Impaired contraction of the womb could be a contributor to the association between older maternal age and the increased rate of cesarean sections, according to a study released on June 30, 2008 in the open access journal PLoS Medicine. A cesarean section, sometimes also called a c-section, is a method of childbirth in which the newborn is surgically removed from the uterus.

California sues Prime Healthcare over balance-billing practiceLos Angeles Times, CA - 14 hours ago

California sues Prime Healthcare over balance-billing practiceLos Angeles Times, CA - 34 minutes ago

Background:Excitotoxicity occurs in a number of pathogenic states including stroke and epilepsy. The adaptations of neuronal circuits in response to such insults may be expected to play an underlying role in pathogenesis. Synchronous neuronal firing can be induced in isolated hippocampal slices and involves all regions of this structure, thereby providing a measure of circuit activity. The effect of an excitotoxic insult (kainic acid, KA) on Mg2+-free-induced synchronized neuronal firing was tested in organotypic hippocampal culture by measuring extracellular field activity in CA1 and CA3. Results:Within 24hrs of the insult regional specific changes in neuronal firing patterns were evident as: (i) a dramatic reduction in the ability of CA3 to generate firing; and (ii) a contrasting increase in the frequency and duration of synchronized neuronal firing events in CA1.

A collaborative study which included researchers from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) West Midlands and is published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI), shows an increasing rate of sexual infections in people over 45 years in the West Midlands.

Chronic kidney disease, CKD, is not well known in the public. However, its high prevalence and associated mortality should make the condition a public health priority, according to an article released on June 26, 2008 in The Lancet. CKD, sometimes also called chronic renal disease, involves a progressive decline in function of the kidneys.

A new article published in The Lancet Oncology claims that the recent smoke-free policy initiatives have resulted in numerous public health gains.

Newborns in intensive care undergo many procedures that are associated with pain and stress, and many of these procedures are performed without medication or therapy to relieve the pain, according to a study released on July 7, 2008 in JAMA. According to the authors of this study, this could instigate developmental issues.

Smokers suffer more chronic back pain. This was the result of the analysis of a questionnaire performed by Monique Zimmermann-Stenzel and her colleagues and published in the current edition of Deutsches Arzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int, 2008; 105[24]: 441-8). http://www.aerzteblatt.de/v4/archiv/pdf.

ORLANDO, FL (UroToday.com) - It has been established that aging has an adverse affect on a woman's reproductive potential by natural or assisted reproductive techniques (ART). These authors attempted to assess the effect of increasing paternal age on ART success. This retrospective analysis included 760 ICSI cycles with fresh spermatozoa.

Difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep increase as women go through menopause according to research by Rush University Medical Center. Waking up earlier than planned also increases through late perimenopause but decreases when women become postmenopausal. The study is published in the July 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.

UroToday.com - Cryotherapy has benefited from many technical advances in recent years. "Third generation" delivery systems have significantly decreased the rate of complications resulting in a renewed interest in cyrotherapy for treatment of localized prostate cancer. Unfortunately, PSA control still remains suboptimal.

The July 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association contains articles and research studies you may find of interest. Below is a summary of some of this month's articles. Eat Slowly to Help Lose Weight People looking for ways to manage their weight are often advised to eat slowly, allowing a feeling of fullness to register before they eat too much.

Recipe to recover more quickly from exercise: Finish workout, eat pasta, and wash down with five or six cups of strong coffee. Glycogen, the muscle's primary fuel source during exercise, is replenished more rapidly when athletes ingest both carbohydrate and caffeine following exhaustive exercise, new research from the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology shows.

The current standard practice of giving infants and children 100 percent oxygen to prevent brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation may actually inflict additional harm, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

In a follow-up to research showing that psilocybin, a substance contained in "sacred mushrooms," produces substantial spiritual effects, a Johns Hopkins team reports that those beneficial effects appear to last more than a year.

In the first study of its kind, researchers led by The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Ross Koppel, Ph.D. studied how hospital nurses actually use bar-coded technology that matches the right patient with the right dose of the right medication.

Some schizophrenia patients become less prone to violence when taking medication, but those with a history of childhood conduct problems continue to pose a higher risk even with treatment, according to a new study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

Cancer starts when key cellular signals run amok, driving uncontrolled cell growth. But scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that lowering levels of one cancer signal under a specific threshold reverses this process in mice, returning tumor cells to their normal, healthy state.

Researchers have developed a series of tests that for the first time accurately measure the normality of taste (gustatory function) and smell (olfactory function) in young children, according to a new study published in the July 2008 edition of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.