Women are more likely to inherit a disposition to develop major depression than men, says a large study of twins in the American Journal of Psychiatry (Jan). Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University who followed 42,161 Swedish twins found a 42 per cent chance of women with depressive parents inheriting the disposition, compared with a 29 per cent risk in men.
Obese middle-aged people who do not have blood pressure or cholesterol problems nevertheless face considerably higher risks of death or hospital care for heart disease and diabetes, researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jan 11). Doctors in Chicago and Peking say that such obese people have a 43 per cent higher risk of heart death and a still higher danger of developing diabetes.
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Replacing healthcare assistants with skilled, qualified nurses is a cost-effective way to cut patient stays, save lives and reduce complications, claims a study by the University of California, Los Angeles in Health Affairs (Jan). The study acknowledges an international shortage of skilled nurses, but says that hospitals with large proportions of healthcare assistants delivering care have most to gain from investing in higher skill mixes.
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A gene that increases the risk for the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease is close to being identified, claims a report in the American Journal of Human Genetics (Jan) by Washington University researchers. They are zeroing in on a region of chromosome 10, and say that while genes have been identified for a rarer, early-onset form of the disease, this may find the genetic cause for late-onset Alzheimer’s.
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Sunflowers may produce a substance that prevents HIV from reproducing, claim scientists at Bonn University. Previous research has shown that a substance, DCQA, may inhibit HIV replication, but it is difficult and prohibitively expensive to produce in any quantity. But certain sunflowers naturally produce the substance in response to fungal attack. See
www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/71_2006_druck.html