Symptoms of anxiety and depression in childhood and use of MDMA: Prospective population based study; BMJ online first

Children with symptoms of anxiety and depression may have an increased tendency to use ecstasy in adolescence or young adulthood, finds a study published online by the BMJ today.

The use of ecstasy is associated with emotional health problems, such as depression, psychotic symptoms, and anxiety disorders. But it’s not clear whether emotional problem

Indicates need for patients to balance oral health with other cardiovascular risk factors

New research is reinforcing the longstanding belief that a connection exists between periodontal disease, or severe gum inflammation, and cardiovascular disease. But according to Moise Desvarieux, MD, PhD, infectious disease epidemiologist in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the nature of the relationship is still unclear and

TV advertising shown to be most effective

Most smokers want to quit, but even among those who try, less than 5% manage to stop smoking for more than three months. There is a major ongoing effort to encourage quitting, the National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation. This comprehensive plan has six main initiatives, only one of which, a national telephone quit line, has been implemented to date. To evaluate the effectiveness of various strategies, researchers identified 787 people w

Did you ever arrange to meet a friend at a busy street corner, then rush up to a total stranger thinking it was your friend? Neuroscientists have a theory to explain why such potentially embarrassing mistakes occur. They probe the underlying perceptual and neural processes of visual search by studying how distracters affect performance of a visual search task. One might intuitively expect that as background noise created by distracters and errors increase, confidence in one’s decision plummets

There are growing concerns over the effects of increased consumption of sodas and fruit drinks among adolescents in the United States. A study in the February issue of The Journal of Pediatrics examines this trend among black and white girls over a ten year period.

Ruth Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., and colleagues from several institutions studied three-day food diaries kept by 2,371 girls who participated in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth Health Study. The food

In response to the European Commission’s launch of a Communication to the European Council on developing a knowledge flagship: the European Institute of Technology, MEPs Prof. Jerzy Buzek and Dr. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis called for stronger links between the innovation, research and business communities.

According to Dr. Chatzimarkakis the EIT is now foreseen as a network – linking the best departments of various EU Universities and industries/businesses to create “knowledge communitie

As the prism of our senses, the human brain has ways of refracting sensory input in defiance of reality.

This is seen, for example, in the placebo effect, when simple sugar pills or inert salves taken by unwitting subjects are seen to ease pain or have some other beneficial physiological effect. How the brain processes this faked input and prompts the body to respond is largely a mystery of neuroscience.

Now, however, scientists have begun to peel back some of the neuro

A new review of studies supports the government’s opinion that too little evidence exists to support a device that uses balloon-like pants as a treatment for heart failure.

External counterpulsation (ECP), a noninvasive therapy to improve blood flow to the heart, is most commonly used to relieve hard-to-treat chest pain for heart patients who are not candidates for surgery.

Last year, the equipment manufacturer asked the federal government to expand its coverage o

There is little doubt that alcohol-related disorders in humans are genetically based. The influence of environmental factors, however, remains unclear. Given that studies of humans are complicated by a multitude of cultural and day-to-day-living factors, researchers in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research use rhesus monkeys to examine genetic and environmental influences on alcohol consumption. Results indicate that, just as with humans, both genetic and environmental

Most participants in GAIT study saw little relief

The popular dietary supplements glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate proved no better than a placebo in relieving osteoarthritis knee pain in most participants of a major national trial. But the study, published in the Feb. 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, also showed a smaller subgroup of trial patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis knee pain taking the combination of the two supplements experienced signifi

Manchester is set to become a major contributor to stem-cell research with the opening of one of the most hi-tech facilities in the UK.

The North West Embryonic Stem Cell Centre, based at St Mary’s Hospital and The University of Manchester, will develop new treatments for diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

The £2 million centre will produce embryonic stem cells of high enough quality for human transplantation – one of only a handful of laboratories in the UK able to do

How do we teach about religion in a multicultural Europe? What connections are there between religion and conflict, or between religion and welfare? These topical questions are the focus of two major EU projects to be led by Uppsala University, Sweden.

Two projects about religion in a multicultural society have been granted EU funding from the Sixth Framework Program and the Socrates Program, respectively. Both will be directed from Uppsala University. The first one is a research proj

Where we look often reveals our interests and intentions. Consequently, we often look toward others and follow their gaze to the objects to which they give visual attention. Like humans, monkeys pay attention to the eyes of individuals within their groups; in the laboratory, they respond more quickly to a target when they have seen another individual look at it. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center now demonstrate that social status strongly determines how monkeys deploy their atten

If women want the best possible service at a clothing store, they had better be looking fashionable and well-groomed before they hit the mall.

A new study found that well-dressed and groomed women received the friendliest and, in some cases, fastest service from salesclerks.

Researchers secretly observed interactions between customers and salesclerks at three large-sized women’s clothing stores, timing how long clerks took to greet customers, and rating the clerks&

To provide essential data for the rebuilding of the ravaged levees in New Orleans, engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will be studying small-scale models of sections of the flood-protection system. The researchers will replicate conditions during Hurricane Katrina by subjecting the models to flood loads, supplying important information to help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepare the city for next hurricane season and beyond.

The researchers will build and test models of t

Heart health risk factors and lifestyle choices, such as exercise, learning new things and staying socially connected, are associated with maintaining brain health as we age according to a new report from a multi-Institute collaboration of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published online today in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“Many of the factors that can put our brain health at risk are things we can modify and control,” said Wi