A early release article from Cancer (off campus users will have to login using WAM) has found a link between frequent use of cannabis and testicular cancer. Research discovered that being a marijuana smoker at the time of diagnosis was associated with a 70% increased risk. Risk was especially elevated (about twice that of those who never smoked marijuana) for those who used the drug at least once a week and/or who had long-term exposure to the substance beginning in adolescence.
Ever wonder why you always get sick at Mardi Gras? Surely it couldn’t be the mass consumption of food and drink combined with the scrambling around outside in all types of weather. Overindulgence aside, the “Mardi Gras malaise” sprang to my mind when I ran across “Public Health Surveillance for Mass Gatherings” (full text PDF) from the Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest (Lombardo, J.S., et al.; Vol. 27, No. 4 (2008):
Abstract:
Mass gatherings represent specific challenges for public health officials because of the health risks associated with crowd size and duration of stay. In addition, population movement requires public health departments to interact across jurisdictional boundaries to identify risks and disease-management solutions. However, federal privacy laws restrict the sharing of patient data among public health departments in multiple jurisdictions. This article examines previous disease surveillance practices by public health officials in planning for mass events
and describes a simple approach for sharing health-risk information that was employed in 2007 during Super Bowl XLI by the health departments of Indiana, Marion County, Cook County, and Miami-Dade County.
Want more? In honor of the Inauguration, Superbowl, and other large spectacles, the National Library of Medicine has put together a fresh new bibliography on Public Health Preparations for Mass Gatherings.
UK researchers say the video game Tetris may work to reduce Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, BBC news reports:
The Oxford University experiment works on the principle that it may be possible to modify the way in which the brain forms memories in the hours after an event.
A total of 40 healthy volunteers were enrolled, and shown a film which included traumatic images of injuries.
Half of the group were then given the game to play while the other half did nothing.
The number of “flashbacks” experienced by each group was then reported and recorded over the next week, and those who played Tetris had significantly fewer.
The study was recently published in the online, open access journal PLoS One.
View full text of original article (free).
Consider buying your grandparent video games. Health Day recently released a report font size=”-1″>(link removed) about a December article in Psychology & Aging which stated that playing video games can boost the cognitive ability of older brains. The research wasn’t even funded by the gaming industry.
But maybe Grandpa isn’t really ready for GTA or Halo.
A report from the Institute of Medicine released on Tuesday morning proposes revisions to medical residents’ duty hours and workloads “to decrease the chances of fatigue-related medical errors and to enhance the learning environment resident training.” The report does not recommend further reducing residents’ work hours from the maximum average of 80 per week set by ACGME in 2003, but rather recommends reducing the maximum number of hours that residents can work without time for sleep to 16, increasing the number of days residents must have off, and restricting moonlighting during residents’ off-hours, among other changes. The committee, which was chaired by Dr. Michael Johns of Emory, estimates that the cost for additional personnel to handle reduced resident work could be roughly $1.7 billion annually.
Read the full report here
Thanks Ram Paragi, for the publication alert!
And good for you? According to a story released yesterday by Reuters Health, dark chocolate font size=”-1″>(link removed) may keep your healthy. The original research appeared in Journal of Nutrition, v.138 (9) 1671-76 September 2008. Just what I need an excuse to indulge my love of chocolate.
Hot on the heels of last week’s IgNobel prizes comes the real thing. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was announced earlier today, with HPV and HIV research sharing the award.
2008 Nobel Laureates in Medicine
Harald zur Hausen: “for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer” | View articles on PubMed
Fran?â?ºoise Barr?â?®-Sinoussi & Luc Montagnier: “for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus” | View articles on Pubmed
A search on Barr?â?®-Sinoussi is a case study of idiosyncrasies of Author searching in PubMed. Throughout her career Barr?â?®-Sinoussi has articles published under the name Barr?â?®, F, Sinoussi, FB, and Sinoussi-Barr?â?®, F. An article by Barre-Sinoussi, B also turns up, which is probably the 2008 Nobel Laureate mis-attributed in the article.
Reference librarian Mary Marix provided the adventures in PubMed author searching for this post. MK
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes, which “celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology” were awarded last night, October 2nd at the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University. Although the awards are tongue in cheek, they do recognize work published in research journals. This year’s Chemistry prize, for example, went jointly to a 1985 New England Journal of Medicine work for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and a 1987 Human Toxicology work for discovering that it is not.
There’s a webcast of the ceremony available, or click here to see a list of winners by category.
A new report from Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge reveals that 36% of Louisiana children ages 10-17 are overweight, and assigns an overall grade of D based on the prevalence of obesity and insufficient exercise programs for young people.
The study, Louisiana’s Report Card on Physical Activity and Health for Children and Youth, will be the focus of the center’s conference starting Wednesday in Baton Rouge to examine solutions to childhood obesity and diabetes. The report is available for free online: http://www.pbrc.edu/report_card/
Interestingly enough, while the Louisiana Council on Obesity Prevention and Management is the conference’s lead sponsor, according to an article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. was a contributing sponsor and McDonald’s was an in-kind sponsor for the week’s conference.
Both Ariane Rung, PhD, LSU School of Public Health, and Melinda Sothern, PhD, LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, were on the Report Card’s Advisory Committee.
More information on the Report from the Times-Picayune:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base//news-6/122214745657990.xml&coll=1
The latest issue of the Library?óÔé¼Ôäós Newsletter has been released. Archives of the newsletter are also available from 1998 to the present. Articles include:
Evolution of Electronic Journal Links
Retiring Staff
Libraries’ New Delicious Account
An editorial in the New York Times today points to a new case-control study that attempts to replicate the controversial Wakefield study on autism, which in 1998 drew an inferential link between the MMR vaccine, gastrointestinal problems found in many autistic children and autism.
The new study, conducted by researchers from Columbia University, Massachusetts General Hospital and the CDC, tried and failed to replicate the earlier findings. The new study, published in PLoS One, is freely available on the web: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0003140
The LSUHSC New Orleans Libraries have launched a new Links page using the social bookmarking website, Delicious. The new page features a tag cloud for easy access to the items tagged by LSUHSC Librarians.
The library will be closed Friday, July 4th and Saturday, July 5th for a University Holiday. We re-open at 1:30pm Sunday, July 6th for our regular hours.
And for you Residents working the ER this weekend, maybe now is the time to review “Not another 4th of July report: uncommon blast injuries to the hand” from the Emergency Medicine Journal. (If you’re on campus, you should be able to get the full text by clicking the purple LSUHSC icon in the abstract.)
More search results for ‘fireworks’ in Pubmed.
Library Hours
The latest issue of the Library?óÔé¼Ôäós Newsletter has been released. Archives of the newsletter are also available from 1998 to the present.
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