A new study by Medical College of Wisconsin researchers has found that women who most need bone density testing to determine if they have osteoporosis are the least likely to get it. They are older women who are among the highest risk groups and who suffer most if they break a bone. The study is published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.

“Over half of hip fracture patients never regain their prior level of functioning and 20 percent of them r

A statistical review of the past medical files of more than 300 couples in Uganda, in which the female partner was HIV negative and the male was HIV positive, provides solid documentation of the protective effects of male circumcision in reducing the risk of infection among women. Male circumcision also reduced rates of trichomonas and bacterial vaginosis in female partners. The study is believed to be the first to demonstrate the benefits to female partners of male circumcision.

Speci

When graduate student Pengpeng Zhang successfully imaged a piece of silicon just 10 nanometers-or a millionth of a centimeter-in thickness, she and her University of Wisconsin-Madison co-researchers were puzzled. According to established thinking, the feat should be impossible because her microscopy method required samples that conduct electricity.

“After she did it, we realized, ’Hey, this silicon layer is really thin-it’s much thinner than what people normally use,&

The recently completed “European Fusion Power Plant Conceptual Study” investigates the technical feasibility, the expected safety and environmental properties, and the cost of a future fusion power plant. The latest results in plasma physics, technology, and materials research provided the basis for the development of four different power plant models illuminating a wide spectrum of physical and technical possibilities. Analysis of their ecological and economic properties has confirmed favourable

Results of a new study support the hypothesis that chronic periodontal infection increases the risk of developing preeclampsia in pregnant women. This study printed in February’s issue of the Journal of Periodontology. The results also suggest that maternal chronic periodontal disease is a risk factor for low birthweight babies among preeclamptic mothers compared to those women who did not have preeclampsia.

“We found that chronic periodontitis was more prevalent in the preecla

Two Dartmouth researchers are one step closer to defining exactly when human maturity sets in. In a study aimed at identifying how and when a person’s brain reaches adulthood, the scientists have learned that, anatomically, significant changes in brain structure continue after age 18.

The study, called “Anatomical Changes in the Emerging Adult Brain,” appeared in the Nov. 29, 2005, on-line issue of the journal Human Brain Mapping. It will appear in a forthcoming issue of the

Policies supportive of new mothers in workplaces are strongly encouraged

Babies fully breastfed for six months are less likely to suffer from respiratory illnesses in their first two years than babies fully breastfed for only four months, according to research conducted by investigators at UC Davis Children’s Hospital, the University of Rochester and the American Academy of Pediatrics, Center for Child Health Research.

“We found that babies who received an addition

Leads to long-term improvement in physicians’ domestic violence management skills

Two new studies reported in the February 2006 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine show that a case-based online continuing medical education program helps community physicians better deal with the difficult problems posed by their patients who are in abusive relationships. The studies, authored by Dr. Lynn Short and her colleagues, describe the results of a 5-year federally-fund

Despite findings being announced this week that a low-fat diet introduced in the middle-age years didn’t reduce the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke or colon cancer, one of the researchers says people still need to focus on the types of fat they eat. The national diet study of almost 50,000 healthy postmenopausal women was part of the massive Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study.

The hypothesis that low-fat diets could help reduce the risk of certain disea

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects more than 170 million people worldwide and leads to both acute and chronic liver diseases. Since its discovery several decades ago, the insidious human pathogen has stymied the quest for anti-viral therapies by refusing to reproduce in test tubes for more than a few hours or days, denying scientists an efficient virus production and infection system for experimental research.

Now, in a landmark study by Florida State University biologists that could bol

Seven per cent of men having a heart attack drove themselves to hospital and only 60 per cent went by ambulance, according to research published in the latest Journal of Advanced Nursing.

The study, which looked at 890 heart attack patients admitted to six major teaching hospitals in Dublin, southern Ireland, also found that it took women five times as long as men to go to casualty departments after their symptoms first started. But only one per cent got behind the wheel and dr

Children who spend more time watching television spend less time interacting with their family and playing creatively, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Children’s Hospital in the journal Pediatrics.

By studying children’s activities over 24-hour periods, Dr. Elizabeth Vandewater and her colleagues provide evidence for the first time that supports the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) television viewing recommendations.

A

Largest twin study ever undertaken confirms highest estimates of genetic risk

Alzheimer disease has a genetic cause in up to 80 percent of cases, according to a University of Southern California- led study of nearly 12,000 twin pairs. The study appears in the February 2006 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association.

Margaret Gatz, professor of psychology in the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, led an international t

Joint signing of the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities” by Swiss scientific organisations

The Rector’s Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS), the Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences (KFH), the Swiss Conference of Schools for Teacher Education (SKPH) as well as the Council of the Swiss Scientific Academies (CASS), together with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), have signed the so-called “Declaration o

The government’s new white paper on health seems to suggest that patients should be offered more choice. However, visiting the doctor or phoning the police is simply not like shopping, according to people questioned for a new study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which found that most of us reject the trend towards treating everyone as ‘consumers’.

We see public services as different from the market-place and value their ‘publicness’, according to the project le

New research suggests that the lower survival rates of blacks with lung cancer may be explained by access to care. The study, by Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researchers and colleagues is reported in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“The results were intriguing,” said principal investigator A. William Blackstock, M.D., “When offered equivalent therapy, the outcome for black patients was the same as that of non-blacks.”

Historically, s