Health News

Multi-Drug Resistant TB Threatening Global Campaign

Date: Oct-18-2012
The number of people who are being infected with multi-drug-resistant TB (MDT-TB) has risen considerably, and too few of them are being diagnosed and treated, says the World Health Organization (WHO). On a good note, thanks to an aggressive global anti-tuberculosis campaign, 20 million people are alive today - those people would have died without treatment, says a WHO in a report issued this week, called the Global Tuberculosis Report 2012. According to Dr...

Cold Virus Proteins Give New Clues For Cancer Therapy

Date: Oct-18-2012
A new study by scientists in the US suggests cold viruses may prove to be surprisingly valuable allies in the fight against cancer. The findings, published on 12 October in Cell, reveal how small proteins in a type of cold virus, hijack molecular mechanisms inside healthy cells, silence cancer-fighting genes and form sprawling 3D polymer webs that overpower cellular agents of growth and cancer suppression. Study leader Clodagh O'Shea is an assistant professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California...

Antidepressant Raises Brain Bleeding Risk

Date: Oct-18-2012
Drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa and Paxil may slightly raise the risk of brain hemorrhage, Canadian researchers reported in the journal Neurology. The authors emphasized that even though the likelihood of bleeding in the brain is increased slightly, it is still a very small risk. They were talking specifically about SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors); very widely used drugs. Although for the individual the risk remains small, the difference when calculated on a national scale could involve a large number of people...

For Intensive-Care Patients, Bloodstream Infections Cut By 44 Percent By Antimicrobial Soap And Ointment

Date: Oct-18-2012
A sweeping study on the issue of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals shows that using antimicrobial soap and ointment on all intensive-care patients significantly decreases bloodstream infection. The results, which are being presented for the first time at IDWeek 2012TM, may suggest a major change in health care practice that could help save lives. The study involved nearly 75,000 patients in 43 mostly community hospitals in 16 states and involved each hospital's own quality improvement team...

Mouse Life Span Extended By Starvation Hormone Without The Need For Calorie Restriction

Date: Oct-18-2012
A study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers finds that a starvation hormone markedly extends life span in mice without the need for calorie restriction. "Restricting food intake has been shown to extend lifespan in several different kinds of animals. In our study, we found transgenic mice that produced more of the hormone fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21) got the benefits of dieting without having to limit their food intake...

Discovery By IRCM Researchers Could Lead To New Treatments For Cushing's Disease

Date: Oct-18-2012
A team of researchers at the IRCM, supervised by Dr. Jacques Drouin, reprogrammed the identity of cells in the pituitary gland and identified critical mechanisms of epigenetic cell programming. This important discovery, published by the scientific journal Genes & Development, could eventually lead to new pharmacological targets for the treatment of Cushing's disease. Dr. Drouin's team studies the pituitary gland, which is the master gland located at the base of the skull that secretes hormones to control all other glands of the endocrine system...

Lupus Patients May Benefit From Vitamin D Supplements

Date: Oct-18-2012
A new clinical study published in BioMedCentral's open access journal Arthritis Research and Therapy provides preliminary evidence that vitamin D supplementation could be considered an immunomodulatory agent for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), a debilitating autoimmune disease characterized not only by skin, joint, neurological and renal symptoms, but also by inflammation of tissue linings in the body. SLE is a T- and B-cell-dependent disease that causes an appearance of autoantibodies, causing the body to attack itself...

Enzymes Checked In Routine Blood Tests Gauge Liver Cancer Risk Better Than Hepatitis Infection, Other Factors

Date: Oct-18-2012
Enzyme levels in the blood routinely monitored by physicians as liver function indicators are also the best predictor of liver cancer risk for the general population, a team of scientists in Taiwan and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institutet. "These two enzymes alone predicted 91 percent of liver cancer cases in our prospective study," said paper senior author Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson's Department of Epidemiology...

More Effective Treatment Strategies Likely With Improved Knowledge Of The Physical Basis Of Sickle Cell Disease

Date: Oct-18-2012
Sickle cell disease - the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States - causes red blood cells to distort into a crescent shape and block small blood vessels. New insights into how these abnormal cells disrupt circulation could lead to more effective treatment strategies, as revealed by a study published by Cell Press in the Biophysical Journal. "Sickle cell disease entails a central mechanical component, since the circulation gets blocked," explains senior study author Frank Ferrone of Drexel University...

In Clinical Trials About Half Of New Treatments Perform Better Than Existing Treatments

Date: Oct-18-2012
On average, new treatments perform better in clinical trials only slightly more often than existing treatments, according to a new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The fact that experimental treatments are not more effective may seem disappointing, but the authors of the review say their findings satisfy an important ethical requirement for clinical trials. Randomised trials compare the effects of one treatment to another. In a randomised trial patients are randomly allocated to different treatment groups to ensure that like will be compared with like...