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435 news posts in Health

Health

10 May 2016

Scientist’s dedication in policy creates change for people with intellectual disability

By Daisy Hessenberger, Frontiers science writer Professor Joav Merrick is a busy man. Medical director of the Division for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services in Israel, in his spare time he works as a professor at various other institutions. His appointments span not just continents, but also specialties. He is professor of paediatrics, child health and human development at both the Hebrew University and the University of Kentucky, while also holding a professorship in public health at Georgia State University. From pediatrics to public health “I am paediatrician by trade,” Merrick said, when asked about his astonishing career. After completing medical school in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he grew up, Merrick entered the field of paediatrics, publishing the first Scandinavian textbook on Social and Community Paediatrics. Merrick has received both national and international awards for his extraordinary contribution to child welfare, including the LEGO Prize in 1987 known as “The Children’s Nobel Prize”. So how did an internationally successful career in paediatrics result in a world-renowned career in public health? The shift came about somewhat randomly. “I came to Israel as a paediatrician who wanted to do work in child abuse and neglect, […]

Health

10 May 2016

‘Towards an Understanding of Tinnitus Heterogeneity’ now open for submissions

  By Martina Haller, Frontiers “Tinnitus is the perception of a sound when no external sound is present. The severity of tinnitus varies but it can be debilitating for many patients. With more than 100 million people with chronic tinnitus worldwide, tinnitus is a disorder of high prevalence. The increased knowledge in the neuroscience of tinnitus has led to the emergence of promising treatment approaches, but no uniformly effective treatment for tinnitus has been identified. The large patient heterogeneity is considered to be the major obstacle for the development of effective treatment strategies against tinnitus.” To bring together the latest scientific advances in Tinnitus research, Dr Christopher R Cederroth and Dr Winfried Schlee have initiated the Frontiers Research Topic Towards an Understanding of Tinnitus Heterogeneity. We asked them about their vision and challenges they wish to address in this highly inter- and multidisciplinary Research Topic. What motivated you to organize this Research Topic? Tinnitus is a prevalent condition that can be extremely bothersome. Its complexity and variety of phenotypes is a likely cause to failures in therapeutic interventions. This is why the fundamental understanding of tinnitus, its mechanisms and its successful treatment will require the converged efforts of multiple disciplines. […]

Health

06 May 2016

New treatment for children with ARDS

By Alice Rolandini Jensen, Frontiers science writer Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) affects hundreds of thousands of people each year, many of them children. Those with this life threatening condition have severely injured and wet lungs, and are treated with mechanical ventilation. Now, a study led by Professor Kanwaljeet Anand published in Frontiers in Pediatrics, investigates the effects of a new steroid treatment on children suffering from ARDS. “Over the last 20-30 years researchers have come up with novel therapies but have not been able to move the needle substantially in terms of reducing mortality of ARDS patients,” explains Professor Anand of Stanford University, USA. “In this work, we conducted the first-ever randomized control trial and saw clinical differences in children treated with steroids.” ARDS is a catch-all term associated with the inability of lung tissue to take up oxygen, the lungs become very stiff and are incapable of transferring oxygen into the blood. ARDS can occur following direct injury of the lungs, such as pneumonia, bronchiolitis, following inhalation of toxic gas and near drowning. It can also develop in patients with severe systemic illnesses. Understanding why ARDS occurs and the differences between mechanisms is key to being able to […]

Health

06 May 2016

Does the moon affect our mood or actions?

By Fernando Bolaños, Frontiersin.org Always surrounded by an aura of mystery, the moon and its possible influence over human behavior has been object of ancestral fascination and mythical speculation for centuries. While the full moon cannot turn people into werewolves, some people do accuse it of causing a bad night’s sleep or creating physical and mental alterations. But is there any science behind these myths? To establish if lunar phases somehow do affect humans, an international group of researchers studied children to see if their sleeping patterns changed or if there were any differences in their daily activities.  The results were published in Frontiers in Pediatrics. “We considered that performing this research on children would be particularly more relevant because they are more amenable to behavior changes than adults and their sleep needs are greater than adults,” said Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput, from the Eastern Ontario Research Institute. The study was completed on a total of 5,812 children from five continents. The children came from a wide range of economic and sociocultural levels, and variables such as age, sex, highest parental education, day of measurement, body mass index score, nocturnal sleep duration, level of physical activity and total sedentary time were […]

Health

13 Apr 2016

Study shows lifestyle changes might mean more than losing weight

by Jacqueline Eckert, Frontiers science writer A recent study shows that for most people switching to a healthier lifestyle can produce a body weight that is healthy for that person overtime. Contrary to popular beliefs, this does not necessarily mean that one must lose weight. “We decided to do a study on this based on our perception about traditional interventions for overweight and obese people,” said Mariana Dimitrov Ulian, lead author of the study. “These involve, most of the time, diet and physical activity, and they base their success on the immediate weight loss of the participants. While short-term results are observed, long-term results, when it comes to weight loss, are only maintained by a small number of people.” The results of their “Health and Wellness in Obesity Study” were published in the open-access journal  Frontiers in Nutrition and the study focuses on implementing the Health at Every Size® (HAES®) philosophy for obese women. The HAES® philosophy approach aims to encourage healthy behavior in people of all body sizes, independent of whether weight loss is a consequence of those behavioral changes or not. The research concluded that non-prescriptive interventions in a person’s behavior improved the participant’s self-esteem and overall body […]

Health

29 Mar 2016

CALL FOR PAPERS: Zika Virus Research

The Zika Virus is the latest viral threat that is slowly spreading from country to country. The local transmission of Zika virus has been reported in more than 50 countries and the situation was declared as a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. As an open-access publisher, Frontiers believes that in times like this, we need to work together as researchers and publishers to gather and share knowledge to understand this virus and find solutions. LOOKING FOR PAPERS IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS To support research in this area, Frontiers has launched a special Research Topic and hopes academics will submit original research reports, methods articles, perspectives, reviews and mini reviews in the following (but not limited to) topics: Epidemiological surveillance Development and validation of diagnostic methods Prevention and control strategies, including the development of immunotherapies and vaccines The association between Zika virus infection during pregnancy and congenital abnormalities Clinical and neurological complications Viral genetics and pathogenesis. PUBLISHING FEES WAIVED FOR ZIKA VIRUS RESEARCH Frontiers is waiving all publishing fees for research submitted to the Zika Virus Research Topic. For more information on how to submit your paper and other details, visit the topic page. TOPIC EDITORS BY […]

Health

22 Mar 2016

1st International Congress on Personalized Health Care: Call for Abstracts

As Hippocrates used to say, “it is more important to know what sort of person has a disease, than to know what sort of disease a person has.” More that 2000 years later our growing understanding of genetics and genomics – and how they drive health, disease and drug responses in each person – has provided experimental evidence supporting what the father of western Medicine had already understood, opening the doors to the Personalized Medicine era. The 1st International Congress on Personalized Health Care organized in Montreal from June 12 to 14 will gather together physicians, scientists, academics, managers, regulators, economists, patient representatives, ethicists and experts from pharmaceutical companies in order to share their different standpoints on the development of personalized medicine. Abstract submission will be open until March 31. For more information visit the page: http://www.icphc.org/Call-for-Abstract.html We are pleased to announce that Prof Michel Goldman, the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Medicine, will be one of the key note speakers of the conference with a talk on “Public-Private Partnership and Interdisciplinarity as Pillars of Patient-Centric Innovations” “As we enter the new era of precision medicine, researchers and healthcare professionals need to become more comfortable working in interdisciplinary teams including non-academics.” – Prof Goldman A new section completely dedicated to Precision Medicine […]

Health

23 Feb 2016

STAFF PICK: Mutating to defeat malaria

This month’s Frontiers Staff Pick comes from Victor Kouassi. Victor is a Journal Operations Assistant and before joining us at Frontiers, was at the Francis Crick Institute in London where he conducted research on the immune responses of malaria. With his background in this field, he found the article “Major Histocompatibility Complex and Malaria: Focus on Plasmodium vivax Infection” interesting.  It was published in Frontiers in Immunology late January 2016. Below is why he selected this article as his staff pick: There are over 100 species of Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. These can infect many kinds of animals from monkeys, birds to lizards. This parasite has evolved an intricate life cycle by taking advantage of an invertebrate vector, the mosquito. A vertebrate host, like a human, is usually infected through a bite which transmits the parasite which goes straight to the liver. The parasite then divides into merozoites which are released into the blood. It is this form of the parasite that causes the symptoms of disease by entering red blood cells and eventually causing them to explode resulting in fevers, chills, headaches and, in worst case scenarios, coma, brain damage and miscarriages. Of the five species of Plasmodium that […]

Health

01 Feb 2016

VIDEO: Scientist’s work plays leading role in redefining our understanding of the brain’s systems

By Ben Stockton With a wish to not appear immodest, Professor Pierre Magistretti tentatively indicates two moments that have shaped his career. The first came with the surprise that lactate, more typically associated with insufficient blood supply to muscle, was being produced by the support cells of the brain, known as glia or astrocytes, and used as an energy source for neurons. “Neurons can send messages to glial cells and tell them, “please get us some energy,”” and this arrives in the form of lactate, explains Magistretti. It recently became apparent that lactate had further implications in the brain. Magistretti and his peers are now “fully engaged in understanding how this lactate is not only an energy substrate but also a signal for plasticity and memory,” which has become a cornerstone of his current work. Magistretti, a Professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and at the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL in Lausanne, could be excused for immodesty. His contribution to the field of brain energy metabolism have seen him awarded with the IPSEN Neuronal Plasticity prize and he currently presides over the International Brain Research Organization. Amongst this, he lends his expertise […]

Health

08 Jan 2016

VIDEO: Scientist pushes for improvements in clinical trials in stroke treatments

Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability among adults. Known within the research community as a “brain attack”, it is when cells in the brain die due to poor blood flow. For example, in the most common type of stroke, the blockage of a blood vessel starves an area of the brain from proper nutrition, oxygen, blood sugar and other main nutrients. The prevalence of stroke is just one of the reasons why Professor Jose Biller decided to focus his research on this condition. Chair of the Department of Neurology at Loyola University in Chicago, Biller’s main research interest is in the clinical trials relating to the treatment of stroke. Taking the clinical approach to stroke also has a personal incentive for Billler as members of his family have suffered from strokes. But it is the preventability and treatability of this condition that drives his interest in the field. “It is a very prevalent condition…” said Biller. “I think there is a need for further advances.” Stroke can affect everybody Most of us associate strokes with the elderly and yet Biller has a special interest researching strokes occurring in young adults. Biller explained that strokes can in fact occur […]

Health

01 Dec 2015

World AIDS Day 2015 – 1st December

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes HIV infection, which can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Since AIDS was clinically first observed in the USA in 1981, HIV infection has become one of the most important global health issues in the world. Held on 1st December annually since 1988, World AIDS Day gives people an opportunity to show support for people living with HIV and acknowledge those who have died. To support the global goal to stop the transmission of HIV, it is also a day to raise awareness about the prevention and control of AIDS.   Although HIV infection was first detected in 1981, with the disease it causes being named AIDS in 1983 and the virus itself HIV in 1984, it is important to note that AIDS did not originate in 1981. There are two viruses associated with AIDS: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-2 is less pathogenic than HIV-1 and is mostly restricted to West Africa. HIV-2 is structurally similar to a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) strain, SIVsm, which infects the sooty mangabey monkey. It is hypothesized that SIV crossed the species barrier to humans when contaminated animal blood entered cuts on the hands of people who were in […]