Expect campaigners from the Canadian Diabetes Association to be at your doorstep in the coming weeks.
The association is hitting the streets of communities, including St. Albert and Edmonton, until May 2. The spring campaign is raising funds to support diabetes research, provide residents with local diabetes educational resources and to facilitate advocacy efforts.
“You can help fight diabetes in your community – please open your door this spring,” said Tina Skibington, manager of the association’s national residential campaign.
“The power of our collective efforts can make a significant impact in the lives of the more than 273,000 Albertans living with diabetes.”
Proceeds will also be used to help send children with Type 1 diabetes to the Canadian Diabetes Association's D-Camp, Camp Jean Nelson.
Currently, more than nine million Canadians, or one in four, are living with diabetes or prediabetes – a number expected to rise to one in three by 2020.
Stroke survivors who met regularly with their pharmacist had improved blood pressure and cholesterol levels after six months, says a new study by University of Alberta researchers.
The paper recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal followed 279 patients who had recovered well or fully after a stroke or mini stroke.
Patients had one appointment each month for six months with a nurse or pharmacist in order to monitor and improve their blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Results showed that nurse-led interventions saw a 30 per cent improvement in blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while pharmacist-led care saw a 43 per cent improvement.
Nurses could recommend changes and refer patients back to their primary doctor while in pharmacists were able to prescribe and adjust medications.
Researchers conclude both interventions hold promise to prevent and treat other vascular diseases, especially in communities where there is no stroke prevention clinic.
An international team of researchers has developed a new antiviral drug that may protect against measles.
Researchers from the U.S. and Germany have only tested the experimental drug in animals infected with a virus closely related to one that causes the measles. So far the drug – known as ERDRP-0519 – has been effective in reducing virus levels and preventing death.
Researchers say the drug could be used to treat friends, family and other social contacts of a person infected with measles virus, who have not developed symptoms yet but are at risk of having caught the disease.
They emphasize the drug is not a substitute for vaccination. Scientists will next test the drug on monkeys before going forward with clinical trials on humans.
A study of 14,000 U.S. children has found that 40 per cent lack strong emotional bonds with their parents and are more likely to face educational and behavioural problems.
A report published by an international research team from the U.K. and the U.S. found that infants under the age of three who do not form strong bonds with their mothers or fathers are more likely to be aggressive, defiant and hyperactive as adults.
These bonds – what psychologists call "secure attachment"– are formed through early parental care, such as picking up a child when he or she cries or holding and reassuring a child.
Children who develop strong attachments are more likely to be resilient to poverty, family instability, parental stress and depression.
The size and shape of two brain regions involved in emotion and motivation may differ in young adults who smoke marijuana at least once a week, says a new study.
Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, U.S. researchers compared the brains of 20 individuals aged 18 to 25 who reported smoking marijuana at least once per week with 20 individuals with little to no history of marijuana use.
MRI imaging showed that the nucleus accumbens – a brain region known to be involved in reward processing – was larger and altered in its shape and structure in the marijuana users compared to non-users. The amygdala – a brain region that plays a central role in emotion – also showed changes.
Findings suggest that recreational marijuana use may lead to previously unidentified brain changes. Study authors also say it highlights the importance of research aimed at understanding the long-term effects of low to moderate marijuana use on the brain.
