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Avoiding environmental tobacco smoke during pregnancy

Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) commonly called secondhand smoke or passive smoking, can harm a developing fetus and may account for complications during pregnancy and birth. It is now known that non-whites experience more adverse pregnancy effects than do whites from smoking and ETS exposure.

29 Jan 2009

Assessing the real risk of heart disease in young people with low short-term risks

Risk stratification has become central to strategies for the prevention of coronary heart disease, with the implication that priority is given to those at highest risk (ie, those with established heart disease).

29 Jan 2009

Sleeping with dogs!

According to new research from the U.S. dog owners are more likely to share germs with pets by not washing their hands than by sleeping with the dog.

28 Jan 2009

Can't help being the life of the party?

Maybe you were just born that way. Researchers from Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego have found that our place in a social network is influenced in part by our genes, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

27 Jan 2009

Researchers identify compound that frees trapped cholesterol

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified in mice a compound that liberates cholesterol that has inappropriately accumulated to excessive levels inside cells.

27 Jan 2009

Research identifies risk factors that affected World Trade Center evacuation

Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health have released findings identifying factors that affected evacuation from the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers on September 11.

27 Jan 2009

Second degree nurses are an efficient new solution to the current nursing shortage

As the United States continues to experience a nursing shortage that is expected to grow to one million nurses by 2016, a new research study highlights a pool of potential candidates who could alleviate the shortage in an economical way.

27 Jan 2009

Diabetes epidemic shows no signs of abating

In the United States, nearly 13 percent of adults age 20 and older have diabetes, but 40 percent of them have not been diagnosed, according to epidemiologists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose study includes newly available data from an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT).

27 Jan 2009

Waging war on tropical diseases may be key to U.S. foreign policy

Stating that neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) not only promote poverty but also destabilize communities, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Sabin Vaccine Institute President Peter Hotez call upon the public-health and foreign-policy communities to embrace medical diplomacy and NTD control as a means to combat terrorism in an article published January 27 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

27 Jan 2009

Experts suspect dengue mosquito is resistant to pesticides

With the number of confirmed dengue fever cases in north Queensland now thought to be in excess of 200, experts are concerned that the mosquitoes responsible for spreading the disease may have developed a resistance to pesticides.

27 Jan 2009

Study finds MRSA in swine and swine workers in the United States

The first study documenting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in swine and swine workers in the United States has been published by University of Iowa researchers.

23 Jan 2009

STDs disrupt genetic bottleneck that usually constrains HIV infection

Scientists have shown that HIV faces a genetic "bottleneck" when the virus is transmitted heterosexually from one person to another, by way of the genital mucosa.

23 Jan 2009

Morbidity rates increased substantially after Hurricane Katrina

In the year following Hurricane Katrina, the health of survivors 65 and over declined nearly 4 times that of a national sample of older adults not affected by the disaster, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

23 Jan 2009

Call for rethink of trend to bar smokers from employment

The increasing trend for employers, particularly in the US, to bar smokers from applying for jobs or staying in post should be stopped, until the appropriateness of such policies has been properly evaluated, argue experts in an essay published in Tobacco Control.

21 Jan 2009

Study links smoking with most male cancer deaths

The association between tobacco smoke and cancer deaths - beyond lung cancer deaths - has been strengthened by a recent study from a UC Davis researcher, suggesting that increased tobacco control efforts could save more lives than previously estimated.

21 Jan 2009

Loss of sex drive after menopause affects health, quality of life

Women with low levels of sexual desire, often as a result of menopause, are more likely to be depressed and to suffer physical symptoms such as back pain and memory problems than women who report higher levels of desire, according to a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals.

21 Jan 2009

Mentally ill, the disabled and ethnic minorities more susceptible to terrorism fears

Research has shown that certain marginalized groups - including the mentally ill, the disabled and ethnic minorities such as African Americans and Latinos - fare worse than others in the aftermath of natural disasters, suffering disproportionate impoverishment, injuries and fatalities.

21 Jan 2009