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Largest study to date finds autism alone does not increase risk of violent offending

The study analysed data from 295,734 individuals in Stockholm County, Sweden, of whom 5,739 had a diagnosis of autism. The researchers tracked these individuals for violent crime convictions between ages 15 to 27 years using records from the Swedish National Crime Register. The team, led by researchers at University of Bristol's Population Health Science Institute and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, found that individuals diagnosed with autism initially appeared to have a higher risk of violent offending. However, this risk was significantly reduced once the presence of additional attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or conduct disorder were taken into account. The study reported that having these co-occurring conditions, along with other, later-onset psychiatric disorders and alcohol and drug misuse, were the most important individual predictors of violent criminality in autism, not autism by itself. Interestingly, when researchers considered individuals...
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Licensing and motor vehicle crash risk among teens with ADHD

The defining symptoms of ADHD (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity) have been linked to unsafe driving behaviors. Allison E. Curry, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and coauthors linked electronic health records to New Jersey traffic safety databases for more than 18,000 primary care patients of the CHOP health care network born from 1987 to 1997. Study analyses were restricted to 2,479 adolescents and young adults with ADHD and 15,865 without ADHD who had at least one full month of follow-up after becoming age-eligible for licensure, which in New Jersey is at the minimum age of 17. Compared with individuals without ADHD, the probability that individuals with ADHD would be licensed six months after eligibility was 35 percent lower. Newly licensed drivers with ADHD also had a 36 percent higher first crash risk than those without ADHD. Among those individuals with a driver's license, 764 of 1,785 with ADHD (42.8 percent) and 4,715 of...
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Childhood psychiatric disorders increase risk for later adult addiction

The team, led by researchers from the Child Study group at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and Accare, the Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands, found that individuals diagnosed in childhood with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)/conduct disorder (CD), and depression had an increased risk of developing addictions. Interestingly, results concerning anxiety were less clear. The risk may depend on the specific type of anxiety disorder, but to date, no studies have focused on this topic. "We know that ADHD in childhood increases the risk for later substance-related disorders, but until now, no systematic evaluation of other childhood psychiatric disorders had been conducted," said Dr. Annabeth P. Groenman, researcher at Accare, Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. "Our findings show that not ...
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'Internal clock' found within live human cells

"Previously, a precise point of a cell in its life cycle could only be determined by studying dead cells," explains Alexandra Zidovska, an assistant professor of physics at New York University and the senior author of research, which appears in the latest issue of the journal  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  (PNAS). "However, with this discovery, which shows that the nucleus exhibits rapid fluctuations that decrease during the life cycle of the cell, we can enhance our knowledge of both healthy and diseased human cells." The study, which also included Fang-Yi Chu, an NYU doctoral candidate, and Shannon Haley, an NYU undergraduate, sought to expand our understanding of the cell nucleus during the cell cycle. It's long been established that the shape and size of the cell nucleus change dramatically during a cell's life. Unknown, however, was whether or not the nucleus changes its shape over short periods of time. This was largely due to ...
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Air pollution cuts 3 years off lifespans in Northern China

A study published today in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  finds that a Chinese policy is unintentionally causing people in northern China to live 3.1 years less than people in the south due to air pollution concentrations that are 46 percent higher. These findings imply that every additional 10 micrograms per cubic meter of particulate matter pollution (PM10) reduces life expectancy by 0.6 years. The elevated mortality is entirely due to an increase in cardiorespiratory deaths, indicating that air pollution is the cause of reduced life expectancies to the north. "These results greatly strengthen the case that long-term exposure to particulates air pollution causes substantial reductions in life expectancy. They indicate that particulates are the greatest current environmental risk to human health, with the impact on life expectancy in many parts of the world similar to the effects of every man, woman and child smoking cigarettes for several decades,...
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Why high-fiber diets do not always lead to weight loss

"These results are a breakthrough demonstrating that certain bacterial species play a decisive role in weight regulation and weight loss," explains Astrup. "Now we can explain why a high fibre diet does not always lead to weight loss. Human intestinal bacteria is an important part of the answer and will from now on play a role in the treatment of the overweight." A group of 62 overweight participants were randomly assigned to follow either the "New Nordic Diet" or the "Average Danish Diet." These eating plans vary greatly in the volume of dietary fibre and wholegrain being consumed. The former is the more fibre-rich option and places greater emphasis on wholefoods such as vegetables and fruits. The participants' weight and body measurements were taken before and after they started their 26-week diets . The results of their stool samples were used to divide participants into two different enterotype or gut bacteria groups. This was done ...
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Cancer drug stimulates tripolar mode of mitosis

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Taxanes induce tripolar as a substitute of regular bipolar cell division. The daughter cells are extra delicate to radiation harm. DNA is stained in blue, tubulin in purple and centrosomes in inexperienced. Credit score: Munich College Hospital Taxanes inhibit cell division and make most cancers cells delicate to radiation remedy. A present research has investigated the underlying mechanisms of this motion -- and which biomarkers could also be helpful for predicting the success of remedy. The research, printed within the journal  Oncogene , was carried out throughout the framework of the Medical Cooperation Group Customized Radiotherapy in Head and Neck Most cancers at Helmholtz Zentrum München and Munich College Hospital. Taxane-based radiochemotherapy is extensively used within the remedy of assorted domestically superior cancers -- together with non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Taxanes have two results:...
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