Often considered a relic of the 1970's culture, marijuana is no longer a baby boom generation issue. Today, nearly 50 percent of U.S. teenagers try marijuana before they graduate high school, and by 12th grade, about 21 percent are regular users. Consequently, treatment for marijuana dependence is on the rise, but, researchers have discovered, there's a catch - withdrawal symptoms, much like those experienced by people quitting cigarettes, cocaine or other drugs, may make abstinence more difficu...[ Details... ]
As part of an ongoing effort to understand the biochemical basis of alcohol abuse, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have published two studies on how modulating receptors for dopamine - a chemical "signaler" in the brain's reward circuits - affects drinking behavior in mice and rats. "Stopping alcohol abuse will never be as simple as turning on or off a 'switch,' but finding ways to modulate the brain's r...[ Details... ]
Scientists in the U.S. have discovered that children with autism have abnormal immune-system responses and are optimistic that their findings could be used to develop a blood test to screen for the behavioural disorder.At a conference held in Boston, the 4th International Meeting for Autism Research, two studies which were presented support other research that suggests there are subtle differences in the immune function of children with autism.Autism is a brain disorder which usually beco...[ Details... ]
Some Scottish doctors could be facing prosecution after it was revealed they have been prescribing the contraceptive pill to girls as young as ten.In Scotland, having sex with a girl under 13 is classified as statutory rape in line with age-of-consent laws and the offence carries a maximum life sentence.A new study by researchers at Aberdeen University has found that at least two ten-year-olds are among 23 girls under 13 who have been giv...[ Details... ]
Trauma patients with specific types of facial soft tissue injuries should have a CT (computed tomography) scan of the face as well as a standard head scan to determine the presence and severity of facial fractures, according to a study published in the May issue of the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Certain soft tissue injury zones correlate with a higher incidence of facial fractures in trauma patients who undergo head CT, the retrospective study of more than 9,800 trauma patients f...[ Details... ]
A study presented at the Late Breaking Clinical Trials presentations at the Heart Rhythm Society's Annual Scientific Sessions in New Orleans found that implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICD) benefit patients with recently diagnosed cardiomyopathy, a disease that affects the heart muscle's ability to pump and can lead to heart failure. "We looked at this because the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) established guidelines that limited ICD use in patients with recently diagnosed ...[ Details... ]
A brain scan study suggests that a suspect gene may increase susceptibility to anxiety and depression by weakening a circuit for processing negative emotion. People with the depression-linked gene variant showed less gray matter and weaker connections in the mood-regulating circuit. How well the circuit was connected accounted for nearly 30 percent of their anxious temperament, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found...[ Details... ]
Patients with coronary heart disease who take a combination of three specific drugs have a better chance of survival than those taking single drugs, finds a study in this week's BMJ.This is the first large scale, long term trial to report the effect of different combinations of drugs to prevent deaths in patients with heart disease,The study involved over 13,000 patients who were diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease between 1996 and 2003. ...[ Details... ]
Forty percent of emergency physicians say they're unlikely to give stroke patients the only FDA-approved drug shown to improve their prognosis, even in an ideal setting, mostly because of the fear of causing brain bleeding. But the majority of the doctors surveyed said that if they had appropriate backup from neurologists and a brain scanner available to help them diagnose and treat appropriate patients, they'd give the drug, called tPA. And if the risk of bleeding associated with tPA could be r...[ Details... ]
Patients motivated to seek a doctor for their death wish did so after a deliberative and thoughtful process rather than on impulse, according to a research study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine . The study involved 35 cases in which patients considered physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and presents data which until now has been very limited.Through interviews with these patients and their family members, rese...[ Details... ]