Public Health

70 years ago saw the world's only wartime use of nuclear weapons, when the USA dropped the devastating weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading directly to the end of World War II.  Reminiscences and cautionary tales abounded, and why not? No one wants to see such destructive power ever used again, anywhere. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese, overwhelmingly civilians, perished within seconds of the detonations on the 6th and 9th of August, 1945 (respectively), and many more over the course of the subsequent weeks and months. This milestone anniversary seems to have inspired the UK-…

Mild hypothermia in deceased organ donors significantly reduces delayed graft function in kidney transplant recipients when compared to normal body temperature, according to UC San Francisco researchers and collaborators, a finding that could lead to an increase in the availability of kidneys for transplant. By passively cooling deceased organ donor body temperature by approximately two degrees from normal body temperature, researchers saw an overall nearly 40 percent increase in the successful function of donated kidneys after surgery. In particular, kidneys especially at risk of poor post-…

A new patient sits across from me in the exam room, confused and frustrated at her lack of progress trying to lose weight for the last 30 years. 200 pounds too heavy, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, sleep apnea, infertility and osteoarthritis. She needs knee replacements, but is too heavy to be approved for the surgery. She asks me, the “weight loss doctor,” what my plan is for her. And I think:   “What does it take to get referred to a bariatric surgeon in this town?”   I’ve been interested in obesity since I began medical practice 14 years ago, but…

Patients with low testosterone levels who have then gone on to have testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) could be at lower risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack or stroke, according to research published today (Thursday) in the European Heart Journal. In the study, researchers from Kansas City VA Medical Centre in Kansas City, USA, examined the effect of TRT on cardiovascular outcomes by comparing incidences of heart attack, stroke, and all-cause mortality among different sub-populations of treated and untreated patients. The study used the largest cohort of patients and the…

Researchers investigated how frequent, long-distance travel is represented in mass and social media. They found that the images portrayed do not take into account the damaging side effects of frequent travel such as jet-lag, deep vein thrombosis, radiation exposure, stress, loneliness and distance from community and family networks. Instead, the study found that those with 'hyper-mobile' lifestyles were often seen as having a higher social status. By assessing how first-class flights, 'must-see' destinations and frequent-flyer programs are represented, glamorizing hypermobility as exciting,…

For nearly 50 years Medicare has required patients to endure at least a three-day stint in the hospital before they become eligible for coverage of skilled nursing care afterward. A new study finds that the main consequence of waiving the rule, as Medicare Advantage plans commonly do, has been a good one: less time in a bed and a gown for those who go on to skilled nursing care. Specifically, the research team found that between 2006 and 2010 the average time in the hospital per year increased by half a day among 140,739 people in 14 plans that never waived the rule, but decreased by 0.2…

If you are watching what you eat, working out, and still not seeing improvements in your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc., here's some hope. A new report suggests that inflammation induced by deficiencies in vitamins and minerals might be the culprit. The researchers show that - in some people - improvement results in many of the major markers of health when nutritional deficiencies are corrected. Some even lost weight without a change in their diet or levels of activity. "It is well known that habitual consumption of poor diets means increased risk of future disease, but…

Looking at measurements of the vertebrae - the series of small bones that make up the spinal column - in newborn children, investigators at Children's Hospital Los Angeles found that differences between the sexes are present at birth. Results of the study, now online in advance of publication in the August issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, suggest that this difference is evolutionary, allowing the female spine to adapt to the fetal load during pregnancy. Using magnetic resonance imagining (MRI), the researchers found that vertebral cross-sectional dimensions, a key structural determinant…

All those leftover pizza crusts you snatch from your kids' plates add up. Men gain weight after they become fathers for the first time whether or not they live with their children, reports a large, new study that tracked the weight of more than 10,000 men from adolescence to young adulthood.  The typical 6-foot-tall man who lives with his child gained an average of about 4.4 pounds after becoming a first-time dad; the 6-foot-tall dad who does not live with his child gained about 3.3 pounds, the study reports. That's a 2.6 percent rise in BMI (body mass index) for resident dads and a 2…

Barbara Hinney and her colleagues from the Institute for Parasitology at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, screened 298 faecal samples taken from cats across Austria for single-cell intestinal parasites, so called enteric protozoa. The samples came from private households, catteries and animal shelters. Of the 298 cats sampled, 56 tested positive with at least one intestinal parasite. Multi-cat households often affected A significantly higher rate of positive samples was registered in households with more than one cat. Households with kittens are also more at risk. "Young…