Medicare has announced it will pay for screenings and preventive services to help recipients curb obesity and associated ailments. For people who screen positive for obesity, new Medicare benefits will include face-to-face counseling every week for one month, then a counseling appointment every other week for five months. "This is good news for the millions of Americans who struggle with obesity and its serious consequences and for their doctors who care for them," said Gary Foster, director of Temple's Center for Obesity Research and Education.
Last week's finale of "Dancing with the Stars" drew 19.5 million total viewers. Radio Times host Marty Moss-Coane asked Temple sociologist Julia Ericksen, author of Dance with Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy, what accounts for the current surge in popularity of ballroom dancing. "In the modern world, people don't always have time to develop relationships and commitments, and the thing about dancing is you get all the warmth and intimacy and connection without having to make the commitment," Ericksen said.
The National Institutes of Health awarded Temple neurologist Bassel Sawaya two research grants totaling $2.96 million to study the role of microRNAs in the development of neurocognitive disorders associated with HIV. "The major focus of my lab is to understand how HIV directly or indirectly causes neuronal degeneration," Sawaya said. "An HIV patient, when they suddenly begin to lose the neurons in their brain, can develop neurocognitive disorders such as dementia. We are interested in identifying those mechanisms that could lead to such events."
