Low Level Of Resistance To TamifluNew data published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed a low frequency of resistance to Tamiflu (oseltamivir) over 3 influenza seasons (2003 2006)1.
The information, published by the Neuraminidase Inhibitor Susceptibility Network in the WHOs Weekly Epidemiological Record, has shown that resistance of around 0.3% to oseltamivir was seen during the influenza seasons in which there had been substantial Tamiflu use in Japan........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/10/2007 5:44:03 AM)
genetic 'shut down' trigger in healthy immune cellsA fundamental genetic mechanism that shuts down an important gene in healthy immune system cells has been discovered that could one day lead to new therapies against infections, leukemia and other cancers. Results of a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study on the mechanism, called a somatic stop-codon mutation, are being reported today in the online journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science.
"This kind of........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 5/9/2007 11:24:26 PM)
DNA linked to autistic spectrum disordersUsing an innovative statistical approach, a research team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, Los Angeles, has identified two regions of DNA associated with autism. They found the suspicious DNA with a much smaller sample of people than has been used traditionally in searches for autism genes.
Autism a disorder that involves social deficits, language problems and repetitive,........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 5/9/2007 11:10:13 PM)
The Healthy Immigrant EffectNew immigrants to Western nations are believed to experience fewer chronic health problems (e.g., diabetes, hypertension and heart disease) than long-time residents of those countries. Dr. Joel Ray and coauthors tested whether this "healthy immigrant effect" extends to complications during pregnancy.
In the Recent Immigrant Pregnancy and Perinatal Long-term Evaluation Study (RIPPLES), Ray and his colleagues examined the occurence rate of........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 5/7/2007 10:53:16 PM)
Why Blacks Do Not Successfully Donate KidneysIn one of the first studies of its kind, scientists from Wake Forest University School of Medicine explored why blacks are less likely than other races to become living kidney donors, and the reasons are obesity and failure to complete the donor evaluation.
"Obesity is a growing problem in the African-American community, especially among women, and this reflects what we found in the study," said Amber Reeves-Daniel, D.O., an instructor in........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/7/2007 10:47:05 PM)
Use of MRI and MRS with new surgical technique proves helpful, says studyMRI and MRS can provide a roadmap of the prostate and assist in surgical planning of robotically assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALRP), as per a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"RALRP is an increasingly prevalent surgical approach which unlike a traditional, open radical prostatectomy offers no tactile feedback to the surgeon," said Mittul Gulati, MD, lead author of the study.........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/6/2007 5:16:41 PM)
Resistant HIV quickly hides in infants' cellsNew evidence shows that drug-resistant virus passed from mother-to-child can quickly establish itself in infants CD4+ T cells where it can hide for years, likely limiting their options for future therapy. The study is reported in the May 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.
Mother-to-child transmission of HIV is an important factor in the AIDS pandemic, eventhough important strides have been made in limiting........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/30/2007 9:16:00 PM)
Strengthening Swallowing RehabilitationJust thinking about swallowing makes it harder to do.
Head and neck cancer, a stroke, brain tumor, brain injury or even a tracheostomy tube and mechanical ventilation needed to sustain life can make it impossible.
Dysphagia, or swallowing problems, can also result from aging and accompanying loss of muscle strength.
"We swallow a thousand times or more per day, just our own saliva, without even thinking about it," says Dr. Lori........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/30/2007 7:12:59 PM)
Major Advance In Structural BiologyScientists from Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University have discovered a new way to analyze the moving parts of large proteins a breakthrough that will make it easier for structural biologists to classify and scrutinize the active sites of proteins implicated in cancer and other diseases.
The breakthrough research will appear online this week and in an upcoming edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/30/2007 6:39:59 PM)
A year of paediatricsPaediatric Grand RoundsClark Bartram is an American paediatrician "who takes care of newborns of all shapes, sizes, and degrees of health, and a sceptic mucking about a credulous world." He also writes Unintelligent Design (Tales from the Not So Normal Newborn Nursery), and is presenting his choice of the best contributions to Paediatric Grand Rounds over the last year.There are some gems.A neonatologist's (Neonatal Doc) strong and wise views........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/29/2007 9:05:37 AM)
computer modeling system for organ allocationThe International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) announces evaluation of a new mathematical modeling system for lung allocation in the United States and the ethical issues surrounding organ allocation facing patients awaiting transplants. Both will be discussed at its 27th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions, today in Satellite Symposium 9, Continued Evaluation of Heart and Lung Allocation Using Evidence Based Research.
