Gene Therapy for Diseased LimbsNew research suggests that gene treatment is a safe therapy method to explore in patients whose lower limbs are at risk for amputation because of poor circulation caused by blocked blood vessels.
In a Phase I clinical trial, almost half the patients receiving gene treatment reported complete resolution of chronic pain one year after therapy and more than a quarter of patients with chronic wounds experienced complete healing of those ulcers........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 6:31:54 PM)
Aspirin For Conception And Healthy PregnancyResearchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Utah are beginning a clinical trial to test whether aspirin can improve a woman's chances of becoming pregnant and of maintaining a pregnancy to term.
UB's portion of the study is funded by a $2.8 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development.
The trial is aimed at women who have miscarried a pregnancy in the past year.
"In women who have had........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/23/2007 5:03:19 AM)
Overturning Conventional WisdomA newly released study suggests that the majority of cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) among patients undergoing therapy for the disease may be due to new infections, not acquired resistance. If confirmed in future studies the research, in the March 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, may drive a major shift in strategy for controlling TB.
A major difficulty in treating patients with pulmonary TB is that the organism can........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/20/2007 7:57:04 PM)
Living In Densely Populated Areas Linked To Lower Body MassNew York City dwellers who reside in densely populated, pedestrian-friendly areas have significantly lower body mass index levels compared to other New Yorkers, according to a new study by the Mailman School of Public Health. Placing shops, restaurants and public transit near residences may promote walking and independence from private automobiles.
"There are relatively strong associations between built environment and BMI, even in........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/20/2007 7:32:00 PM)
Yeast Yields Secrets Of Cholesterol And Drug MetabolismBy first probing the way primitive yeast make cholesterol, a team of researchers has discovered a long-sought protein whose human counterpart controls cholesterol production and potentially drug metabolism.
The collaborative study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Indiana University and Eli Lilly Co., was reported in the recent issue of Cell Metabolism.
"Dap1 controls the activity of a........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 8:53:30 PM)
attempted suicide and geneticsA Johns Hopkins-led study has observed evidence that a genetic tendency toward suicide has been associated with a particular area of the genome on chromosome 2 that has been implicated in two additional recent studies of attempted suicide.
Were hoping our findings will eventually lead to tests that can identify those at high risk for attempting suicide, says Virginia Willour, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 8:46:15 PM)
DNA Regions Linked To Nicotine DependenceAmericans are bombarded with antismoking messages, yet at least 65 million of us continue to light up. Genetic factors play an important role in this continuing addiction to cigarettes, suggest researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
In two studies in the January 2007 issue of Human Molecular Genetics, the researchers show that certain genetic variations can influence smoking behaviors and contribute to a........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/19/2007 8:04:14 PM)
Using Nano-Magnets to Enhance Medical ImagingNanoscale magnets in the form of iron-containing molecules might be used to improve the contrast between healthy and diseased tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-as long as the concentration of nanomagnets is carefully managed-according to a new report* by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators. Molecular nanomagnets are a new class of MRI contrast agents that may offer significant........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/19/2007 8:00:35 PM)
Human stem cell transplants mature into neuronsHuman nerve stem cells transplanted into rats' damaged spinal cords have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats' own spinal cord cells in a Johns Hopkins laboratory, overturning the long-held notion that spinal cords won't allow nerve repair.
A report on the experiments will be published online this week at PLoS Medicine and.
"establishes a new doctrine for regenerative neuroscience," says Vassilis Koliatsos, M.D.,........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/13/2007 9:45:35 PM)
Schizophrenia-Related Gene VariationUniversity of Iowa scientists have learned more about a genetic variation that is a small risk factor for a mild form of schizophrenia, yet also is linked to improved overall survival.
The findings, which appear online in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, could help lead to therapys for schizophrenia and even other illnesses, and ways to leverage the gene variation's advantages. An abstract of the article is available at........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/13/2007 8:38:59 PM)
New Technology Guides Cancer TreatmentScientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in combination has created a new technology screening tumors for cancer-related gene abnormalities that might be treated with "targeted" drugs.
