Health News

Drug Adherence And Treatment Improved By Specialized HIV Community Pharmacies

Date: Aug-16-2012
Community pharmacies with specially trained staff to provide HIV services can help HIV-infected individuals be more compliant with their essential antiviral drug regimens and hence improve patient outcomes. Users of HIV-specialized Walgreen pharmacies across the U.S. had significantly greater adherence to and persistence with their therapeutic drug regimens according to a study published in AIDS Patient Care and STDs, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the AIDS Patient Care and STDs website...

Novel Drug Combination Offers New Strategy To Destroy Multiple Myeloma

Date: Aug-16-2012
Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center are reporting promising results from laboratory and animal experiments involving a new combination therapy for multiple myeloma, the second most common form of blood cancer. The study published online in the journal Cancer Research details a dramatic increase in multiple myeloma cell death caused by a combination of the drugs obatoclax and flavopiridol. The researchers, led by Steven Grant, M.D...

Cells Grown On Different Types Of Scaffolds Vary In Their Ability To Help Repair Damaged Blood Vessels

Date: Aug-16-2012
Tissue implants made of cells grown on a sponge-like scaffold have been shown in clinical trials to help heal arteries scarred by atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases. However, it has been unclear why some implants work better than others. MIT researchers led by Elazer Edelman, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, have now shown that implanted cells' therapeutic properties depend on their shape, which is determined by the type of scaffold on which they are grown...

Medications Greatly Improve Smokers' Chances Of Quitting, Study Finds

Date: Aug-16-2012
New research by Roswell Park Center Institute (RPCI), published in the journal Addiction, has discovered that FDA-approved stop-smoking medications give smokers a much better chance of quitting than if they were to try without help. Scientists have previously studied medications known to help smokers quit, but the medications were proven more effective in clinical trials than population-based studies...

Compounds In Green Tea And Chocolate May Help Reduce Neurological Complications Linked To HIV

Date: Aug-16-2012
Current drug therapy for patients with HIV is unable to control the complete replication of the virus in the brain. The drugs therefore do not have any effect against the complications associated with neurocognitive impairment in patients with HIV. New research by Joseph Steiner and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University has discovered that a group of plant polyphenols known as catechins, which naturally occur in green tea and the seed of the cacao tree, may help in the prevention of these neurological complications. Their work is published online in Springer's Journal of NeuroVirology...

Heroin, Morphine Addiction Blocked; Clinical Trials On The Horizon

Date: Aug-16-2012
In a major breakthrough, an international team of scientists has proven that addiction to morphine and heroin can be blocked, while at the same time increasing pain relief. The team from the University of Adelaide and University of Colorado has discovered the key mechanism in the body's immune system that amplifies addiction to opioid drugs. Laboratory studies have shown that the drug (+)-naloxone (pronounced: PLUS nal-OX-own) will selectively block the immune-addiction response...

Feedback In Complex Decision-Making Tasks Can Have A Negative Impact On Performance

Date: Aug-16-2012
People who give positive encouragement and constructive criticism could be wasting their breath according to the latest research from a psychology expert at Queen Mary, University of London. The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, found that when people received either positive or negative feedback about their performance on complex decision-making tasks, it made their decision making worse. Study author Dr Magda Osman explained: "The kind of task people had to perform was difficult and demanding...

Old Skull Bone Rediscovered

Date: Aug-16-2012
Although clearly discernible in the embryo, shortly afterwards it fuses with other bones beyond recognition. Consequently, researchers have often missed it. Now, however, paleontologists from the University of Zurich have rediscovered it: the "os interparietale", a skull bone also referred to as the interparietal. Using imaging methods, they were able to detect its presence in all mammals - including humans, which is new as it was previously believed to have been lost in the course of evolution. The mammalian skull, including that of people, is composed of about 20 bones...

Autoimmune Response Contributes To Inflammation In The Artery Wall: Finding Offers Hope Of A Vaccine For Heart Disease

Date: Aug-16-2012
Most people probably know that heart disease remains the nation's No. 1 killer. But what many may be surprised to learn is that cholesterol has a major accomplice in causing dangerous arterial plaque buildup that can trigger a heart attack. The culprit? Inflammatory cells produced by the immune system. A number of research studies have demonstrated inflammation's role in fueling plaque buildup, also known as atherosclerosis, which is the underlying cause of most heart attacks and strokes, but knowledge of which immune cells are key to this process has been limited - until now...

Rapid Growth Of 'Strawberry' Birthmarks When Babies Just Weeks Old

Date: Aug-16-2012
Strawberry-shaped birthmarks, called infantile hemangiomas, grow rapidly in infants much earlier than previously thought, Mayo Clinic and University of California, San Francisco, researchers found. Their study, published online in the journal Pediatrics, suggests that babies with complication-causing hemangiomas should be immediately referred to dermatologists for further evaluation. Infantile hemangiomas are the most common tumor in infancy. They tend to appear in the first weeks of life and grow as a child ages...