........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/25/2007 9:14:53 PM)
Enzyme linked to Friedreich's ataxiaFriedreich's ataxia is one of those diseases few have heard of unless you know someone with the condition. For that individual -- commonly a child or teenager -- it is devastating. Symptoms are mild at first: muscle weakness in the arms and legs, vision impairment and slurred speech, but eventually the symptoms progress and most patients become wheelchair-bound and succumb to heart failure during the later part of life. There is no cure at this........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/24/2007 10:48:11 PM)
High insulin levels impair intestinal metabolic functionNutritional researchers at the University of Alberta are the first to establish a correlation between high insulin levels and dysfunction of intestinal lipid metabolism in an animal model. They believe this finding supports their contention that impaired intestinal metabolic function plays a critical role in the development of cardiovascular disease.
The research was published recently in the journal Atherosclerosis.
The scientists have........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/24/2007 10:26:13 PM)
Chronically ill people used QigongOriental therapies can help chronically ill people stay strong and reduce stress levels during epidemics, as per research in the recent issue of Journal of Clinical Nursing.
Scientists have shown that people who practiced the Oriental art of Qigong which combines gentle exercise with breathing techniques, meditation and visualisation reaped considerable benefits during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong.
It also helped them to cope with the........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/23/2007 10:37:33 PM)
New Lung Cancer TreatmentScientists at the Ireland Cancer Center of University Hospitals Case Medical Center have developed methods for treating lung cancer cells that have become resistant to new anti-cancer agents.
Led by Balazs Halmos, MD, hematologist/oncologist with the Ireland Cancer Center, the research team followed up on their prior study, reported in the New England Journal (NEJM), which observed that lung cancer cells can become resistant to novel........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 4/23/2007 9:39:28 PM)
Dental X-Rays of carotid artery not enoughDetection of calcified tissue in the carotid artery by dental x-rays is not enough evidence to estimate a patient's stroke risk was the conclusion of a systematic literature review published in this month's Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).
Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability among adults in the U.S. It occurs when a blood vessel that brings oxygen and nutrients to the brain bursts or becomes clogged........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/21/2007 8:19:45 AM)
Proteins Important in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's DiseaseUsing a novel video-imaging system, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have been able to observe proteins important in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease moving along axons, extensions of nerve cells that carry proteins away from the cell body. Understanding this process of axonal transport is important for studying a number of neurodegenerative diseases. The study appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience.
........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/17/2007 11:02:36 PM)
Blame the brain for high blood pressureThe controversial idea that one cause of high blood pressure lies within the brain, and not the heart or blood vessels, has been put forward by scientists at the University of Bristol, UK, and is published this week in the journal Hypertension.
Dr. Hidefumi Waki, working in a research group led by Professor Julian Paton, has found a novel role for the protein, JAM-1 (junctional adhesion molecule-1), which is located in the walls of blood........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/15/2007 9:46:42 PM)
MicroRNAs as tumor suppressorsIn the May 1st issue of G&D, Drs. Yong Sun Lee and Anindya Dutta (UVA) reveal that microRNAs can function as tumor suppressors in vitro.
"Overexpression of HMGA2 is an important feature of many medically important tumors like uterine fibroids, explains Dr. Dutta. It is very exciting to realize that microRNAs have an important role in suppressing the overexpression of HMGA2, and so may have a role in the causation and perhaps the cure of a........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 8:53:48 PM)
Lyme Disease Vaccine Proteins PatentedResearchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at Stony Brook University have received U.S. Patent Number 7,179,448 for developing chimeric, or "combination," proteins that may advance the development of vaccines and diagnostic tests for Lyme disease.
