Archives for April 2012

App for Physicians Also Popular with Patients

April 30, 2012 | by

Epocrates is one of the most popular medical apps available for iPhones, iPads, Android, Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile. It’s intended to help physicians access medical information — including drug dosing, reference values for vital statistics, and information about diseases — quickly and efficiently. Because the app market is glutted with medical applications, the value of Epocrates is that it combines the most important functions into a single app. In a recent press release, the Epocrates compay referred to the app as a “prescription for medical app overload”:

Mobile apps are only as valuable as they are useful. We’ve advanced the user experience of our world-class drug reference app and added a singular channel to discover, store and access reliable tools. Furthermore, this is a fresh foundation for new partner engagements and opportunities to deliver even more value-add resources to our network.

Mad Cow Risk and Reasonable Precautions

April 30, 2012 | by

A case of so-called “mad cow disease” was found in a California dairy cow last week. The disease, known to veterinary scientists as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is fatal, and can be transmitted from cow-to-cow or cow-to-human through the ingestion of contaminated tissue. There is no evidence BSE spreads to humans — the human form of the disorder is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — through drinking milk. As such, authorities claim that the infected animal (which is being held and will be destroyed) posed no risk to humans.

Dairy cows

To Lower Diabetes Risk, Get a Good Night’s Sleep

April 27, 2012 | by

We are all familiar with the negative consequences of getting too little sleep, but they may be more serious than just feeling a bit groggy. A new study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine has shown that sleep restriction, along with a disruption of one’s internal body clock, can raise the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes [1]. This could explain the increased rates of these conditions in shift workers and others who work at night.

Good nights sleep

UV Photography Shows that Melanoma Risk Factors Correlate with Sun Damage

April 26, 2012 | by

There are a number of physical characteristics associated with increased risk of skin cancer, and more specifically, with melanoma, a particularly dangerous and aggressive form of skin cancer. These include blue eyes, red hair, freckles on the face, a significant number of moles on the body, and light skin. While these factors have long been used by dermatologists to predict those individuals who would be at greatest risk of melanoma, a new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology uses a novel approach to demonstrate that there’s a relationship between these factors and visible signs of sun damage [1]. Researchers used ultraviolet (UV) photography to compare the skin of 12-year-old participants; under UV light, sun damaged areas appear darkened. UV photographic equipment is similar in many regards to the tools employed in regular photography, though the flash is UV rather than visible light, and much of the processing software is different.

UV skin damage
A 35-year-old melanoma survivor. Skin under normal (left) and UV light (right). Dark areas on the right is damage from the sun.

Those pre-teens with multiple melanoma risk factors had increased sun damage compared to those with fewer risk factors. This finding is particularly distressing given that the signs of sun damage in those with multiple risk factors were significant, even relatively early in life.

The researchers suggest that UV photography could be incorporated into sun awareness intervention programs, as seeing a photograph of existing sun damage can be more persuasive to teens and young adults than vague warnings about the dangers of sun exposure. Further, note the researchers, the results of the study suggest that UV photography is most likely to be an effective intervention technique for those individuals who have multiple melanoma risk factors, as they are most likely to show significant sun damage early in life.

Reference

  1. Gamble et al. Sun damage in ultraviolet photographs correlates with phenotypic melanoma risk factors in 12-year-old children. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2012 Mar 9. [Epub ahead of print]
    View abstract

Evidence of Basis for Caregiving Impulse Seen in NIH Brain Imaging Study

April 25, 2012 | by

Distinct patterns of activity, which may indicate a predisposition to care for infants, appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant face, even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and Japan. Seeing images of infant faces appeared to activate in the adult’s brains circuits that reflect preparation for movement and speech as well as feelings of reward.

Infant face