Health News

Metal-peptide Complexes, A New Avenue To Better Medicines

Date: Jul-10-2012
Selectively modifying hormones and using them as medicinal substances Researchers at the RUB and from Berkeley have used metal complexes to modify peptide hormones. In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they report for the first time on the three-dimensional structure of the resulting metal-peptide compounds. "With this work, we have laid the molecular foundation for the development of better medicines" says Prof. Raphael Stoll from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ruhr-University. The team examined hormones that influence the sensation of pain and tumour growth...

Research Team Discovers How Bacteria Sense Salt Stress

Date: Jul-10-2012
A team of scientists led by Assistant Professor Ganesh S Anand and Professor Linda J. Kenney from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Biological Sciences (DBS) and the Mechanobiology Institute (MBI) has discovered how bacteria respond to salts in their environment and the ways in which salts can alter the behaviour of specialised salt sensor bacterial proteins. This novel finding sheds light on how microbes detect levels of salts or sugars in their watery environments - a problem in biology that has been studied for more than 30 years...

News From The Annals Of Family Medicine: July/August 2012

Date: Jul-10-2012
Opioid Use and Misuse for Chronic Pain: What is the Appropriate Role of Prescription Painkillers? A cluster of articles in the July/August issue of Annals looks at opioid use for the management of chronic pain, including the escalating levels of misuse, overdose and addiction associated with opioid pain relievers...

Glycemic Index Varies From One Type Of Rice To Another With Most Varieties Scoring A Low To Medium GI

Date: Jul-10-2012
This finding is good news because it not only means rice can be part of a healthy diet for the average consumer, it also means people with diabetes, or at risk of diabetes, can select the right rice to help maintain a healthy, low GI diet. The study found that the GI of rice ranges from a low of 48 to a high of 92, with an average of 64, and that the GI of rice depends on the type of rice consumed...

In Developing Countries Millions Of Diabetics Could Die Of Tuberculosis

Date: Jul-10-2012
A third of the world's human population is infected with a dormant tuberculosis bacteria, primarily people living in developing countries. The bacteria presents a lifelong TB risk. Recent research out of the University of Copenhagen demonstrates that the risk of tuberculosis breaking out is four times as likely if a person also suffers from diabetes. Meanwhile, as a diabetic, a person is five times as likely to die during tuberculosis treatment. The growing number of diabetics in Asia and Africa increases the likelihood that more people will succumb to and die from tuberculosis in the future...

News From The Annals Of Internal Medicine: July 10, 2012, Online Issue

Date: Jul-10-2012
1. Free Curriculum Aims to Educate Internal Medicine Residents About Wasteful Health Care Spending Developed by the American College of Physicians and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine, the New Curriculum is Part of ACP's Ongoing High-Value, Cost-Conscious Care Initiative Economists warn that health care spending in the United States is rising at an unsustainable rate. To slow the rate of increase, while preserving high quality care, thought leaders in academic medicine suggest that clinicians focus on using medical interventions that provide good value...

Experts Say Recovery From Pediatric Brain Injury A Lifelong Process

Date: Jul-10-2012
In the last ten years, a new understanding of pediatric brain injury and recovery has emerged. Professionals now understand that recovery may be a lifelong process for the child's entire circle of family, friends, and healthcare providers. The latest efforts to advance medical and rehabilitative services to move children from medical care and rehabilitation to community reintegration are discussed by the leading experts in a recently published special issue of NeuroRehabilitation...

No Refrigeration? Single Silk Device Can Store And Deliver Vaccine Or Antibiotic Without Costly 'Cold Chain'

Date: Jul-10-2012
Researchers at Tufts University School of Engineering have discovered a way to maintain the potency of vaccines and other drugs - that otherwise require refrigeration - for months and possibly years at temperatures above 110 degrees F, by stabilizing them in a silk protein made from silkworm cocoons. Importantly, the pharmaceutical-infused silk can be made in a variety of forms such as microneedles, microvesicles and films that allow the non-refrigerated drugs to be stored and administered in a single device...

Colorectal Cancer Risk Associated With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Date: Jul-10-2012
Inflammatory bowel disease is caused by chronic inflammation , which leads to damage of the intestinal epithelium. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease have an elevated risk for developing colorectal cancer because of this chronic inflammation. In an effort to develop strategies to break the cycle of inflammation, Dr. Brent Polk and colleagues at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles examined two mouse models of colorectal cancer...

Generic Drugs Key To US Overseas HIV Relief

Date: Jul-10-2012
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPfAR) began in 2003 with good intentions, but it was not until the U.S. government's massive overseas public health campaign adopted generic drugs that it became a success, according to a new article by Brown University researchers in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs. Nearly a decade later, expanding the availability of generics remains urgent, especially as doctors in the field encounter resistance to first-line treatment regimens...