An observational study of nearly 1 million patients who underwent surgery suggests that preoperative hyponatremia (an electrolyte disorder in which sodium levels in the blood are low) was associated with an increased risk of complications and death within 30 days of surgery, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.
Hyponatremia has been linked to increased morbidity and mortality in a variety of medical conditions but its association with perioperative (around the time of surgery) outcomes is uncertain, according to the study background.
Alexander A. Leung, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital,Boston, and colleagues conducted a study using theAmericanCollegeof Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database to identify 964,263 adults who underwent major surgery at more than 200 hospitals from 2005 through 2010. Preoperative hyponatremia (defined as sodium level < 135mEq/L) was present in 75,423 surgical patients (7.8 percent).
"We found that preoperative hyponatremia was present in approximately 1 in 13 patients, and this group had a 44 percent increased risk of 30-day perioperative mortality, even after adjustment for all other potential risk factors," the authors note. "Preoperative hyponatremia was also associated with an increased risk of perioperative major coronary events, surgical site wound infections, pneumonia and prolonged hospital stays."
Health & Wellness
Teens who play mature-rated, risk-glorifying video games may be more likely than those who don't become reckless drivers who experience increases in automobile accidents, police stops and willingness to drink and drive, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
"Most parents would probably be disturbed to learn that we observed that this type of game play was more strongly associated with teen drivers being pulled over by the police than their parenting practices," said study lead author Jay G. Hull, PhD, of Dartmouth College. "With motor vehicle accidents the No. 1 cause of adolescent deaths, popular games that increase reckless driving may constitute even more of a public health issue than the widely touted association of video games and aggression."
Researchers conducted a longitudinal study involving more than 5,000 U.S. teenagers who answered a series of questions over four years in four waves of telephone interviews. The findings were published online in APA's journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture.
"Most parents would probably be disturbed to learn that we observed that this type of game play was more strongly associated with teen drivers being pulled over by the police than their parenting practices," said study lead author Jay G. Hull, PhD, of Dartmouth College. "With motor vehicle accidents the No. 1 cause of adolescent deaths, popular games that increase reckless driving may constitute even more of a public health issue than the widely touted association of video games and aggression."
Researchers conducted a longitudinal study involving more than 5,000 U.S. teenagers who answered a series of questions over four years in four waves of telephone interviews. The findings were published online in APA's journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture.
Toothpicks and surgical swabs can wreak havoc in the gut when inadvertently swallowed or left behind after surgery.
A woman developed severe blood poisoning (sepsis) and a liver abscess, after inadvertently swallowing a toothpick, which perforated her gullet and lodged in a lobe of her liver, reveals a case published in BMJ Case Reports.
Swallowing "foreign bodies" is relatively common, particularly among children, but the subsequent development of a liver abscess is rare, with the first recorded incident dating back to 1898, the authors point out.
But it has mostly been associated with inadvertently swallowing pins, nails, fish and chicken bones, rather than toothpicks.
Most foreign body mishaps don't do any damage unless they create an obstruction or chemical burn. But they can be difficult to deal with effectively, because they don't show up on conventional x-rays and symptoms are often non-specific and remote.
A woman developed severe blood poisoning (sepsis) and a liver abscess, after inadvertently swallowing a toothpick, which perforated her gullet and lodged in a lobe of her liver, reveals a case published in BMJ Case Reports.
Swallowing "foreign bodies" is relatively common, particularly among children, but the subsequent development of a liver abscess is rare, with the first recorded incident dating back to 1898, the authors point out.
But it has mostly been associated with inadvertently swallowing pins, nails, fish and chicken bones, rather than toothpicks.
Most foreign body mishaps don't do any damage unless they create an obstruction or chemical burn. But they can be difficult to deal with effectively, because they don't show up on conventional x-rays and symptoms are often non-specific and remote.
Slow-wave sleep, or 'deep sleep', is intimately involved in the complex control of the onset of puberty, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM).
The many changes that occur in boys and girls during puberty are triggered by changes in the brain. Previous studies have shown that the parts of the brain that control puberty first become active during sleep, but the present study shows that it is deep sleep, rather than sleep in general, that is associated with this activity.
"If the parts of the brain that activate the reproductive system depend on deep sleep, then we need to be concerned that inadequate or disturbed sleep in children and young adolescents may interfere with normal pubertal maturation," said Harvard researcher, Natalie Shaw, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital who led the study. "This is particularly true for children who have been diagnosed with sleep disorders, but may also have more widespread implications as recent studies have found that most adolescents get less sleep than they require."
The many changes that occur in boys and girls during puberty are triggered by changes in the brain. Previous studies have shown that the parts of the brain that control puberty first become active during sleep, but the present study shows that it is deep sleep, rather than sleep in general, that is associated with this activity.
