The Best Way To Help Veterans Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Is To Quit Smoking

The Best Way To Help Veterans Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Is To Quit Smoking.
Combining post-traumatic emphasize muddle care with smoking cessation is the best way to help such veterans stop smoking, a new consider reports. In the study, Veterans Affairs (VA) researchers randomly assigned 943 smokers with PTSD from their wartime ritual into two groups: One group got mental condition care and its participants were referred to a VA smoking cessation clinic. The other group received integrated care, in which VA batty health counselors provided smoking cessation remedying along with PTSD treatment. Vets in the integrated care group were twice as likely to quit smoking for a prolonged while as the group referred to cessation clinics, the study reported.

Both groups were recruited from outpatient PTSD clinics at 10 VA medical centers. Researchers verified who had skip by using a probe for exhaled carbon monoxide as well as a urine test that checked for cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine. Over a bolstering period of up to 48 months between 2004 and 2009, they found that forty-two patients, or nearly 9 percent, in the integrated trouble group quit smoking for at least a year, compared to 21 patients, or 4,5 percent, in the unit referred to smoking cessation clinics.

And "Veterans with PTSD can be helped for their nicotine addiction," said experience study author Miles McFall, chief honcho of post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle. "We do have outstanding treatments to help them, and they should not be afraid to ask their fettle care provider, including mental health providers, for assistance in stopping smoking". The think over appears in the Dec. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The boning up is "a major step forward on the road to abating the previously overlooked epidemic of tobacco dependence" plaguing race with mental illness, according to Judith Prochaska, an associate professor in the area of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco, who wrote an accompanying editorial. People with loony health problems or addictions such as alcoholism or substance abuse tend to smoke more than those in the general population. For example, about 41 percent of the 10 million subjects in the United States who notified of mental health treatment annually are smokers, according to background information in the article.

Scientists Spot Genetic Traces of Individual Cancers

Scientists Spot Genetic Traces of Individual Cancers.
Researchers have found a personality to analyze the drop of a cancer, and then use that trace to track the trajectory of that particular tumor in that particular person. "This faculty will allow us to measure the amount of cancer in any clinical specimen as soon as the cancer is identified by biopsy," said examine co-author Dr Luis Diaz, an assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University.

And "This can then be scanned for gene rearrangements, which will then be occupied as a template to track that itemized cancer." Diaz is one of a group of researchers from the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center that information on the exploration in the Feb 24 issue of Science Translational Medicine. This latest finding brings scientists one in step closer to personalized cancer treatments, experts say.

But "These researchers have strong-minded the entire genomic sequence of several breast and colon cancers with great precision," said Katrina L Kelner, the journal's editor. "They have been able to ally small genomic rearrangements only to that tumor and, by following them over time, have been able to follow the course of the disease." One of the biggest challenges in cancer therapy is being able to see what the cancer is doing after surgery, chemo or radiation and, in so doing, help guide remedying decisions. "Some cancers can be monitored by CT scans or other imaging modalities, and a few have biomarkers you can follow in the blood but, to date, no limitless method of accurate surveillance exists," Diaz stated.

Almost all compassionate cancers, however, exhibit "rearrangement" of their chromosomes. "Rearrangements are the most dramatic form of genetic changes that can occur," scrutinize co-author Dr Victor Velculescu explained, likening these arrangements to the chapters of a soft-cover being out of order. This type of mistake is much easier to recognize than a mere typo on one page.

Scientists Have Identified New Genes That Increase The Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease

Scientists Have Identified New Genes That Increase The Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease.
Scientists have pinpointed two genes that are linked to Alzheimer's bug and could become targets for rejuvenated treatments for the neurodegenerative condition. Genetic variants appear to entertainment an important take in the development of Alzheimer's since having parents or siblings with the disease increases a person's risk. It is estimated that one of every five persons venerable 65 will develop Alzheimer's disease in their lifetime, the researchers added.

Genome-wide camaraderie studies are increasing scientists' understanding of the biological pathways underlying Alzheimer's disease, which may bring to new therapies, said study author Dr Sudha Seshadri, an fellow-worker professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine. For now, society should realize that genes likely interact with other genes and with environmental factors.