These findings were recently published on the Nature Genetics Web site. This new finding might help relieve a problem between scientists' expanding knowledge of the........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/11/2007 9:23:06 PM)
Restless Legs Syndrome And Compulsive GamblingCompulsive gambling with extreme losses -- in two cases, greater than $100,000 -- by people without a previous history of gambling problems has been associated with a class of drugs usually used to treat the neurological disorder restless legs syndrome (RLS). A new Mayo Clinic study is the first to describe this compulsive gambling in RLS patients who are being treated with medications that stimulate dopamine receptors in the brain. The Mayo........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/9/2007 4:29:56 AM)
Lung Cancer Rates Among Female NonsmokersNot all lung cancer is due to a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. Sometimes the diagnosis is a mystery, and the stigma surrounding the disease makes it hard for patients to talk about. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Northern California Cancer Center have taken the first steps toward analyzing why people who never smoked get lung cancer.
Their data, would be published in the Feb. 10 issue of the Journal........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/8/2007 10:07:26 PM)
new vaccine effective against deadly viral diseaseScientists from Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine have completed a study showing that a newly-developed vaccine is effective against a deadly viral disease that is affecting swine herds in Kansas.
The disease, most widely known as porcine circovirus associated disease, was first recognized in Kansas swine herds in November 2005. The disease complex is an immunosuppressive condition linked to porcine circovirus type 2........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/8/2007 8:50:41 PM)
Artificial Cells To Fight DiseaseCarnegie Mellon University's Philip LeDuc predicts the use of artificially created cells could be a potential new therapeutic approach for treating diseases in an ever-changing world.
LeDuc, an assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, penned an article for the January edition of Nature Nanotechnology Journal about the efficacy of using man-made cells to treat diseases without injecting drugs.
This idea was developed........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/7/2007 9:15:07 PM)
Prevalence Of Overactive BladderAs per the International Continence Society, overactive bladder is a symptom-defined condition characterized by urinary urgency, with or without urgency incontinence, commonly with urinary frequency and nocturia (night-time urination). The term overactive bladder is appropriate if there is no proven urinary tract infection or other obvious pathology.
Overactive bladder was identified in 6.5% of Finnish men and 9.3% of women. In younger age........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/6/2007 9:56:10 PM)
Re-wiring the amputated limbSurgeons have managed to give an amputee not only a prosthetic arm that moves as directed by her thoughts, but also the feeling of touch - albeit in the wrong part of her body.
When Claudia Mitchell presses an area on her chest, where surgeons re-wired the nerves that used to run to her hand, it feels to her as if her fingers are being touched.
The technique opens the door to additional technologies that could one day relay signals from........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/5/2007 9:17:28 PM)
Nano-Magnets to Enhance Medical ImagingNanoscale magnets in the form of iron-containing molecules might be used to improve the contrast between healthy and diseased tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-as long as the concentration of nanomagnets is carefully managed-as per a new report* by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators. Molecular nanomagnets are a new class of MRI contrast agents that may offer significant advantages,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/2/2007 4:28:56 AM)
Improved Breast Cancer ScreeningIt's a known fact that the key to curing breast cancer is early detection and prompt treatment. Hence, recent reports suggesting that screening for breast cancer is declining among women in the U.S. is worrying health officials. The reasons cited for this decline include insufficient access to mammography facilities and, surpisingly, apathy and indifference among women about the entire process. The second reason could be related to the fact........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/1/2007 8:18:01 PM)
Monitoring Patients Heart Daily at their HomeAn easy-to-use in home monitoring device for patients is changing the way doctors monitor the health of patients with implanted defibrillators. Rush University Medical Center is participating in a pilot study of the LATITUDE® Patient Management system to determine if the wireless home monitoring system can decrease hospitalizations for heart failure.
