Archive for the ‘Recent Studies’ Category

It may come as somewhat of a surprise to find out that physicians don’t always think about defibrillator care when considering end of life issues, which can lead to very unpleasant experiences for dying patients. What do I mean? Well, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a device which can be inserted into patients who have heart rhythm problems. Its job is to shock the heart into proper rhythm when it goes astray. However, this may not be desired in someone who has made the decision to use hospice care in order to die as peacefully and pain-free as possible. If an ICD is not deactivated, it can go off repeatedly and deliver very unpleasant shocks to the patient. A study published in this month’s Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that most hospices don’t routinely speak to patients about defibrillator decisions, and nearly 60% of hospices had at least one patient shocked within the past year, sometimes multiple times at once. More surprisingly, only one in twenty hospices had a method to identify whether a patient had an implant or not. Defibrillators continue to be implanted at incredible rates (more than 100,000 a year). Therefore, doctors taking care of patients near end of life should be more aware and proactive in speaking to them about what their wishes are regarding deactivation of their ICD. [via AP News]

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Here’s a caution to criminals: forensics is about to get even more high-tech. It turns out that, aside from your traditional fingerprint, you also have a bacterial fingerprint. An emerging field of study involves the detection of the numerous variety of bacteria that live on our skin. As we go about our day, we leave traces of these little critters on the things we touch, each of us having our own unique mix of germs. One study showed that the average human hand contains about 150 species of bacteria with only about 13% shared by any two people. Another study involving a computer mouse (left untouched for 12 hours), the computer’s owner and 270 random people found that the closest match for the bacterial colonies on the mouse belonged to the computer owner. Researchers say that bacterial fingerprinting will someday facilitate identification of smudged fingerprints, in addition to determining who has touched things like fabrics and highly textured materials. [via AP News]

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A new study released this week of over 30 thousand US children found that, on average, kids snack three times a day. What’s more, over half of these children snack 4 times a day. Compared with data from the 1970s which show children consuming over 400 daily calories from snacks, kids today consume nearly 600 daily calories from snack food alone. “My underlying fear is that we’re moving away from being hungry and eating for satiation to just eating,” said Dr. Barry M. Popkin, co-author of the study and director of nutrition epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. Although caloric intake from snacks have increased over time, the average child’s total daily calories have only increased by 113 calories. This means that snack calories have replaced mealtime calories, which is not a good thing since sweet snacks (cookies and cakes) and salty snacks (chips and pretzels) are the top two most consumed categories of snack. [via New York Times]

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A new Stanford University study published in the current journal Obstetrics & Gynecology suggests that acupuncture during pregnancy may help with symptoms of depression. The small study followed 150 pregnant women with major depression who were randomly assigned to undergo either acupuncture specifically designed for depression, general acupuncture or Swedish massage. After eight weeks of treatment, nearly 66% of the women who underwent depression-specific acupuncture demonstrated a reduction in at least 50% of their symptoms, compared with just under half of the women treated with either massage or regular acupuncture.  [via TopNews]

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Are you one of those people who never forgets a face? Well, it seems that the credit for your ability (or lack of ability) may go to your genes. In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences new research results show that there’s a clear genetic basis for higher level perception and cognitive abilities such as facial recognition. By comparing groups of twins, scientists found that identical twins (who share 100% of their genetic material) were more than twice as likely to share the same competence level in recognizing faces, compared to non-identical twins (who share 50% of their genetic material). “We are excited about this finding because the brain mechanisms carrying out face recognition are fairly well understood, meaning that the high heritability of face recognition could provide a good opportunity to connect genes to brain mechanism and then to behavior,” said lead author, Dr. Brad Duchaine. [via PNAS]

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A new study in this month’s issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology demonstrates that excessive weight gain during pregnancy, especially in the first trimester, can increase a woman’s risk of developing gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Although it’s known that too much weight gain can lead to GDM (which is one of the reasons why doctors carefully follow a pregnant woman’s weight), results from the current study shows that women who gained more weight during pregnancy than recommended by the US Institute of Medicine were 50% more likely to develop the disorder. GDM can lead to early delivery, increased risk of c-sections, type 2 diabetes in the mother post-partum, and even increases the likelihood that the child will develop diabetes and obesity later in life. [HealthDay via Yahoo! News]

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Green tea has been touted for various health benefits (such as fighting against heart disease and cancer) largely due to it’s high level of antioxidants called catechins. Now, Chinese scientists have found that the catechins appear to be able to penetrate into the tissues of the eyes, especially into the retina, which is the light-sensing tissue that lines the back of the eye. The study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, demonstrated that this antioxidant activity can last for up to 20 hours after drinking green tea extract. The authors theorize that the readily absorbed antioxidants help to protect the delicate tissues of the eye from glaucoma and other eye diseases. However, it must be noted that East Asians experience the highest rate of blindness from one common type of glaucoma, despite being among the largest consumers of green tea. Therefore, further studies will definitely be needed to confirm any protective ocular effects of green tea in humans. [Via WebMD]

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For the first time ever all US counties have been scored and ranked in terms of the overall health of their residents and compiled in the 2010 County Health Rankings. The data will allow health officials to compare the statistics of their county with demographically similar counties. This effort is an attempt to bring comprehensive health data to the local level in order to stimulate action towards improved health. Anyone now can go online to see how their country ranks within their state in regards to a variety of health outcome measures and health factors organized into the broad categories of mortality and morbidity, health behaviors, health care access, socioeconomic factors, and environmental factors. To see where your county ranks, visit www.countyhealthrankings.org.

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A new Cochrane Systematic Review incorporating over 16 thousand subjects has found that flexible working hours can have positive impacts on a variety of health outcomes including blood pressure, sleep and mental health. European countries are looking at the study with interest due to their recent trend towards more flexible working hours. “Flexible working seems to be more beneficial for health and wellbeing where the individuals control their own work patterns, rather than where employers are in control,” said the review lead, Clare Bambra of the Wolfson Research Institute, Durham University in the UK. “Given the limited evidence base, we wouldn’t want to make any hard and fast recommendations, but these findings certainly give employers and employees something to think about.” It’s logical that flexible work hours may lessen stress and improve productivity, but does this hold true for all employees and professions? Would flexible working hours further increase the divide among socioeconomic groups if they were more readily available to higher status occupations? [via Medical News Today]

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A study from New York-Presbyterian Hospital in the current issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a journal of the American Heart Association, shows that American women’s awareness of heart attack symptoms remain just as poor as it was over a decade ago. In fact, only 53% of women said they would call 9-1-1 if they were having symptoms of a heart attack. The majority of women were also not aware of these common symptoms – only 56%  cited chest pain and neck, shoulder and arm pain, 29% shortness of breath, 17% chest tightness, 15% nausea, and 7% fatigue as signs of heart attack. However, it should be noted that women do not necessarily experience these same classic symptoms as the majority of men. A significant number of women will experience symptoms such as shortness of breath, weakness, unusual fatigue, cold sweat, and dizziness as major symptoms during a heart attack. So, as heart disease continues to remain the top killer of women in the US, it is evident that continued education directed towards awareness of heart attacks in women is very much needed. [via Medical News Today]

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