Dozens of Pitt Public Health grads from the capital area gathered at Penn Social during the 2017 ASPPH annual meeting, joining Dean Burke and host faculty for hearty conversations and refreshments. If the forecast of snow scared you away, we missed you! Access our photo albums anytime at www.publichealth.pitt.edu/flickr.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - The crisis in osteoporosis is an acute one, and in the last several years it has gotten to a crisis level because of the significant decline in treatment. As president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, JANE CAULEY, distinguished professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research, said plans are underway for a “Call to Action” to reverse the troublesome trend. Her review of osteoporosis researc...
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Epidemiology faculty AKIRA SEKIKAWA (senior author) and RHOBERT EVANS, with then-students VASUDHA AHUJA (EPI '15) and ABHISHEK VISHNU (EPI '14) clarify in the British Journal of Nutrition why eating soy foods provides a protective benefit only to some people.
Japanese men who are able to produce equol—a substance made when certain “good” gut bacteria metabolize isoflavones in soy—have lower levels of a risk factor for...
EPI's ANDREA KRISKA has been honored with a 2017 Provost's Award for Excellence in Mentoring. As a committed and effective advisor, she has served as the primary advisor and committee chair for 14 doctoral students, 22 master’s students, and 11 post-doctoral trainees.
Warhol-inspired "Cathedral Cookies" created by CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR (EPI '10) were selected for the finals of the Cathedral Innovation Challenge, which dares community members to create artistic replicas of Pitt's iconic tower.
Inspired by Pittsburgh artist Andy Warhol, Taylor's set of four depictions are created on 3 x 5-1/2-inch vanilla shortbread cookies using royal icing and food-color paint, making the piece entirely edible.
KNOWRIDGE - “Adults with severe obesity often have difficultly following national guidelines to participate in at least 30 minutes per day of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity for health benefits,” says lead author WENDY C. KING, associate professor of epidemiology.
NY TIMES / JAMA - Epidemiology and biostatistics researchers WENDY KING, ABDUS WAHED, and STEVEN BELLE contributed to a two-year Pitt-led study which found that people who used wearable fitness devices for 18 months lost significantly less weight than those who didn’t. At the end of the IDEA Trial, study participants "without access to the wearable technology lost an average of 13 pounds. Those with the wearable tech lost an average of 7.7 pound...
KNOWRIDGE SCIENCE REPORT - “We showed that testosterone improved men’s impression that their sexual function and walking ability had improved, suggesting that these effects are clinically important.” said JANE A. CAULEY, coauthor and chair of the TTrials recruitment committee, and principal investigator at the study’s Pittsburgh site.
FIJI TIMES - Read what experts say about the effects of vacations to your health. "The more frequent the vacations, the longer the men lived," says KAREN MATTHEWS of Pitt Public Health's Department of Epidemiology. Matthews analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study to assess the benefits of vacations.
90.5 WESA - As an organizer with the group Pittsburgh Lead Action Now, doctoral student BETH SHAABAN (EPI '18) is seeking to find solutions to the city’s lead issue. "We’d like to see the process be very transparent so that we can help monitor what’s going on,” she said. Shaaban and fellow students Abigail Cartus (EPI '20) and Ray Van Cleve (HPM) are among the community members who have been instrumental to the group's organizing committee.
HEALIO - Analysis of the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men study by JANE CAULEY reveals that older men with type 2 diabetes have higher levels of vertebral bone marrow fat vs. men without disease, and the increase is associated with both femoral neck and total hip bone mineral density.
HEALTH CANAL - Research from co-author ANDREA ROSSO of Pitt Public Health's epidemiology department published in 'Neurology' finds that poor odor identification may be an early warning sign for dementia. This study is the first to look at that association in both black and white older adults over a long follow up of nearly 12 years.
NEWS MEDICAL - Jane Cauley (EPI) shared years of data from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), enabling fellow researchers to identify women who will experience bone fragility well in advance of a fracture.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION - Findings by epidemiology's SAMAR R. EL KHOUDARY reveal a previously unknown, menopause-specific indicator of heart disease risk, pointing to potential strategies to reduce that risk. " For the first time, we’ve pinpointed the type of heart fat, linked it to a risk factor for heart disease, and shown that menopausal status and estrogen levels are critical modifying factors of its associated risk in women...