Maria Carrillo, senior commander of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer's Association, said that "these are the types of studies we paucity in terms of future genetic analysis and things must be confirmed in much larger samples, as was done in this study". The turn up is published in the May 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Although it was known that three genes are chargeable for rare cases of Alzheimer's disease that run in families, researchers had been trusty of only one gene, apolipoprotein E (APOE), that increased the risk of the common type of Alzheimer's disease. Using a genome-wide cooperative analysis study of 3006 people with Alzheimer's and 14642 folk without the disease, Seshadri's group identified two other genes associated with Alzheimer's disease, located on chromosomes 2 and 19.

Positive Trends In The Treatment Of Leukemia And Lymphoma

Positive Trends In The Treatment Of Leukemia And Lymphoma.
Clinicians have made striking advances in treating blood cancers with bone marrow and blood pedicel cubicle transplants in recent years, significantly reducing the risk of treatment-related complications and death, a brand-new study shows. Between the early 1990s and 2007, there was a 41 percent drop in the overall imperil of death in an analysis of more than 2,500 patients treated at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, a numero uno in the field of blood cancers and other malignancies. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who conducted the study, also notable dramatic decreases in treatment complications such as infection and organ damage.

The ruminate on was published in the Nov 24, 2010 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "We have made gross strides in understanding this very complex procedure and have yielded quite spectacular results," said con senior author Dr George McDonald, a gastroenterologist with Hutchinson and a professor of remedy at the University of Washington, in Seattle. "This is one of the most complex procedures in medicine and we be aware a lot of complications we didn't before".

Dr Mitchell Smith, head of the lymphoma service at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, feels the regular positive trend - if not the exact numbers - can be extrapolated to other trouble centers. "Most of the things that they've been doing have been generally adopted by most move units, although you do have to be careful because they get a select patient population and they are experts. The smaller centers that don't do as many procedures may not get the extort same results, but the trend is clearly better".

Treatment of high-risk blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma was revolutionized in the 1970s with the introduction of allogeneic blood or bone marrow transplantation. Before this advance, patients with blood cancers had far more circumscribed options. The high-dose chemotherapy or dispersal treatments designed to take blood cancer cells (which divide faster than general cells) often damaged or destroyed the patient's bone marrow, leaving it unable to produce the blood cells needed to display oxygen, fight infection and stop bleeding.

Transplanting healthy stem cells from a benefactress into the patient's bone marrow - if all went well - restored its power to produce these vital blood cells. While the remedy met with great success, it also had a lot of serious side effects, including infections, element damage and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which were severe enough to prevent older and frailer patients from undergoing the procedure. But the previous 40 years has seen a lot of improvements in managing these problems.

Treatment Of Severe Acne May Increase Risk Of Suicide Attempts

Treatment Of Severe Acne May Increase Risk Of Suicide Attempts.
Severe acne may significantly proliferation suicide risk, and patients taking isotretinoin (Accutane) for the scrape mould should be monitored for at least a year after treatment ends, Swedish researchers report. "Treatment with Accutane in fact entails an increased risk of suicide attempts," said lead researcher Anders Sundstrom, a pharmacoepidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. However, hollow caused by the acne, rather than the dope itself, is probably the culprit.

The risk of suicide is very small. There could be one suicide undertake among 2300 people taking Accutane, and that assumes that the drug caused the suicide attempt. For the study, published online Nov 12,2010 in BMJ, Sundstrom's side collected material on 5756 people treated for severe acne with Accutane from 1980 to 1989. The usual age of the men was 22; the average age of women was 27.

Linking these patients to hospitalization and destruction records from 1980 to 2001, they found that 128 of the patients were hospitalized because of a suicide attempt. Suicide attempts increased in the several years before Accutane was started, but the highest jeopardize was seen in the six months after treatment ended, Sundstrom's grouping found.

It's possible that patients whose skin improved became distraught if their social soul didn't benefit, the researchers speculated. Also, Accutane takes time to work and acne can go downhill before it gets better. "It takes a long time to get rid of the acne, and for the self-image to get better might function even a longer time".

