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State highlights: Some hospitals aim for wealthier patients; N.C. Medicaid changes debated; Mich. panel Oks higher health care costs for workers

A selection of health policy stories from North Carolina, California, Michigan and Missouri.

17 Jan 2014

Study: Pro-inflammatory molecules linked with early death in HIV patients who abuse alcohol

A study led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) provides new insight into the impact that pro-inflammatory molecules have on early death in HIV patients who abuse alcohol.

17 Jan 2014

Babies born to smoking mothers have 47% increase in odds of becoming overweight

Many women are encouraged to quit smoking when they become pregnant using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) whether as gum, transdermal patches, nasal spray or lozenges.

16 Jan 2014

US underestimated its progress in war on cancer, say Dartmouth researchers

Since the enactment of the National Cancer Act in 1971, the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in cancer research and treatment. And yet, the cancer mortality rate-the historic benchmark of progress-has only declined modestly while the mortality rates of other leading causes of death have declined substantially. This difference has led many to question whether we've made progress in the 'War on Cancer'. The answer is definitively yes according to Norris Cotton Cancer Center research published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

16 Jan 2014

Study examines patient reactions to physician-inspired guilt and shame

Have you ever left a doctor's office feeling ashamed or guilty? Chances are one in two that you answered "yes," according to research from the University of California, San Diego. And what happened next? Perhaps you were motivated to make changes in an unhealthy behavior. Or, did you just lie to that doctor on subsequent visits? Avoid him or her? Maybe even terminate treatment entirely?

16 Jan 2014

More evidence for glutamate dysregulation in schizophrenia

Levels of glutamine, but not glutamate, are elevated in the dorsal anterior cingulate of patients with established schizophrenia, say researchers.

15 Jan 2014

Smoking and cancer: an interview with Dr. Lewis Foxhall, VP of Health Policy, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

The report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, identified tobacco as the predominant cause of lung cancer in men. This was the first widely disseminated report based on scientific studies showing the clear link between smoking tobacco and serious health conditions including cancer, chronic lung diseases and heart disease.

13 Jan 2014

Cord blood vitamin D linked to pediatric RTI risk

South Korean researchers say that encouraging pregnant women to spend more time outdoors or to increase their vitamin D supplementation may reduce the number of respiratory tract infections in their infants.

13 Jan 2014

Lifestyle changes and screening tools prove to reduce cancer risk, says doctor

President Nixon funded research to wage a war on cancer, a long battle that we're still fighting today. While the last 40 years haven't brought us a cure, we have made some meaningful progress in developing tools and knowledge to take a bite out of our cancer risk.

10 Jan 2014

Lung cancer incidence rates decrease more rapidly among U.S. men and women

Tobacco control efforts are having a major impact on Americans' health, a new analysis of lung-cancer data suggests. The rate of new lung cancer cases decreased among men and women in the United States from 2005 to 2009, according to a report in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

10 Jan 2014

Viewpoints: Don't blame insurers for health system problems; Obama's 'management failure;' Texas abortion case heads to court

[The] problem with the Affordable Care Act isn't the insurance industry. In fact, the main benefits of nationalized health care can be achieved in systems with hundreds, even thousands, of for-profit insurers. ...

10 Jan 2014

Prenatal exposure to maternal stress hormones predicts nicotine dependence for daughters

Tobacco smoking by pregnant women has long been viewed as a public health risk because of smoking's adverse effects on the development of a fetus.

10 Jan 2014

High aerobic fitness in late adolescence may reduce heart attack risk later in life

Researchers in Sweden have found an association between a person’s fitness as a teenager and their risk of heart attack in later life. In a study of nearly 750,000 men, they found that the more aerobically fit men were in late adolescence, the less likely they were to have a heart attack 30 or 40 years later.

9 Jan 2014

UCSB psychology professor finds that weight-stigmatizing messages may have the opposite effect

If you're one of the millions of people who count losing weight among their top New Year's resolutions, you might want to pay careful attention to some new findings by UC Santa Barbara psychology professor Brenda Major.

9 Jan 2014

IQWiG publishes new clinical practice guidelines for treating people with COPD

On 3 January 2014 the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care published the results of a literature search for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines on the treatment of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

9 Jan 2014

Viewpoints: Health law debate on contraceptive coverage; Cuccinelli: No investigators for Medicaid fraud; 50 years after the famed report on smoking

The Little Sisters of the Poor, an organization of Roman Catholic nuns that runs nursing homes around the country, is testing the contraceptive coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Last week, we're sorry to say, the nuns won a temporary reprieve from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Under the law, most employers are required to provide their employees with health insurance that covers birth control. But the Obama administration agreed to a compromise for nonprofit religious groups that object to contraception, exempting them from paying for such coverage. Instead, insurers agreed to absorb the cost. All the religious organization has to do is fill out a simple form attesting to its situation. Unfortunately, even that was too much for the Little Sisters of the Poor (1/7).

9 Jan 2014

Norwegian researchers map genetic variations associated with increased risk of MS and MG

The Norwegian researchers have taken part in an international cooperative effort to map 110 genetic variations that increase the risk of MS and MG. Most of these genetic variations have been mapped in recent years.

9 Jan 2014

Poor people more likely to become frail after a heart attack

As people get older, their bodies wear down and become less resilient. In old age, it's common for people to become "clinically frail," and this "frailty syndrome" is emerging in the field of public health as a powerful predictor of healthcare use and death.

9 Jan 2014

Study: Combined medications may improve smoking cessation than single drug therapy

Among cigarette smokers, combining the smoking cessation medications varenicline and bupropion, compared with varenicline alone, resulted in higher smoking abstinence rates for one outcome but not the other at three and six months; rates were similar at one year, according to a Mayo Clinic study published this month in JAMA.

8 Jan 2014

Yale study on impact of anti-smoking measures that began half century ago

A Yale study estimates that 8 million lives have been saved in the United States as a result of anti-smoking measures that began 50 years ago this month with the groundbreaking report from the Surgeon General outlining the deadly consequences of tobacco use. The Yale School of Public Health-led analysis is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

8 Jan 2014

Smoking News and Research

State highlights: Some hospitals aim for wealthier patients; N.C. Medicaid changes debated; Mich. panel Oks higher health care costs for workers

Study: Pro-inflammatory molecules linked with early death in HIV patients who abuse alcohol

Babies born to smoking mothers have 47% increase in odds of becoming overweight

US underestimated its progress in war on cancer, say Dartmouth researchers

Study examines patient reactions to physician-inspired guilt and shame

More evidence for glutamate dysregulation in schizophrenia

Smoking and cancer: an interview with Dr. Lewis Foxhall, VP of Health Policy, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Cord blood vitamin D linked to pediatric RTI risk

Lifestyle changes and screening tools prove to reduce cancer risk, says doctor

Lung cancer incidence rates decrease more rapidly among U.S. men and women

Viewpoints: Don't blame insurers for health system problems; Obama's 'management failure;' Texas abortion case heads to court

Prenatal exposure to maternal stress hormones predicts nicotine dependence for daughters

High aerobic fitness in late adolescence may reduce heart attack risk later in life

UCSB psychology professor finds that weight-stigmatizing messages may have the opposite effect

IQWiG publishes new clinical practice guidelines for treating people with COPD

Viewpoints: Health law debate on contraceptive coverage; Cuccinelli: No investigators for Medicaid fraud; 50 years after the famed report on smoking

Norwegian researchers map genetic variations associated with increased risk of MS and MG

Poor people more likely to become frail after a heart attack

Study: Combined medications may improve smoking cessation than single drug therapy

Yale study on impact of anti-smoking measures that began half century ago

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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