http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. The higher the percentage of people in a city, town or neighborhood with Facebook interests suggesting a healthy, active lifestyle, the lower that area's obesity rate. At the same time, areas with a large percentage of Facebook users with television-related interests tend to have higher rates of obesity. Such are the conclusions of a study by Boston Children's Hospital researchers comparing geotagged Facebook user data with data from national and New York City-focused health surveys. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-facebook-track-obesity.html Overweight and Obesity Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:00:10 EST news286037672 Poor mental health leads to unhealthy behaviors in low-income adults – not the other way around, according to a new study¹ by Dr. Jennifer Walsh and colleagues from the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at The Miriam Hospital in the US. In this study, stress and anxiety predicted subsequent health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking, binge drinking, illegal drug use, unprotected sex and unhealthy diets. One possible explanation for these findings is that health compromising behaviors may be used as coping mechanisms to manage the effects of stress and anxiety. The study is published online in the Springer journal, Translational Behavioral Medicine², and is part of an issue focusing on multiple health behavior change. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-poor-mental-health-unhealthy-behaviors.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 04 Feb 2013 01:00:01 EST news279118526 Adults who include at least 150 minutes of physical activity in their routines each week live longer than those who don't, finds a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Promoting the years of life that can be gained from moderate activity may be a better motivator to get Americans moving, said study author Ian Janssen, Ph.D., of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-life-years.html Health Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:27:45 EST news274436842 Using a mobile app that tracks eating and activity helped people lose an average of 15 pounds and keep it off for at least a year, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-mobile-app-boosts-weight-loss.html Health Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:00:06 EST news274369562 When researchers at the University of Pennsylvania messed with the internal clocks of mouse fat cells, a surprising thing happened. The mice got fat. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-link-night-peculiar-internal-clock.html Medical research Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:46:38 EST news273861985 (Medical Xpress)—Although primary care physicians take care of many aspects of health and disease, little is known about how they can change sedentary behavior through counseling, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Results from a new study suggest encouraging patients to decrease the time they spend sitting each day may be feasible in the primary care setting. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-sedentary-behavior-primary.html Health Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:39:21 EST news270139152 such as a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, or market collapse – often strikes twice. There is the damage caused by the event itself, as lives are lost or left in ruin. But there is also the second act, catalyzed by our response to the catastrophic event. This second act has the potential to cause just as much damage as the first. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-opportunity-behavior.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:48:31 EST news265632502 Currently more than 10% of preschoolers in the U.S. are obese and effective strategies that target pregnancy, infancy, and toddlers are urgently needed to stop the progression of the childhood obesity epidemic, as proposed in an article in Childhood Obesity, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-approach-obesity-early-life.html Overweight and Obesity Mon, 21 May 2012 11:25:21 EST news256818316 A drug that has been shown to prevent HIV infection in a significant number of cases must be combined with behavioral approaches if the U.S. health care establishment is to succeed in reducing the spread of the virus, according to the American Psychological Association. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-hiv-behavioral-strategies-apa.html HIV & AIDS Mon, 14 May 2012 13:56:00 EST news256222504 Financial incentives work for doctors. Could they work for patients, too? Could they encourage them to change unhealthy behaviors and use preventive health services more? In some cases, yes, according to Dr. Marita Lynagh from the University of Newcastle in Australia, and colleagues. Their work, looking at why financial incentives for patients could be a good thing to change risky health behaviors, indicates that incentives are likely to be particularly effective at altering 'simple' behaviors e.g. take-up of immunizations, primarily among socially disadvantaged groups. Their article is published online in Springer's International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-healthier-financial-incentives-patients-health.html Health Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:08:25 EST news241099697 A new study by investigators from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine has confirmed the existence of a "trial effect" in clinical trials for treatment of HIV. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-trial-effect-hiv-clinical-trials.html HIV & AIDS Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:26:06 EST news229796751 Patients who received several sessions of a "motivational interview" early after a stroke had normal mood, fewer instances of depression and greater survival rates at one year compared to patients who received standard stroke care, according to new research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-depression-survival.html Cardiology Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:52:53 EST news228066751 Where you get your news could play a significant role in determining what you perceive as the best strategy for addressing childhood obesity. According to a study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whether you believe the keys to combating childhood obesity are personal factors such as individual behavior changes or system-level factors such as marketing and the environment may depend on your primary news source. Researchers examined the news media's framing of childhood obesity and found that television news was more likely than other news sources to focus on individual behavior change as a solution, while newspapers were more likely to identify system-level solutions. The results are featured in the June 20, 2011, issue of Pediatrics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-news-source-solution-childhood-obesity.html Health Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:20:01 EST news227707732