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Food monopolies growing everywhere, reveals new book

Food monopolies are everywhere - and they're growing. A new book by a Michigan State University professor dissects the troubling trend and shows how it's happening on all levels of the food chain.

11 Mar 2016

Secretory capacity of human gut does not decline with age, shows study

A breakthrough in basic research and the first comprehensive study on the secretory activity of the human intestine: over a period of eight years, Dr. Dagmar Krüger of the Department of Human Biology at TU Munich has examined more than 2200 specimens from around 450 patients with bowel disease.

10 Mar 2016

Is the global diet getting sweeter? An interview with Professor Barry Popkin

In the past, caloric sweeteners simply referred to cane sugar or beet sugar. However, over time we've created hundreds of different sugars that are all providing calories of the same amount, about four calories for every gram of the sugar. Some examples include corn syrups and more processed sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup.

10 Mar 2016

Alcohol worst of all drugs that affect fetal health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set off a firestorm of controversy this month when they suggested that women stop drinking alcohol if they are trying to get pregnant, or could get pregnant. Some people took this advice as the CDC prioritizing hypothetical, yet-to-be-conceived children over real women, which has brought up a number of issues from female autonomy to access to birth control—but how clear is the science about what causes fetal alcohol syndrome and related fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

9 Mar 2016

FSU researchers make major breakthrough in Zika virus research

Florida State University researchers have made a major breakthrough in the quest to learn whether the Zika virus is linked to birth defects with the discovery that the virus is directly targeting brain development cells and stunting their growth.

7 Mar 2016

New research sheds light on circadian rhythms

New research sheds light on how the rhythms of daily life are encoded in the brain. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that different groups of neurons, those charged with keeping time, become active at different times of day despite being on the same molecular clock.

3 Mar 2016

How can electronic ink help patients? An interview with Giovanni Mancini

Electronic ink is basically what the name says. It's made of ink, the same ink particles that you see on a printed paper that comes out of an inkjet printer. We use black and white pigments that we add certain properties to that allow us to move the pigments around.

2 Mar 2016

Advances in the field of MPI: an interview with Professor Kannan Krishnan

In around 2004, there was a Phillips paper that discussed a new imaging technique called MPI. At that time, I had an eager, promising graduate student named Matt Ferguson who wanted a project, so I asked him to take a look.

From Bruker BioSpin Group 1 Mar 2016

Vanderbilt to lead Direct Volunteers Pilot Studies under Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program

Federal officials with the White House and National Institutes of Health announced today that Vanderbilt University Medical Center will lead the Direct Volunteers Pilot Studies under the first grant to be awarded in the federal Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program.

27 Feb 2016

MOOCs: the future of healthcare training? An interview with David Robertshaw

MOOCs are short, free courses run by major learning providers to share their knowledge of a particular academic topic or to help students develop a specific skill.

From University of Derby Online Learning 25 Feb 2016

Does simulated based training bring better value healthcare? An interview with Prof Sir Muir Gray, Former Chief Knowledge Officer of the NHS

We have to think of the world that we are leaving, the world we are moving into. The last fifty years in healthcare, have seen the advent of hip replacement, cardiac bypass, systematic reviews. But at the end of fifty years, every country is facing five problems.

24 Feb 2016

How to avoid breast damage when exercising: an interview with Professor Joanna Scurr

The breast itself doesn't contain any muscles and the only 2 supporting structures are the skin and the Cooper’s ligaments. Both of those structures are quite weak mechanically so they're not able to hold the breast in place firmly.

23 Feb 2016

Increasing medication adherence: an interview with Dr Alejandro (Alex) Jaimes

Adherence applies to multiple levels of healthcare. Before a drug goes on the market it has to undergo testing in clinical trials: participants take the study drug and report how well the drug works, along with any side effects.

22 Feb 2016

Penn researchers develop new mathematical model to estimate mutation rates in the human genome

It turns out that the type, how frequent, and where new mutations occur in the human genome depends on which DNA building blocks are nearby, found researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in an advanced online study published this week in Nature Genetics.

22 Feb 2016

FDA-approved Alzheimer's medications may help people quit smoking

Despite several safe drug therapies available to help smokers quit, three-quarters report relapsing within six months of a quit attempt. University of Pennsylvania researchers Rebecca Ashare and Heath Schmidt saw potential for a permanent cessation solution in a class of FDA-approved medications used to improve cognitive impairments from Alzheimer's disease.

19 Feb 2016

IntraMed recognized with Digital Pioneer Award for The Physician's Internet Tutorial

IntraMed Educational Group, Sudler & Hennessey's flagship medical education division, was honored with the Digital Pioneer Award for their 1996 project The Physician's Internet Tutorial. The award was presented at the recent 2016 Medical Advertising Hall of Fame Awards ceremony held in NYC.

18 Feb 2016

Confirming nasogastric tube placement through an assay? An interview with Ian Fotheringham

Nasogastric tubes are placed directly into the stomach in order to feed or medicate patients. If an NG tube accidentally goes into the lung instead, which can happen, it can cause serious harm to the patient, with food, liquid or medication potentially entering the lung.

15 Feb 2016

Natural extract from India's neem tree shows promise against pancreatic cancer

A natural extract derived from India's neem tree could potentially be used to treat pancreatic cancer, according to a new study in the journal Scientific Reports.

12 Feb 2016

Simulated practice in healthcare: an interview with Andy Anderson

There's around 95 to 100 simulation centres across the NHS in secondary care. These centres are used for a whole variety of training, practicing of skills and recreating incidents so that staff can prevent them recurring.

10 Feb 2016

Aflac's total revenues decrease 3.5% to $5.3 billion in fourth quarter 2015

Aflac Incorporated today reported its fourth quarter results. Reflecting the weaker yen/dollar exchange rate, total revenues decreased 3.5% to $5.3 billion during the fourth quarter of 2015, compared with $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014. Net earnings were $730 million, or $1.71 per diluted share, compared with $703 million, or $1.57 per share, a year ago.

1 Feb 2016