The genetically engineered proteins combine pieces of two proteins that are normally present on the surface of the bacterium that causes Lyme........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/15/2007 8:42:42 PM)
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Minimizing Incontinence After ProstatectomyThousands of men facing surgical removal of the prostate due to cancer may someday have one less thing to worry about: post-surgical urinary incontinence.
That's because a team of expert urologic surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center has devised a simple, effective means of reconstructing key anatomical structures that ensure continence.
They describe the success of the procedure in the journal Urology.
........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/11/2007 5:13:50 PM)
the Structural Variations in Human Geneticsmajor new effort to uncover the medium- and large-scale genetic differences between humans may soon reveal DNA sequences that contribute to a wide range of diseases, as per a paper by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Evan Eichler and 17 colleagues reported in the May 10, 2007, Nature. The undertaking will help scientists identify structural variations in DNA sequences, which Eichler says amount to as much as five to ten percent of........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 5/10/2007 5:36:55 AM)
Bipolar spectrum disorder may be underrecognizedA new study supports earlier estimates of the prevalence of bipolar disorder in the U.S. population, and suggests the illness may be more accurately characterized as a spectrum disorder. It also finds that a number of people with the illness are not receiving appropriate therapy. The study, reported in the May 2007 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, analyzed data from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), a nationwide........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/7/2007 10:55:45 PM)
Steep Cost For Health Care And PatientsThe drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) is used to treat HER2-positive breast cancer (a type of breast cancer that overexpresses the HER2 gene and accounts for about 25% of all breast cancers). Trastuzumab treatment improves the chances of survival; however, it has deleterious side effects and is expensive. Thus, it is important to accurately determine the patients HER2 status. The challenge is to develop a testing strategy that is both accurate and........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 5/7/2007 10:49:22 PM)
Improve the Quality of Air We Breathe
The American Lung Association of Chicago had launched this ambient advertisement campaign to urge people to increase their contribution and efforts to improve quality of air. The Association has been orga since more than 10 years. The organization came out with a new perfume that people had never experienced- clean air. About 250 samples of were handed out to people.
The strategy was to catch people off guarded by giving them empty........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/7/2007 8:29:19 PM)
CT colonoscopy almost as good as regular colonoscopyNearly 90% of colon polyps greater than or equal to 6 mm in size detected at CT colonoscopy were demonstrated to represent true polyps at subsequent optical colonoscopy (the traditional method of viewing the colon and removing premalignant growths), as per a new study by scientists from the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison, WI.
"We analyzed the findings of 363 CTC-detected lesions in 244 patients who subsequently........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 5/6/2007 5:18:17 PM)
Gambia's unproven AIDS remedyLeading HIV experts are alarmed that the government of The Gambia is encouraging citizens living with HIV to stop taking antiretroviral medications in order to try an unproven herbal remedy. The HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) calls on President Yahya Jammeh to cease his unproven claims that the therapy "cures" AIDS.
Earlier this year, President Jammeh began applying his therapy to a handful of patients who had been doing well on........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/30/2007 8:22:15 PM)
In Case of a Smallpox OutbreakIn the event of a smallpox outbreak in the United States, how long would it take for a vaccine to start protecting Americans by stimulating an immune response? A new national study led by Saint Louis University School of Medicine will attempt to answer this question.
General routine vaccinations for smallpox were stopped in the United States in 1971, and the world was declared free of smallpox in 1980. But because of the recent concern about........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/30/2007 7:08:30 PM)
FDA approves aliskiren for hypertensionThe FDA approved aliskiren, the first high blood pressure therapy that inhibits renin.
Aliskiren (Tekturna, Novartis) is also the first, new type of high blood pressure drug approved by the FDA in more than a decade, as per company officials.
Aliskiren is a once-daily tablet (150 mg and 300 mg) indicated as monotherapy or in combination with other high blood pressure medications.
Franz Messerli, MD, director of the high blood pressure........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/29/2007 7:04:30 PM)
Strides Against Diabetic RetinopathyResearch increasingly shows promise to both slow and relieve the effects diabetic retinopathy, the most common complication of diabetes.
