and whose mothers drank while pregnant may have a lower IQ than those whose mothers did not drink during pregnancy, researchers report.

20 Nov 2012

USAID helping to move health forward in Burma

Ariel Pablos-Mendez, USAID assistant administrator for global health, writes in the agency's IMPACTblog about his recent trip to Burma and the challenges the country faces as it transitions to an open society.

16 Nov 2012

New study confirms neurodevelopmental effects of PBDE flame retardant exposure in children

Prenatal and childhood exposure to flame retardant compounds are linked to poorer attention, fine motor coordination and IQ in school-aged children, a finding by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that adds to growing health concerns over a chemical prevalent in U.S. households.

15 Nov 2012

Couples with high PCB levels and other pollutants take longer to achieve pregnancy

Couples with high levels of PCBs and similar environmental pollutants take longer to achieve pregnancy in comparison to other couples with lower levels of the pollutants, according to a preliminary study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

14 Nov 2012

Pathway between maternal obesity and childhood asthma nonallergic

Maternal pre-pregnancy bodyweight is associated with the risk for children developing asthma and wheezing by the age of 7 years, Danish research shows.

13 Nov 2012

Viewpoints: Romney, Obama offer details of their plans; The 'passionate supply-sider' who taught Paul Ryan; Medicare plan has not 'doomed GOP'

All presidential elections matter. This one matters a great deal. It matters to the senior who needs medical care but, thanks to ObamaCare, can't find a doctor who is taking new Medicare patients. ... This election is about them. It is about all of us. ... It is about the education of our children, the value of our homes, the take-home pay from our jobs, the price of the gasoline we buy, the choices we have in our health care.

5 Nov 2012

Scientists find new way to unlock cells' destinies

Scientists have discovered that breaking a biological signaling system in an embryo allows them to change the destiny of a cell.

3 Nov 2012

Proposing standards and guidelines for Rett syndrome research

There is an urgent need for new drugs to treat Rett syndrome, a rare and severe neurological disease mainly affecting girls. A bottleneck in drug development for this syndrome is a lack of clarity at the level of preclinical research. Key researchers in this field now tackle this issue, proposing standards and guidelines for Rett syndrome research, in an Open Access review article published on Oct. 31, 2012 in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM).

1 Nov 2012

Powered exoskeleton provides more independence to people with severe spinal cord injuries

The dream of regaining the ability to stand up and walk has come closer to reality for people paralyzed below the waist who thought they would never take another step.

31 Oct 2012

Viewpoints: Obama seeking 'to preserve' new spending; Medicare rule change for disabled is 'humane thing to do'

On Tuesday Mr. Obama finally tried to give the future more definition with a new plan, except it isn't new and barely qualifies as a plan. ... The pamphlet's sections on health care and entitlements show that his real budget priority is to preserve all of the government he expanded in the first term. He promises to protect the Affordable Care Act from repeal or Republican amendments.

25 Oct 2012

Kessler Foundation to study role of environmental factors in rehabilitation outcomes in SCI

Amanda Botticello, PhD, MPH, research scientist in Outcomes & Assessment Research at Kessler Foundation, received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study the role of environmental factors in rehabilitation outcomes in spinal cord injury.

24 Oct 2012

SIDS Center of New Jersey launches new initiative to reduce risk of sudden infant death syndrome

October is national SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) Awareness Month and recognized by the State of New Jersey through a proclamation signed by Governor Chris Christie, calling attention to one of the leading causes of infant mortality.

24 Oct 2012

Parental stress may be important risk factor for child obesity and related behaviors

Parents with a higher number of stressors in their lives are more likely to have obese children, according to a new study by pediatric researchers. Furthermore, when parents perceive themselves to be stressed, their children eat fast food more often, compared to children whose parents feel less stressed.

23 Oct 2012

Blog reports on ID Week in San Diego

The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog on Friday published two posts reporting on ID Week, which concluded in San Diego on Sunday.

22 Oct 2012