US Doctors Confirm The Correct Solution To The Problem Of Epilepsy

US Doctors Confirm The Correct Solution To The Problem Of Epilepsy.
The humongous more than half of epilepsy patients who have brain surgery to criticize the seizure disorder find it improves their mood and their ability to work and drive, a new work reveals. Meanwhile, a second study also indicates the procedure is safe and effective for patients over 60. "They're both reassuring findings," said Bruce Hermann, helmsman of the Charles Matthews Neuropsychology Lab at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "Epilepsy is a difficile bedlam to have and live with, coming with a high rate of depression and affecting the ability to drive and work.

And "We always hoped surgery would have reliable effects on patients' life situations, and this research does show that, and shows that the outcomes persist," added Hermann, who was not knotty with the research Dec 2013. Both studies are scheduled to be presented Sunday at the American Epilepsy Society annual joining in Washington, DC Research presented at detailed conferences is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Affecting about 2,2 million Americans and 65 million ladies and gentlemen globally, epilepsy is a impounding disorder triggered by abnormal nerve cell signaling in the brain, according to the Epilepsy Foundation. More than 1 million Americans with epilepsy experience from treatment-resistant seizures that can hamper their ability to drive, production and learn. Epilepsy is the third most common neurological disorder, after Alzheimer's disease and stroke.

Most Articles About Cancer Focused On The Positive Outcome Of Treatment

Most Articles About Cancer Focused On The Positive Outcome Of Treatment.
People often gripe that media reports one-sidedness towards bad news, but when it comes to cancer most newspaper and periodical stories may be overly optimistic, US researchers suggest. The enquiry authors found that articles were more likely to highlight aggressive treatment and survival, with far less notice given to cancer death, treatment failure, adverse events and end-of-life palliative or hospice care, according to their turn up in the March 22 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The University of Pennsylvania span analyzed 436 cancer-related stories published in eight large newspapers and five popular magazines between 2005 and 2007. The articles were most likely to focus on breast cancer (35 percent) or prostate cancer (nearly 15 percent), while 20 percent discussed cancer in general.

There were 140 stories (32 percent) that highlighted patients surviving or being cured of cancer, 33 stories (7,6 percent) that dealt with one or more patients who were at death's door or had died of cancer, and 10 articles (2,3 percent) that focused on both survival and death, the examination authors noted. "It is surprising that few articles about dying and in extremis considering that half of all patients diagnosed as having cancer will not survive," wrote Jessica Fishman and colleagues.

So "The findings are also surprising given that scientists, media critics and the put popular repeatedly criticize the news for focusing on death". Among the other findings.

Only 13 percent (57 articles) mentioned that some cancers are irremediable and hostile cancer treatments may not extend life. Less than one-third (131 articles) mentioned the voiding side effects associated with cancer treatments (such as nausea, pain or hair loss). While more than half (249 articles, or 57 percent) reported on warlike treatments exclusively, only two discussed end-of-life be concerned exclusively and only 11 reported on both aggressive treatments and end-of-life care.

IVF Increases The The Risk Of Thrombosis

IVF Increases The The Risk Of Thrombosis.
Women who became in a family way through in vitro fertilization (IVF) may have an increased hazard of developing blood clots and potentially devastating artery blockage, Swedish investigators suggest. Although the risk remains small, the discrepancy are especially high during the first trimester compared to women who become pregnant naturally, the researchers said. Blood clots - called venous thromboembolism - can demonstrate in the leg veins and intervene free, traveling to the lungs and blocking a main artery. This condition, called pulmonary embolism, can cause hindrance breathing and even death.

So "There is an increased incidence of pulmonary embolism and venous thrombosis amidst women pregnant after IVF," said lead researcher Dr Peter Henriksson, a professor of internal c physic at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. "Embolism is the leading cause of devoted mortality during pregnancy. The diagnosis can be elusive, so physicians should be aware of this risk to facilitate the diagnosis".

The jeopardize of clotting during pregnancy isn't confined to women who undergo IVF, another experts said. "Any pregnancy carries a jeopardy of clotting," said Dr Avner Hershlag, principal of the Center for Human Reproduction at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, NY. This is because hormones, principally estrogen, increase during pregnancy. "This changes what we call the clotting cascade. There are many factors in blood clotting that can be distressed by hormones - especially estrogen".

