Health & Medicine

Stanford University Medical Center, December 14th, 2009. 

Adults may stave off weight gain by simply spending less time watching television, according to a new study led by a researcher now at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Overweight adults who cut television time in half were more active, burning more calories as a result.

“Taking away time spent in front of the television has the potential to improve a person’s activity levels,” said Jennifer Otten, PhD, postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and lead author of the study, conducted at the University of Vermont. Read More >

Stanford University Medical Center, November 16, 2009

The California School Boards Association has awarded Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton a 2009 Golden Bell Award for its comprehensive sleep education campaign. The program was developed in collaboration with well-known sleep researcher William Dement, MD, PhD, the Lowell W. and Josephine Q. Berry Professor, and Mark Rosekind, PhD, a local sleep scientist and former director of the Center for Human Sleep Research at the Stanford Sleep Disorders and Research Center.

The program was designed to raise awareness among students of the importance of sleep and the dangers of sleep deprivation. Research over the past decade has indicated that teens require on average more than nine hours of sleep per night, but busy high school schedules and a naturally occurring shift in the internal biological clock of teens result in later bedtimes. According to researchers, the average adolescent lives with a significant “sleep debt” that affects safety, health, performance and mood.

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Stanford University Medical Center, November 16th, 2009. 

The Ronald McDonald House Charities have awarded their Medical Award of Excellence to Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, for his contributions to childhood medicine. The award includes a $100,000 grant to donate to a charity of his choice.

The Medical Award of Excellence is given to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to improve the lives of children. The award was presented Nov. 7 in Rosemont, Ill.  Read More >

Stanford University Medical Center, November 16th, 2009.

The Stanford Office of Community Health awarded six seed grants to faculty members that promote community health through collaboration between Stanford and local agencies. The projects include community-health-oriented research and collaborations with community-based health centers, schools and hospitals and other nonprofits.

The seed grants, which total approximately $75,000, are funded as a part of the Clinical and Translational Science Award Stanford received last year from the National Institutes of Health. The aim of the grants program is to foster relationships between Stanford researchers and the local communities by “supporting the community partners and encouraging Stanford faculty to collaborate with them,” said Jill Evans, research program director for the Office of Community Health. Read More >

Stanford University Medical Center, November 2, 2009

The Stanford Medical Youth Science Program will receive a $1.3 million Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institutes of Health, spread over the next five years. The grant will extend science educational opportunities to California’s low-income and underrepresented minority high school students.

The Stanford program’s aim is to increase diversity in science and health professions through encouraging low-income and underrepresented minority students to engage in science activities to develop critical thinking skills. The program’s faculty advisor, professor of medicine Marilyn Winkleby, PhD, said she hopes that increasing diversity will bring attention to large disparities in health occurring in these populations. The program also seeks to spur the creation of precollege science education programs at other universities. Read More >