Finding toxins in drinking waterA strip of paper infused with carbon nanotubes can quickly and inexpensively detect a toxin produced by algae in drinking water.
Engineers at the University of Michigan led the development of the new biosensor.
The paper strips perform 28 times faster than the complicated method most usually used today to detect microcystin-LR, a chemical compound produced by cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. Cyanobacteria is usually found on........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 1/11/2010 8:02:39 AM)
A silly pat on the headDoing something unusual, like knocking on wood or patting yourself on the head, while taking a daily dose of medicine appears to be an effective strategy to help seniors remember whether they've already taken their daily medications, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
We've all heard warnings that some medications appears to be habit-forming, but research also shows that "getting into the habit" of taking a daily........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 1/5/2010 8:59:33 AM)
Kitchen spoon measurements can be dangerousA newly released study reported in the Jan. 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine illustrates the dangers of using kitchen spoons to measure liquid medicine.
Former cold and flu sufferers were asked to pour one teaspoon of nighttime flu medicine into kitchen spoons of differing sizes. Depending upon the size of the spoon, the 195 former patients poured an average of eight percent too little or 12 percent too much medicine.
"When........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 1/5/2010 8:55:48 AM)
Electronic Medical Records: Practice and problemsA gap exists between policy makers' expectations that current commercial electronic medical records (EMRs) can improve coordination of patient care and clinicians' real-world experiences with EMRs, as per a research studyby the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) published online in The Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Current commercial ambulatory care EMRs facilitate care coordination within a practice by making information........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/30/2009 8:08:22 AM)
Alcohol outlets lead to specific problems among youthPrevious studies have not only demonstrated a clear correlation between alcohol outlets and alcohol-related problems, they have also shown that certain types of outlets are linked to different types of problem outcomes. A newly released study shows that a particular group, underage youth and young adults, have specific problems injury accidents, traffic crashes, and assaults that are correlation to specific types of alcohol outlets ........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/18/2009 7:11:19 PM)
Technology in Canadian Clinical trialsA research team led by Dr. Khaled El Emam, the Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information at the CHEO Research Institute, reviewed the use of technology in Canadian clinical trials, and observed that a significant proportion (41%) have moved away from collecting and managing trial data using only paper records.
In his study titled "The Use of Electronic Data Capture Tools in Clinical Trials: Web-survey of 259 Canadian Trials"........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/18/2009 6:26:20 PM)
Omega-3 to better nervous-system functionThe omega-3 essential fatty acids usually found in fatty fish and algae help animals avoid sensory overload, as per research published by the American Psychological Association. The finding connects low omega-3s to the information-processing problems found in people with schizophrenia; bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; Huntington's disease; and other afflictions of the nervous system.
The study,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/17/2009 8:09:42 AM)
Learning styles debunkedAre you a verbal learner or a visual learner? Chances are, you've pegged yourself or your children as either one or the other and rely on study techniques that suit your individual learning needs. And you're not alone for more than 30 years, the notion that teaching methods should match a student's particular learning style has exerted a powerful influence on education. The long-standing popularity of the learning styles movement has in turn........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/17/2009 7:51:11 AM)
Canadian Drug Store: How to Find a Reputable Online Drug storeAt a time when ecommerce is all pervading, how does one discern the reliability of a store, more so a drug store? The answer lies in careful observation and understanding the characteristics of a reputable store. Here is a guide to acquaint you with the features of a trustworthy Canada drugs store.
Reputable Canadian Drug Store: Features
Canadian drug stores are popular for their high quality medications that are dispensed by licensed and........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/16/2009 11:23:45 PM)
MRI to detect pregnancy complicationA study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) revealed that MRI is a highly accurate means of identifying placenta accreta, a potentially life-threatening and increasingly common condition that is the leading cause of death for women just before and after giving birth.
"Due to the increase in cesarean sections and other surgeries that leave scarring on the uterine wall, coupled with women........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/1/2009 8:27:27 AM)
New biodegradable fibers for advance stent technologyStents that keep weakened and flabby arteries from collapsing have been true life-savers. But after six months, those stents are no longer needed - once the arteries are strengthened, they become unnecessary. Previously, doctors had no choice but to leave them in place.
