February 13, 2007, 9:31 PM CT

Poor people worse off following heart attack

People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who suffer a heart attack come to the emergency department more often, are less likely to be treated aggressively and have higher mortality rates a year after the attack, says new University of Alberta research that has important implications for access to cardiac care.

Dr. Padma Kaul and a group of U of A scientists investigated 5622 patients in Alberta who went to a hospital emergency department with a first heart attack. Following the common practice of using the neighbourhood median household income as a proxy for socioeconomic status, the scientists classified patients into separate income groups. Patients in the lowest income quartile were more likely to be older, female and to have other illnesses such as diabetes and peripheral vascular diseases. Scientists first looked at who was more likely to have an angioplasty or coronary bypass surgery and then did a one-year follow-up after the emergency department visit to see whether the patient was still alive. The study is reported in the January 2007 issue of the prestigious American Journal of Medicine.

"We found a clear discrepancy when it comes to socioeconomic status," said Kaul. "We may have equal access health-care coverage in Canada but the bottom line is that people may not be getting equal therapy"......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

February 13, 2007, 8:39 PM CT

Schizophrenia-Related Gene Variation

University of Iowa researchers have learned more about a genetic variation that is a small risk factor for a mild form of schizophrenia, yet also is associated with improved overall survival.

The findings, which appear online in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, could help lead to treatments for schizophrenia and even other illnesses, and ways to leverage the gene variation's advantages. An abstract of the article is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114112711/ABSTRACT.

This HOPA12pb gene variation advance drew on a genetic database that was about five times larger than sample sizes used in previous research, said Robert Philibert, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and the study's co-author.

"The study used the National Institute of Mental Health's largest publicly available sample, and thus it provides even more convincing evidence that the gene variation is worth studying," Philibert said.

The genetic variation causes a change in the portion of the protein that regulates the development of dopamine-releasing neurons. Antipsychotic drugs work by blocking dopamine, but drug treatments have limited success, and so scientists seek other ways to treat patients......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

February 12, 2007, 9:13 PM CT

Be around friends to impair your memory

Youre watching a basketball game with some buddies and decide to order pizza during the commercial. Researchers from Indiana University found that people in a group setting exposed to brand information such as an ad for Pizza Hut -- have a hard time recalling the brands competitors. In other words, being around friends when deciding where to order takeout might cause you to forget completely about that local pizza place youve been wanting to try.

"When groups of individuals are exposed to brands in the shopping environment, their memory for other brands within the same product category is impaired," write Charles D. Lindsey and H. Shanker Krishnan (Indiana University). "The current research examines retrieval in a collaborative group setting, which is a novel context for brand memory research".

Appearing in the recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, the study found that this effect is magnified for very familiar brands. Lindsey and Krishnan argue that this happens because individuals in the group are exposed not only to the advertisement but also to mentions of the brand by other members of the group.

"The practical implications of this research imply that a group premium (over and above the standard market share premium) seems to exist for advertising brands during programming where a higher percentage of viewers are group-based," conclude the authors......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

February 11, 2007, 9:40 PM CT

Speed limit for future superconducting magnet

A research team led by a Northwestern University physicist has identified a high-temperature superconductor -- Bi-2212, a compound containing bismuth -- as a material that might be suitable for the new wires needed to one day build the most powerful superconducting magnet in the world, a 30 Tesla magnet.

The material currently used in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging machines in both hospitals and research laboratories -- a low-temperature superconducting alloy of the metallic element niobium -- has been pushed almost as far as it can go, to around 21 Tesla. (Tesla is used to define the intensity of the magnetic field.) There are no superconducting magnet wires currently available that can generate 30 Tesla.

"A new materials technology -- such as a technology based on high-temperature superconductivity -- is mandatory to make the huge leap from 21 Tesla to 30 Tesla," said William P. Halperin, John Evans Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern, who led the team. "We have shown that Bi-2212 could be operated at the same temperature as is presently the case for magnets made with niobium -- 4 degrees Kelvin -- and also achieve the stable state necessary for a 30 Tesla magnet".

The findings will be published online Feb. 11 by the journal Nature Physics.........

Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 26, 2007, 4:31 AM CT

Assessing Diet And Exercise In Adolescents

Do adolescents get enough exercise and eat the right foods? Is there too much fat in their diets? According to a research findings published in the February 2007 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers analyzed the behavior of almost 900 11-to-15 year-olds and found that nearly 80% had multiple physical activity and dietary risk behaviors, almost half had at least three risk behaviors, and only 2% met all four of the health guidelines in the study.

Using both physical measurements and surveying techniques, four behaviors were assessed: physical activity, television viewing time, percent calories from fat, and daily servings of fruits and vegetables. In addition, parental health behaviors were sampled.

Fifty-five percent of adolescents did not meet the physical activity guideline, although significantly more boys (59%) than girls (33.6%) did meet the standard. About 30% exceeded 2 hours of television viewing time and the majority of the sample did not meet dietary standards. Only 32% and 11.9% of the sample met the recommendations for fat consumption and servings of fruits and vegetables, respectively.

There was some evidence that parents' health behaviors were associated with adolescents' health behaviors. For the girls, two parent health behaviors-never smoking and meeting fruit and vegetable guidelines-were associated with fewer adolescent risk behaviors. Parents' number of risk behaviors was weakly but positively associated with a higher number of risk behaviors in boys.........

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January 24, 2007, 6:11 PM CT

First Human Metabalome

Researchers at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada, have announced the completion of the first draft of the human metabolome, the chemical equivalent of the human genome.

