A recent Finnish randomized population-based study shows that TV-viewing, and particularly exposure to adult-targeted programs, such as current affairs programs, TV series and police series and movies, markedly increases the risk of sleeping difficulties in 5-6 year old children. Also passive exposure to TV increases sleeping difficulties.
Questionnaires concerning TV viewing, sleep disturbances, and psychiatric symptoms were administered to 321 parents of children aged 5-6 years, represen
A UCLA/Veteran’s Affairs study showed that more than 40 percent of patients who initially had received a positive result on a fecal occult blood test (FOBT) — an initial screening tool for colon cancer — did not receive appropriate diagnostic follow-up tests such as a colonoscopy or barium enema in 2002. According to the authors, the study may even underestimate this problem in the United States, since previous studies have shown the VA’s level of preventive care and follow-up traditi
Whether finding your way through an unfamiliar neighborhood to a friend’s house or deciding on a political candidate, your brain is adept at adapting. It can make decisions based on incomplete information and update those decisions based on new information.
The nature of such sophisticated decision making in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for high-level processing, has been “poorly studied and little understood,” according to Wako Yoshida and Shin Ishii of the Nara Inst
Imagining things from another’s perspective may help in making medical choices
If a deadly bird flu reaches America, which would you choose: To get a risky experimental vaccine now, or to forego that risk but face an even greater risk of dying in the epidemic? What would you choose for your child? What if you were in charge of public health for your community?
A new study probes how we make such tricky decisions, and how our decisions might change dramatically i
Researchers evaluated the effects stress, depression and cortisol
Caregivers of people under psychological or physical stress, as well as those with the conditions themselves, should not overlook their oral health, according to a new study printed in the Journal of Periodontology.
The results from the study suggest that being a caregiver to relatives with dementia, hypercortisolemia (overproduction of cortisol) or stress were associated with elevated plaque levels and inc
Variations in the strength of the sun have played a major role in glacial fluctuations in the tropical Andes for hundreds of years, and combined with current greenhouse gases generated by humans, paint an alarming picture for tropical glaciers in the near future.
A study conducted in part by the University of Alberta in Edmonton, along with the universities of Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Barcelona and Caracas, shows that even modest natural variations of solar radiation in the Ve
Memory tests performed with amnesiacs have enabled researchers to refute a long-held belief in an essential difference between long-and short-term memories. In the study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania determined that the hippocampus — a seahorse shaped structure in the middle of the brain — was just as important for retrieving certain types of short-term memories as it is for long-term memories.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, overturn th
A major international study to test whether a new combination treatment that increases good “HDL” cholesterol prevents heart attacks and strokes will start to recruit patients later this year, it was announced today (Wednesday 31 May).
It will recruit 20,000 patients with vascular disease from the UK, China and Scandinavia to investigate whether combining niacin with a new drug (MK-0524A) that minimises niacin’s side-effects (chiefly facial flushing) can drive down still further t
Travel is something that impacts on most of us. For many, the daily commute is a way of life and bookends the beginning and end of the day. But is travel time ‘dead time’ that needs to be reduced to a minimum by providing more and faster transportation, or is there more to the way we choose to use our travel time?
The latest research from the University of the West of England into travel time is featured on a new Research TV film that can be seen at http://www.research-tv.com/stories/soc
Cigarettes are a particular problem among Asian-American immigrants, where smoking has been estimated to be more than 10 percent above the national average.
Yet for many Korean-American immigrants, the social benefits of cigarettes may trump any health concerns, according to a new baseline study of Korean smokers from the Center for Asian Health at Temple University, conducted by Grace Ma, PhD, professor of public health and director of the Center.
The study involved on
A new study suggests that the risk of transmitting the virus that causes most cases of genital herpes could be cut in half by more testing and informing sexual partners of infection. The study is published in the July 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.
Until recently, there was little evidence to show that knowledge of infection would lead to decreased transmission of herpes simplex virus (HSV) to others. But Anna Wald, MD, MPH, and colleagues at the Un
Neither of the two emergency surgical interventions used to correct perforated necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a common and dangerous complication of prematurity, appears to significantly improve an infant’s survival and later health, according to a study by UAB researchers and colleagues in the May 25 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
In the first clinical trial to examine this issue, a team of scientists from UAB, Yale University and other sites studied 117 preterm infants
A study led by UCSF neurologist S. Claiborne Johnston, MD, has shown that coiling of ruptured brain aneurysms is very effective during long-term follow-up, similar to outcomes with surgical clipping.
Although results of a previous trial suggested that coiling was superior to surgical clipping one year after treatment, a lack of data on long-term outcomes has been a major concern, according to Johnston. The study results are published in the June 2006 issue of the journal Strok
Youth with bipolar disorder misread facial expressions as hostile and show heightened neural reactions when they focus on emotional aspects of neutral faces, researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered. The study provides some of the first clues to the underlying workings of the episodes of mania and depression that disrupt friendships, school, and family life in up to one percent of children.
Brain scans showed tha
The ease of pronouncing the name of a company and its stock ticker symbol influences how well that stock performs in the days immediately after its initial public offering, two Princeton University psychologists have found.
A new study of initial public offerings (IPOs) on two major American stock exchanges shows that people are more likely to purchase newly offered stocks that have easily pronounced names than those that do not, according to Princeton’s Adam Alter and Dan
From a soft drink in a mega-size cup to a jumbo order of fries, many fast food restaurants let you upsize your meal for pennies — seemingly a great value.
But there’s a hidden cost to those larger portions, even beyond the health consequences of gaining weight. A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison nutritional scientists has calculated how much money a single bout of overeating can cost over the following year, according to a study to be published in June 2006 in the Journ
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