Health and Medicine

Excess insulin in the bloodstream does not appear to contribute to atherosclerosis or arterial clogging, despite the known association of Type 2 diabetes with cardiovascular disease, a study by University at Buffalo endocrinologists has shown.

Dental schools must increase their efforts to teach students how to interpret and evaluate results of scientific research in the area of diseases and disorders affecting the temporomandibular (jaw) joint, according to a University at Buffalo dental educator.

Anthony Auerbach, Ph.D., a University at Buffalo biophysicist, has been selected to receive a Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award totaling $2.7 million over seven years from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), an arm of the National Institutes of Health.

Experts in environmental health from around the globe will convene in Buffalo for 10 days in August to present the latest research in the field and to assess the worldwide disease burden caused by environmental problems.

Biophysics researchers at the University at Buffalo have been selected by the Japan Science and Technology Ministry to be its international collaborator on a $10 million research project aimed at understanding the mechanical sensitivity of cells.

A policy of zero tolerance is an effective deterrent against abusive, out-of-control behavior by parents at youth sporting events, says Charles Patrick Ewing, a nationally known law professor and forensic psychologist at the University at Buffalo.

University at Buffalo chemistry professor Joseph Gardella's zeal for bringing science literacy to the general public has found him playing some unique roles: sometimes as a translator of highly technical documents for local community groups, other times as a mediator between neighborhoods and local chemical companies. Gardella recently took on his most novel role as interpreter of science for the masses when he became a science consultant to a writer of Harlequin romances.

Employees should be skeptical of any report boasting that their health as a group is better than that of the general population, an occupational epidemiologist at the University at Buffalo warns. Such a comparison always will make the group and the company look good, said Gregg S. Wilkinson, Ph.D., a professor in the UB Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, because of an innate bias called the "healthy worker effect."

Women who regularly eat fish from Lake Ontario, known to be contaminated with PCBs and other hormone-disrupting chemicals, may be about 25 percent less likely to become pregnant than women who do not, researchers from the University at Buffalo have found.

Most of us accept driving it as part of our daily lives, whether or not we're behind the wheel. However, few of us expect to be involved in a motor-vehicle accident that will change the course of our lives in an instant, according to a University at Buffalo researcher who has been evaluating and treating victims of motor-vehicle accidents for several years.