Health News

Study: The Best Way Of Treating Multidrug-Resistant TB

Date: Aug-30-2012
The use of newer drugs, a greater number of effective drugs, and a longer treatment regimen may be associated with improved survival of patients with multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TR), according to a large study by a team of international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. Global efforts to control tuberculosis are being challenged by the emergence of strains that are resistant to several antibiotics including isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most powerful, first-line (standard) anti-tuberculosis drugs - so-called multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB)...

Mechanism Providing Clues For Research Into Pancreatic Diabetes

Date: Aug-30-2012
8-9 percent of human diabetes is type 3c; Olatz Zenarruzabeitia, a biologist at the University of the Basque Country, is analysing a pathway for developing it as well as preventing it in mice  Mice develop pancreatic diabetes (type 3c) when they lack certain genes in the E2F group, and to understand how this happens, Olatz Zenarruzabeitia has focussed on the molecular mechanism behind it...

Synthetic Vaccines For Tuberculosis Could Save Millions Of Lives

Date: Aug-30-2012
Cases of one of the world's deadliest diseases - tuberculosis - are rising at an alarming rate, despite widespread vaccination. Reasons for the ineffectiveness of the vaccine, especially in regions where this infectious disease is endemic, as well as arguments for replacing the existing vaccine with novel synthetic vaccines, are presented in a review published online in Trends in Molecular Medicine...

Evaluation Of The Real-Life Epidemiology Of Catheter Ablation For Atrial Fibrillation

Date: Aug-30-2012
Catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (Afib) is safe and suppresses arrhythmia recurrences in 74% of patients after a single procedure, according to results from the one-year follow-up of the Atrial Fibrillation Ablation Pilot Study, the first European registry to evaluate the real-life epidemiology of catheter ablation for AFib. The survey also showed that arrhythmia-related symptoms such as palpitations, shortness of breath, fatigue or dizziness - present in 86% of patients before the ablation - were significantly reduced...

Collaborative Care Facilitates Therapy Compliance For Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis Improves Function, Pain, And Quality Of Life

Date: Aug-30-2012
Canadian researchers have determined that community-based pharmacists could provide an added resource in identifying knee osteoarthritis (OA). The study, published in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), represents the first evidence supporting a collaborative approach to managing knee OA. Findings suggest that involving pharmacists, physiotherapists, and primary care physicians in caring for OA patients improves the quality of care, along with patient function, pain, and quality of life...

Child Mortality Estimation Methods: New PLOS Collection

Date: Aug-30-2012
Child mortality is a key indicator not only of child health and nutrition but also of the implementation of child survival interventions and, more broadly, of social and economic development. Millennium Development Goal 4 calls for a two thirds reduction in the under-five mortality rate between 1990 and 2015. With the renewed focus on child survival, tracking of progress in the reduction of child mortality is increasingly important...

Pathogen Survival May Be Promoted By Antibiotic Residues In Sausage Meat

Date: Aug-30-2012
Antibiotic residues in uncured pepperoni or salami meat are potent enough to weaken helpful bacteria that processors add to acidify the sausage to make it safe for consumption, according to a study published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, on August 28. Sausage manufacturers commonly inoculate sausage meat with lactic-acid-producing bacteria in an effort to control the fermentation process so that the final product is acidic enough to kill pathogens that might have existed in the raw meat...

Why Family Size Generally Falls As Societies Become Richer

Date: Aug-30-2012
Small family size increases the wealth of descendants but reduces evolutionary success  Evolutionary biologists have long puzzled over this because natural selection is expected to have selected for organisms that try to maximise their reproduction. But in industrialised societies around the world, increasing wealth coincides with people deliberately limiting their family size - the so-called 'demographic transition'...

Medical Therapy Alone Insufficient For Certain Patients Who Would Benefit From Early Use Of Stents

Date: Aug-30-2012
For patients with stable coronary artery disease who have at least one narrowed blood vessel that compromises flow to the heart, medical therapy alone leads to a significantly higher risk of hospitalization and the urgent need for a coronary stent when compared with therapy that also includes initial placement of artery-opening stents...

Hard Questions For Medical Humanitarian Organizations Provoked By Adverse Effects Of Mining Industry

Date: Aug-30-2012
Increasingly humanitarian organizations will find themselves responding to health emergencies provoked by the adverse effects of mining and other extractive industries, setting up a potential clash to do with the core principles and values at the heart of humanitarian medicine, writes Philippe Calain from the humanitarian medical organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), in this week's PLOS Medicine...