News by Subject Medicine & Health

Children with elevated exposure to early life stress in the home and elevated prenatal exposure to air pollution exhibited heightened symptoms of attention and thought problems, according to researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia Psychiatry. Early life stress is common in youth from disadvantaged backgrounds who also often live in areas with greater exposure to air pollution.

Less physical activity for infants below one year of age may lead to more fat accumulation which in turn may predispose them to obesity later in life, suggests a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Illinois hospital visits associated with homelessness have tripled since 2011 and conservative estimates of homelessness using hospital-based data exceeded similar estimates from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Researchers found that eating walnuts daily as part of a healthy diet was associated with increases in certain bacteria that can help promote health. Additionally, those changes in gut bacteria were associated with improvements in some risk factors for heart disease.

According to received wisdom, local activism against the establishment of industrial plants follows a cycle, with its highest intensity a short time after mobilization. If a firm stands, activism fades. New research by Fabrizio Perretti and Alessandro Piazza in Strategic Management Journal analyzes the American anti-nuclear movement and finds that the strategic decisions made by a firm affect both the evolution of activism in its own sector and the emergence of mobilization in other industries.

In the first global review, researchers have examined the health of detained adolescents from 245 peer-reviewed journal articles and review publications. Researchers found that detained adolescents have a significantly higher prevalence of mental health disorders and suicidal behaviors than their peers in the community, along with substance use disorders, neurodevelopment disabilities, and sexually transmitted infections.

Diagnosing EVALI--the e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury illness that's recently garnered national attention--can be challenging. Initial symptoms may resemble pneumonia or go unrecognized, according to case analysis in the Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (JACEP) Open, a new open access journal.

A newly developed method can detect even low-dose human exposure to microcystins and nodularin in human urine. During harmful algal blooms (HABs), species of cyanobacteria release toxic peptides, including microcystins and nodularin into waterways, impacting wildlife and humans living in these marine environments. These findings are the first to report microcystin concentrations directly from exposed residents impacted by cyanobacteria in Florida, and is a critical step in developing and interpreting clinical diagnostic tests for HABs exposure worldwide.

A new study led by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital finds that 6-to-12 months after traumatic injury, rates of chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other poor physical and mental health outcomes were alarmingly high among survivors of firearm violence -- even higher than among survivors who had sustained similar injuries in motor vehicle crashes.