http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (HealthDay)—Genotyping of two genetic risk alleles can be used to estimate the long-term risk of early and late age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but knowing the phenotype is important in assessing risk when early AMD is present, according to a study published online Nov. 9 in the Archives of Ophthalmology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-genotyping-ids-long-term-macular-degeneration.html Ophthalmology Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:10:04 EST news272048480 (AP)—A yellow fever outbreak in Sudan's Darfur region has killed 107 people in the last six weeks, the World Health Organization reported Tuesday, warning that the disease could spread all over the country. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-dead-yellow-fever-darfur-sudan.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:10:01 EST news272048140 People who are given information tools to help them decide whether to have a colorectal cancer screening test are more likely to request the procedure, finds a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-aids-screened-colon-cancer.html Cancer Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:10:01 EST news271411763 Researchers in Sweden have discovered that neurotensin, a satiation hormone produced in the human brain and intestine that circulates in the blood, could raise the risk of heart attack, breast cancer and diabetes in women. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-satiation-hormone-neurotensin-linked-disease.html Medical research Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:50:06 EST news269851556 (HealthDay)—A simple, structured risk assessment tool, the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20 clinical subscale (HCR-20-C), could help psychiatric residents more accurately evaluate the risk for violence among patients, according to a study published online Aug. 31 in Psychiatric Services. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-simple-tool-psychiatry-residents-id.html Psychology & Psychiatry Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:07:49 EST news267631662 People are faced with thousands of choices every day, some inane and some risky. Scientists know that the areas of the brain that evaluate risk are the same for each person, but what makes the value assigned to risk different for individuals? To answer this question, a new video article in Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize subjective risk assessment while subjects choose between different lotteries to play. The article, a joint effort from laboratories at Yale School of Medicine and New York University, is led by Yale's Dr. Ifat Levy. Dr. Levy explains, "This procedure allows us to examine all kinds of normal and pathological behaviors focusing on risk assessment. It could explain things like substance abuse and over-eating from a different perspective than how it is usually characterized." http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-neuroscientists-lotteries-brain.html Neuroscience Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:00:12 EST news267274141 Mental health professionals, who often are tasked with evaluating and managing the risk of violence by their patients, may benefit from a simple tool to more accurately make a risk assessment, according to a recent study conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-simple-tool-violence-patients-mental.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:52:55 EST news266845964 New research from the University of Kent has revealed the concerns of conception clinic staff involved in welfare of the child (WOC) assessments under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-fertilisation-clinics-welfare-child-pre-conception.html Other Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:02:13 EST news266482921 Inexperienced psychiatrists are less likely than their veteran peers to accurately predict violence by their patients, but a simple assessment checklist might help bridge that accuracy gap, according to new research from the University of Michigan. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-simple-tool-inexperienced-psychiatrists-violence.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:49:28 EST news265985361 (Medical Xpress)—Many people going into hospital have concerns about contracting the hospital acquired infection MRSA, yet the risk of acquiring - and dying from – hospital acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) is much greater, warn scientists at the University of Birmingham. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-patients-underestimate-deep-vein-thrombosis.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 03 Sep 2012 07:42:06 EST news265876899 In a new Alzheimer's disease risk assessment study unveiled this week during the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) are offering genetic testing and Alzheimer's risk estimates for people who are experiencing mild cognitive impairment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-genetics-alzheimer.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:23:33 EST news261912202 US regulators were expected to decide Tuesday whether to approve the second new anti-obesity drug in 13 years, Qnexa, which studies have shown may help some people lose up to 10 percent of their body weight. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-weight-loss-drug.html Medications Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:52:13 EST news261748312 (HealthDay) -- Hospitalization for physical illness more than doubles the risk of suicide, with approximately one-quarter of suicides attributable to physical illness, according to research published online July 9 in the Journal of Internal Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-physical-illness-hospitalization-suicide.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 16 Jul 2012 19:10:01 EST news261679152 Patients who use an interactive personal health record (IPHR) are almost twice as likely to be up to date with clinical preventive services as those who do not, according to a new study led by Alex Krist, M.D., M.P.H., research member of the Cancer Prevention and Control program at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-interactive-personal-health-clinical.html Health Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:42:19 EST news261139328 Special echocardiograms show promise for early detection of a potentially deadly complication in rheumatoid arthritis: heart disease, Mayo Clinic research shows. The findings were being presented at The European League Against Rheumatism annual meeting in Berlin. Rheumatoid arthritis patients are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease and it is important to take steps to intervene, but the risk assessment tools physicians commonly use often underestimate the danger. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-ultrasounds-heart-disease-early-rheumatoid.html Arthritis & Rheumatism Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:42:45 EST news258172938 The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute's Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety Practice Improvement Module (PIM) has received approval from the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) to be part of ABIM's Approved Quality Improvement (AQI) Pathway. Internal medicine physicians, gastroenterologists and any internal medicine subspecialists using procedural sedation can engage in quality improvement through the AGA Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety PIM to earn maintenance of certification (MOC) practice performance credit. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-aga-independently-abim-approved-module-gi.html Other Mon, 07 May 2012 17:02:14 EST news255628925 US regulators will decide in July whether to approve Qnexa, the first obesity drug in more than a decade, extending the initial deadline by three months, the California-based drug-maker VIVUS said. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-obesity-drug-july.html Medications Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:15:20 EST news253278870 Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital has launched a study to determine whether genetic markers can be used to help identify children who are at risk of developing autism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-cleveland-clinic-children-hospital-genetically.html Autism spectrum disorders Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:17:43 EST news249733055 A new study by researchers at The University of Nottingham has proved that assessing family medical history is a significant tool in helping GPs spot patients at high risk of heart disease and its widespread use could save lives. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-family-history-significant-cardiovascular.html Cardiology Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:14:35 EST news249131665 US authorities on Friday seized nine shipments of orange juice from Brazil and Canada after their contents tested positive for an illegal fungicide. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-blocks-orange-juice-imports-due.html Health Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:00:02 EST news246894564 (Medical Xpress) -- Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King's College London have, for the first time, identified the facial expression of anxiety. The facial expression for the emotion of anxiety comprises an environmental scanning look that appears to aid risk assessment. The research was published this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-facial-anxiety.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:11:35 EST news245923871 Governments and the nuclear industry have failed to address serious data gaps and untested assumptions guiding exposure limits to Cesium (Cs)-137 released in the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and this year's incident at Fukushima, says University of Massachusetts Amherst toxicologist Edward Calabrese. It's time now to move toward adopting more evidence-based risk assessment for the future, he adds. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-assumptions-health-effects-toxicologist.html Health Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:00:09 EST news241097680 Thousands of Americans this year will be diagnosed with a common disorder of the jaw area called temporomandibular joint and muscle disorders (TMJD, formerly called TMJ). Because of the inherent biological complexity of TMJD, their healthcare providers will have no way to determine whether their patients will get better in time or battle chronic disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-factors-chronic-tmjd.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:28:22 EST news240150491 Using a specially designed risk assessment tool was an effective way of identifying violent hospital patients in medical and surgical units, according to a study in the November issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-aggression-tool-violent-patients-medical.html Other Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:35:16 EST news238235706 FRAX®, the widely used online fracture risk assessment calculator hosted at the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Metabolic Bone Diseases, University of Sheffield (http://www.shef.ac.uk/FRAX), has now been released in version 3.4. With 18 languages, 38 models, and availability as a desktop option, FRAX is becoming increasingly accessible to clinicians around the world. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-frax-issued-version.html Other Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:21:53 EST news235822227 University of Massachusetts Amherst environmental toxicologist Edward Calabrese, whose career research shows that low doses of some chemicals and radiation are benign or even helpful, says he has uncovered evidence that one of the fathers of radiation genetics, Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, knowingly lied when he claimed in 1946 that there is no safe level of radiation exposure. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-suppression-evidence-effects-nobel-laureate.html Other Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:09:04 EST news235753728 Pre-existing heart disease is rarely a contraindication to pregnancy - indeed, many women with heart disorders tolerate pregnancy well - but it remains a "major concern" that complications are frequent and in some cases may be life-threatening for both the mother and her child. In Europe maternal heart disease has now become the major cause of maternal death during pregnancy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-patients-cardiac-problems-pregnancy.html Cardiology Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:03:05 EST news233830824 A new risk assessment model may help predict development of advanced age-related macular degeneration, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-advanced-age-related-macular-degeneration.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:10:01 EST news232030924 The development of almost all cancer is influenced by environmental factors, argues Dr Günter Obe and co-editors in their new title Cancer Risk Evaluation: Methods and Trends. However, while some environmental factors, such as smoking or ionizing radiation, puts the vast majority of humans at risk regardless of their genetic background, many other risk factors such as hazardous working conditions, increase the cancer risk for smaller groups of the population and are often dependent on additional factors as well as an individual's genetics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-cancer-methods-trends.html Cancer Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:10:06 EST news229859336 The WHO Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX®) is an important new calculation tool, available free online at http://www.shef.ac.uk/FRAX/, that is being used by a steadily increasing number of physicians around the world to calculate a patient's 10-year probability of fracture based on scientifically validated risk factors. The tool is country specific and can be used with or without the input of Bone Mineral Density (BMD) values. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-version-fracture-tool-frax.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:21:18 EST news226146069