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Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications (G4H), a new, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the development, use, and applications of game technology for improving physical and mental health and well-being. The Journal breaks new ground as the first to address this emerging, widely-recognized, and increasingly adopted area of healthcare. Published bi-monthly, Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications will be released in fall 2011. Forthcoming articles for early issues of Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications include research on the effectiveness and design strategies of: Games intended to develop the social skills of people with conditions such as autism Exergames aimed at motivating more activity in physical education classes An alternate realty game designed to increase physical activity Exergames for young adults and families Games to help treat eating disorders and habits such as smoking Games to improve cognitive function in older adults The use of simulations to help develop the interpersonal skills of family members of veterans suffering from PTSD

"Our politicians need to take into account the serious - and in some cases profound - health consequences of economic choices," said David Stuckler, a senior researcher at Oxford University and co-author The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills. . . . "Ultimately what we show is that worsening health is not an inevitable consequence of economic recessions. It's a political choice. . . ."

Louis Van Oeyen / WRHS / Getty Images Researchers report they've discovered a common cause of all forms of the fatal neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. The findings, published in Nature, point to a possible new avenue for treatment.

The research found that if a mother's diet contains a certain group of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) - such as those found in fish, walnut oil or flaxseed - the baby's gut develops differently. The PUFAs are thought to improve how gut immune cells respond to bacteria and foreign substances, making the baby less likely to suffer from allergies.

"Private insurance companies that participate in Medicare under the Medicare Advantage program and its predecessors have cost the publicly funded program for the elderly and disabled an extra $282.6 billion since 1985, most of it over the past eight years. In 2012 alone, private insurers were overpaid $34.1 billion. "That's wasted money that should have been spent on improving patient care, shoring up Medicare's trust fund or reducing the federal deficit, the researchers say."

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Questions to Ask Your Doctor campaign is based on the idea that doctors "know a lot about a lot of things, but they don't always know everything about you or what is best for you." The website offers a list of 10 general questions you should ask, along with questions to ask before, during, and after appointments. It also has an interactive page that lets you build your own list of questions. The independent, nonprofit Joint Commission accredits more than 20,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. Its Speak Up Initiatives offer free brochures and videos to help make the most out of visits to the doctor.

Researchers created clinical scenarios related to four common pitfalls of EDIS use in emergency departments: communication failure, poor data display, wrong order/wrong patient errors and alert fatigue.

The review, which appears this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, covers 14 clinical trials that included more than 20,000 people with a history of cardiovascular disease. After pooling and re-analyzing the trial data, the researchers found no differences in the risk of new cardiac events or heart-related death in people taking fish oil supplements versus placebo.

In order for the nation to achieve goals set by the federal government for reducing obesity rates by 2020, children in the United States would need to eliminate an average of 64 excess calories per day, researchers calculated in a study published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. This reduction could be achieved by decreasing calorie intake, increasing physical activity, or both. Without this reduction, the authors predict that the average U.S. youth would be nearly four pounds heavier than a child or teen of the same age was in 2007-2008, and more than 20% of young people would be obese, up from 16.9% today.

Researchers at Washington State University have found that a compound in garlic is 100 times more effective than two popular antibiotics at fighting the Campylobacter bacterium, one of the most common causes of intestinal illness.

Three new genes linked to the chronic autoimmune disease lupus have been identified by an international team of researchers.

Researchers analyzed data from almost 43,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and found that those who drank one 12-oz. sugar-sweetened beverage a day had a 20 percent higher risk of heart disease than those who didn't drink any sugar-sweetened beverages. Another article: http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/12/10656108-soda-drinking-men-at-higher-risk-for-heart-attack "Two sugary drinks a day was linked to a 42 percent increase in risk, while three was associated with a 69 percent increase."

But incidence of cancers linked to obesity increasing, researchers find.

Stem cell researchers create lung surface tissue in a dish

But this doesn't mean endurance sports are bad for you, researcher says.

"The United States spends more than the rest of the world on health care and leads the world in the quality and quantity of its health research, but that doesn't add up to better health outcomes," said Dr. Christopher Murray, IHME Director and one of the lead authors on the study. "The country has done a good job of preventing premature deaths from stroke, but when it comes to lung cancer, preterm birth complications, and a range of other causes, the country isn't keeping pace with high-income countries in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere."

As exciting as such advances are, brain imaging is still primarily a research tool when it comes to mental disorders. Scans are appropriate for ruling out obvious pathology, like brain tumors, as possible causes of symptoms. The differences in brain structure and activity seen in disorders like schizophrenia or ADHD, for example, are typically only meaningful when comparing group statistics. There is simply too much individual variation in brain structure and function for an individual's scan to be diagnostic or predictive, given the current state of the science.

The journal issue mentioned might be worth including in GEFitness bibs: "The editors of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, have created a new online collection of important recent research papers on concussions and head injury in sports."

Yes, this is a must for GEF. Thanks Brig.

As vaccines go, the flu shot is no exemplar. A comprehensive new review of the research, published online by The Lancet Infectious Diseases, finds that the vaccine prevented illness in 59% of adults aged 18 to 64, and in eight of 12 flu seasons studied.