Prof. Meital Zilberman of Tel Aviv University's Department of Biomedical Engineering has developed a new patent-pending fiber platform that carries drugs where they're........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/24/2009 11:17:03 AM)
Twitter Health NewsFeel free to follow me on Twitter so we can share interesting articles about genetics and medicine 2.0
Big Pharma and Twitter = Big joke! (Health Business News
Twitter surgery timeline: 8 months of OR tweet
Webcast Your Brain Surgery? Hospitals See Marketing Tool (New York Times
Surgery LIVE: For four consecutive nights, top surgeons will carry out life-changing operations in front of a studio audience and live on Channel 4. While........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/22/2009 2:02:09 PM)
The first online doctorsWho has never heard about Jay Parkinson, founder of HelloHealth service, the first online medical practice? Now please meet Dr. Hodge, the first iPhone doctor
Hodge"s start-up Personal Pediatrics aims to equip a fleet of self-starter pediatricians in major metro areas with iPhones, cloud-based practice software and the marketing know-how to court new parents, families and corporate health programs alike. The company"s plan points to a........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/22/2009 2:01:56 PM)
Smoking is a risk factor for ALSWhile prior studies have indicated a "probable" correlation between smoking and ALS, a newly released study reported in the Nov. 17, 2009 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, states that smoking may now be considered an "established" risk factor for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
The findings come from Baystate Medical Center neurologist Dr. Carmel Armon, an........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/17/2009 8:07:13 AM)
Antioxidant in Broccoli may be useful in treating Cystic FibrosisResearchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered that a dietary antioxidant found in such vegetables as broccoli and cauliflower protects cells from damage caused by chemicals generated during the body's inflammatory response to infection and injury. The finding has implications for such inflammation-based disorders as cystic fibrosis (CF), diabetes, heart disease, and neurodegeneration.
Through cell-culture........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/17/2009 7:52:45 AM)
How society maintains the status quoThere is a tendency to believe that only men treat women in a sexist way, but a newly released study by a University of Miami researcher and his daughter shows that both men and women participate in maintaining a gender hierarchy in our society. The study, titled "Social Dominance and Sexual Self-Schema as Moderators of Sexist Reactions to Female Subtypes," was recently published by the journal of Sex Roles
The two most significant findings........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/13/2009 8:09:31 AM)
When preschoolers ask questionsCuriosity plays a big part in preschoolers' lives. A newly released study that explored why young children ask so a number of "why" questions concludes that children are motivated by a desire for explanation.
The study, by scientists at the University of Michigan, appears in the November/December 2009 issue of the journal Child Development
The scientists carried out two studies of 2- to 5-year-olds, focusing on their "how" and "why"........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/13/2009 8:05:16 AM)
Does green tea prevent cancer?Eventhough researchers are reluctant to officially endorse green tea as a cancer prevention method, evidence continues to grow about its protective effects, including results of a newly released study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, which suggests some reduction in oral cancer.
Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulo, M.D., professor of medicine in the Department of Thoracic/Head and........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 11/5/2009 8:25:52 AM)
Geneticists Hunt for Scleroderma TriggersAt its most benign, the autoimmune disease scleroderma can discolor parts of the skin of its sufferers. At its most pernicious, it can thicken and harden their skin, their blood vessels, and their internal organs before, in a number of cases, killing them.
In all its forms, scleroderma gives Dartmouth geneticist Michael Whitfield, his graduate students, and his postdoctoral scientists a sense of urgency in their search for the triggers of........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/29/2009 10:31:35 PM)
New explanation for flu virus antigenic driftInfluenza viruses evade infection-fighting antibodies by constantly changing the shape of their major surface protein. This shape-shifting, called antigenic drift, is why influenza vaccineswhich are designed to elicit antibodies matched to each year's circulating virus strainsmust be reformulated annually. Now, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/29/2009 10:09:10 PM)
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Silencing brain cells with yellow and blue lightNeuroresearchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a powerful new class of tools to reversibly shut down brain activity using different colors of light. When targeted to specific neurons, they could potentially lead to new therapys for abnormal brain activity linked to disorders including chronic pain, epilepsy, brain injury and Parkinson's disease.
