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U of M researchers study homeless people's attitudes and concerns about death and end-of-life care

03-26-2007 · EurekAlert!

Health care providers should directly address issues surrounding death and dying with homeless patients, according to researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics.

Keywords: researchers, study, homeless, people, attitudes, concerns, death, end-of-life, care, researcher, attitude, concern, end, life

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Personal chaos in HIV patients' lives may be a barrier to regular medical care, UCLA Study Shows
09-11-2007 · EurekAlert!
Unstable and unpredictable lifestyles are significant factors in determining access to health care among low-income, HIV-positive people, a new UCLA study has found. The study found that when HIV patients lead chaotic lives -- meaning they are disorganized or experience too many unexpected events -- that chaos can act as a barrier to regular medical care. The researchers also developed a new scale to gauge the level of chaos in an adult's life.
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Testing delays cause severe AIDS complications, Einstein researchers find
11-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
Despite the availability of life-saving antiretroviral treatment, people infected with HIV continue to die and suffer from complications of AIDS, mainly due to delayed diagnosis and initiation of treatment. A researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and colleagues at Yale University have shed light on why this problem persists. They report their findings in the November issue of the journal Medical Care.
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Negativity is contagious, study finds
10-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Though we may not care to admit it, what other people think about something can affect what we think about it. This is how critics become influential and why our parents' opinions about our life choices continue to matter, long after we've moved out. But what kind of opinions have the most effect? An important new study in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that negative opinions cause the greatest attitude shifts, not just from good to bad, but also from bad to worse.
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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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It's not too late to change -- lowering cardiac risk later in life
06-28-2007 · EurekAlert!
Can adopting a healthier lifestyle later in life help -- or is it too late? In a study published in the July 2007 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston found that people 45 to 64 years of age who added healthy lifestyle behaviors could substantially reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease and reduce their death rate.
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Study shows value of HIV screening in virtually all health settings
12-04-2006 · EurekAlert!
Voluntary screening for HIV should be a routine part of the medical care of all adults, not just those at high risk, according to a study by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine. The team reports in the December 5 Annals of Internal Medicine that routine HIV screening is cost-effective, even in communities where as few as two in 1,000 people have undiagnosed HIV infection.
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UF researchers track genetic journey of HIV from birth to death
10-16-2007 · EurekAlert!
University of Florida researchers tracked four children born with HIV, studying blood samples taken at birth, throughout life and just after death. Using a high-resolution computational technique, they monitored protein mutations. Previous studies relied on cell culture or animal models to follow the virus' mutations over time. The UF researchers are among the first groups to study the progression of HIV in human patients.
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Healthy country -- Healthy people
05-07-2007 · EurekAlert!
A groundbreaking study initiated by traditional owners in collaboration with researchers at Charles Darwin University's Institute of Advanced Studies, the Northern Land Council and the Menzies School of Health Research has demonstrated an association between Indigenous "Caring for Country" practices and a healthier, happier life.
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Young people's development of attitudes about gender reflect family characteristics
05-17-2007 · EurekAlert!
Findings from the first longitudinal study to track the development of young people's attitudes about gender have demonstrated that there is no single course of gender attitude development. Change patterns in gender attitude development and "traditionality" of attitudes differed by gender, birth order, gender of sibling and parental influence. These findings explain why, as attitudes about gender roles become less traditional in society overall, some individuals remain conservative about the roles of women and men.
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High blood pressure problems largely misunderstood by sufferers
08-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
The distrust of health-care providers shown by people with high blood pressure impedes effective treatment, as emphasized in a new study published in Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. In a systematic review and metasynthesis of 11 qualitative studies published between 2000 and 2005, including more than 500 patients, significant and problematic differences were identified in beliefs about the presence of symptoms, the need to take medications for the rest of one's life, and race-specific treatment plans.
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