"If the parts of the brain that activate the reproductive system depend on deep sleep, then we need to be concerned that inadequate or disturbed sleep in children and young adolescents may interfere with normal pubertal maturation," said Harvard researcher, Natalie Shaw, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital who led the study. "This is particularly true for children who have been diagnosed with sleep disorders, but may also have more widespread implications as recent studies have found that most adolescents get less sleep than they require."
Chronic heart failure (CHF) patients are less likely to have died a year after discharge if they are involved in a programme of active follow-up once they have returned home than patients given standard care, according to a new Cochrane systematic review. These patients were also less likely to need to go back into hospital in the six months that follow discharge.
CHF is a serious condition, mainly affecting elderly people. It is becoming increasingly common as the population ages, and carries high risks of emergency hospitalisation and death. It affects around three to 20 per 1,000 of the general population, with figures rising to 10% of people aged between 80 and 89. In the UK, CHF consumes almost 2% of the National Health Service's budget, most of the cost being linked to hospital admissions.
A team of six researchers based in the UK and Australia examined 25 clinical trials with nearly 6,000 patients. The trials tested different methods of organising the care of CHF patients after they leave hospital. The researchers identified three types of care:
CHF is a serious condition, mainly affecting elderly people. It is becoming increasingly common as the population ages, and carries high risks of emergency hospitalisation and death. It affects around three to 20 per 1,000 of the general population, with figures rising to 10% of people aged between 80 and 89. In the UK, CHF consumes almost 2% of the National Health Service's budget, most of the cost being linked to hospital admissions.
A team of six researchers based in the UK and Australia examined 25 clinical trials with nearly 6,000 patients. The trials tested different methods of organising the care of CHF patients after they leave hospital. The researchers identified three types of care:
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No tests were carried out to determine whether marijuana use actually causes cancerous growths, but the study marks the first scientific research to actually spot a correlation between marijuana use and testicular cancer.
Researchers said that after interviewing more than 350 men, including a focus group of 163 who were diagnosed with testicular cancer, they determined that men who smoked marijuana in their adolescence and later quit "had a 2-fold increased risk" for developing dangerous germ cell tumors.
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Researchers have identified a novel mechanism that helps explain the power of placebos and nocebos.
Researchers have identified a novel mechanism that helps explain the power of placebos and nocebos.
With the discovery that the unconscious mind plays a key role in the placebo effect, researchers have identified a novel mechanism that helps explain the power of placebos and nocebos.
Described in the Sept. 10 on-line issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the new findings demonstrate that the placebo effect can be activated outside of conscious awareness, and provide an explanation for how patients can show clinical improvement even when they receive treatments devoid of active ingredients or of known therapeutic efficacy.
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According to their recent report in the journal Nature Medicine, the team of immunologists and pediatricians found that a viral infection in newborns leads to the impairment of regulatory aspects of the immune system, increasing the risk of asthma later in life.
In their experiment, researchers repeatedly exposed infant mice to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) through their mother's milk. The disease eventually stripped the immune cells of their regulatory ability to stop inflammation in its lung's passages after being exposed to a pathogen or irritant.
When an irritant enters the airways of a person with asthma, the immune system reacts to it as if it were a pathogen, causing the airways to become inflamed and produce mucus that makes breathing difficult. This study illustrates that early exposure to RSV makes it hard for the body to tolerate the response of its own immune system, making it susceptible to asthma.
Previous research has shown a connection between repeated lung exposures to RSV and developing asthma later in life. A 2010 study by Swedish scientists showed that 39 percent of infants taken to hospital with RSV had asthma when they were 18. They also noted that 9 percent of their control group developed asthma without contracting RSV.
The latest study, which was led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, expands on that research by providing evidence for a mechanism that drives the drop in immune tolerance.
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Data compiled from 29 studies of almost 18,000 people found that acupuncture was better at relieving pain than not having the treatment at all or undergoing a sham procedure, according to research reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine today.
About 3 million U.S. adults get acupuncture each year, mostly for chronic pain, the authors wrote. Doctors don't know why the ancient Chinese therapy can help relieve pain and more studies are needed to determine how the treatment fits with remedies such as drugs, surgery and physical and behavioral therapy, said Andrew Vickers, the lead author of the analysis.
"We thought for a long time that the reason why acupuncture worked was just because people believed it work," Vickers, a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said in a Sept. 7 telephone interview. "We now know that the effect of acupuncture goes above and beyond the placebo effect. Acupuncture is a reasonable option for chronic pain."
Traditional Chinese medicine explains acupuncture as a technique for balancing the flow of energy in a person's body, according to the Mayo Clinic. Inserting needles into specific points along pathways in the body changes the flow.
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Canadian researchers noticed in the early weeks of the pandemic that people who got a flu shot for the 2008-2009 winter seemed to be more likely to get infected with the pandemic virus than people who hadn't received a flu shot.
