News by Subject Medicine & Health

Despite the numerous benefits associated with patients accessing their medical records, a new Portland State University study found only 10% of patients utilize the resource. More than 95% of patients recently discharged from a hospital had access to electronic records. But use was disproportionately low across all hospital types.

Aging adults are more likely to have - and die from - cardiovascular disease than their younger counterparts. New basic science research finds reason to link biological aging to the development of narrowed, hardened arteries, independent of other risk factors like high cholesterol.

Scientists at the Earlham Institute (EI), Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB) and the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have pioneered how to get very detailed transcriptomics data from gut organoids, and regulatory networks to analyse them -- establishing a pipeline that can be used to explore the causes of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

Tumor volume in a preclinical model of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) was reduced four times more when an experimental polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) inhibitor was combined with a standard-of-care chemotherapeutic agent than when the agent was used alone. Hollings Cancer Center scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina reported these findings in PLOS ONE.

The primary focus of smoking cessation research has been adults in the past, but a new study in JAMA Pediatrics zeroed in on adolescents. This study found that while there was no significant difference between the varenicline group and the placebo group at end of treatment, those in the varenicline group quit earlier in the trial and were less likely to relapse after the trial was over. And it encourages new treatments designs for adolescents.

Dr. Jeffrey Strawn, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and Jeffrey Mills, associate professor in the Department of Economics at the UC Lindner College of Business, published a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry looking specifically at side effects that impact children and adolescents being treated for anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

A decision aid developed to support patients undergoing genomic sequencing can reduce the amount of time patients spend speaking with overburdened genetic counselors while helping them feel more knowledgeable, suggests a study from St. Michael's Hospital.

GoFundMe urged to halt campaigns for unproven medical treatments; the case for new laws to stem the doctor burnout crisis; why sugar taxes don't undermine liberty, and more.

A new study led by Boston Medical Center uncovered a need to improve testing rates for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in young people, specifically those with documented substance use history. In the national data sample, under 30 percent of young patients who reported using opioids, methamphetamine, and/or cocaine were tested for HCV.