Medicine

As the rate of home births continues to rise in the U.S., the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a new policy statement published in the journal Pediatrics, titled "Planned Home Birth", which includes a number of new recommendations for the care of children born at home. In particular, it stated that there should be at least one person assigned to always be present to care for the newborn. Only one percent of all births in the United States are carried out at home, However, over recent years the rate has been climbing. According to the U.S...

A plastic surgery procedure that was documented to be on the rise between the years of 2000 and 2012 was the upper arm lift, a new report suggests. In 2012, over 15,000 upper arm lifts were performed across the U.S., an increase from just 300 in 2000, according to the report released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. An upper arm lift, commonly known as brachioplasty, is a surgical procedure that changes the shape of the under part of the upper arm - from the underarm region to the elbow...

A bill has been proposed by the state of New York that would raise the minimum legal age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 21. The proposal was introduced on Friday, and announced on Sunday by State Senator Diane Savino and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal at a news conference. "If I could prevent one kid, one kid from ever developing that habit, this legislation is worth it." Savino said. The proposed bill follows a proposal introduced by the New York City Council last week...

Counselling and treatment with naturopathic care as well as enhanced usual care reduced the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease, by 17% over a year for participants in a randomized controlled trial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Researchers enrolled 246 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers at 3 study sites (Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton) for a year-long clinical trial to determine whether naturopathic lifestyle counselling helped to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease...

Extractables and Leachables USA 2013 (E&L USA) two day conference is fast approaching. Current registrations have seen a 15% rise in attendee numbers from the successful inaugural event, and with just over a week to go organisers Smithers Rapra are looking forward to a stellar event in May. In the lead up to the conference Dr Gyorgy Vas, Principal Scientist, Johnson & Johnson discusses challenges faced by pharmaceutical development scientists. "To evaluate medical devices is to find appropriate (biologically relevant) extraction conditions for device testing...

Screening rates increase even more when doctors discuss details of screening tests, Kaiser Permanente study finds Patients who visited their doctor for any reason were nearly six times more likely to be screened for colon cancer compared to those who didn't visit their doctor, according to a study funded by the National Cancer Institute and published online today in the American Journal of Managed Care. The study was conducted in an integrated health system that uses automated phone calls to remind patients when they are overdue for screening...

New artemisinin-resistant strains of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum are spreading rapidly in Cambodia, an international group of scientists says in a research paper that also reveals how the drug-resistant strains can be identified from their genetic fingerprints. Senior author Dominic Kwiatkowski, from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, and colleagues, discovered the new artemisinin-resistant strains in western Cambodia, a known hotspot for drug-resistance...

Clues about how cells become cancerous are revealed in a new catalogue of their physical and chemical features. The catalogue shows, among other things, how malignant cells that break out of tumors and invade other organs are nimbler and more aggressive than non-malignant ones: they are able to pass more easily through small spaces, and they exert a greater force on their environment...

You are walking down the street with a friend. A shot is fired. The two of you duck behind the nearest cover and you pull out your smartphone. A map of the neighborhood pops up on its screen with a large red arrow pointing in the direction the shot came from. A team of computer engineers from Vanderbilt University's Institute of Software Integrated Systems has made such a scenario possible by developing an inexpensive hardware module and related software that can transform an Android smartphone into a simple shooter location system...

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, have shown in a mouse model that infection with nematodes (also known as roundworms) can not only combat obesity but ameliorate related metabolic disorders. Their research is published ahead of print online in the journal Infection and Immunity. Gastrointestinal nematodes infect approximately 2 billion people worldwide, and some researchers believe up until the 20th century almost everyone had worms...

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have for the first time determined how often emergency medical helicopters need to help save the lives of seriously injured people to be considered cost-effective compared with ground ambulances. The researchers found that if an additional 1.6 percent of seriously injured patients survive after being transported by helicopter from the scene of injury to a level-1 or level-2 trauma center, then such transport should be considered cost-effective...

Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the identity of RNA molecules that are transported as part of the molecular process underpinning learning and memory. Now, working together, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Columbia University and the University of Florida, Gainesville, have developed a novel strategy for isolating and characterizing a substantial number of RNAs transported from the cell-body of neuron (nerve cell) to the synapse, the small gap separating neurons that enables cell to cell communication...

Feeling frisky? If so, chances are greater your estrogen level - and, perhaps, fertility - are hitting their monthly peak. If not, you're more likely experiencing a profusion of desire-deadening progesterone, and the less fertile time in your cycle. Oh, the power of hormones. Researchers have long suspected a correlation between hormone levels and libido, but now scientists at UC Santa Barbara, led by James Roney, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, have actually demonstrated hormonal predictors for sexual desire...