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Research confirms benefits of mobile health screening program to help diagnose at-risk populations

Results presented today at the American Society of Hypertension's Twenty Fourth Annual Scientific Meeting (ASH 2009) reveal that hypertension is still disproportionally prevalent in African-American women living in Boston’s inner city neighborhoods, despite recent improvements in diagnostic and treatment options.

7 May 2009

Kaiser Permanente gives UCLA Hispanic physician recruitment program $2 million

Kaiser Permanente is giving the University of California-Los Angeles a $2 million grant to fund a program that recruits foreign-trained doctors to practice in U.S. Hispanic neighborhoods, United Press International reports.

6 May 2009

Mental health prescriptions increased by 73% among adults, 50% among children from 1996-2006

From 1996 to 2006, prescriptions for mental health medications increased by 73% among U.S. adults and by 50% among children, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, the Wall Street Journal reports.

5 May 2009

Eliminating Rhode Island's HIV test signature requirement would boost prevention, treatment efforts

Rhode Island's legislature currently is considering a bill (H.B. 5415) that would eliminate a requirement that a person sign his or her name before undergoing an HIV test, which "would essentially make getting an HIV test more like getting any other medical test," Brian Alverson, assistant pediatrics professor at Brown University's Alpert Medical School and head of the Section of Pediatric Hospitalists at Hasbro Children's Hospital, writes in a Providence Journal opinion piece.

5 May 2009

Scientists coax skin cells to behave like muscle cells and vice versa

Even cells aren't immune to peer pressure. Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have now shown that skin cells can be coaxed to behave like muscle cells - and muscle cells like skin cells - solely by altering who they hang out with: the relative levels of the ingredients inside the cell.

5 May 2009

Scientists create human monoclonal antibody that neutralizes the Hepatitis C virus

Taking aim at a leading cause of liver failure in the United States, a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories (MBL) of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) has developed a human monoclonal antibody that neutralizes the Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

5 May 2009

Oral delivery system for RNAi therapeutics

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) report on a novel approach to the delivery of small bits of genetic material in order to silence genes using "RNA interference"-and in the process, discovered a potent method of suppressing inflammation in mice similar to what occurs in a range of human diseases.

30 Apr 2009

Voice response system useful for monitoring anticoagulant patients

Interactive voice response systems may help improve monitoring of patients taking anticoagulants such as warfarin while reducing the workload of clinical staff, found a study by Ottawa researchers in CMAJ.

27 Apr 2009

SUMO protein guides chromatin remodeler to suppress genes

In an in vitro study, led by Grace Gill, PhD, Tufts University School of Medicine, researchers discovered how a protein called SUMO (Small Ubiquitin-related Modifier) guides an enzyme complex that alters the structure of chromatin to regulate expression of genes.

27 Apr 2009

Racial and ethnic discrimination and their effect on mental health in children

A new multicenter study involving UCLA and the RAND Corp. has found that perceived racial or ethnic discrimination is not an uncommon experience among fifth-grade students and that it may have a negative effect on their mental health.

27 Apr 2009

Risk factors for autism

Children who are firstborn or breech or whose mothers are 35 or older when giving birth are at significantly greater risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder, University of Utah School of Medicine researchers have reported in a new study with Utah children.

27 Apr 2009

New doctors, teaching physicians disagree about essential medical procedures to learn

Physicians teaching at medical schools and doctors who have just completed their first year out of medical school disagree about which procedures are necessary to learn before graduating, according to a new survey done by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

27 Apr 2009

Welcome news on Dengue fever

The news that scientists in the United States have identified host factors which are critical to Dengue virus infection will be particularly welcome in tropical northern Queensland, which has suffered one of the worse Dengue fever outbreaks in decades.

26 Apr 2009

Link found between vitamin D insufficiency and asthma severity

Serum levels of vitamin D in more than 600 Costa Rican children were inversely linked to several indicators of allergy and asthma severity, including hospitalizations for asthma, use of inhaled steroids and total IgE levels, according to a study that will appear in the first issue for May of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

23 Apr 2009

Discovery of new gene that stimulates the release of calcium in cells

International research collaborators have identified a new family of proteins, TPC2 (two-pore channels), that facilitates calcium signaling from specialized subcellular organelles.

22 Apr 2009

Scientists identify dozens of proteins the dengue fever virus depends upon

By painstakingly silencing genes one at a time, scientists at Duke University Medical Center have identified dozens of proteins the dengue fever virus depends upon to grow and spread among mosquitoes and humans.

22 Apr 2009

New Dengue virus discovery could lead to development of anti-dengue drugs

Doctors have no specific drugs to treat dengue fever, a viral illness spread by mosquitoes that sickens 50 million to 100 million people worldwide each year. Instead, the only treatments they can recommend for this painful and sometimes fatal illness (20,000 deaths globally each year) are fluids, rest and non-aspirin pain and fever reducers.

22 Apr 2009

Type of physician certification associated with risk of complications from ICDs

Patients whose implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are implanted by nonelectrophysiologists are at increased risk of complications and are less likely to receive a specific type of ICD when clinically indicated, according to a study in the April 22/29 issue of JAMA.

22 Apr 2009

Children who witness violence show symptoms of post-traumatic stress

They also suffer physiological effects with a disruption to their normal cortisol production pattern during the day, which may have long-term negative effects on their health.

22 Apr 2009

Scientists combine USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone

Computer engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are bringing the minimalist approach to medical care and computing by coupling USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, enabling a compact, mobile computational platform and a medical imaging device that fits in the palm of a hand.

22 Apr 2009