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Notable contributions and programs

• A study led by Brian Moss of the School of Social Work revealed that one-third of infants in the U.S. are obese or at risk of obesity. In addition, of the 8,000 infants studied, those found to be obese at nine months had a higher risk of being obese at two years. Other studies have revealed that being obese in early childhood increases the risk for later childhood obesity and could lead to obesity-related health problems like heart disease, asthma, high blood pressure and cancer. Moss and William H. Yeaton from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor published their analysis, “Young Children’s Weight Trajectories and Associated Risk Factors: Results from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B),” in the January/February 2011 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.
   
• Wayne State University researchers have found that when patients and providers speak the same language, patients report less confusion and better health care quality. The findings were based on data from the Pew Hispanic Center/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Latino Health Survey. Understanding the relationship between language and health care quality has important implications for providing public services in an increasingly diverse U.S. population, according to Hector M. González, assistant professor of family medicine and public health at WSU’s Institute of Gerontology and School of Medicine.
   
• Romantic relationships customarily start out as enjoyable and exciting, but sometimes may become routine and boring. A Wayne State University study by Richard B. Slatcher, assistant professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, reveals that dating couples that integrate other couples into their social lives are more likely to have happy and satisfying romantic relationships. His research suggests that spending quality time with other couples may be an important way to improve long-term dating relationships.
   
• In an effort to develop therapeutic remedies for multiple sclerosis (MS), scientists debate two interventional approaches — but they’re on opposite sides of the spectrum. Researchers at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine, however, have reached a definitive conclusion as to which approach is correct, putting an end to a long-disputed issue. Harley Tse, associate professor of immunology and microbiology, whose study was published in the Journal of Neuroimmunology, found that targeting white blood cells of the immune system known as T cells is the effective approach to block the disease in an animal model of MS, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
   
• A groundbreaking clinical study of a new method for preventing premature birth in millions of women each year, published in the medical journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, shows that the rate of early preterm delivery in women (<33 weeks) can be reduced by 45 percent — simply by treating at-risk pregnant women with a low-cost gel of natural progesterone during the mid-trimester of pregnancy until term. The peer-reviewed findings were led by the Perinatology Research Branch of NIH, housed by the Wayne State University School of Medicine at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit. The findings are certain to have substantial impact on the practice of medicine, according to the principal investigator of the three-year clinical trial.
   
• Total joint replacement surgeries can help relieve joint pain common in people with conditions like osteoarthritis. But sometimes, debris from prosthetic joints leads to aseptic loosening, or disintegration of surrounding bones. In 2009, a Wayne State University researcher determined that the anti-inflammatory antibiotic erythromycin can prevent and treat such disintegration. There was one caveat, however: Side effects are associated with long-term use of erythromycin. But Weiping Ren, M.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering, has found a solution. Erythromycin can be administered directly at the site of bone breakdown, rather than orally, so the whole body is not affected. The details of Ren’s study are published in the August 2011 issue of Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.
   
• A Wayne State University study published in the journal Epidemiology points out that two influential early studies of cellphone use and crash risk may have overestimated the relative risk of conversation on cellphones while driving. In this new study, Richard Young, professor of research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences in the School of Medicine, examined possible bias in a 1997 Canadian study and a 2005 Australian study. These earlier studies used cellphone billing records of people who had been in a crash and compared their cellphone use just before the crash to the same time period the day (or week) before — the control window. Young says the issue with these studies is that people may not have been driving during the entire control window period, as assumed by the earlier study investigators.
   
• Wayne State head football coach Paul Winters was named Division II Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association. Winters, who guided the Warriors to a 12-4 record and a national runner-up finish in 2011, received what is regarded as the most prestigious Coach of the Year honor, as it is the only such honor chosen exclusively by coaches themselves. After a nine-win campaign in 2010, Wayne State went 8-3 during the 2011 regular season and, in its first NCAA playoff appearances, won four consecutive road games against nationally ranked teams to earn a spot in the Division II national championship game.