Oral bacteria may predict pregnancy outcomes
... "Whereas the bacteria L.casei secretes acids that maintain the vaginal pH level below 4.5. This pH level has a protective effect and prevents the overgrowth of more bacteria, including those associated with bacterial vaginosis (a condition associated with preterm labor and deliver)." "What's interesting is...Understanding how vulnerabilities may keep women in abusive relationships
...led them to stay with Black men citing a desire to maintain their relationship in the face of the negativity and dysfunctional reputation of Black relationships. "Attempting to understand how women become victims of chronic abuse is an attempt to learn more about what fosters resilience," the authors conclud...Extreme exertion, emotion can spark repeat heart attacks
...ew is that it is much more important for people to maintain good personal and sexual relationships than it is to worry about this small increase in risk," Steptoe says." Emotional distress, along with natural disasters, war and sporting events may also trigger heart attacks in vulnerable individuals, accordi......is the thin, outer layer of hard tissue that helps maintain the tooth's structure and shape while protecting it from decay. "A low pH environment in the mouth helps contribute to dental erosion," says Samantha Shipley, DDS, and lead author of the report. pH (potential of hydrogen) is a standard way to measur...Energy and sports drinks attack enamel
...s beverages and energy drinks appeal to people who maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, the same drinks that claim to recharge the body after a workout could cause more irreversible damage to teeth than soft drinks. A study of the effects some of these beverages had on enamel, appearing in the January/Feb...Donor age has no affect on long-term liver transplant survival
...e of steroids and azathioprine did play a role and maintain that these associations need to be tested in a prospective randomized fashion....Northwestern Memorial Hospital honored with one of the nation's top awards for quality
...d emerging technologies, and continuous efforts to maintain financial strength." said Catherine E. McDermott, NCQHC's president and CEO. "We see quality as extending beyond outcomes to include such things as how somebody answers the phone to how the patient is greeted when the food tray is delivered to the...Laughter helps blood vessels function better
...t is conceivable that laughing may be important to maintain a healthy endothelium, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease," says principal investigator Michael Miller, M.D., director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at the Univers...Serum sodium level is a major predictor of a poor prognosis for heart failure patients
... with nerve and muscle function, and also helps to maintain blood pressure. Hyponatremia most commonly occurs in people whose kidneys do not function properly, as well as in those with heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver, and Addison's disease. Sodium must be maintained at a specific concentration in the ...Mayo Clinic develops first genomic-based test to predict stroke from ruptured brain aneurysm
...ng a gene therapy approach, the arteries relax and maintain smooth, healthy flow. The Investigation To determine the role of nitric oxide synthase gene variations in ruptured brain aneurysms, the Mayo Clinic team screened the genetic variants of 49 patients who had unruptured brain aneurysms, and compared ...Potential treatment for Fragile X Syndrome demonstrated in fruit fly model
...ts in certain neurons, enlarged testes, failure to maintain proper day/night activity patterns; attention deficits and hyperactivity, and defects in behavior-dependent learning and memory. "Our thinking was that since so many of the behavioral and physical phenotypes in the fly model were similar to symptoms...Inpatient smoking cessation counseling is associated with early differences in mortality
...t for good would be to recommend, at a minimum, to maintain the in-hospital mandated smoking deprivation for a brief period after discharge." Many states are already beginning to pay for anti-smoking counseling. The Centers for Disease Control encourage physician intervention to encourage patients to give up ...Concerns over the future of children's health care in British general practice
..., he says. General practice is at a crossroads. To maintain their place as the main providers of health care for children and young people, general practitioners will need appropriate training and remuneration for providing a practice based quality child health service for the 21st century and opportunities t...Penn study will compare heart failure management technologies
...or risk of decompensation failure of the heart to maintain adequate blood circulation and guides patients through a step-by-step problem solving procedure. The heart failure patients participating in the study will be randomized to: 1. Home technology including a scale, blood pressure cuff, heart ra...Protein that promotes survival of stem cells might be key to poor leukemia prognosis
...enitor cells alive and multiplying so the body can maintain its needed supply of blood cells," he said. "Howev... This was strong evidence that Mcl-1 was needed to maintain these cell populations. The team also demonstrated that BM cells lacking Mcl-1 did not multiply whe...Diagnosis of prions in patients should utilize novel strategy, team says
...ethal, says Safar. But Prusiner and his colleagues maintain that any risk is too great when it comes to having prions in the food supply. In addition, because even low levels of prions are extremely resistant to inactivation, they may contaminate the environment for many years. Prusiner won the 1997 Nobel Pri...Americans support most uses of reproductive genetic testing, report on US attitudes reveals
...lains. "Any decisions - including the decision to maintain the status quo - should be undertaken with clear-eyed understanding of their potential impact." The report concludes with a call for more research and a need for critical data - the number of people likely to use reproductive genetic tests, how peopl...Another look finds promising proteomics test is not biologically plausible
...rs before symptoms appear, but Baggerly and others maintain that the promise of this emerging field of proteomics has not yet been met due to the difficulty in finding complex, reproducible patterns of proteins. According to Baggerly, that now appears to be the case with the experimental ovarian cancer test a...Feb. 15, 2005, Annals of Internal Medicine tip sheet
...e "must be accompanied by ongoing active effort to maintain competence and quality of care." (Editorial, p. 302.) The writers point to new methods of ongoing performance measurement built into physician maintenance of certification....Cardiology losing out as women 'turned off' by family unfriendly specialty
...corrected, it will prove increasingly difficult to maintain high standards of cardiological practice and research in this country," they conclude. And they call for a raft of measures, including the establishment of mentors, more flexible training and part time consultant posts, and a refusal to tolerate sex...