Tag Archives: education

Tobacco myths persist 50 years after US Surgeon General warned Americans of smoking dangers

"Since 1964, smoking rates have dropped by more than half as a result of successful education, legislative and smoking cessation efforts," said Lewis Foxhall, M.D., vice president for health policy at MD Anderson. "Still, lung cancer remains the number one cancer killer and the leading preventable cause of death in the United States." With the approaching 50th anniversary of the Surgeon General’s Report, Foxhall and other MD Anderson experts urge the public to take a proactive stance against this pervasive health issue by gaining insight on current tobacco issues including information that disproves the following myths. Tobacco Myth #1: Almost no one smokes any more. …

Adolescent’s weight, socioeconomic status may affect cancer later in life

Zohar Levi, MD, MHA, of the Rabin Medical Center in Israel, and his colleagues measured body mass index in one million Israeli adolescent males who underwent a general health examination at an average age of 17 years from 1967 to 2005, and through the country’s cancer registry, identified which of the participants later developed cancer. Participants were followed from 2.5 to almost 40 years, with an average follow-up of 18.8 years. The researchers were amazed to find that events — particularly weight and socioeconomic status — up to the age of 17 years had a tremendous impact upon cancer development later in life. …

After almost a century, a question answered; genes protect themselves against being silenced

As explicated today in the journal Nature, methylation in fact enforces gene silencing, and it is levels of a newly identified form of RNA produced by individual genes that determines whether they are turned off by the addition of a methyl (CH3) group by the enzyme DNA methylase 1 (DNMT1). The study, led by HSCI Principal Faculty member Daniel Tenen, MD, found that during transcription of DNA to RNA, a gene produces a small amount of what the investigators named "extracoding RNA," which stays in the nucleus and binds to DNMT1, blocking its ability to methylate, or silence the gene. The discovery of RNA’s new function has therapeutic potential as an on-off switch for gene expression…

Sleep-deprived teen drivers more likely to crash

Too little sleep increases the risk of car crashes for young drivers, a new study confirms. In the study, drivers ages 17 to 24 who reported sleeping six or fewer hours per night were about 20 percent more likely to be involved in a car crash over a two-year period, compared with those who slept more than six hours a night. Car crashes among the sleep-deprived were more likely to occur between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. than at other hours. The findings held even after the researchers took into account factors that affect people's risk of a car crash, such as age, the number of driving hours per week, risky driving behavior such as speeding and a history of car crashes. Sleep deprivation is known to be a risk factor for car crashes it's estimated that drowsy driving is responsible for 20 percent of all car crashes in the United States, the researchers say. However, most studies to date have not focused on young people. Young drivers should be a focus of education efforts to prevent drowsy driving “because this group experiences more impairment in alertness, mood and physical performance compared with older age groups with similar sleep deprivation,” the researchers said. The new study involved more than 19,000 young, newly licensed drivers living in New South Wales, Australia, who answered questions about their sleep habits, including how many hours they slept on weeknights and weekends. Researchers then tracked the participants for two years, and obtained police reports to document car crashes. Among drivers who reported getting six or fewer hours of sleep a night, 9.4 percent were involved in a crash, compared with 6.9 percent of those who reported more than six hours of sleep a night. The new findings “may help increase awareness of the impact of reduced sleep hours on crash risk and highlight subgroups of young drivers and times of day for targeted intervention,” the researchers write in the May 20 issue of the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The researchers noted that participants were only asked about their sleep habits once during the study, and the exact number of hours participants slept on the day before they were involved in a crash is not known. Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on LiveScience.Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/21/sleep-deprived-teen-drivers-more-likely-to-crash/