http://medicalxpress.com/health-other-news/ en-us Medical Xpress provides the latest news on health, cancer, medications, medicine, psychology and genetics. Double-amputee Jason Koger used to fly to visit a clinician when he wanted to adjust the grips on his bionic hands. Now, he's got an app instead. Koger this week demonstrated the i-limb ultra revolution, a prosthetic developed by the British firm Touch Bionics. Using a stylus and an iPhone, Koger can choose any of 24 grip patterns that best suit his needs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-app-amputees-bionic.html Other Fri, 03 May 2013 13:40:26 EST news286807210 The shape of a man's face can help predict his sporting acumen, according to a study on Wednesday that found Japanese baseball players whose faces were relatively broad rather than long were most likely to hit a home run. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-short-wide-sporting-potential.html Other Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:21:27 EST news284754077 Mexican forensic expert Alejandro Hernandez dips dry, yellowish cadavers in a see-through bath, hoping his technique to rehydrate mummified bodies will solve murders in crime-infested Ciudad Juarez. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-mexican-forensic-expert-bodies-crimes.html Other Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:14:53 EST news283317280 Status updates, patient forums, blog comments – among the incredible amount of personal information on the Web is a potential trove of health data. Bioethicists writing in Science Translational Medicine acknowledge the value of this resource but argue that to be ethically acceptable for use in research, traditional models of informed consent must be adapted to suit the dynamic online environment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-online-health.html Other Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:03:27 EST news280591394 (HealthDay)—Video capsule endoscopy can be safely and accurately used to detect blood in patients with acute upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage seen in emergency departments, according to a study published online Feb. 11 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-video-capsule-accurately-intestinal-blood.html Other Mon, 18 Feb 2013 10:10:03 EST news280403965 A group of medical specialists has provided an answer to a dilemma that has faced flyers since the Wright brothers took to the air in 1903—is it okay to fart mid-flight? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-experts-flatulent-flyers-rip.html Other Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:50:02 EST news280125159 (Medical Xpress)—Use of a device that supplies humidified oxygen is more effective than a technique that reduces positive airway pressure delivered to the lungs in helping patients who have been on a ventilator more than 21 days regain the ability to breathe on their own, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-unassisted-method-independent-patients-ventilators.html Other Mon, 28 Jan 2013 07:04:05 EST news278579032 The memory problems that many women experience in their 40s and 50s as they approach and go through menopause are both real and appear to be most acute during the early period of post menopause. That is the conclusion of a study which appears today in the journal Menopause. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-cognitive-difficulties-menopause.html Other Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:44:48 EST news276428682 Many of the most common inpatient surgeries in the United States are performed electively. These surgeries are expected to significantly increase with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. In a new perspectives article, published in the Dec. 27 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, a team of Weill Cornell Medical College researchers are recommending the nation's health care leaders and medical community join forces to establish evidence-based appropriateness criteria to determine which patients are most in need of elective procedures, such as joint replacement surgery, to slow the projected surge in demand and rising costs. Currently, there are no appropriateness criteria for most of the common elective procedures. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-doctors-evidence-based-appropriateness-criteria-elective.html Other Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:14:54 EST news275836479 (Medical Xpress)—John Ioannidis, a researcher at Stanford University has, along with graduate student Joshua Nicholson, published a commentary piece in the journal Nature, taking the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to task for maintaining a system that they say rewards conformity while ignoring innovation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-nih-grant-totally-broken.html Other Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:10:01 EST news274000897 In a commentary to be published in the Dec. 12 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, two Johns Hopkins faculty members predict an ever-diminishing role for government and drug company funding of basic biomedical research and suggest scientists look to "innovative" kinds of private investment for future resources. Current negotiations in Washington over sequestration and the so-called "fiscal cliff" provide an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the funding of biomedical research, they say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-federal-big-pharma-increasingly-diminished.html Other Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:20:37 EST news273158426 (Medical Xpress)—Researchers from the Université Bordeaux Segalen, France, and their Swedish colleagues have recently demonstrated that constant exposure to blue light is as effective as coffee at improving night drivers' alertness. Based on tests conducted in real driving conditions, the results have been published in the journal PLoS One. They could pave the way for the development of an electronic anti-sleep system to be built into vehicles. Before then, the scientists will be testing this equipment in a broader range of situations. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-coffee-blue-night-drivers.html Other Fri, 23 Nov 2012 06:27:19 EST news272874384 The tremendous potential public health benefits of research with blood samples left over after routine newborn screening must not be lost amidst controversy and litigation, say medical and bioethics experts in a commentary published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-scientific-casualty-health-privacy-debate.html Other Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:00:09 EST news271508304 (Medical Xpress)—Researchers from Goldsmiths, University of London, in an attempt to prove or disprove the notion that some people have the ability to read the thoughts of others, set up a structured environment to test such abilities – but after inviting many well known British psychics to take part in the study, only two agreed to participate: Patricia Putt and Kim Whitton. After performing blind "readings" of five hidden volunteers each, the psychics produced just one reading that was identifiable to the volunteer. A rate the researchers described as a failure due to it being equal to chance. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-psychics-abilities-academic.html Other Thu, 01 Nov 2012 07:50:01 EST news270973995 Amputees with a new prosthetic arm must learn how to use their device to perform everyday tasks that were once second nature. Taking off a shirt becomes a conscious, multistep effort: grasp the shirt, lift the shirt over the head, pull arms through the sleeves, place the shirt on the table, let go of the shirt. