Ingestible sensor could help people with HIV stick to medication regimen, UCLA-led study finds
For people living with HIV, sticking to a prescribed medication regimen is a critical part of staying healthy. However, having to deal with the side effects caused by those medications —nausea and dizziness among them — can lead people to skip doses. Now, a UCLA-led study of 130 people with HIV suggests that a tiny piece of technology could play a big role in encouraging people to take their medicine on time.The research was led byHonghu Liu, chair of the UCLA School of Dentistry ’s section of public and population health. Scientists evaluated whether people were more likely to keep current on their antiretroviral d...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 10, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Scientists say eye-disease drug may also help fight COVID
FINDINGSAn interdisciplinary research team led by UCLA found that a drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for eye disease, verteporfin, stopped the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Their laboratory study identified the Hippo signaling pathway as a potential target for therapies against the coronavirus.BACKGROUNDMany important human biological processes are controlled by complicated chain reactions called signaling pathways, in which certain proteins act as messenger molecules that promote or block the signals of other proteins.The lead researchers were investigating the Hippo...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 8, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health to offer undergraduate degrees
Amid increasing interest and understanding of public health ’s central role in addressing society’s most pressing challenges — including the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters driven by climate change and health inequities fueled by factors that include structural racism — the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health will expand its degree offerings t o include two undergraduate bachelor’s degrees.Thenew degree program, which students can apply for starting in spring 2023, will enable UCLA undergraduates to pursue a bachelor of arts in public health or a bachelor of science in public health.“For more than 60 yea...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 3, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Medi-Cal ’s long-term care services reach only a small portion of seniors, disabled adults
Key takeaways:Only about 10% to 16% of those who are potentially eligible for two long-term care programs are actually enrolled.Researchers found disparities in participation across racial groups and California ’s regions.Most Californians who are potentially eligible are unaware that they may qualify.Two Medi-Cal care programs designed to help seniors and disabled adults avoid being placed in nursing homes serve only a fraction of those presumed to be eligible, according to astudy published today by theUCLA Center for Health Policy Research.Improving access to and expanding the reach of these long-term support services ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 2, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA receives $21 million grant to study health effects of Aliso Canyon gas leak
A UCLA research team has received a five-year, $21 million grant from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to study the health consequences of the2015 –16 Aliso Canyon gas leak disaster. A multidisciplinary team of scientists, public health experts and health care practitioners will study the devastating gas blowout, which was the largest underground gas storage facility disaster in U.S. history. Over a period of nearly four months, an estimated 109,000 metric tons ofmethane, oil and gas constituents were released into the atmosphere. At the time, roughly 232,200 people lived within a five-mile rad...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 1, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Black Americans ’ COVID vaccine hesitancy stems more from today’s inequities than historical ones
Key takeaways:Doctors and distrust. Black Americans are more likely than whites to report poor interactions with their physicians.Not history but here and now. These personal experiences — rather than wrongs of the past — tend to heighten their distrust of the health care system and lead to skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines.Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccination rate in the Black community lagged well behind that of whites, a gap many in the media speculated was the result of fears based on historical health-related injustices like the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study.Butnew research by UCLA psychologists sho...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 27, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
CIRM grant will help expand patients ’ access to UCLA clinical trials for stem cell, gene therapies
A five-year, $8 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine will enable UCLA stem cellscientists to include a wider cross-section of Los Angeles ’ diverse population in potentially lifesaving medical research.In part, the grant will fund the UCLA Alpha Stem Cell Clinic ’s continued collaboration with theUCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute, which supports more than 350 clinical trials at medical centers and community clinics throughout the region.“Integrating the Alpha Stem Cell Clinic and Clinical and Translational Science Institute enables the university to build on the breadt...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 27, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Telehealth follow-ups associated with more hospitalizations after emergency room visits
