Over time, increased exposure to air pollution is linked to faster "hardening" of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, a leading cause of heart attacks and strokes. Conversely, exposure to reduced levels of air pollution is linked to slowed progression of atherosclerosis. These are the findings of a new study from the US published this week in PLOS Medicine...

Maternal use of valproate (a drug used for the treatment of epilepsy and other neuropsychological disorders) during pregnancy was associated with a significantly increased risk of autism in offspring, according to a study in the April 24 issue of JAMA. The authors caution that these findings must be balanced against the treatment benefits for women who require valproate for epilepsy control...

In a study that included nearly 3,000 adults from Denmark, a diagnosis of meningococcal, pneumococcal, or Haemophilus influenzae meningitis in childhood was associated with lower educational achievement and economic self-sufficiency in adult life, according to a study in the April 24 issue of JAMA. Bacterial meningitis may lead to brain damage due to several factors, and survivors of childhood bacterial meningitis are at particular risk of hearing loss, seizure disorders, motor deficits, and cognitive impairment. Learning disabilities are well documented as a result of the disease...

For women with abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding during early pregnancy, patient history and clinical examination alone are insufficient to indicate or eliminate the possibility of ectopic pregnancy, while transvaginal sonography appears to be the single best diagnostic method for evaluating suspected ectopic pregnancy, according to an analysis of previous studies reported in the April 24 issue of JAMA...

Patients at elevated cardiac risk who were treated with beta-blockers on the day of or following noncardiac, nonvascular surgery had significantly lower rates of 30-day mortality and cardiac illness, according to a study in the April 24 issue of JAMA. "The effectiveness and safety of perioperative beta-blockade [the process of inhibiting beta-receptor activity] for patients undergoing noncardiac surgery remains controversial...

"Given recent firearm-related fatalities combined with declining gun research funding, it is important to monitor firearm injuries in youths. Injury death rates are available but provide an incomplete picture of these potentially preventable injuries," writes Angela Sauaia, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Colorado School of Public Health, Denver and colleagues...

For the first time, human embryonic stem cells have been transformed into nerve cells that helped mice regain the ability to learn and remember. A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the first to show that human stem cells can successfully implant themselves in the brain and then heal neurological deficits, says senior author Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology. Once inside the mouse brain, the implanted stem cells formed two common, vital types of neurons, which communicate with the chemicals GABA or acetylcholine...

Most children who suffer from sports-related concussions recover within a few days. However, in a small number of children, symptoms can last for a month or more. Although there have been numerous theories as to what might predict a longer recovery time, there is no definitive answer as to why it takes some children longer to recover. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers attempted to identify risk factors that might predispose some children with concussions to longer recovery times. Dr. William P...

Young women with breast cancer who experience a longer treatment delay time (TDT) have significantly decreased survival time compared with those with a shorter TDT, especially African-American women, those with public or no insurance, and those with low socioeconomic status, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Surgery, a JAMA Network publication...

JAMA Surgery Study Highlights In a study reported in the resident's forum, Linda Adepoju, M.D., of University of Toledo Medical Center, Ohio, and colleagues suggest that tumor size, cancer stage, and Medicaid insurance were predictors of undergoing a mastectomy to treat breast cancer. (Online First) A total of 1,539 women with stage I through stage III invasive breast cancer who had surgery between 1996 and 2009 were included in the retrospective study...

JAMA Psychiatry Study Highlights In a study, Jean Decety, Ph.D., of the University of Chicago, Illinois, and colleagues examined the potential differences in patterns of neural activity among incarcerated individuals with psychopathy and incarcerated persons serving as controls during the perception of empathy-eliciting stimuli depicting other people experiencing pain...

Young children who eat the same meals as their parents are far more likely to have healthier diets than those who eat different foods, according to research. Children who rarely or never eat the same food as their parents had the poorest diets, compared with children who do. A University of Edinburgh researcher looked at different aspects of family meals of more than 2000 five year olds, drawing upon data from the Growing Up In Scotland study. Whether children ate the same food as their parents or not had the biggest impact on children's diets...

Scientists have discovered how a protein within the malaria parasite is essential to its survival as it develops inside a mosquito. They believe their findings identify this protein as a potential new target for drug treatments to prevent malaria being passed to humans. The researchers found that when this protein - a transporter responsible for controlling the level of calcium inside cells - is absent during the parasite's sexual reproduction stages inside a mosquito, the parasite dies before developing fully...

Researchers found reasons for not picking up initial cholesterol-lowering medications include perceived concerns and a decision to try lifestyle modifications Patients who do not fill their first prescription for cholesterol-lowering statins give a wide range of reasons for not doing so, including perceived concerns about the medication, a fear of side-effects and a decision to try lifestyle modifications instead of prescription medication, according to a Kaiser Permanente Southern California study published in The American Journal of Managed Care...

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) and the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) have joined to urge the Minister of Health to take swift action to ensure that the Apotex Alysena 28 faulty birth control debacle never happens again in Canada. "What happened at the beginning of April represents a breach of immense proportions which has seriously eroded our confidence in what is typically viewed as a very reliable contraceptive," said Dr. Jennifer Blake, CEO of the SOGC. "Women were not informed as soon as the defective packs were discovered...

Deep male voices and high-pitched female voices are perceived as more attractive because listeners gauge the speaker's body size from the frequency of their voice, according to research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Yi Xu from University College London (UK) and colleagues. Studies of animals and birds reveal that listeners can perceive a caller's body size and intension based on the frequency, voice quality and formant spacing of a call...

An invisible barrier separates land animals in Australia from those in south-east Asia may also restrict the spillover of animal-borne diseases like avian flu, but researchers have found that fruit bats on either side of this line can carry Nipah virus, a pathogen that causes severe human disease. The findings are published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Andrew Breed from the University of Queensland, Australia and colleagues from other institutions...

In an advance toward coping with bacteria that shrug off existing antibiotics and sterilization methods, scientists are reporting development of a new family of selective antimicrobial agents that do not rely on traditional antibiotics. Their report on these synthetic colloid particles, which can be custom-designed to recognize the shape of specific kinds of bacteria and inactivate them, appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Vesselin Paunov and colleagues point out that many bacteria have developed resistance to existing antibiotics...

With a better understanding of underlying mechanisms that cause a rare neurodevelopmental disorder in the Old Order Mennonite population, referred to as Pretzel syndrome, a new study reports that five children were successfully treated with a drug that modifies the disease process, minimizing seizures and improving receptive language. The study, by researchers including experts from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, appears in the journal Science Translational Medicine...

A first-ever vaccine created by University of Guelph researchers for gut bacteria common in autistic children may also help control some autism symptoms. The groundbreaking study by Brittany Pequegnat and Guelph chemistry professor Mario Monteiro appears this month in the journal Vaccine. They developed a carbohydrate-based vaccine against the gut bug Clostridium bolteae. C. bolteae is known to play a role in gastrointestinal disorders, and it often shows up in higher numbers in the GI tracts of autistic children than in those of healthy kids...