Medicine & Health

It might help babies resist brain injuries from low oxygen and reduced blood flow, which is linked to premature birth and other irregularities. More medical news

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Pomegranate juice good for moms (week of July 6) • Why depression is bad for hearts (week of July 13) • Risk factors for suicide (week of July 20) • Genes affect response to alcohol (week of July 27)

Arthritis can hit harder in African-Americans.A pilot study comparing the results of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in African-Americans and Caucasians has revealed that African-Americans are more likely to suffer pain and disability from the disorder. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied a group of 33 African-Americans and 67 Caucasians and found that both disease activity and the resulting disabilities were worse in African-Americans. Further analysis showed this was linked primarily to socio-economic status rather than race.

Abnormal heart rate variability increases the risk of death for depressed heart patients.Scientists have known for years that depression increases the risk of dying in the months after a heart attack, but they haven’t understood how depression raises that risk. Now, behavioral medicine specialists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting in the Archives of Internal Medicine that abnormal heart rate variability is partially responsible for depression’s effects in heart patients.

Deanna Barch (right), co-author of a memory study that used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (shown in the background) to monitor the brain activity of people with schizophrenia.When encouraged to use memorization strategies commonly employed by healthy individuals, people with schizophrenia can be helped to remember information just as well as their healthy counterparts, a process that in itself seems to spur a normalization of memory-related activities in the brains of people with schizophrenia, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

MaconesGeorge A. Macones, M.D., M.S.C.E., has been named head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Elaine and Mitchell Yanow Professor at the School of Medicine. Macones will replace James R. Schreiber, M.D., who has served as head of obstetrics and gynecology since 1991.

“Let’s talk about condoms.” Whether or not that conversational topic is introduced in a budding romantic relationship may depend on what type of condom-promotion messages the partners have heard. The way messages promoting condom-use are framed influences the effectiveness of the messages, according to a recent study co-authored by Dee Lisa Cothran, Ph.D., who conducted extensive research on the topic as a psychology doctoral student in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

LindemanTwo students at the School of Medicine have been elected to prominent offices on the Assembly of Student Delegates Steering Committee of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). Kristen Lindeman was elected chairperson, and Tim Wolf was elected vice chairperson at the annual AOTA convention.

AllenPaul M. Allen, Ph.D., the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Pathology and Immunology at the School of Medicine, today became president of the 6,500-member American Association of Immunologists (AAI). Allen is a cellular immunologist who specializes in the study of how T lymphocytes recognize antigen and initiate an immune response.

Nerves talk to each other using chemicals called neurotransmitters. One of those “communication chemicals,” aptly named GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), shows up in unusually high amounts in some aggressive tumors, according to a new study from the School of Medicine in St. Louis.