Telehealth follow-up consultations following an emergency department visit were associated with 28 more return trips to the emergency room, and nearly 11 more return hospital admissions per 1,000 patients, compared with in-person follow-up appointments, UCLA research has found.The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, held true even when the researchers controlled for the seriousness of patients’ conditions, their other medical conditions and sociodemographic factors.One of the first studies to link telemedicine with these negative results, the research is particularly timely because of ongoing discussions among po...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 27, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
With $7M grant from NIH, UCLA scientists to study if brain stimulation during sleep can bolster memory
Key takeaways:A UCLA neurosurgeon and artificial intelligence expert will collaborate to study how the brain forms lasting memories.After identifying a memory ’s electrical signals, researchers will test whether they can improve that memory using electrical stimulation.Scientists hope the technique colud one day potentially help people with memory disorders.Sleep plays an important role in how the brain consolidates short-term memories from the previous day into enduring ones. But exactly how that process occurs remains a mystery. A new study led by UCLA scientists could help answer that question. Their research will...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 27, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
For older breast cancer survivors, cognitive problems may be linked to inflammation, study shows
Key takeaways:Women over 60 make up the majority of the nearly 4 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S.Previous studies of cognition have focused largely on younger survivors in the short term.Self-reports of cognitive issues among older survivors were related to higher levels of an inflammatory marker in the body called CRP.Scientists are still trying to understand why many breast cancer survivors experience troubling cognitive problems for years after treatment. Inflammation is one possible culprit. A long-term study of older breast cancer survivorsrecently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and co-led by...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 27, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Space medicine: Future interplanetary travel will depend on it
When William Shatner found himself 65.8 miles above a Texas desert in a hydrogen-fueled rocket last year, he didn ’t have to worry about blinding flattening in the back of his eyes, fluid shifting from his abdomen to his face or the chance that his heart might change shape.However, had his stint in weightlessness been seven months long, like future missions to Mars would be, instead of just three or four minutes, he may have wanted a UCLA ’s Dr. Haig Aintablian next to him. Aintablian isn't just a doctor, he is UCLA’s inaugural fellow in space medicine. “When this opportunity came up to build a fellowship with ou...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 26, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA researchers identify gene as potential target in treatment-resistant brain cancer
Doctors and scientists at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UCLA Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior have identified a gene that may provide a therapeutic target for the deadly, treatment-resistant brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme.The gene, P300, enables cancer cells that have been damaged by radiation therapy to recover by rearranging DNA and initiating a molecular mechanism that refortifies tumor cells for growth and survival.In studies using mice and in human glioblastoma multiforme cells, the scientists discovered that blocking P300 disrupted its ability to set ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 20, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Professor elected to National Academy of Medicine
Dr. Arleen Brown, professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.Brown, who is also co-director of the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute and chief of the division of general internal medicine and health services research at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, was one of 100 new members announced today during the academy ’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.She was recognized as “a pioneer in understanding how community, policy, health system, and individual fa...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 18, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
There ’s a lot of hate in the world. UCLA’s scholars are asking why and what can be done
Key takeaways:The three-year pilot program brings together fellows from 20 disciplines across the UCLA campus.The first year focuses on research into myriad topics related to hate — how it manifests in the brain, online and in communities, and who is most affected.Findings will support new interventions in education, health care, public policy and other fields.UCLA is launching theInitiative to Study Hate, an ambitious social impact project that brings together a broad consortium of scholars to understand and ultimately mitigate hate in its multiple forms. Supported by a $3 million gift from an anonymous donor, ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 12, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Immigrants living in California are less likely to have a gun at home, more likely to fear gun violence
Key takeaways:17.6% of the state ’s adults kept a firearm at home in 2021; of them, 7.7% said the weapons were loaded and unlocked.California has the nation ’s seventh-lowest gun death rate, but some segments of the population are particularly concerned about the dangers of gun violence.An author of the report says the findings suggest the need to improve the state ’s gun laws.Findings from a new UCLA report reveal that immigrants living in California are much less likely than others to have a gun in their home — just 7.7% of immigrants had a firearm in 2021 versus 22.3% of all California adults. But 24.0% of imm...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 5, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
