Health

Researchers have new evidence to explain how saturated fatty acids, which soar in those who are obese, can lead the immune system to respond in ways that add up to chronic, low-grade inflammation. The new results could lead to treatments designed to curb that inflammatory state, and the insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes that [...]

For pulmonary ailments, certain mediaeval physicians had a useful medical textbook on hand offering detailed information remarkably similar to those a modern doctor might use today. One of the fathers of medicine, the great Persian scholar Avicenna left a wealth of information in his many works. Iranian academics dust off one of these in an [...]

Lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the United States in the span of less than two decades, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
According to the Hopkins researchers, the study, to be published Oct. 30 in the Journal of Public Health, [...]

Globalisation and industrialisation are causing diseases to spread from humans to animals, a study has shown.
Researchers from The Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh have shown that a strain of bacteria has jumped from humans to chickens.
It is believed to be the first clear evidence of bacterial pathogens crossing over from humans to animals [...]

Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cells to grow cancerous, a small rodent species called a naked mole rat has never been found with tumors of any kind — and now biologists at the University of Rochester think they know why.
The findings, presented in today’s issue of The Proceedings of the National [...]

A research collaboration led by biologists and neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has found a molecular pathway in the brain that is the cause of cognitive impairment due to sleep deprivation. Just as important, the team believes that the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation, such as an inability to focus, learn or memorize, [...]

More than half the people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief.
Why? Because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it aim at the wrong target, according to new research from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The medications are like arrows shot at the outer rings of [...]

Mangosteen juice has anti-inflammatory properties which could prove to be valuable in preventing the development of heart disease and diabetes in obese patients. A study, published in BioMed Central’s open access Nutrition Journal, describes how the juice of the exotic ’superfruit’ lowered levels of C-reactive protein.
Dr. Jay Udani, M.D. from Medicus Research, California, worked with [...]

A new neurosurgical procedure may prove helpful for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation (EpCS) was found generally safe and provided significant improvement of depressive symptoms in a small group of patients, according to lead researcher Ziad Nahas, M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina. The data are reported in the [...]

Mention the words “bubble boy” and many will recall David Vetter, the kid with big eyes and a thick thatch of dark hair who died 25 years ago after spending almost the entire 12 years of his life in a germ-free, plastic bubble. David was born with severe combined immune deficiency, or SCID, a condition [...]

Women with breast cancer should be given high doses of vitamin D because a majority of them are likely to have low levels of vitamin D, which could contribute to decreased bone mass and greater risk of fractures, according to scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
In a study of 166 women undergoing treatment [...]

Scientists from the United States and China have revealed the potential for human stem cells to provide a vaccination against colon cancer, reports a study published in Stem Cells.
This discovery, led by experts in immunology, Dr. Bei Liu and Dr. Zihai Li, builds upon a century old theory that immunizing with embryonic materials may generate [...]

Survey results published recently in the journal Health Affairs show that while only 27 percent of adults currently support the U.S. Senate Finance Committee’s proposed healthcare legislation, an amended bill could gain the majority’s favor.
The poll was created and commissioned by S. Ward Casscells, M.D., vice president of external affairs and public policy and the [...]

An international team of scientists, led by Monash University researchers, has found that anti-oxidants commonly touted for their health-promoting benefits, could contribute to the early onset of Type 2 diabetes.
The team, led by Professor Tony Tiganis from the Monash Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has found that molecules known as Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) [...]

Medical tourism in Latin America needs to be regulated to protect consumers, according to Université de Montréal researchers. A new study published in the journal Developing World Bioethics argues that Argentinean fertility clinics are increasingly marketing themselves to international health care consumers: these clinics offer all-inclusive packages with fixed prices that feature airfare, accommodations, transfers, [...]

The devastation of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic is well known, but a new article suggests a surprising factor in the high death toll: the misuse of aspirin. Appearing in the November 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online now, the article sounds a cautionary note as present day concerns about the novel H1N1 [...]

It’s a ringing, a buzzing, a hissing or a clicking — and the patient is the only one who can hear it.
Complicating matters, physicians can rarely pinpoint the source of tinnitus, a chronic ringing of the head or ears that can be as quiet as a whisper or as loud as a jackhammer.
Now a Henry [...]

Kidneys recovered from deceased donors with acute renal failure (ARF) — once deemed unusable for transplant — appear to work just as well as kidneys transplanted from deceased donors who do not develop kidney problems prior to organ donation, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
The findings, reported [...]

Neuroscience researchers at the University of Louisville will be the only team collaborating with an international group of scientists that last week announced they had enabled paralyzed rats to walk while supporting their own weight.
Dr. Susan Harkema, the University of Louisville’s Owsley Brown Frazier Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation, rehabilitation director at the university’s Kentucky Spinal [...]

A daily supplement of vitamin D at a dose of 700-1000 IU reduces the risk of falling among older people by 19% according to a study published on bmj.com today. But a dose of less than 700 IU per day has no effect.
IU is an international unit of measurement for vitamins and other biologically active substances.
Each [...]