http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress provides the latest news from Public Library of Science Approximately 13 million illnesses and over 110,00 hospitalizations may have been averted by the flu vaccine over the last 6 years in the U.S, according to calculations published June 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Deliana Kostova and colleagues from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-flu-shot-million-illnesses-hospitalizations.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:19:53 EST news290884675 A survey of adult South African men published in this week's PLOS Medicine, shows that while overlapping sexual relationships with women appear to be common, roughly one in 20 men reported consensual sexual contact with a man, approximately one in ten reported being sexually assaulted by another man, and around 3% reported perpetrating such an assault. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-male-consensual-sex-sexual-assault.html Health Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:00:02 EST news290785671 Daily supplementation of iron tablets to pregnant women does not provide any benefits in birth weight or improved infant growth compared to twice weekly supplementation, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-weekly-iron-supplementation-pregnant-women.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:00:01 EST news290785705 Infants as young as ten months old express sympathy for others in distress in non-verbal ways, according to research published June 12 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Yasuhiro Kanakogi and colleagues from Kyoto University and Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-infants-non-verbal-sympathy-distress.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:00:02 EST news290274588 Nine years after the World Health Organization adopted a global strategy on diet, physical activity, and health to address risk factors for chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes (referred to internationally as noncommunicable diseases), only a few low-and middle-income countries have implemented robust national policies to help prevent such diseases, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-low-and-middle-income-countries-prioritize-noncommunicable.html Health Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:02:54 EST news290188948 Subjects with mild, subclinical depression rate the taste of high-fat and low-fat foods similarly when in a positive or negative mood, according to research published June 5 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Petra Platte and colleagues from the University of Wurzburg, Germany. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-happy-sad-oral-perceptions-fat.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:00:08 EST news289669682 The act of describing a feeling such as anger may have a significant impact on the body's physiological response to the situation that elicits the emotion, according to research published June 5 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Karim Kassam from Carnegie Mellon University and Wendy Mendes from the University of California San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-angry-emotional-situations-heart-cardiac.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:00:06 EST news289669745 Addressing the burden of household air pollution from solid fuel combustion— the leading environmental cause of death and disability in the world—has led to the implementation of many important interventions to promote access to improved stoves and clean fuels, but there is little demonstrated evidence of health benefits from most of these programs or technologies. Such are the conclusions of a new Policy Forum article published in this week's PLOS Medicine by authors who also outline a set of research priorities for addressing household air pollution. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-household-air-pollution-global-health.html Health Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:03:23 EST news289584183 Increased iron levels may be causally associated with a decreased risk of developing Parkinson's disease, says a new paper published this week in PLOS Medicine. Irene Pichler from EURAC in Italy and a group of international colleagues investigated whether there was any evidence of an association between serum iron levels and the risk of Parkinson's disease. While the causes of Parkinson's disease are currently unknown, a combination of genetic and environmental factors are said to be attributed to the disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-serum-iron-causally-parkinson-disease.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:02:39 EST news289584149 Evergreening strategies—where pharmaceutical companies slightly change the formulation of their brand drug into "follow on" drugs by combining formulations or producing slow-release forms, for example, so that they can extend the patent—substantially contributed to an increase in overall healthcare costs in the Swiss canton of Geneva, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-drug-companies-patent-extending-strategies-substantially.html Medications Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:02:06 EST news289584120 Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that a single mutation in a leukemia-associated gene reduces the ability of blood stem cells to make more blood stem cells, but leaves their progeny daughter cells unaffected. Their findings have relevance to all cancers that are suspected to have a stem cell origin as they advance our understanding of how single stem cells are subverted to cause tumors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-unraveling-tumor-growth-stem-cell.html Medical research Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:01:30 EST news289584083 Individuals suffering from anorexia nervosa perceive their bodies as being larger than they are and this disturbed body representation affects their movements, according to research published May 29 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Anouk Keizer and colleagues from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-anorexic-individuals-disturbed-body-image.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 29 May 2013 17:01:58 EST news289065707 Sleep consolidates emotional memories in healthy children but not in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to research published May 29 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Alexander Prehn-Kristensen and colleagues from University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein. The study suggests these deficits in sleep-related emotional processing may exacerbate emotional problems experienced in the daytime by children with ADHD. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-brain-impact-emotional-disturbances-children.html Attention deficit disorders Wed, 29 May 2013 17:01:23 EST news289065663 When assessing information presented by the tobacco industry, the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and regulatory bodies in other countries, should be aware that they are dealing with companies with a long history of intentionally misleading the public. They therefore should actively protect their public-health policies on smoking from the commercial interests of the tobacco industry and not consider the industry as a stakeholder, concludes a study by experts from the US and Germany published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-tobacco-companies-health-stakeholders.html Health Tue, 28 May 2013 17:00:09 EST news288956791 Women who have mental health disorders around the time of birth are more likely to have previously experienced domestic violence, according to a study by UK researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-domestic-violence-perinatal-mental-health.html Health Tue, 28 May 2013 17:00:05 EST news288956828