Chronic Disease News and Research

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Health care revamped at L.A. county jails

Michael Callahan, an outgoing 43-year-old carpenter, landed in a Los Angeles County jail last September because of what he said were "bad decisions and selling drugs."

8 Mar 2018

When wildfire smoke invades, who should pay to clean indoor air?

As dense smoke from wildfires spread through communities across western Montana last summer, public health agencies faced an indoor problem, too: Residents suddenly needed filters to clean the air inside homes and public spaces, but there was no obvious funding source to pay for it.

8 Mar 2018

Jury’s in: Opioids are not better than other medicines for chronic pain

A few years ago, Renea Molden’s doctors told her they wanted to take her off her opioid pills. It did not sound like good idea to her.

6 Mar 2018

Non-adherence to sleep apnea treatment linked to increased hospital readmissions

A study of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) suggests that non-adherence to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy is significantly associated with increased 30-day hospital readmissions.

22 Feb 2018

Researchers provide safety data for common antiparasitic drug used to treat Chagas disease

Benznidazole is one of the two existing antiparasitic drugs for Chagas' disease treatment. However, it is a poorly tolerated drug and its use to treat chronic disease raises safety concerns. Knowledge about its toxicity profile is scarce and mostly based on post-marketing observational studies.

20 Feb 2018

Heart attack symptoms often missed in women

A new study has shown that symptoms of heart attack may often be missed among women aged 55 years or less as these symptoms may be less common than the traditional chest pains.

19 Feb 2018

Simple toolkit improves quality of care in Indian hospitals

A simple toolkit of checklists, education materials and quality and performance reporting improved the quality of care but not outcomes in hospitals in the south Indian state of Kerala and may have the potential to improve outcomes of heart attacks and other major cardiovascular disease events in other settings, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

13 Feb 2018

New tool measures cell strength 100 times faster than current technologies

Engineers, doctors and scientists at UCLA and Rutgers University have developed a tool that measures the physical strength of individual cells 100 times faster than current technologies.

12 Feb 2018

HDAC6 inhibition could be promising therapeutic approach for peripheral neuropathies

Inhibiting HDAC6 improves the structural stability of cells and protects against neuronal damage. Leuven research uncovered that targeting this mechanism could be a promising therapeutic approach for peripheral neuropathies, whether due to Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) or as a side effect of chemotherapy.

8 Feb 2018

Study helps explain why people feel hungrier after weight loss

A new study has helped to explain why people who lose a lot of weight find it difficult to maintain a healthy diet in the long term.

8 Feb 2018

Patients with multimorbidity suffer from high out-of-pocket costs

Current strategies for treating patients with several chronic diseases are putting an unnecessary financial burden on countries' health systems and individuals, a global study led by the National University of Singapore and the University of Melbourne has found.

7 Feb 2018

Adolescents not interested in regular cigarettes more likely to use e-cigarettes

Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine, the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that adolescents who are not susceptible to smoking cigarettes and who thought e-cigarettes were less harmful were more likely to use e-cigarettes.

2 Feb 2018

Study shows value of occupational therapy in the lives of young adults with diabetes

New results from a University of Southern California-led research study demonstrates the distinct value of occupational therapy for improving the health and quality of life of young adults living with diabetes.

22 Jan 2018

CBT is cost-effective treatment in primary care setting, Kaiser Permanente study finds

Cognitive behavioral therapy delivered in a primary care setting is a cost-effective way to treat adolescents with depression who decline or quickly stop using antidepressants, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

19 Jan 2018

Home care agencies often wrongly deny Medicare help to the chronically ill

Colin Campbell needs help dressing, bathing and moving between his bed and his wheelchair. He has a feeding tube because his partially paralyzed tongue makes swallowing "almost impossible," he said.

18 Jan 2018

Study demonstrates best path to accurately diagnose hypertension in children or teens

Nearly one-quarter of children and teens who had their blood pressure screened at a primary care appointment showed a reading in the hypertensive range, but less than half of those readings could be confirmed after the blood pressure was repeated, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study released today in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

12 Jan 2018

Monthly cycles of brain activity linked to seizures in patients with epilepsy

UC San Francisco neurologists have discovered monthly cycles of brain activity linked to seizures in patients with epilepsy.

8 Jan 2018

New findings emphasize need to introduce solid foods to infants at the proper time

The first study of a nationally-representative group of U.S. infants reports that more than half of babies are currently introduced to complementary foods, that is, foods or drinks other than breast milk or formula, sooner than they should be.

5 Jan 2018

Medicaid expansions for low-income parents can lead to expanded use of prenatal care

The Medicaid expansions for low-income parents that took place in 34 states between 1996 and 2011 led to a 2.3 percent decrease in the uninsured rate among women who already had a child and became pregnant again, and a 7.9 percent decrease in the number of mothers who didn't have insurance while they were pregnant.

28 Dec 2017

Biosimilars, biologics and new legal challenges for RA treatments

Early last winter, Pfizer launched its new rheumatoid arthritis treatment, Inflectra, pricing it 15 percent below the $4,000-a-dose wholesale price of Remicade, the drug for which it is a close copy.

22 Dec 2017