In its earliest stages, retinopathy often has no overt symptoms but can progress over time to a phase in which the blood vessels of the eye leak and rupture easily, eventually causing blindness. This frightening complication is caused by high blood glucose levels, and nearly all people with type 1 diabetes........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/25/2007 9:39:09 PM)
Study Could Help Stroke VictimsA University of Leicester study could help to provide a new lease of life for patients who have suffered a stroke.
The research reported in the American Journal of High blood pressure confirms the safety of a drug, Lisinopril, that lowers their blood pressure-without reducing the blood flow to the brain.
Now a larger Leicester trial is under way to investigate the drugs benefits for victims of strokes.
Dr David Eveson, of the........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/24/2007 11:10:34 PM)
Unravel Clue in Cortisol ProductionWhen a person's under stress or injured, the adrenal gland releases cortisol to help restore the body's functions to normal. But the hormone's effects are many and varied, lowering the activity of the immune system, helping create memories with short-term exposure, while impairing learning if there's too much for too long. Given the variety of its effects,understanding how cortisol is made is essential to producing medications that can alter........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/24/2007 10:57:06 PM)
Treatment of Damaging Protein PlaquesWhen protein plaque builds up in the blood, it can result in serious diseases such as heart disease and Alzheimer's. Cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitors, a class of drugs under investigation for the treatment of one cause of plaque build-up, also exhibit negative side effects.
Researchers in the International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia are studying the possible use of carboranes, which are........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/24/2007 10:24:40 PM)
A steady, high-fat diet is badSo much for the adage, All things in moderation. Researchers at the University of Calgary have found that people who consume a single, high-fat meal are more prone to suffer the physical consequences of stress than those who eat a low-fat meal.
Published this month in the Journal of Nutrition, the study looked at the stress responses of two groups of students: one group consumed a fast-food breakfast from McDonalds, the other ate dry cereal........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/23/2007 11:01:41 PM)
Overcrowded hospitals may increase riskHospitals that operate at or over their capacity may be at increased risk of adverse events that injure patients, as per a research studyled by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Woman's Hospital (BWH). The report in the recent issue of the journal Medical Care suggests that efforts to meet two primary challenges facing hospitals today reducing costs and improving patient safety may work against each other.........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/23/2007 9:48:51 PM)
Knocking Out The Survival ProteinAn effective way to fight leukemia might be to knock out a specific protein that protects cancer cells from dying, a new study shows.
The findings suggest that a drug that can block this "survival protein" might on its own be an effective treatment.
But such a drug used in combination with several existing drugs might also offer an effective one-two punch against drug-resistant forms of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acute........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 4/21/2007 6:41:12 AM)
Smoking indicator of alcohol misuseWhere there is cigarette smoking there is probably misuse of alcohol too, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"This means cigarette smoking status can be used as a clinical indicator for alcohol misuse, which presents an opportunity for intervention," said the principal investigator, Sherry McKee, assistant professor of psychiatry.
She said that although brief screening and........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 4/18/2007 11:08:04 PM)
ATR checkpoint-activating DNA structureAs reported in the April 15th issue of Genes & Development, Dr. Karlene Cimprich and his colleagues at Stanford University have determined the minimal DNA structure sufficient to activate the ATR-mediated DNA damage checkpoint.
"We are very excited about these results," says Dr. Cimprich. "The ability to precisely define and manipulate the nature of the checkpoint activating structure in an experimental system will enable us to control,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 9:48:03 PM)
More Insomnia-related SymptomsThose persons who are labeled a night owl report more pathological symptoms correlation to insomnia, despite a number of having the opportunity to compensate for their nocturnal sleeplessness by extending their time in bed and being able to gain more total sleep time, as per a research studyreported in the April 15th issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (JCSM).
The study, authored by Jason C. Ong, PhD, and his colleagues at........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 9:16:19 PM)
Predicting Early Liver CancerScientists at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health have discovered a means for early detection of liver cancer. Using DNA isolated from serum samples as a baseline biomarker, the researchers examined changes in certain tumor suppressor genes that have been linked to the development of liver carcinomas. This is the first study to prospectively examine potential biomarkers for early detection of liver cancer in high-risk........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 8:37:54 PM)
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