Such disorders could best be treated by silencing, rather than........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 1/6/2010 4:20:40 PM)
How circumcision decreases risk of HIVCircumcision, which substantially lowers HIV risk in men, also dramatically changes the bacterial communities of the penis, as per a research studyled by researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Johns Hopkins University and published Jan. 6 in the scientific journal PLoS ONE
And these bacterial changes may also be linked to earlier observations that women whose male partners are circumcised are less likely to........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 1/6/2010 8:13:42 AM)
Caring of the aging patientTo assist physicians in caring for a patient demographic that is rapidly growing in size, JAMA is launching a new series, "Care of the Aging Patient: From Evidence to Action".
"The aging of the global population will be a hallmark of the 21st century, when average lifespan may reach 100 years in some countries, at least for women. Worldwide, the proportion of the population aged 60 years or older is expected to increase from 10 percent........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/30/2009 8:17:01 AM)
Rapid flu testingMilwaukee, WI Scientists from the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Children's Research Institute, and the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin have developed a rapid, automated system to differentiate strains of influenza. The related report by Beck et al, "Development of a rapid automated influenza A, influenza B, and RSV A/B multiplex real-time RT-PCR assay and its use during the 2009 H1N1 swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) epidemic in........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/30/2009 8:04:18 AM)
Determining ethnic origin of stem cell linesAn international team of researchers led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has developed a straightforward technique to determine the ethnic origin of stem cells.
The Scripps Research researchers initiated the studyreported in the January 2010 edition of the prestigious journal Nature Methodsbecause the availability of genetically diverse cell lines for cell replacement treatment and drug development could have important........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/30/2009 7:53:44 AM)
New ways to treat chronic infectionsScientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, have identified three key regulators mandatory for the formation and development of biofilms. The discovery could lead to new ways of treating chronic infections.
Biofilms communities of bacteria in self-produced slime appears to be found almost anywhere that solids and liquids meet, whether in nature, in hospitals or in industrial settings. Biofilms are implicated in more........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/18/2009 6:28:42 PM)
Why some doctors over-prescribe antibiotics?A newly released study led by a team of scientists at New York Medical College suggests that that medical liability concerns appears to be playing a role in the increase of MRSA in healthcare settings by encouraging clinicians to prescribe antibiotics more often and more broadly than clinical circumstances and evidence-based guidelines warrant. The study appeared in the September-recent issue of the American Journal of Therapeutics
The team........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/18/2009 6:22:19 PM)
Critical communication for caregiversAlzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia represent an exponentially growing social and health care challenge for American families not only family members who face the progressive brain disease, but also those who love them.
A number of spouses of those with dementia do more than watch as their partners deal with the disease's effects on brain functioning, memory, motor skills and emotional health. They often assume round-the-clock........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/17/2009 7:50:05 AM)
Mobility ScooterA mobility scooter is a battery-powered vehicle designed for individuals with restricted mobility. It can accommodate only one person at a time. Mobility scooters come in three basic designs that are based on their intention of use, namely, indoor, outdoor and both.
Many people mistake a mobility scooter with a wheelchair. They may have similar premise though scooters provide improved design and higher range of motion. Moreover, the user is........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/15/2009 7:58:37 AM)
Home visits can improve asthmaA few home visits by a health care specialist to educate children with asthma about basic strategies for earlier symptom recognition and improving medicine use can lead to fewer flare-ups and less frequent trips to the ER, as per research from Johns Hopkins Children's Center reported in the recent issue of Pediatrics
An estimated 6.5 million children in the United States have asthma, which is the leading pediatric chronic illness in this........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 12/1/2009 8:32:39 AM)
Risk factors for ADHDChildren exposed prenatally to tobacco smoke and during childhood to lead face a especially high risk for ADHD, as per research done at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
The study estimates that up to 35 percent of ADHD cases in children between the ages of 8 and 15 could be reduced by eliminating both of these environmental exposures. This could translate into up to 800,000 children.
