health for blog 13

Declining rates of premature death (i.e., deaths among 25- to 64-year-olds) among Hispanics , blacks, and APIs were due mainly to fewer deaths from cancer, heart disease, and HIV over the time period of the study. The decline reflects successes in public health efforts to reduce tobacco use and medical advances to improve diagnosis and treatment. Whites also experienced fewer premature deaths from cancer and, for most ages, fewer deaths from heart disease over the study period. Despite these substantial improvements, overall premature death rates still remained higher for black men and women than for whites. In contrast, overall premature death rates for whites and AI/ANs were driven up by dramatic increases in deaths from accidents (primarily drug overdoses), as well as suicide and liver disease. Among 25- to 30-year-old whites and AI/ANs, the investigators observed increases in death rates as high as 2 percent to 5 percent per year, comparable to those increases observed at the...

With Congress considering the future of the ACA, also known as Obamacare , this research is the first to estimate the impact of the ACA-facilitated expansions of Medicaid on preventive care and health behaviors. Researchers Kosali Simon and Aparna Soni of Indiana University and John Cawley of Cornell University determined that low-income childless adults have benefited in numerous ways from the Medicaid expansions: They are 17 percent more likely to have health insurance, 7 percent more likely to have a personal doctor and 11 percent less likely to report that cost was a barrier to their health care. Their self-assessed health also improved, and they reported fewer days of poor health or restricted activities. Participants were also more likely to undertake preventive care such as getting a flu vaccination, having an HIV test or visiting a dentist. The ACA mandates that health insurance plans, including Medicaid, cover these preventive services without cost-sharing. "Our...

Using a novel technique to analyze antibodies in fluid collected from intestines of 81 HIV-1-in fected and 25 control individuals, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have found abnormal gut antibody levels in people infected with HIV-1. This antibody dysregulation, they say, may be an important factor contributing to the failure of the gut to prevent the inflammatory microbial invasion of the bloodstream. The researchers, led by Zdenek Hel, Ph.D., associate professor in the UAB Department of Pathology, used a technique called protein microarray analysis. A total of 39 different protein antigens from gut bacteria -- antigens that are known to elicit antibody immune responses in humans against those antigens -- were used to bind antibodies from gut wash fluid. A variety of food antigen proteins were also used to bind antibodies. Researchers then could test what types of antibodies were produced in HIV-1- positive and HIV-1-negative subjects. Hel and colleagues found t...