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CHICAGO -- Older men and women who are lonely are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's-type dementia as their peers with good social networks, researchers have found.

NEW YORK -- Low birth weight and child abuse combine synergistically to increase the later risks of depression by 10-fold and social dysfunction by nearly ninefold, researchers here said.

AARHUS, Denmark -- Four common neuropsychiatric disorders of childhood appear on the rise, with Tourette's syndrome, and hyperkinetic disorder joining autism and autism spectrum disorder, researchers here reported.

ST. LOUIS -- Pediatricians who make medical errors would like to report their mistakes to their hospitals but the doctors often fear the recriminations of formal disclosure programs, according to a survey

COLUMBIA, Md., Feb. 2 -- A blood test for pregnant women may be able to diagnose trisomy 21, which leads to Down's syndrome, and other chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus, according to a preliminary study.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Trying to achieve normal hemoglobin levels in patients with anemia caused by chronic kidney disease increases their risk of dying, according to researchers here.

MILWAUKEE -- When patients with chest pain arrive at the emergency department, they may get profiled, before decisions are made on care, by race, female gender, and insurance coverage, reported researchers here.

MIAMI -- With the Super Bowl upon us, the long-term effects on some former National Football League players of repeated concussions, including premature Alzheimer's disease-like symptoms, have been the subject of two front-page articles in The New York Times this week. Here from the MedPage Today archives is a major 2005 report on football concussions at all levels of competition.

Declining cardiovascular function, poor circulation, diabetes, obesity, cancer, immunodeficiency, renal disease, and thinned, xerotic skin provide the setting for a host of bacterial infections in elderly persons that can involve any level or structure of the skin.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Higher urinary nitric oxide levels correlated with better outcomes, including lower mortality, in a comparison of two ventilation approaches in acute lung injury.

BETHESDA, Md. -- In children with bipolar disorder or severe mood dysregulation, extreme irritability sparked by frustration triggers distinctly different brain activity patterns, suggesting different psychophysiological mechanisms.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The soccer boom among America's children has taken its toll in a steady stream of injuries, yet the rate may haae actually dipped, found a retrospective 13-year survey.

BALTIMORE -- Eighteen million American men ages 20 or older have erectile dysfunction, generally attributed to the effects of diabetes, hypertension, or physical inactivity, researchers here reported.

A 49-year-old white man, in whom HIV infection had been newly diagnosed (CD4+ cell count, 25/µL; HIV-1 RNA level, 274,000 copies/mL), was transferred to our hospital for further workup and treatment of multiple neurologic deficits. He had presented to another hospital with a 4-day history of left-sided weakness and numbness, left-sided facial droop, dysphonia, and dysphagia that led to the initial diagnosis of an acute stroke.

A 75-year-old woman had undergone a total thyroidectomy, with histologic evidence of poorly differentiated follicular thyroid cancer. She subsequently received an ablative dose of iodine-131. After a disease-free interval of about 2 years, she presented with evidence of recurrence in the thyroid bed. She had enlarged cervical lymph nodes and complained of dyspnea on exertion.

In the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis, antibiotics are often given for 3 to 6 weeks, but the optimal regimen has not been established. Dubin and coworkers conducted a study to assess the effectiveness of a 3-week course. They found that for some patients, significant radiographic improvement occurs when antibiotics are given for more than 3 weeks.

A 26-year-old woman presented with a1-week history of pleuritic chest painand abdominal pain, which was associatedwith nausea but unrelated tofood intake or bowel movements. Shehad also had gross hematuria for thepast 10 days and swelling around hereyes and ankles as well as fatigue andarthralgias for 2 weeks.

In his recent editorial Putting Guidelines for Chronic Kidney Disease IntoPractice (CONSULTANT, October 2006, page 1295), Dr Gregory Ruteckidiscussed the results of a study that shows many clinicians fail to follow evidence-based guidelines for the management of chronic kidney disease(CKD), such as when to consult a nephrologist.1 A sampling of the feedbackwe received appears below, along with Dr Rutecki's responses.