West Africa: meningitis epidemics driven by the wind
...x. It reinforced the message of these results, the lowest atmospheric humidity and the epidemic onset also corresponded to the sixth week of the year, 7 to 15 February. Thanks to this preliminary research, combining climate science and health sciences, it is possible to think in terms of setting up epidemi...Vigorously active adolescents are leaner, fitter
...ghest average at 8.6 minutes and black females the lowest at 2.8 minutes. They averaged nearly 40 minutes of moderate activity daily. Not surprisingly, boys had less body fat than girls, says Dr. Gutin. White and black females averaged 29.8 percent body fat and 30 percent respectively. Teenage girls should ...Northwestern's cancer genetics program finds gene variants that greatly increase breast cancer risk
..."Importantly, the results show that women with the lowest levels of TGF-beta activity have a 69 percent higher risk of breast cancer than women with the highest levels of TGF-beta activity as predicted by the combination of the two variants TGFBR1*6A and TGFB1 T29C. This finding is promising as it may even...Pregnant women with epilepsy face dilemma
...imization of treatment before conception and using lowest effective dosages for seizure type and syndromes. However, the guidelines offered limited help for physicians in how to council patients considering epilepsy treatment during their pregnancy. With this new review, doctors have more data and advice un...Adolescents not receiving health counseling, Stanford study shows
...atient visits in 2000 - 1.9 visits per capita, the lowest of any age group. Boys and ethnic minorities went least often. In contrast, infants had 8.5 visits per capita; children, 2.4 visits, and adults age 65 and over, 6.1 visits. The researchers said the low teen visit rates translate into few opportunitie...Report reveals need to improve physical health of people with schizophrenia
...serves, helping them to face their future with the lowest possible illness and mortality odds stacked against them." People with schizophrenia may fail to recognise the early signs of physical ill health or choose to avoid contact with health services. The traditional routes to obtaining health care may pro...Direct-to-consumer advertising may influence physicians' prescribing decisions
...made general requests for medication (76 percent), lowest for visits in which standardized patients made no requests for medication (31 percent), and intermediate for visits in which standardized patients made brand-specific requests linked to DTC advertising (53 percent)," the authors found. "Among standa...Costs of medical institutional review boards' greater than previously estimated
...nstitutions, 4.1. Low-volume institutions had the lowest IRB costs (mean $402,369). Intermediate-volume centers had a mean cost of $805,620, while high-volume institutions had the highest mean cost of $1,150.417 per year. High-volume medical centers, while spending more for IRBs in total, did benefit from ...'Surprising' findings reported about iron overload
...the blood is surprising because they also have the lowest prevalence of the particular gene mutation that is found in Caucasians with the typical form of hemochromatosis," he said. "This may mean that the Asians and Pacific Islanders have a different genetic mutation that has not yet been discovered, or tha...Study of iron overload yields surprising results
...slanders had the highest blood iron levels but the lowest prevalence of HFE mutations. The full results of t...els of iron in the blood, even though they had the lowest prevalence of the genotype most often associated with hemochromatosis." Reboussin said it's possible...No wisdom in routinely pulling wisdom teeth, study says
...best time to remove impacted wisdom teeth with the lowest rate of complication is between the ages of 17 to 21. "Roots may not be fully formed and are softer, and you have a young, healthy population that heals better than an older population." Noting that only two studies were involved in the systematic re...Risk of womb cancer varies according to the type of HRT used
...r and other risks, clinicians should prescribe the lowest possible dose of oestrogen for short periods of time. Fortunately, recent evaluations support the idea that oestrogens prescribed at low doses are generally effective in controlling menopausal symptoms as the traditional higher doses. Although the be...Obesity in middle age increases risk of dementia in later life
...reater risk of dementia compared to those with the lowest measurements. There were no significant race interactions between body mass index and risk of dementia. Obesity and overweight in middle age is strongly associated with an increased risk of dementia in old age, regardless of the presence of existing ...Health inequalities continue to widen, despite government rhetoric
...he difference between the local authority with the lowest life expectancy (Glasgow City) and the one with the highest (East Dorset) has risen to 11 years. Since Victorian times, such inequalities have never been as high, write the authors. The Slope Index of Inequality for life expectancy, according to deci...Social connections: Could heartwarming be heart-saving?
... 1 to 4, based on participants' response, with the lowest number corresponding to social isolation and the h...known risk factors for heart disease, men with the lowest level of social involvement had the highest levels of IL-6, the study showed. Specifically, the ave...Medical-errors gap widens between best and worst hospitals: Healthgrades study
...cidents. "The reason we see the hospitals with the lowest incident rates improving the fastest is that they ...rming hospitals as a group (hospitals that had the lowest overall PSI incident rates of all hospitals studied, defined as the top 10% of all hospitals studied...Obesity spreading out to all income levels
...ghest income group rapidly approaching that of the lowest income group." "The rich became a whole lot richer...," she said. "Interestingly, there are more in the lowest income group as well." Different dynamics are associated with the rise in obesity, she said. "The f...Other highlights in the May 4 JNCI
...asma PLP concentration, compared with women in the lowest quartile, had a reduced future risk of colorectal cancer and colon cancer, after adjusting for important risk factors associated with colorectal cancer as well as dietary folate and methionine intake, and multivitamin use. Total vitamin B6 intake was...Different consultants mean different lengths of stay in hospitals
...neral internal medicine (GIM), and specialty. The lowest length of stay a median five days was recorded in cases where a patient was admitted by a general internal medicine consultant and both GIM and respiratory consultants were less likely to have long stay patients than those of the other consultant g...Stroke drug still meets resistance from doctors wary of its risks
...ge they'd tolerate from tPA, and what would be the lowest acceptable improvement in patients' neurological state that would convince them tPA was beneficial enough to warrant the bleeding risk. The authors performed cross-analyses of answers according to physician age, gender, training background, year of m...