In job market, social contacts help men, not women

How True Is This?

When it comes to finding a job, who you know is as important as what you know. Work experience generally helps people foster the kinds of personal contacts that can lead someone to new career opportunities, but a study from North Carolina State University shows that this is really only true for men. The study finds that work experience doesn't improve women's chances of finding a job through social contacts.

"The study finds that work experience is important, in large part because it helps us develop social connections that can help people learn about future job opportunities," says Dr. Steve McDonald, an assistant professor of sociology at NC State and author of a paper describing the study. "However, while men reap the social benefits of work experience, women do not."
Using a national dataset of more than 12,000 people, McDonald examined the role work experience plays when people find new jobs through their social connections. McDonald found that men who had lots of specialized work experience were often recruited into a new job through their social contacts without having to look for a job. In fact, men with this kind of experience were 12 percent more likely to find a new job through informal recruitment than they were through a formal job search.
Women, however, did not see this benefit. They were no more likely to find a job through informal recruitment than they were through a formal job search.
"Previously, researchers have argued that women face lower-wage payoffs than men with similar work experience because the women have fewer opportunities to develop job skills," McDonald says. "But this study suggests that a lack of useful social connections may also be driving the gender wage gap."
This gender disparity is especially problematic for women who are vying for high-wage, managerial jobs -- because these positions are often filled through the informal recruiting process that appears to favor men. "As a result," McDonald says, "the more that can be done to institute formal hiring practices, the closer we will be to an equitable job market.
"We need to learn more about exactly why women don't get the same benefits from their social connections that men do," McDonald says. "But right now, we just don't have the long-term data we need on these social networks to fully understand this phenomenon."
The research was supported by a grant from NC State's College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by North Carolina State University.

Antioxidant found in grapes uncorks new targets for acne treatment

Got grapes? UCLA researchers have demonstrated how resveratrol, an antioxidant derived from grapes and found in wine, works to inhibit growth of the bacteria that causes acne.

The team also found that combining resveratrol with a common acne medication, benzoyl peroxide, may enhance the drug's ability to kill the bacteria and could translate into new treatments.

Published in the current online edition of the journal Dermatology and Therapy, the early lab findings demonstrated that resveratrol and benzoyl peroxide attack the acne bacteria, called Propionibacterium acnes, in different ways.

Resveratrol is the same substance that has prompted some doctors to recommend that adults drink red wine for its heart-health properties. The antioxidant stops the formation of free radicals, which cause cell and tissue damage. Benzoyl peroxide is an oxidant that works by creating free radicals that kill the acne bacteria.

"We initially thought that since actions of the two compounds are opposing, the combination should cancel the other out, but they didn't," said Dr. Emma Taylor, the study's first author and an assistant clinical professor of medicine in the division of dermatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "This study demonstrates that combining an oxidant and an antioxidant may enhance each other and help sustain bacteria-fighting activity over a longer period of time."

The team grew colonies of the bacteria that causes acne and then added various concentrations of resveratrol and benzoyl peroxide both alone and together. The researchers monitored the cultures for bacterial growth or killing for 10 days. They found that benzoyl peroxide was able to initially kill the bacteria at all concentration levels, but the effect was short lived and didn't last beyond the first 24 hours.

Resveratrol didn't have a strong killing capability, but it inhibited bacterial growth for a longer period of time. Surprisingly, the two compounds together proved the most effective in reducing bacteria counts.

"It was like combining the best of both worlds and offering a two-pronged attack on the bacteria," said senior author Dr. Jenny Kim, professor of clinical medicine in the division of dermatology at the Geffen School.

Scientists have understood for years how benzoyl peroxide works to treat acne, but less has been known about what makes resveratrol effective -- even though it has been the subject of previous studies. Using a high-powered microscope, the UCLA researchers observed that bacteria cells lost some of the structure and definition of their outer membranes, which indicated that resveratrol may work by altering and possibly weakening the structure of the bacteria.

The researchers also cultured human skin cells and blood cells with the two compounds to test their toxicity. They found that benzoyl peroxide was much more toxic than resveratrol, which could help explain what causes skin to become red and irritated when it's used as a topical treatment in high dose or concentration.

Taylor noted that combining the two compounds allowed for prolonged antibacterial effects on the acne bacteria while minimizing its toxicity to other skin cells. The finding could lead to a more effective and less irritating topical acne therapy.

"We hope that our findings lead to a new class of acne therapies that center on antioxidants such as resveratrol," Taylor said.

The next stage of research will involve further laboratory testing to better understand the mechanism of the two compounds. Additional research will be needed to validate the findings in patients.

Millions suffer from acne, and it has a significant psychosocial effect on patients, but limited progress has been made in developing new strategies for treating it. According to researchers, antibiotic resistance and side effects limit the efficacy of the current treatments, which include benzoyl peroxide, retinoids, antibiotics and Accutane (isotretinonin).

Journal Reference:

1. Emma J. M. Taylor, Yang Yu, Jackson Champer, Jenny Kim. Resveratrol Demonstrates Antimicrobial Effects Against Propionibacterium acnes In Vitro. Dermatology and Therapy, 2014; DOI: 10.1007/s13555-014-0063-0

Drinking decaf or regular coffee maybe good for the liver, study suggests

Researchers from the National Cancer Institute report that decaffeinated coffee drinking may benefit liver health. Results of the study published in Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, show that higher coffee consumption, regardless of caffeine content, was linked to lower levels of abnormal liver enzymes. This suggests that chemical compounds in coffee other than caffeine may help protect the liver.

Coffee consumption is highly prevalent with more than half of all Americans over 18 drinking on average three cups each day according to a 2010 report from the National Coffee Association. Moreover, the International Coffee Association reports that coffee consumption has increased one percent each year since the 1980s, increasing to two percent in recent years. Previous studies found that coffee consumption may help lower the risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, and liver cancer.

"Prior research found that drinking coffee may have a possible protective effect on the liver. However, the evidence is not clear if that benefit may extend to decaffeinated coffee," explains lead researcher Dr. Qian Xiao from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

For the present study researchers used data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 1999-2010). The study population included 27,793 participants, 20 years of age or older, who provided coffee intake in a 24-hour period. The team measured blood levels of several markers of liver function, including aminotransferase (ALT), aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and gamma glutamyl transaminase (GGT) to determine liver health.

Participants who reported drinking three or more cups of coffee per day had lower levels of ALT, AST, ALP and GGT compared to those not consuming any coffee. Researchers also found low levels of these liver enzymes in participants drinking only decaffeinated coffee.

Dr. Xiao concludes, "Our findings link total and decaffeinated coffee intake to lower liver enzyme levels. These data suggest that ingredients in coffee, other than caffeine, may promote liver health. Further studies are needed to identify these components."

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Journal Reference:

1. Qian Xiao, Rashmi Sinha, Barry I. Graubard, Neal D. Freedman. Inverse associations of total and decaffeinated coffee with liver enzyme levels in NHANES 1999-2010. Hepatology, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/hep.27367

My Mentoring Project Kicks Off

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