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-metric-track-prosthetic-arm.html Other Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:08:54 EST news270925721 As crackdowns get tougher on alcohol, tobacco sales, and illicit drugs, there's a growing trend among youth to turn to another source to get high: their parent's medicine cabinet. A new University of Cincinnati study suggests adolescent males are at a higher risk of reporting longtime use of over-the-counter drugs, compared with their female peers. Early results of the study by Rebecca Vidourek, a UC assistant professor of health promotion, and Keith King, a University of Cincinnati professor of health promotion, will be presented on October 29, at the 140th Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association in San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-boys-girls-abuse-over-the-counter-drugs.html Other Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:50:01 EST news270798519 Reaching orgasm remains elusive for nearly 30 per cent of women, but a new ad hoc treatment currently under trial, may drastically reduce that number. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-viagra-women-trialed.html Other Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:36:43 EST news270725771 (HealthDay)—For children undergoing routine anesthesia for medically indicated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the metabolic signature varies with use of sevoflurane and propofol, according to a study published in the November issue of Anesthesiology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-metabolic-patterns-propofol-sevoflurane-differ.html Other Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:00:01 EST news270487680 For decades, overtightening has been blamed for the phenomenon that sometimes causes surgical screws and plates used in bone repair to irreversibly fuse together, a complication that can make subsequent removal difficult for the surgeon and traumatic for the patient. But a new study from the University of Dayton Research Institute has demonstrated that proteins naturally present in the human body, and not too much torque, are responsible for the sticking.  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-sticky-situation.html Other Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:30:02 EST news270202509 One of the world's leading bone marrow transplant experts is recommending a significant change to current transplant practice for patients who need marrow or adult stem cells from an unrelated donor to treat hematologic malignancies. Fred Appelbaum, M.D., director of the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, asserts that bone marrow – not circulating, peripheral blood, which is the current norm – should be the source for unrelated donor adult stem cells for most patients who require a transplant. The reason: because there is less incidence of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which can be a debilitating side effect of transplantation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-bone-marrow-transplant-expert-significant.html Other Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:00:12 EST news269711816 Take this with a grain of salt, or perhaps some almonds or hazelnuts: A study ties chocolate consumption to the number of Nobel Prize winners a country has and suggests it's a sign that the sweet treat can boost brain power. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-chocolate-nobels.html Other Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:46:35 EST news269109989 A workshop sponsored by NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has produced a set of consensus recommendations to improve the design and reporting of animal studies. By making animal studies easier to replicate and interpret, the workshop recommendations are expected to help funnel promising therapies to patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-workshop-animal.html Other Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:21:06 EST news269101225 Among premature, very low-birth-weight infants requiring a transfusion, use of fresh red blood cells (RBCs) compared with standard RBC transfusion practice did not improve clinical outcomes that included rates of complications or death, according to a study in the October 10 issue of JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) Annual Meeting. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-fresh-red-blood-cells-transfusions.html Other Mon, 08 Oct 2012 09:51:03 EST news268908655 All major clinical trials now include disclosures detailing who funded the study to ensure transparency. However, is it possible that this transparency is actually hurting research? One might assume that the methodological rigor of the study matters to physicians more than the disclosure. However, in a new study, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that pharmaceutical industry sponsorship of a research study negatively influences physicians' perceptions of the study and their willingness to believe and act on the research findings. This study will be published in the September 20, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-disclosure.html Other Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:00:10 EST news267290244 There is a popular belief that sexual orientation can be revealed by pupil dilation to attractive people, yet until now there was no scientific evidence. For the first time, researchers at Cornell University used a specialized infrared lens to measure pupillary changes to participants watching erotic videos. Pupils were highly telling: they widened most to videos of people who participants found attractive, thereby revealing where they were on the sexual spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-pupil-dilation-reveals-sexual.html Other Mon, 06 Aug 2012 01:04:15 EST news263433848 (Medical Xpress) -- The federal government is in the process of revising the regulations that govern most human subject research in the United States. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-morality-human-subject.html Other Fri, 03 Aug 2012 06:51:51 EST news263195447 (HealthDay) -- While thousands of Americans have benefited from hip replacements over the years, problems with metal-on-metal implants can lead to troubles requiring surgery to replace defective devices, experts say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-fda-probing-safety-metal-on-metal-hip.html Other Wed, 27 Jun 2012 03:40:01 EST news259986065 New research in Nature Medicine shows that boosting a protein pathway in the body's blood making system protects mice from otherwise fatal radiation poisoning. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-boosting-blood-protein-complex-toxicity.html Other Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:30:03 EST news259758303 (Medical Xpress) -- A new University at Buffalo study of publications in the world's top five general medical journals finds that when clinical trials do not account for participants who dropped out, results are biased and may even lead to incorrect conclusions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-skewed-results-failure-account-clinical.html Other Thu, 14 Jun 2012 06:28:17 EST news258874068 Proposed Olympic policies for testing the testosterone levels of select female athletes could discriminate against women who may not meet traditional notions of femininity and distort the scientific evidence on the relationship between testosterone, sex and athletic performance, says a Stanford University School of Medicine bioethicist and her colleagues. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-testosterone-female-olympians-scientists.html Other Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:30:10 EST news258827401