A. Arm Position Matters When Measuring Blood Pressure

Narrator: This is Science Today. When it comes to measuring blood pressure, it turns out that arm position matters. Dr. Davis Guss, director of Emergency Room Services at the University of California, San Diego, led a study measuring the blood pressure of 100 emergency room patients a total of six times per patient, and found a significant difference between readings measured with the arm at the side compared to the arm in a perpendicular position.

Guss: We found that regardless of body position, about twice as many patients met the criteria for hypertension when their arm was parallel to their body as compared to when their arm was perpendicular to their body.

Narrator: The American Heart Association recommends that blood pressure be measured with the cuff placed at the level of the heart with the elbow slightly flexed.

Guss: I’m not suggesting that blood pressures have been measured incorrectly around the country by health care providers, all I’m trying to point out is that arm position does matter and that it should be consistent. It’s probably even more important nowadays since there are so many people monitoring their blood pressure at home.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

B. Researchers Work to Better Detect and Measure Pathogens in People

Narrator: This is Science Today. ‘Pathomics’ refers to a comprehensive strategy to understand more about an individual's response to infectious disease agents, particularly those that represent a threat from bioterrorism. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, researchers, including Ken Turteltaub, director of the Biodefense Division, are working to develop new methods to detect and measure pathogens in people and in animals.

Turteltaub: The idea behind pathomics is to take and really focus the resources that the laboratory has and people in the academic community have to come up with a better understanding of the processes involved in being exposed to agents that may be infectious to come up with new ways to detect this earlier than we can do now.

Narrator: The main goal is currently focused on dealing with bioterrorist agents.

Turteltaub: Because the earlier – with biothreat agents in particular – you can tell that you’ve been exposed, the earlier you can intervene and the earlier you can intervene, the greater the chances of being able to successfully prevent a bad outcome.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

C. A Surprising Finding about Mammography and Breast Implants

Narrator: This is Science Today. Mammograms performed in women with breast implants are not as good at detecting breast cancer. But Karla Kerlikowske, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, helped conduct a study that found that this did not result in cancers of worse prognosis.

Kerlikowske: So that was a bit of a surprise – because why would that be so? You’d think that if you were going to miss the cancer, it would be more advanced, but it wasn’t as far as size of tumor, stage of tumor, estrogen receptor status, the tumors were identical in the two groups.

Narrator: Kerlikowske says this may be because if there is any kind of breast symptom, women with breast implants seek medical care more quickly than women without implants.

Kerlikowske: So good news is that the tumors aren’t worse, but it does miss tumors, so we recommend that women go to a place where they do something called displacement views, so you optimize your chance of finding a cancer if it’s present. Displacement views basically take the breast implant and move it up into the chest wall, so when you do the mammogram, you’re only compressing breast tissue and not the implant.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

D. Cutting-Edge Technology Used to Detect Mad Cow Disease

Narrator: This is Science Today. Mad cow disease was first recognized in the mid-1980s in Europe. It’s a neurological disease in which an abnormal protein gets into the brain and causes the brain to look like Swiss cheese. This protein passes through feed to the cow and there have been a few cases of a similar disease in humans. Jim Cullor, a veterinary professor at the University of California, Davis, led a team that developed a new livestock feed test that guards against mad cow disease.

Cullor: What this test does is apply forensic techniques, DNA techniques in enhancing the detection of contaminants in the feed. This is a new generation of assay, it’s very modern, it’s very cutting edge, but it’s a technique that can be applied across the nation and around the world.

Narrator: Before this new feed test was developed, federal regulators had to rely on tests that were lengthier and less accurate.

Cullor: We’re working on making it a rapid test that can be used both from a regulatory perspective and even down on the farm. Right now we’re down to about a five-hour turnaround time.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

E. When It Comes to Flavonoids, Dark Chocolate Packs a Punch

Narrator: This is Science Today. Flavonoids are a group of chemical compounds with powerful antioxidant properties. In recent years, flavonoid-rich products such as blueberries, black tea and red wine have been touted for their cardiovascular-friendly properties. Yet, Mary Engler, a professor of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, says it turns out that dark chocolate has more flavonoids than any other food that’s been tested so far.

Engler: Dark chocolate is derived from the cocoa bean, which is from the fruit of the cacao tree. These cocoa flavonoids actually inhibit platelet activity and can delay clotting and the effect is similar to an aspirin.

Narrator: But not all chocolate is created equally.

Engler: It really depends on the processing that’s involved in making the chocolate product. They’re very labile to both heat and ph, so if one is too high, one is too low, you can destroy the flavonoids.

Narrator: The USDA is currently analyzing chocolate products to create a database of the amount percentage of flavanoids in a given product. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.