A mini-antenna built into the implanted defibrillator sends data to a wireless system........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 1/31/2007 8:28:39 PM)
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Amputations Worse Than CancerThe Spanish National Symposium on the Diabetic Foot last week was the scene for a keynote address that delivered a strong message proposing "a marriage of technology with common sense for the next decade." The address was delivered by David G. Armstrong, DPM, PhD, Professor of Surgery and Associate Dean at Scholl College at Rosalind Franklin University. More than 500 specialist physicians, surgeons, and healthcare providers packed a........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/23/2007 5:05:46 AM)
Taxol chemotherapy in breast cancerCancer researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have taken a step towards understanding how and why a widely used chemotherapy drug works in patients with breast cancer.
In laboratory studies, the researchers isolated a protein, caveolin-1, showing that in breast cancer cells this protein can enhance cell death in response to the use of Taxol, one of two taxane chemotherapy drugs used to treat advanced breast and ovarian cancer.........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:45:43 PM)
predictor of mortality in cardiac patientsResearchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn have determined that low levels of a protein in the blood is a predictor of cardiac death in patients with coronary artery disease.
In a group of men undergoing coronary angiography, low baseline levels of RANTES (Regulated upon Activation, Normal T-cell Expressed, and Secreted), also known as CCL5, were shown to be an independent predictor of cardiac mortality.
RANTES is a........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/20/2007 9:08:12 PM)
Treatment For Advanced Ald Patientsontinuing with more than a decade of research, doctors at the University of Minnesota have discovered a therapy to help patients with advanced cases of adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare disorder affecting the nerves. The results are reported in the late recent issue of Bone Marrow Transplantation.
ALD is a progressive degenerative myelin disorder that affects young boys. Myelin is the insulation around the nerves and with ALD it breaks........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/20/2007 7:34:22 PM)
Understanding Health Risk InformationAs per a research findings reported in the Feb. 20 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, scientists with Dartmouth Medical School and the Veterans Affairs Outcomes Group at the White River Junction (Vt.) VA Medical Center have tested whether a primer, which the scientists also wrote, helped people better understand information about health risks and interventions meant to reduce those risks.
We wrote the primer because, while people are........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/19/2007 9:01:18 PM)
Sick teens in crisisA new study from Saint Louis University researchers shows that young transplant patients who lose their federally provided insurance coverage are more likely to stop taking necessary anti-rejection drugs, which can increase the risk of losing the transplanted organs.
The study appears in the recent issue of Pediatric Transplantation.
Immunosuppressive drugs that prevent organ rejection are incredibly expensive; sometimes more than $13,000........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/19/2007 8:43:10 PM)
Diabetes Risk Factors Develop Earlier in WomenThe "diabetes clock" may start ticking in women years in advance of a medical diagnosis of the disease, new research has shown.
Epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo have found that newly identified risk factors for diabetes found in the blood, such as markers of endothelial dysfunction, chronic sub-acute inflammation and blood clotting factors, are present early on in women who eventually progress from normal glucose status to the........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 8:41:35 PM)
Googling brain proteins with 3-D gogglesThe Allen Brain Atlas, a genome-wide map of the mouse brain on the Internet, has been hailed as Google of the brain. The atlas now has a companion or the brains working molecules, a sort of pop-up book of the proteins, or proteome map, that those genes express.
The protein map is the first to apply quantitative proteomics to imaging, said Richard D. Smith, Battelle Fellow at the Department of Energys Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/15/2007 4:35:31 AM)
Enzyme for growth of abdominal aortic aneurysmsSurgery is the only therapy for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a weak spot in the body's main artery that dilates dangerously over time. If the vessel ruptures suddenly before surgery to repair it, a quick death is virtually certain. Now, researchers say they have identified a key enzyme that triggers chronic inflammation in the aorta and promotes the growth of aneurysms. Their finding raises hopes for developing a drug that could prevent small........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/13/2007 9:26:14 PM)
Natural Selection ContinuesSome breaking news, just in time for Valentine's Day: Scientists have identified something called "sperm competition" that they think has evolved to ensure a genetic future. In sexual reproduction, natural selection is generally thought of as something that happens previous to and in fact leads to -- the Big Event. This thinking holds, for example, that we are drawn to physical features that tell us our partner is healthy and will give us a........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/12/2007 8:58:56 PM)
For Individuals With Genetic DisordersA new study reported in the February 2007 issue of the American Journal of Medical Genetics reveals that individuals with genetic conditions are twice as likely to report having been denied health insurance than individuals with other chronic illnesses. The Johns Hopkins University study also observed that nearly 60 percent of all study participants believe a health insurance company can obtain medical information about them without their........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/12/2007 8:56:27 PM)
Where Do We Draw The Line?This October is the 40th year of the passing of the UK Abortion Act is certain to be marked by attempts to reopen the debate about lowering the upper limit for legal terminations. In a special report in this weeks BMJ, journalist Jonathan Gornall examines current arguments for reform.
