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The National Institutes of Health has launched a new clinical research program to learn more about perplexing medical cases and provide better disease management for individuals with such conditions, according to an announcement this week.

In a study of nearly 7 million live births, researchers have found that preterm babies are more than twice as likely to have major birth defects as full-term babies.

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The American College of Physicians proposes that an independent organization be established to provide reliable information to patients and providers on the comparative clinical and cost effectiveness of various medical interventions, according to a position paper published in the June 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Minimally invasive per-oral suturing may benefit obese adolescents, and supplementation with probiotics may benefit patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery, according to advancements in obesity research presented this week at the Digestive Disease Week conference in San Diego.

Maternal stress can lead to high allergy responses in their infants, even if they had little allergen exposure, according to research presented at the American Thoracic Society's International Conference in Toronto, Canada. In a related study presented at the same meeting, first-born children carrying a genetic variant are more likely to have higher allergy responses.

The majority of stomach infections caused by rotavirus occur in children younger than 2, according to European research.

Compared with donors in other age groups, teen blood donors have a higher incidence of adverse reactions to donation, researchers report in the May 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Sons born to mothers with high serum levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) or polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) are significantly more likely to have congenital urologic anomalies, according to research presented this week at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando, Fla.

The immune system of babies may be negatively impacted if their mothers are stressed during pregnancy, according to findings presented at the 2008 American Thoracic Society International Conference in Toronto.

Infants and toddlers whose mothers are severely depressed may be nearly three times as likely to have accidental injuries than children whose mothers are moderately depressed.

The United States faces a looming shortage of primary care physicians to meet the health care needs of the aging population, according to a panel discussion May 16 at the American College of Physicians' Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Individuals with type 1 diabetes who undergo islet cell transplant have near-normalization of metabolic control and fewer episodes of hypoglycemia, according to research presented this week at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) 17th Annual Meeting & Clinical Congress held in Orlando, Fla.

In contrast to Health Canada's recent consideration of a ban on baby bottles that contain the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claimed that current BPA levels do not pose a safety risk to humans.

The stigma of mental illness among physicians is preventing the profession from facing the fact that the suicide rate among physicians is higher than that of the general population, according to an article published in the May/June issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis can be safely and effectively treated with etanercept for up to eight years, according to the results of a study published in the May issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Although most parents require that their children receive only medication approved by the FDA, few parents want their kids to participate in new drug research.

Using physicians' offices as the venue to promote judicious use of antibiotics is an effective way to get the information into the right hands, but a multi-pronged approach may be more effective at getting doctors to take a more judicious approach to over-prescribing, according to an article published in the May/June issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Deletion of a small chromosomal region in mice equivalent to the 22q11.2 deletion in humans, which is associated with behavioral and cognitive defects and an increased risk of schizophrenia, is associated with defects in the processing of microRNAs and cognitive and behavioral deficits, according to research published online May 11 in Nature Genetics.

Enhancing cyclic guanosine monophosphate signaling via genetic avenues as well as with sildenafil protected cardiac contractile function in a mouse model of dystrophin-deficient cardiomyopathy, according to an article published in the May 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Although girls experience sexual harassment more frequently than boys, boys are still negatively affected by the indirect consequences of this harassment, according to a recent study.

Children and juveniles with multiple sclerosis (MS) may have an increased risk of cognitive impairment and low IQ scores, and low IQ scores may be especially associated with a younger age at onset, according to the results of a study published in the May 13 issue of Neurology.

Children who experienced stable family situations after divorce fared better as young adults than did those with unstable post-divorce families, according to a study in the May Journal of Marriage and Family.

Immunization rates among children living in the inner city and enrolled in subsidized health care are just over half of national averages, a recent study has found.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced a voluntary product recall of approximately 5,000 baby bottle and food warmers in cooperation with Munchkin Inc.

In a rat model of intrauterine growth retardation, which has been linked to diabetes in adulthood, a gene important for pancreatic β-cell function and development undergoes epigenetic changes that result in its silencing after diabetes onset, according to research published online May 8 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Children who lose a parent due to suicide or other unexpected sudden death are at an increased risk for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to an article published in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The risk of neurologic deficit during surgery to correct pediatric kyphosis in the spinal cord region can be minimized by using multimodality monitoring and motor tract assessment during the procedure, according to research published in the May 1 issue of Spine.

Patients aged 12 to 25 who receive non-operative treatment for a primary anterior shoulder dislocation have about a 50 percent chance of their shoulder becoming stable over time or not having a recurrent dislocation, according to a report published in the May issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.