Public Health

The drinking habits of the people in your extended social group play a major role in determining how many adult beverages you consume, says researchers writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The authors suggest this social phenomenon could have implications for clinical and health interventions. Social networks could be used to exploit positive health behaviors and further support group interventions. In the study, self-reported alcohol intake over time followed changes in the alcohol intake of the respondents' social contacts. The researchers found that a person was 50 percent more…

Exercise can alleviate depression and anxiety symptoms and should be more widely prescribed to patients who can't access or won't accept traditional therapies, say mental health experts from Southern Methodist University and Boston University. They say exercise may affect certain neurotransmitter systems in the brain the same way antidepressants do and could help patients "re-establish positive behaviors." Their research was presented last month at the annual conference of the Anxiety Disorder Association of America. "Exercise has been shown to have tremendous benefits for mental health,"…

ASU Biodesign Institute researchers are using the unique conditions of spaceflight to examine how cells remain healthy or succumb to disease, particularly in the face of stress or damage. Their experiment will be launched into low earth orbit on April 5 aboard the space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-131. The team hopes to provide fundamental new insight into the infectious disease process, and further undestanding of other progressive diseases, including immune disorders and cancer. The Results of the current study will also be used to help mitigate infectious disease risks to the crew,…

However cute they may be, fat babies are likely to develop motor skills slower than their thinner counterparts, says a study just published in the Journal of Pediatrics. The findings are based on observations of 217 African-American first-time mothers who participated in the Infant Care, Feeding and Risk of Obesity Study. The project is examining – in a population at risk of obesity – how parenting and infant feeding styles relate to infant diet and the risk of babies becoming overweight. The mothers ranged in age from 18 to 35 and their babies were 3 months old. Researchers visited the…

Small sales taxes on soft drinks are insufficient to reduce consumption of soda or curb obesity among children, according to a new a new study in Health Affairs. Such small taxes may reduce consumption in some subgroups, such as children at greater risk for obesity. But to reduce overall soda consumption, the taxes would have to be downright draconian, structured as excise taxes that would increase the shelf price of the product rather than sales taxes collected at the cash register. An 18 percent soda tax proposed and then dropped from New York's Executive Budget last year, for example,…

Adults with a history of cocaine use face an increased risk of HIV as a result of engaging in unprotected sex. And a new study in Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse suggests that the link may hold true for adolescents as well. Researchers found that teens in psychiatric care who used crack and/or cocaine at least once were six times more likely to use condoms inconsistently, which was defined as "sometimes," "never" or "rarely." The findings suggest that crack cocaine appears to have more of an influence on risky teen behaviors than other factors, like alcohol and marijuana use…

Most obesity research focuses on what kinds of foods people eat and how much. But a news study from the University of Alabama suggests that timing may be equally important when it comes maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding metabolic syndrome. Published in the International Journal of Obesity, the study examined the influence exerted by the type of foods and specific timing of intake on the development of metabolic syndrome characteristics in mice. The research revealed that mice fed a meal higher in fat after waking had normal metabolic profiles. In contrast, mice that ate a more…

Researchers studying the health information content of Twitter updates say misunderstandings about antibiotics have the potential to spread widely through social networking sites. Writing in the American Journal of Infection Control, they stress that because health information is shared extensively on such networks, it is important for health care professionals to have a basic familiarity with social networking media services, such as Twitter. Using content analysis of 52,153 Twitter status updates ("tweets") mentioning antibiotics between March 13, 2009, and July 31, 2009, researchers…

In a study sure to delight the Lamarckian in you, and not part of our annual April Fool's Day science content, a new study by Royal Holloway, University of London, says Iraqi children born in areas affected by high levels of violence are shorter in height than children born in less violent areas. Not factored in; whether or not the Baathists who live in the nice, less-violent areas and have money marry taller women, though look for that in a follow-up. The level of violence is higher in the south and center of Iraq and they say in those areas that their estimates show children are on average…

Although the internet has given anybody with a computer access to a seemingly limitless amount of information, it has also had a profound effect on clinical medicine--and not necessarily a good one. Doctor's writing in the New England Journal of Medicine say that patients are often exposed to incorrect or poorly interpreted information on the internet that is fundamentally changing the "the core relationship between doctor and patient." While applauding the ability of patients to receive test results and communicate with their clinicians electronically – and to search for disease symptoms at…