The National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health, is funding five new research projects that will shed light on antidepressant medications, notably selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and their association with suicidal thoughts and actions (suicidality).
A new combination of a potent anticoagulant and an antidote that stops its action, has proved to be safe in its first clinical trial in humans, according to the team conducting the trial.
The rate of colorectal cancer screening appears to be increasing among Veterans Affairs patients, although use of colonoscopy is less common than other screening procedures, according to a report in the Nov. 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. A second report in the same journal shows that younger veterans with other illnesses and reduced life expectancies may not necessarily benefit from such screening and may even be harmed, but continue to be screened at high rates.
Over the last half century, researchers have found that mineral surfaces may have played critical roles organizing, or activating, molecules that would become essential ingredients to all life–such as amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and nucleic acids (the essence of DNA). But which of the countless possible combinations of biomolecules and mineral surfaces were key to this evolution? This vexing question has stumped scientists for years because of the sheer volume of possibilities.
A new study by University of Arkansas economists shows a strong relationship between economic freedom and access to water. David Gay and Charles Britton, economics professors in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, and Richard Ford, professor of economics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, compared data from two important international indices and found that greater economic freedom leads to economic development, which in turn decreases the amount of poverty associated with a nation’s lack of access to water.
Health care professionals say a computerized emergency response system for public health laboratories developed in Nebraska is proving to be a valuable tool for other states and has the potential to impact public health systems worldwide.
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center’s Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for prostate cancer research has been renewed for an additional five years. SPORE grants are highly competitive awards given to institutions on the cutting edge of translational research in specific types of cancer.
New research suggests that offering methamphetamine abusers an incentive-based behavioral therapy program called contingency management (CM ? also known as Motivational Incentives), along with psychosocial therapy is more effective than psychosocial therapy alone. The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, and is published in the November 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
On 15 November, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners will officially launch the first ever International Medical Products Anti-counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) and unveil the global plan to combat counterfeit medical products.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could become a valuable tool for predicting the risk of muscle injury during and following radiation therapy, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.