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Study examines faculty's beliefs on the effects of decreased resident duty hours

07-23-2007 · EurekAlert!

Internal medicine faculty heavily involved in residency programs believe that resident duty-hour limitations negatively affect aspects of residents' patient care, education and professionalism, but improve residents' well-being, according to a report in the July 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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  1. Study examines faculty's beliefs on the effects of decreased resident duty-hours
    07-23-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Internal medicine faculty heavily involved in residency programs believe that resident duty-hour limitations negatively affect aspects of residents’ patient care, education and professionalism, but improve residents’ well-being, according to a report in the July 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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  2. Studies examine mortality among hospitalized patients following work hours reform for residents
    09-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
    In a national study of more than 8 million hospitalized Medicare patients, there was no increase in mortality in the first two years following duty hour reform that limited work hours for resident physicians, according to an article in the Sept. 5 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.
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  3. Rand study examines the effect of policy on entrepreneurship and small businesses
    12-11-2007 · EurekAlert!
    An improved understanding of the effects of regulation on small businesses will help lawmakers develop policy designed to advance entrepreneurship, according to a new RAND Corp. report.
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  4. Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
    02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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  5. Study examines performance-based pay for teachers
    09-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Teacher performance pay is a frequently discussed and controversial topic among kindergarten through 12th-grade educators. Recent findings by economics professors at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Vanderbilt University suggest that states and school districts in the United States begin developing programs that examine the effects of linking teacher pay to student achievement.
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  6. Kaiser Permanente -- Group Health study shows depression worsens HIV treatment
    12-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
    The largest study to examine the effect of depression on HIV treatment appears in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The study by Kaiser Permanente and Group Health found depression significantly worsens a patient's adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy and clinical measures but that effective antidepressant medication reverses this outcome. The study looked at 3,359 HIV-infected patients to measure the effects of depression -- with and without SSRIs.
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  7. Health effects of pesticide mixtures: Unexpected insights from the salmon brain
    02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
    In his research, NOAA scientist Nat Scholz examines how pesticides that run off the land and mix in rivers and streams combine to have a greater than expected toxic effect on the salmon nervous system. These pesticides are widely used in the United States and their occurrence as mixtures in the food supply for humans may also pose an unexpected risk for people.
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  8. Medication does not appear to offer benefit for certain heart attack patients undergoing PCI
    01-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Use of the drug pexelizumab immediately before and for 24 hours after stent placement or angioplasty for certain heart attack patients did not have any significant treatment effect compared to placebo, according to a study in the Jan. 3 issue of JAMA. The medication had shown promise in preliminary studies.
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  9. New study shows Rescue Remedy is an effective all-natural stress, anxiety reliever
    06-28-2007 · EurekAlert!
    A just published scientific study conducted by researchers at the University of Miami School of Nursing in conjunction with The Sirkin Creative Living Center (SCLC) has found that Rescue Remedy, an all-natural remedy created from flower essences, is an effective over-the-counter stress reliever with a comparable effect to traditional pharmaceutical drugs yet without any of the known adverse side effects, including addiction.
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  10. Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. releases summary results of phase 1 metastatic melanoma study
    09-18-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Provecta demonstrated minimal side effects, significant efficacy and bystander effect on melanoma tumors in stage III patients.
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