Laws strictly curbing school sales of junk food and sweetened drinks may play a role in slowing childhood obesity, according to a study that seems to offer the first evidence such efforts could pay off. David Ludwig, HMS professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
More than 2,000 hospitals — including some nationally recognized ones — will be penalized by the government starting in October because many of their patients are readmitted soon after discharge, new records show. Kenneth Sands, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is quoted.
Over the past decade, a linguistic trickle swelled into a flood of buzzwords tagged with the curiously resonant suffix “ome.” Today, hundreds of “omic” terms have worked their way into the lexicon, coined mostly by scientists intent on creating new sub-specialties. Robert C. Green, HMS lecturer on medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Alexa McCray, associate director of the Countway Library of Medicine; and Isaac Kohane, director of the Countway Library of Medicine at HMS, are quoted.
Results of medical tests done just before patients leave the hospital often go unread and are not acted upon, posing health risks to a significant number of patients, Australian researchers have found. Gordon Schiff, HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
The Advertising Council wants to encourage children to brush their teeth – by giving them something to watch while they do it. Dolrudee Jumlongras, instructor in developmental biology at HSDM and Jay A. Winsten, associate dean for health communication at HSPH, are quoted.
In his latest New Yorker essay, Atul Gawande, HMS professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, asks if health care can manage to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation as restaurant chains have done.
High levels of estrogen may help protect a woman from mood disorders, while low levels of the hormone can make a woman more susceptible to trauma at certain times in her menstrual cycle, according to new research by Harvard and Emory University neuroscientists. Mohammed Milad, HMS associate professor of psychiatry and Kelimer Lebron-Milad, HMS instructor in psychology, both of Massachusetts General
Hospital, led the study.
A tuberculosis vaccine in use for 90 years may help reverse Type 1 diabetes and eliminate the life-long need for insulin injections, say Harvard University researchers raising money to conduct large, human studies. Denise Faustman, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, led the study.
Desperate to stop Alzheimer’s in its tracks, some caregivers are clamoring for a cancer drug shown to reverse the disease in mice. But experts argue prescribing the drug, while legal, is unethical. Clifford Saper, chair of the Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is quoted.
The 2006 Massachusetts health overhaul didn’t boost the state’s mammography rates or lead to more breast cancers being caught early, despite rising insurance rates, new research shows. Nancy Keating, HMS associate professor of health care policy, led the study.
