EurekAlert! Public News List

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

JAMA Internal Medicine
Decision aids associated with increase in informed decision making about prostate cancer screening
Both web-based and print-based decision aids appear to improve patients' informed decision making about prostate cancer screening up to 13 months later, but does not appear to affect actual screening rates, according to a study by Kathryn L. Taylor, Ph.D., of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and colleagues.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

JAMA Internal Medicine
Adolescent kidney transplant recipients appear to be at higher risk of transplant failure
Patients who received their first kidney transplant at ages 14 to 16 years appear to be at increased risk for transplant failure, with black adolescents having a disproportionately higher risk of graft failure, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association
Physicians should counsel patients about sex life after cardiac event
New statement from American and European cardiology experts advises heart patients and their partners to receive individually tailored counseling from healthcare professionals about resuming sexual activity. Counseling should address topics such as when to resume sex, specific methods and recommended positions, and the role of intimacy without sex.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

JAMA Internal Medicine
Treatment for back pain varies despite published clinical guidelines
Management of back pain appears to be variable, despite numerous published clinical guidelines, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association
Playing college football linked with high blood pressure risk
College football players, especially linemen, may develop high blood pressure over the course of their first season, according to a small study in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

American Heart Association

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

JAMA Internal Medicine
Decision aids reduce men's conflict about PSA screening, but don't change their decisions
Men who decide to be screened for prostate cancer and those who forgo PSA screening stick with their decisions after receiving materials explaining the risks and benefits of the test. The decision aids greatly increased their knowledge about screening and reduced their conflict about what to do, but did not have an impact on their screening decision when measured a year later.

NIH/National Cancer Institute, US Department of Defense

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013
Living longer, living healthier
Based on data collected between 1991 and 2009 from almost 90,000 individuals who responded to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, David Cutler, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, says that, even as life expectancy has increased over the past two decades, people have become increasingly healthier later in life

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Aberrant splicing saps the strength of 'slow' muscle fibers
In people with myotonic dystrophy, the second most common form of muscular dystrophy, type 1 fibers do not work well, wasting away as the genetic disorder takes over. In a report that appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, BCM researchers showed how an aberrant alternative splicing program changes the form of an enzyme involved in the fundamental metabolism of these muscle cells, leaving them unable to sustain exercise.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Current Biology
Keeping your balance
Professor Kathleen Cullen has been able to identify a distinct and surprisingly small cluster of cells deep within the brain that react within milliseconds to readjust our movements when something unexpected happens, whether it is slipping on ice or hitting a rock when skiing. This finding both overturns current theories about how we learn to maintain our balance as we move through the world, and also has significant implications for understanding the neural basis of motion sickness.

Fonds de Recherche du Québec Nature et Technologies, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
How does hydrogen metallize?
Hydrogen is deceptively simple. It has only a single electron per atom, but it powers the sun and forms the majority of the observed universe. As such, it is naturally exposed to the entire range of pressures and temperatures available in the whole cosmos. But researchers still struggle to understand even basic aspects of its various forms under high-pressure conditions. New work makes significant additions to our understanding of this vital element's high-pressure behavior.

EFree, US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
'Cowcatcher' enzyme fixes single-strand DNA
Single-stranded DNA repair is a critical process whose mechanism has never been determined. Now, researchers have figured out how this process works, focusing on an enzyme associated with the replication complex that detects DNA damage, stops replication and repairs the damage.

US Public Health Service, Alzheimer's Association

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Emergency Medicine Journal
Hospital screening tool for suicide risk among self-harmers should be ditched
A screening tool used in general hospitals to detect suicide risk among patients who have self harmed should be ditched, concludes a study published online in Emergency Medicine Journal.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

BMJ Quality & Safety
Most ward nurses say time pressures force them to 'ration' care
Most ward nurses say they are forced to ration care, and not do or complete certain aspects of it -- including adequate monitoring of patients -- because they don't have enough time, indicates research published online in BMJ Quality & Safety.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Journal of Clinical Pathology
Female deaths much less likely to be reported to coroner in England and Wales
Doctors in England and Wales are much less likely to report a woman's death to a coroner than they are a man's, reveals research published online in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Evolution of monogamy in humans the result of infanticide risk
The threat of infants being killed by unrelated males is the key driver of monogamy in humans and other primates. The study by academics from UCL, University of Manchester, University of Oxford and University of Auckland, is the first to reveal this evolutionary pathway for the emergence of pair living.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Journal of Animal Ecology
Of bears and berries: Return of wolves aids grizzly bears in Yellowstone
A new study suggests that the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park is beginning to bring back a key part of the diet of grizzly bears that has been missing for much of the past century -- berries that help bears put on fat before going into hibernation. The berries could aid bear survival and reproduction.

US Geological Survey

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Study looks beyond averages to track variability in a bacterial population
As a result of the variable nature of gene expression, genetically identical cells inhabiting the same environment can vary significantly in their numbers of key enzymes, which in turn results in strikingly different cellular behaviors. Researchers at the University of Illinois have captured some of this variability to identify several behavior sub-types in a bacterial population.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Science
Understanding why male mammals choose monogamy
This new study informs the setting in which social monogamy evolved in male mammals, which has been debated by evolutionary biologists for decades.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Canadian Medical Association Journal
Topical analgesic may provide pain-free 'skin glue' repair of cuts in children
More than 50 percent of children who were given a topical analgesic had no pain during wound repair with "skin glue," according to the results of a randomized controlled trial reported in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Cancer
Higher cancer incidences found in regions near refineries and plants that release benzene
The incidence of a particular type of blood cancer is significantly higher in regions near facilities that release the chemical benzene into the environment. That is the conclusion of a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. This and other studies like it will be critical to identifying and enacting public health policies to decrease or prevent cancer.

Public Release: 29-Jul-2013

Annals of Internal Medicine
Annals of Internal Medicine tip sheet for July 30, 2013
Below is information about an article being published in the July 30 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The information is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. Annals of Internal Medicine attribution is required for all coverage.

Public Release: 28-Jul-2013

Nature Genetics
Statins suppress rett syndrome symptoms in mice
Statins, a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs found in millions of medicine cabinets, may help treat Rett Syndrome, according to a study published today in Nature Genetics. The Rett Syndrome Research Trust funded this work with generous support from the Rett Syndrome Research Trust UK and Rett Syndrome Research & Treatment Foundation.

Contact: Monica Coenraads
monica@rsrt.org
203-445-0041
Rett Syndrome Research Trust

Public Release: 28-Jul-2013

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Oregon team charts new understanding of actin filament growth in cells
University of Oregon biochemists have determined how tiny synthetic molecules disrupt an important actin-related molecular machine in cells in one study and, in a second one, the crystal structure of that machine when bound to a natural inhibitor.

National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association

Public Release: 28-Jul-2013
Mystery deepens in coffin-within-a-coffin found at Richard III site
A medieval stone coffin found at Grey Friars contains an inner lead coffin -- which archaeologists will now examine at the University of Leicester.

Public Release: 28-Jul-2013

Nature Nanotechnology
Molecular robots can help researchers build more targeted therapeutics
Many drugs such as agents for cancer or autoimmune diseases have nasty side effects because while they kill disease-causing cells, they also affect healthy cells. Now a new study has demonstrated a technique for developing more targeted drugs, by using molecular "robots" to hone in on more specific populations of cells.

National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Lymphoma and Leukemia Foundation


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