Is screentime always harmful? This Q&A addresses what makes screen time positive or harmful, how people can protect themselves and their children from unhealthy screen behavior, and how lawmakers could legislate healthier screen environments for everyone.

The del Monte lab at the Medical University of South Carolina has completed the first comprehensive analysis of the protein repair system in hearts with clusters of misfolded proteins. Their study revealed changes in post-translational modifications (PTMs) shaped by disease, age, and genetics. The defects in PTMs led to a repair system that was unresponsive to the misfolded protein plaques found in hearts of patients with IDCM , a heart muscle disease of unknown cause. 

Kyoto, Japan -- Dementia makes most things in life more difficult, including hospital care. Though often essential for patients suffering from severe acute illness, hospital care can be confusing for persons with dementia, or PWD. Compared to older adults without dementia, PWD in the United States visit the emergency room and are hospitalized at higher rates. In these cases, the decision for a hospital stay requires a delicate balance between the potential benefits and risks of hospital care.

Previous research has suggested that PWD who are admitted to the hospital have higher mortality rates and spend more days away from home in the following months than their non-admitted counterparts. However, a possible explanation for this is that the admitted patients are already in worse condition -- in unmeasured ways -- than their counterparts.

Intrigued by this conundrum, a team of researchers at Kyoto University and the University of California, Los Angeles examined whether hospital admissions have a causal effect on health outcomes for persons with dementia, and also investigated the effect on their subsequent healthcare spending.