The metabolome is the complete complement of all small molecule chemicals (metabolites) found in or produced by an organism. By analogy, if the genome represents the blueprint of life, the metabolome represents the ingredients of life.

The scientists have catalogued and characterized 2,500 metabolites, 1,200 drugs and 3,500 food components that can be found in the human body.

The research is published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

The researchers believe that the results of their work represent the starting point for a new era in diagnosing and detecting diseases.

They believe that the Human Metabolome Project (HMP), which began in Canada in 2004, will have a more immediate impact on medicine and medical practices than the Human Genome Project, because the metabolome is far more sensitive to the body's health and physiology.

"Metabolites are the canaries of the genome," says Project Leader Dr. Wishart, professor of computing science and biological sciences at the University of Alberta and Principal Investigator at NRC, National Institute for Nanotechnology. "A single base change in our DNA can lead to a 100,000X change in metabolite levels".........

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January 15, 2007, 5:11 AM CT

One In Four Specialist Trainee Doctors 'Very Worried'

One in four specialist trainee doctors in England views their future job prospects as "poor" or "very worrying," as a result of changes in training and healthcare delivery, reveals a survey* published ahead of print in a special edition of Postgraduate Medical Journal.

While the government plans to shift the focus of care, particularly for long term conditions, away from hospitals into the community, almost a third of those surveyed regarded working with patients directly in these settings as a "bad" or "very bad" development, the responses reveal.

Eight out of 10 respondents felt poorly prepared to meet the challenge of working as specialist practitioners in the community, and wanted additional training to enable them to work in the new environment.

Three out of four felt that this should take the form of a university based degree. But even with appropriate training, only half felt that they would be better equipped to find work as a consultant.

The study authors point out that by 2010, the number of medical graduates will have increased by 50%.

Coupled with the shift of emphasis to healthcare provision in community based facilities, and a much greater focus on prevention, this will create new responsibilities for doctors and drastically cut the number of hospital based specialists required, they say.........

Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

January 12, 2007, 4:58 AM CT

Bilingualism Has Protective Effect On Dementia

Canadian scientists have found astonishing evidence that the lifelong use of two languages can help delay the onset of dementia symptoms by four years compared to people who are monolingual.

There has been much interest and growing scientific literature examining how lifestyle factors such as physical activity, education and social engagement may help build "cognitive reserve" in later years of life. Cognitive reserve refers to enhanced neural plasticity, compensatory use of alternative brain regions, and enriched brain vasculature, all of which are thought to provide a general protective function against the onset of dementia symptoms.

Now scientists with the Rotman Research Institute at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain have found the first evidence that another lifestyle factor, bilingualism, may help delay dementia symptoms. The study is published in the February 2007 issue of Neuropsychologia (Vol.45, No.2).

"We are pretty dazzled by the results," says principal investigator Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., whose research team at Baycrest included psychologist Dr. Fergus Craik, a world authority on age-related changes in memory processes, and neurologist Dr. Morris Freedman, an eminent authority on understanding the mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment due to diseases such as Alzheimer's.........

Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

January 12, 2007, 4:52 AM CT

Travelers need to know more about diarrhea

Most people heading off to a sunny winter vacation in a foreign country know something about how to avoid a nasty case of travellers' diarrhea, but they don't know everything they should, according to a University of Alberta study.

A survey of 104 vacationers boarding flights for Mexico revealed that their general level of knowledge about the prevention of this condition was generally adequate; however, there were still some things they needed to know more about.

Of the travellers, surveyed as they boarded flights from the Calgary International Airport in March and April of 2005, more than 80 per cent knew that foods such as salad, partially cooked beef or chicken and ice cubes posed high risks for the illness. But only 47 per cent knew that chlorinated water is not always safe to drink, due to the resistance to chlorination among microorganisms such as Cryptosporidium. And while 96 per cent of the respondents knew that travellers' diarrhea could be contracted from bacteria, only 43 per cent knew that viruses could also be a cause. As well, only 55.8 per cent realized that hand-washing was an effective way to help ward off the sickness and 25 per cent of those surveyed wrongly identified fungi as sources of the diarrhea.

"The study showed that while these respondents are aware of the condition, they may not be aware of some important factors in avoiding and treating travellers' diarrhea," said Julie Johnson, lead author of the study and a PhD student in the Departments of Public Health Sciences and Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.........

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January 9, 2007, 9:39 PM CT

Pancreatic Cancer Surgery Five-Year Survivors

A new study shows that pancreatic cancer patients 65 or older who live at least five years after surgery have nearly as good a chance as anyone else to live another five years.

Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia reviewed the records of 890 patients with pancreatic cancer who underwent the standard pancreaticoduodenectomy, or Whipple procedure, which entails the removal of the gallbladder, common bile duct, part of the duodenum, and the head of the pancreas, between 1970 and 1999 at Johns Hopkins University. They identified those who lived for five years, and compared those who lived for at least an additional five years to the "actuarial" - or estimated - survival of the general population beginning at age 70.

Reporting in the journal Surgery, they found that 201 patients (23 percent) lived five years after surgery, at least half of whom were 65 years old or older at the time of surgery. Of those five-year survivors, an estimated 65 percent lived at least an additional five years. In the general population, roughly 87 percent of the same age group live another five years.

The study has an important message, says Charles Yeo, M.D., Samuel Gross Professor and Chair of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College, who led the work. "A decade ago, many clinicians thought that there was little reason to operate on patients with pancreatic ductal cancer, that surgery does little to extend life and improve the quality of life," says Dr. Yeo. "Not too long ago, few lived for five years after diagnosis. Today that's not true. There's been a paradigm shift in the way we treat and think about this disease".........

Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source