Any challenge to the upper limit of 24 weeks poses big questions about viability, infant suffering, and the capabilities of neonatal care, writes Gornall and........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/9/2007 4:43:52 AM)
Study Profiles Rate Of Autism In WisconsinA Wisconsin autism surveillance project reported today that approximately five out of every 1,000 Wisconsin children born in 1994 display symptoms indicative of autism.
The Wisconsin Surveillance of Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities System, part of a national study overseen by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, reviewed children in the first phase of a study to determine the prevalence of autism........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/8/2007 9:59:10 PM)
Robot help users regain limb functionA robotic exoskeleton controlled by the wearer's own nervous system could help users regain limb function, which is encouraging news for people with partial nervous system impairment, say University of Michigan researchers.
The ankle exoskeleton developed at U-M was worn by healthy subjects to measure how the device affected ankle function. The U-M team has no plans to build a commercial exoskeleton, but their results suggest promising........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 2/8/2007 8:55:13 PM)
'Missing Link' in Alzheimer's DiseaseResearchers at the University of Virginia have identified what appears to be a major missing link in the process that destroys nerve cells in Alzheimer's disease, an incurable disease that slowly destroys memory and cognitive abilities. The findings are published in the Nov. 20, 2006, issue of the Journal of Cell Biology and could eventually lead to new drugs that target and disrupt specific proteins that conspire in the brain to cause........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/7/2007 8:36:26 PM)
Children's sleep problems can lead to school problemsIt is obvious that young children who have difficulties sleeping are likely to have problems in school. A new study shows that African-American children and children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds fare worse than their counterparts when their sleep is disrupted.
The study offers one of the first demonstrations that the relationship between children's performance and sleep may differ among children of different backgrounds. Conducted........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/7/2007 5:07:16 AM)
Nanoparticles To Battle CancerOn a quest to modernize cancer therapy and diagnosis, an MIT professor and her colleagues have created new nanoparticles that mimic blood platelets. The team wants to use these new multifunctional particles to carry out different medical missions inside the body, from imaging to drug delivery.
After years of research, "we still treat cancer with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy," said Sangeeta Bhatia, an associate professor in MIT's........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 2/5/2007 7:25:52 PM)
Severe Form Of Enlarged ProstateMillions of middle-aged and older men experience the symptoms of an enlarged prostate multiple times during the day and night. What they may not know is that the disease known as BPH (non-malignant prostatic hyperplasia), marked by urgency and frequent urination, is not one but at least a pair of disorders, and that one of the pair tied to a newly identified gene has far more serious implications.
As per a research findings reported in the........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/5/2007 5:10:57 PM)
Moderate Alcohol Can Protect You from ArthritisYes, I'm on a high now, especially, with these new studies luring me to be more tipsy. This time a new study has come out showing the positive effect of alcohol consumption. As per this new study, moderate alcohol consumption can protect you against some types of arthritis. However, still this fact cannot be claimed with full confidence because this fact has been exhibited from a preliminary that studied the effect of alcohol on mice.
During........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 2/1/2007 8:52:28 PM)
Oral Wounds Heal Slower In WomenWounds in the mouth heal more slowly in women and elderly adults, a new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago reveals.
"While wounds to the skin heal more quickly in women than in men, our study suggested the opposite is true for healing of wounds inside the mouth," said Dr. Phillip Marucha, head of periodontics at the UIC College of Dentistry.
"We discovered that, regardless of age, men's mouth wounds heal faster than women's".
........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 1/31/2007 8:42:14 PM)
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