Deutsches Ärzteblatt International—the German Medical Association’s official international science journal—is a weekly, peer-reviewed, open-access online journal of clinical medicine and public health.

Deutsches Ärzteblatt International is indexed in

MEDLINE, PubMed Central, Science Citation Index, EMBASE, Scopus, and PsycINFO. In addition, the journal is listed in Carelit, CINAHL, Compendex, DOAJ, EMNursing, GEOBASE, HINARI, Index Copernicus, and Medpilot.

Social status is intimately linked with health-related risk factors. Thomas Lampert of the Robert Koch Insti­tute (RKI) in Berlin inquires to what extent smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity are associated with social status. The study is based on data from the RKI’s Telephone Health Survey. [Fulltext]

Modern, couple-oriented treatment for male sexual dysfunction takes the psychosocial aspects of sex into account, as well as focussing on the purely physical aspects of the problem. Urologist Dirk Rösing and coauthors present an overview of current thinking and practice in the area of male sexual dysfunction. [Fulltext]

Ralf Winzer and his coauthors from the Düsseldorf University Hospital present the first scientific data of clinical experience with the novel influenza A virus (H1N1/09) in the German-speaking countries since the start of the pandemic, retrospectively evaluating data from a large clinical cohort of infected persons in Germany. [Fulltext]

A short time ago, Swedish scientists published a paper suggesting the existence of a genetic disposition to respond to placebo, thus giving rise to debate in the media about a possible “placebo gene.” Matthias Breidert and Karl Hofbauer summarize the most recent data about placebos. [Fulltext]

Physical exercise is one of the most effective methods of preventing disease. Carl D. Reimers et al. discuss the remarkable potential of physical exercise to prevent stroke. In men, exercise lowers the risk of cerebral hemorrhage by 40%, and that of cerebral infarction by 27%. [Fulltext]

A weekly online journal of clinical medicine and public health.