A new study in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology reports a surge in drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter, a dangerous type of bacteria that is becoming increasingly common in U.S. hospitals. This study is being posted online December 23 and will appear in the journal's February print edition.

Acinetobacter infections attack patients in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) and others and have recently plagued soldiers returning home from the war in Iraq. These infections often appear as severe pneumonias or bloodstream infections, and require strong drugs to be treated, when they can't be stopped at all.

Using data from 300 hospitals around the country, researchers at the Extending the Cure project analyzed trends in resistance to imipenem, an antibiotic often reserved as a last-line treatment. The study found that between 1999 and 2006, there was more than a 300% increase in the proportion of Acinetobacter cases resistant to the drug. Extending the Cure is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio, which funds innovative ideas that may lead to breakthroughs in the future of health and health care.

University of Iowa researchers have found the existence of a new, rare inherited retinal disease. Now the search is on to find the genetic cause, which investigators hope will increase understanding of more common retinal diseases.

The findings appeared in the Nov. 9 issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

The macula, located within the retina, is an area of high-resolution central vision that is needed to read or drive, for example. This area is damaged in more common retinal conditions such as macular degeneration and can be damaged by diabetes.

"It is rare to find a new inherited eye disease that affects the macula. We thought we had seen them all," said the study's lead author Vinit Mahajan, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.

Minute organs hidden deep within the ear appear to directly alter blood flow to the brain, scientists have revealed.

Until now, experts thought the inner ear's job was to control balance alone.

But Harvard medics working with Nasa found that as well as helping us keep our head, the balance organs affect brain blood flow.

They told BMC Neuroscience journal that the connection probably evolved to enable man to stand upright and still get enough blood up to the brain.

The organs of balance are deep within the ear, inside a maze of bony chambers.

There is one driving factor that contributes, above all else, to the epidemic of diabesity and other chronic illnesses we see today. By addressing this one problem you may reverse many of your health problems, even if you don't do anything else. In today's blog, the last in my three-part series on diabesity, I will tell you what that problem is and how you can effectively treat it. Here's a hint: You won't find the solution in a pill bottle ...

Remember, in the last week's blog on diabesity, we learned what doesn't work to treat the condition--namely conventional, outdated approaches to medicine that focus on treating symptoms with medications instead of addressing the underlying causes of illness. Now that we know what doesn't work, I want to spend some time in this week's blog explaining what DOES work.

If we want to effectively treat this epidemic of diabesity, we must start focusing on the underlying causes that are driving these problems in the first place. You see, ALL of these phenomenon we see in diabesity are the result of the same thing: Imbalances in the seven underlying key systems in your body that are at the root of all health and illness.

Today you will learn what those seven systems are and how you can use this exciting new field of medical research and practice known as Functional medicine to help you prevent and even reverse Diabesity.

It's official now, real autism rates have exploded to 1 in 100 American children. We're facing a national public health emergency of historic proportions. Bigger than swine flu. Bigger than polio. Bigger than almost anything one can imagine except AIDS. No matter how hard some may try, it's impossible to escape the inexorable upward march of the numbers. Even Tom Insel, head of autism research at NIH and not exactly the autism world's greatest forward thinker, has conceded the obvious: "There is no question that there has got to be an environmental component here."

Following last week's release of the latest CDC autism surveillance report, no amount of methodological obfuscation ("autism prevalence has clearly gone up but there are no real incidence studies"), epidemiological nihilism ("we simply can't know without large scale, well-controlled, prospective studies") or social deconstructionist nonsense ("autism is an intolerant invention of modern society") should escape scorn. Anyone with brain, a conscience and an ounce of integrity must acknowledge that we face a crisis. Meanwhile, those who would accuse the autism parent community of "denialism", unscientific reasoning and irresponsible irrationality need to explain how their own theories, so dependent on the evidence-free suggestion that rates are rising because of "better diagnosing", deserve to be considered respectable scientific speech. There is no more unscientific position in public health today than the fiction that rising autism rates come from better diagnosing. Let's be clear, the only evidence for better diagnosing is wishful thinking. Our public health institutions deserve no credit for a job done better; quite the contrary, they deserve an investigation into their negligence.

Bone cells known as osteoblasts were recently shown to have a role in controlling the biochemical reactions that generate energy via secretion of the molecule osteocalcin. A team of researchers, led by Stavroula Kousteni, at Columbia University, New York, has now determined that the protein FoxO1 regulates this function of osteoblasts in mice.

Specifically, FoxO1 increases expression of osteocalcin and decreases expression of Esp, a gene that makes a protein responsible for decreasing the bioactivity of osteocalcin.

This is a new role for FoxO1, which is also involved in regulating glucose levels via effects on cells in the pancreas and liver.

The research is reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Blood pressure is controlled in part by changes in the radius of blood vessels; when the smooth muscle cells in the wall of a blood vessel contract, the radius of the blood vessel decreases and blood pressure increases.

A team of researchers at CSIC-University of Salamanca, Spain, has now identified in mice a new signaling pathway that contributes to relaxation of smooth muscle cells in blood vessel walls triggered by the molecule NO and thereby decreases blood pressure.

Mice lacking the protein Vav2 have elevated blood pressure. By analyzing these mice, the team, led by Xosé Bustelo, identified a Vav2 signaling pathway that normally contributes to NO-triggered relaxation of smooth muscle cells in blood vessel walls. The pathway involves Vav2 activation of the proteins Rac1 and Pak1. Absence of Pak1 activation in Vav2-deficient mice resulted in excessive activity of the protein phosphodiesterase type 5. Consistent with this, treating Vav2-deficient mice with phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors reduced their blood pressure to a normal level.

What happens when the families of sick and dying hospitalized children ask their physicians to pray with them, or for them? How do pediatricians respond to such personal requests? While increasing numbers of physicians say that religion and spirituality help some patients and families cope with serious illness, a new study reports that it is almost always the families and patients who raise the issue of prayer, not the doctors themselves.

In the current issue of Southern Medical Journal, Brandeis and Rice University sociologists report for the first time how physicians actually respond to personal requests for prayer. The study suggests that medical education could be enhanced by courses that address the topic of prayer, which is embedded in complex situations and is never as simple as praying or not.

"We know that prayer in physician-patient interactions is attracting more attention," said coauthor Wendy Cadge, a sociologist at Brandeis University. "Most research in this area focuses on whether physicians and patients think prayer is relevant, but in this study we wanted to find out when and how prayer comes up in the clinic, and how physicians respond."

When New Year's Eve rolls around and you're deciding whether to have another glass of champagne, your decision may be predicted by your perspective of the future.

A pair of Kansas State University researchers found that people who tend to think in the long term are more likely to make positive decisions about their health, whether it's how much they drink, what they eat, or their decision to wear sunscreen.

"If you are more willing to pick later, larger rewards rather than taking the immediate payoff, you are more future-minded than present-minded," said James Daugherty, a doctoral student in psychology who led the study. "You're more likely to exercise and less likely to smoke and drink."

Daugherty conducted the research with Gary Brase, K-State associate professor of psychology. The research was presented in November at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making conference in Boston. It also appears in the January 2010 issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences.