After a bumpy ride on broken, barely paved roads through Nashik’s dusty farm country, my family finally arrived at Grover Zampa Vineyards. At least, that’s what Google Maps told us. One of India’s oldest and best wineries looked more like a construction site that had been abandoned mid-project: An open-sided building was surrounded by concrete…
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Want to improve your chance of staying healthy? Stop touching your face! One of the more difficult challenges in public health has been to teach people to wash their hands frequently and to stop touching the facial mucous membranes — the eyes, nose and mouth, all entry portals for the new coronavirus and…
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Recent research on the link between physical activity and depression risk in adults has suggested that exercise may offset the genetic tendency toward depression. Adults with genetic risks who exercised regularly were no more likely to develop depression than those without the genetic propensity. There’s good evidence that this same association holds in adolescents, a…
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Howard Wolinsky is a medical journalist in Flossmoor, Ill., who knows better than to go forward with potentially life-changing surgery without first seeking a second opinion. Nine years ago, at age 63, when a PSA blood test followed by a biopsy revealed cancer in his prostate gland, the diagnosing urologist said he could operate to…
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Hotter and longer heat waves might increase the rate of preterm birth, new research suggests. Birth before 37 weeks of gestation is a leading cause of infant illness and death. The reasons for it are multiple and complex, but some previous studies have found evidence that one contributor could be extreme hot weather. This new…
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Losing an hour’s sleep at the spring change to daylight saving time is at best inconvenient. Now new research suggests that it may be dangerous. A study in Current Biology reports that the risk of having a fatal traffic accident increases significantly in the week following the spring clock reset. Researchers used a federal government…
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CHICAGO (March 2, 2020): Opioid prescriptions have been a known driver of the opioid epidemic, and it’s now known that opioid prescriptions that last longer than five days are a risk factor for longer-term opioid use.1 As some surgeons’ prescribing patterns have been found to be part of the problem, the surgical community is now…
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Baltimore, MD– They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. But what about a real-time window into the complexity of the gastrointestinal system? A new research tool allowed biologists to watch in real time the cell renewal process that keeps gut tissue healthy, as well as the interactions between bacterial species that make up the…
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BOSTON – Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) will host Translational Research Day 2020: Broadly-Engaged Team Science on Friday, March 6. The event brings together researchers, clinicians, community partners, and the public for: A keynote address by Sharon Terry, CEO of Genetic Alliance, on building research teams for impact on health Scientific talks on…
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PITTSBURGH, March 2, 2020 – Frail patients in private-sector, multi-hospital health systems may benefit from a tool that can quickly predict their risk for poor outcomes following surgery, including postoperative mortality, readmission and extended hospital stays. New research from UPMC — published recently in the Annals of Surgery — demonstrated that this prospective assessment index,…
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