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A French study estimates that more than 12 percent of people discharged from a hospital into home health care are infected with MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and about 20 percent of them may transmit the organism to others in their household.

The researchers, Dr. Jean-Christophe Lucet, of Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, and his colleagues, screened 1,501 hospitalized adults for MRSA before they were discharged and found that 191 (12.7 percent) were infected. For the next year, those found to be infected and other people in their households were checked for MRSA every three months.

The 191 people with MRSA had 188 household contacts who took part in the study. Of those contact, 36 (19 percent) acquired MRSA, but none of them developed an infection. People most likely to be colonized with MRSA included those who were older and those who helped provide health care for the infected person. Sharing the same bed or bedroom did not increase the risk of MRSA transmission, according to the study.

The findings suggest that MRSA transmission is most likely among people who are at high risk for hand contamination while caring for people, the study’s authors noted.

Because no infections developed in any of the household contacts who acquired MRSA, it’s not clear whether such transmission poses a serious public health problem, the researchers said. Regardless, “household contacts should apply infection control measures similar to those recommended in the hospital setting,” they wrote.

Of the people discharged from the hospital with MRSA, about half of those followed for a year were found to be clear of infection, especially those who had become more self-sufficient in daily activities, the researchers said.

The study is in the Aug. 10/24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Swedish researchers say that immunoglobulin M (IgM) is a reliable predictor of cardiovascular complications in people with type 1 diabetes who have diabetic nephropathy (DN) — kidney damage caused by diabetes.

The study included 139 patients who were followed from 1984 to 2007. Those with increased levels of IgM in their urine at the start of the study were about three times more likely to suffer cardiovascular-related death or to progress to end-stage kidney disease.

The study appears in the journal BMC Medicine.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of increased urine IgM excretion on DN disease progression in type 1 diabetes patients,” lead researcher Dr. Omran Bakoush of Lund University said in a news release. “We found that those with increased urinary IgM excretion had a higher mortality from cardiovascular causes and higher disease progression rate to end-stage renal disease. This association is largely independent of the level of albuminuria.”

Bakoush said the “findings may offer a new approach to manage this rapidly increasing patient population. While measurement of albuminuria is routinely used to evaluate and manage patients with diabetes, increased urine IgM excretion would identify more specifically patients at risk for serious cardiovascular complications (death and renal failure). If increased urine IgM excretion does reflect advanced atherosclerotic vascular disease, clinical trials would be justified to test whether modifying atherosclerotic factors also decrease mortality and incidence of renal failure in diabetic patients with or without IgM-uria.”

Benefits of Muscle-Strengthening Activities

As people age, they lose muscle. Muscle-strengthening activities can build muscle tissue and help slow the rate of age-related muscle loss. In addition, strengthening activities can maintain the strength of your bones and improve your balance, coordination, and mobility. Older adults who participate in moderate-intensity muscle-strengthening and balance activities are less likely to have falls.
When to Check with Your Doctor

Doing activity that requires moderate effort is safe for most people, regardless of age. However, if you have a health condition such as heart disease, arthritis, or diabetes be sure to talk with your doctor about the types and amounts of physical activity that are right for you.
Tips for Getting Started
Choose activities that work all seven major muscle groups of your body (legs, hips, back, chest, abdomen, shoulders, and arms), such as lifting weights, working with resistance bands, doing exercises that use your body weight for resistance (such as push-ups and sit-ups), or yoga.
Try to do 8–12 repetitions per strengthening activity. A repetition is one complete movement of an activity, like lifting a weight or doing one sit-up. To develop muscle strength and endurance, the number of strengthening activities needs to be done to the point where it’s hard for you to do another repetition without help.
Strive to increase the weight that you currently lift when it becomes too easy. Muscles are strengthened by progressively increasing the weight you lift over time. When you can lift the weight 8–12 times easily, it may be time to increase the amount of weight at your next session.
You can do muscle-strengthening activities in a number of settings, including your home or a gym. For examples of activities you may want to try, visit Growing Stronger – Strength Training for Older Adults: Exercises, Muscle Strengthening at Home, and Muscle Strengthening at the Gym.
Staying Safe and Avoiding Injury

Muscle strengthening is generally safe for everyone. Here are some things you can do to stay safe while strengthening your muscles:
If you haven’t been active in a while, start slowly and build up.
Choose muscle-strengthening activities that are appropriate for your fitness level.
Maintain good posture when performing all activities.
When picking weights up from the floor (or putting them down), use your legs—not your back.
See a health care provider if you have a health condition.

Muscle-strengthening activities can provide numerous health benefits, particularly as you grow older. There are many ways you can strengthen your muscles, whether it’s at home or the gym. The activities you choose should work all the major muscle groups of your body (legs, hips, back, chest, abdomen, shoulders, and arms).

No matter your age, regular physical activity is one of the most important things you can do for your health. And if you’re an older adult (65 years of age or older), regular physical activity is essential for healthy aging. To get the health benefits of physical activity, not only do you need to do aerobic activities that make you breathe harder and your heart beat faster, but you also need to do strengthening activities to make your muscles stronger.

According to the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, older adults gain substantial health benefits from 2 hours and 30 minutes (150 minutes) a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., brisk walking), in combination with muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all seven major muscle groups—your legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms.

A new technique that transforms embryonic and adult stem cells into six types of mature white blood cells could produce blood cells with specific defects for use by researchers studying the development and treatment of disease.

The method, devised by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers, could also be used to grow specific types of immune cells to target specific infections or tumors, or to test the safety of new drugs, they said.

The researchers exposed two types of stem cells to a variety of compounds and eventually found a “recipe” that caused the stem cells to turn into different types of adult cells. Their study appears in the Aug. 10 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“While we now can make almost all types of blood cells from embryonic and adult pluripotent stem cells, the next major challenge is to produce blood stem cells (called hematopoetic stem cells) that might be used in a bone marrow transplant,” study leader Igor Slukvin, an assistant professor in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine, said in a university news release.

Bone marrow transplants can save the lives of patients with blood cancer, but more than one-third of patients can’t find a well-matched bone marrow donor. These patients are at risk for graft-versus-host disease, a sometimes fatal attack on the patient by the transferred immune system. Using blood-forming stem cells created from a patient’s own stem cells should eliminate bone marrow compatibility problems, Slukvin said.