In addition, the enlarging uterus puts intimidation on pelvic blood vessels, which can lead to clotting. Some women are advised to guide their movement to reduce the risk of clotting. Although it's unclear why women who stand IVF have a greater risk of clotting, Hershlag speculates that it could be due to fertility treatments that further estrogen even beyond levels normally associated with pregnancy.

The Risk Of Heart Attack Or A Stroke Doubles With Diabetes

The Risk Of Heart Attack Or A Stroke Doubles With Diabetes.
Diabetes appears to spit and image the imperil of dying from a heart attack, stitch or other heart condition, a new study finds. The researchers implicate diabetes in one of every 10 deaths from cardiovascular disease, or about 325000 deaths a year in industrialized countries. "We have known for decades that commonality with diabetes are more in all probability to have heart attacks," said researcher Nadeem Sarwar, a lecturer in cardiovascular epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

But "In provoke of decades of research, several questions have persisted as to how much higher this chance is, whether it's explained by things we already know of, and whether the jeopardize is different in different people". These findings highlight the need to prevent and dominate diabetes, a disease in which blood sugar levels are too high.

The report is published in the June 26 pour of The Lancet, and Sarwar plans to present the findings at the American Diabetes Association's meeting, June 25 to 29 in Orlando, Fla. For the study, Sarwar's set sedate data on 698,782 people who participated in an international consortium. The participants were followed for 10 years through 102 surveys done in 25 countries.

The researchers found that having diabetes nearly doubled the hazard of trial from various diseases involving the heart and blood vessels. But this risk was only partially due to the usual culprits - cholesterol, blood tension and obesity.

Anesthesia Affects The Heart

Anesthesia Affects The Heart.
More be connected about the safety of a common anesthetic has been raised in a callow study. Patients who received the anesthesia drug etomidate during surgery might be at increased chance for cardiovascular problems or death, according to the study, which was published in the December issue of the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia. An accompanying column in the journal said the findings add to growing concerns about the use of the drug. The examine compared about 2100 patients who received etomidate and about 5200 patients who received another intravenous anesthetic called propofol.

All of the patients in the memorize underwent surgery that didn't imply the heart. Compared to those who received propofol, patients who received etomidate had a significantly higher endanger of death within 30 days after surgery, according to a journal news release. The risk was 6,5 percent in the etomidate batch and 2,5 percent in the propofol group, said study conductor Dr Ryu Komatsu, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

On The First Day Of New Year Kills More Babies Than Any Other Day

On The First Day Of New Year Kills More Babies Than Any Other Day.
A remodelled inspect finds that more babies pass away of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the United States on New Year's Day than any other daytime of the year. It's not clear why, but researchers suspect it has something to do with parents who gulp heavily the night before and put their children in jeopardy. "Alcohol-influenced adults are less able to protect children in their care. We're saying the same sentiment is happening with SIDS: They're also less likely to protect the baby from it," said scrutiny author David Phillips, a sociologist. "It seems as if alcohol is a gamble factor. We just need to find out what makes it a risk factor".

SIDS kills an estimated 2500 babies in the United States each year. Some researchers characterize genetic problems donate to most cases, with the risk boosted when babies sleep on their stomachs. Phillips is a professor of sociology at the University of California at San Diego who studies when such deaths happen and why.

He said he became offbeat how the choices made by parents may stir SIDS and launched the new study, which appears in the current issue of the fortnightly Addiction. Researchers analyzed a database of 129090 deaths from SIDS from 1973-2006 and 295151 other infant deaths during that span period. They found that the highest number of deaths from SIDS occur on New Year's Day: They nail by almost a third above the number of deaths that would be expected on a winter day.

Visiting Nurse Improves Intelligence

Visiting Nurse Improves Intelligence.
Poor children get polymath and behavioral benefits from old folks' visits by nurses and other skilled caregivers, new research suggests. The scrutinize included more than 700 poor women and their children in Denver who enrolled in a non-profit program called the Nurse-Family Partnership. This federal program tries to improve outcomes for first-born children of first-time mothers with restricted support.

The goal of the study, which was published online recently in the documentation JAMA Pediatrics, was to determine the effectiveness of using trained "paraprofessionals". These professionals did not need college instruction and they shared many of the same social characteristics of the families they visited. The women in the study were divided into three groups.