"Tobacco and lead exposure each have........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/23/2009 8:10:18 AM)
Daycare and TV timeIn a newly released study, the amount of television viewed by a number of young children in child care settings doubles the prior estimates of early childhood screen time, with those in home-based settings watching significantly more on average than those in center-based daycares. This study is the first to examine screen time in child care settings in more than 20 years. The study looked at television use in 168 child care programs in four........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/23/2009 8:08:36 AM)
Pet therapy while recovering from total joint-replacement surgeryAdults who use pet treatment while recovering from total joint-replacement surgery require 50 percent less pain medicine than those who do not. These findings were presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the International Society of Anthrozoology and the First Human Animal Interaction Conference (HAI) in Kansas City, Mo.
"Evidence suggests that animal-assisted treatment (AAT) can have a positive effect on a patient's psychosocial,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/17/2009 8:50:25 AM)
How immune cells chase down bacteriaA team led by Yale University researchers has developed a new approach to studying how immune cells chase down bacteria in our bodies. Their findings are described in the November 15 issue of Nature Methods Advanced Online Publication.
When bacteria enter our bodies they secrete molecules, leaving behind chemical trails as they move through our system. It has been known for some time that immune cells follow these trails in order to hunt the........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/17/2009 8:31:20 AM)
Pediatric onset multiple sclerosis is more aggressiveMagnetic resonance images (MRI) of patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in childhood show that pediatric onset multiple sclerosis is more aggressive, and causes more brain lesions, than MS diagnosed in adulthood, scientists at the University at Buffalo have reported.
Interestingly, however, patients with pediatric-onset MS -- which comprise up to 5 percent of total MS cases -- develop disabilities at a slower pace than patients with........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/17/2009 8:02:22 AM)
Cheerleading injuries in US due to stuntsWhether rallying the crowd at a sporting event or participating in competition, cheerleading can be both fun and physically demanding. Eventhough integral to cheerleading routines, performing stunts can lead to injury. Stunt-related injuries accounted for more than half (60 percent) of U.S. cheerleading injuries from June 2006 through June 2007, as per a newly released study conducted by scientists at the Center for Injury Research and Policy........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/16/2009 8:08:01 AM)
When should flu trigger a school shutdown?As flu season approaches, parents around the country are starting to face school closures. But how bad should an influenza outbreak be for a school to shut down? A study led by epidemiologists John Brownstein, PhD, and Anne Gatewood Hoen, PhD of the Children's Hospital Boston Informatics Program, in collaboration Asami Sasaki of the University of Niigata Prefecture (Niigata, Japan), tapped a detailed set of Japanese data to help guide decision........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/5/2009 8:35:23 AM)
Bacteria 'launch a shield' to resist attackScientists from the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark along with other collaborators in Denmark and the US observed that the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa can 'switch on' production of molecules that kill white blood cells preventing the bacteria being eliminated by the body's immune system.
P. aeruginosa is responsible for a number of hospital-acquired infections and also causes chronic infections in those........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/2/2009 8:49:53 AM)
Sleep deprivation and information processingA study in the Nov.1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that sleep deprivation causes some people to shift from a more automatic, implicit process of information categorization (information-integration) to a more controlled, explicit process (rule-based). This use of rule-based strategies in a task in which information-integration strategies are optimal can lead to potentially devastating errors when quick and accurate categorization is........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/2/2009 8:49:18 AM)
Standards for a new genomic eraA team of geneticists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, together with a consortium of international researchers, has recently proposed a set of standards designed to elucidate the quality of publicly available genetic sequencing information. The new standards could eventually allow genetic scientists to develop vaccines more efficiently or help public health or security personnel more quickly respond to potential public-health emergencies.
........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/21/2009 11:24:00 PM)
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