Ginger shown to zap ovarian cancer cells
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According to U.S. scientists ginger may help to fight ovarian cancer.
Researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have found in a study that ginger kills cancer cells and has the added benefit of stopping the cells from becoming resistant to treatment.
They found the ginger caused the cells to die in all the tests carried out and it was the way in which the cells died which has created the optimism; two types of death were demonstrated in the tests - apoptosis, which is basically cell suicide, and autophagy, a kind of self-digestion.
Clinical web site may be target of porn seekers
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It seems that online dermatological images, intended as a references for doctors, are sometimes being used pruriently.
The idea that a searchable archive of clinical photographs was being misused first occurred to the site’s curators when they noticed a marked jump in queries for images of genital areas.
In light of this, Dr. Christoph U. Lehmann and colleagues, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, emphasize in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology that “anonymous misuse of collaborative archives must be anticipated, addressed and prevented to preserve their integrity and the integrity of the learning communities they support.”
Drug trial victim may lose fingers and toes
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A man who fell into a coma in London last month during a clinical trial of TeGenero’s monoclonal antibody TGN1412 has said he may lose parts of his fingers and toes, the UK’s News of the World newspaper reported on Sunday.
“I’m told it’s like frostbite and my fingers will just fall off,” Ryan Wilson told the newspaper in an interview.
Photographs in the newspaper showed Wilson in bed at Northwick Park Hospital, in northwest London, where the trial took place, with his blackened feet and hands.
Unhappy marriage may harm older adults’ health
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A troubled marriage may speed the decline in health that comes with age, a study has found.
While research shows that married people often enjoy better health than singles do, a number of studies have suggested that an unhappy marriage can take a major health toll. Some, for example, have found a higher rate of heart disease among people who are dissatisfied with their marriage.
This latest study, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, suggests that marital strain may be particularly damaging to older adults’ health.
Excessive adiposity, calorie restriction, and aging
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Can eating a low-calorie yet nutritionally balanced diet extend human life? Preliminary research suggests it might, so researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are launching a long-term study to find out.
In an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Washington University and an investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome, Italy, says calorie-restricted diets point to possible mechanisms of aging and suggest ways to intervene and modify its effects.
In January, Fontana and colleagues found that after an average of six years on calorie restriction, people’s hearts functioned like the hearts of much younger people. And a team from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge is reporting that six months of calorie restriction reduces two key markers of aging: fasting insulin levels and body temperature.
New Gene Reduces Retinal Degeneration in Fruit Flies
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Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a gene in fruit flies that helps certain specialized neurons respond more quickly to bright light. The study, published in the April 4 issue of Current Biology, also has implications for understanding sensory perception in mammals.
In teasing apart the molecular interactions and physiology underlying light perception, the researchers studied a gene they dubbed “Lazaro” that is expressed 15 times higher in the fly eye than the rest of the fly head. They found that this gene is required for a second biochemical pathway that controls the activity of a protein called the TRP channel. TRP channels are found in fruit fly neurons responsible for sensing light. The fly TRP channel is the founding member of a family of related proteins in mammals that are essential for guiding certain nerves during development and for responding to stimuli including heat, taste and sound.
Pakistanis on alert as bird flu crops up on another farm
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According to authorities in Pakistan there has been another outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus on a poultry farm.
The Agriculture Ministry has confirmed that laboratory tests have established the latest case of the bird flu virus has occurred on a chicken farm in Sihala, 15 miles east of Islamabadon.
Health officials have reportedly destroyed 3,600 chickens at the farm and are testing poultry at nearby farms.
Sleep-wake mix-up may lead to near-death sensation
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The brain’s tendency to occasionally blur the line between sleep and wakefulness may help explain the phenomenon of near-death experience, preliminary research suggests.
It’s been an open question as to why some people see bright light, feel detached from their bodies or have other extraordinary sensations when they are close to dying or believe they might die.
Some people view these so-called near-death experiences as evidence of life after death, and many neurologists have considered the phenomenon too complex for scientific study.
Abdominal obesity may boost heart failure risk
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Older adults who carry their fat around the middle may be at risk of chronic heart failure, even in the absence of other serious health conditions, research suggests.
In a study of more than 2,400 older men and women, researchers found that those with large waistlines were at increased risk of chronic heart failure - regardless of whether they had major risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes or a history of heart attack.
The findings suggest that excessive abdominal fat, in and of itself, can contribute to heart failure, according to the investigators, led by Dr. Barbara J. Nicklas of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Calcium’s Impact on Weight Reduction, Bone Loss in Decade After Menopause
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Armed with an $840,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the latest in world-class body scanning technology, a Florida State University researcher in the College of Human Sciences soon will begin the largest, longest study to-date on the efficacy of calcium - through dairy products, supplements or both - for weight reduction and bone preservation in overweight or obese postmenopausal Caucasian women.
Along the way, the comprehensive four-year project at FSU will include nutritional outreach efforts to disadvantaged communities and also will take a look at longstanding assumptions about lactose intolerance in African-Americans.
Department of nutrition, food and exercise sciences Professor Jasminka Ilich will spearhead the calcium research targeting Caucasian women who are two to ten years past menopause and classified as overweight or obese based on a body mass index (BMI) of 26 or greater. Results are expected to shed additional light on calcium’s cell-level role in the overall functioning of bone and adipose (fat) tissue in such women.
Distraction helps kids get stitches in ER
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Listening to a CD player or playing a video game may make getting stitches more tolerable for children who come to the ER, new research suggests.
Previous reports have suggested beneficial effects using distraction techniques, but until now no studies have evaluated their ability to facilitate the completion of painful procedures in the pediatric ER setting.
As reported in the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Madhumita Sinha, from Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, and colleagues assessed the outcomes of 240 children, between 6 and 18 years of age, who were randomly selected to receive a distractor or no distractor while receiving stitches. All of the children received a topical anesthetic and an injectable local anesthetic was given if deemed necessary.
Lack of Basic Research Putting Patients at Risk
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Patients are suffering because not enough basic clinical research is being done, warns a senior doctor in this week’s BMJ. He believes that medical academia is failing patients and clinicians by neglecting this vital area of research.
Basic observational research provides the information that doctors need to diagnose and treat patients appropriately, writes neurologist Professor Peter Rothwell. But in the field of neurology alone, many examples exist where a lack of basic data is the main barrier for effective treatment in routine practice.
For instance, little is known about the reliability of diagnosing stroke and, until very recently, no reliable data existed on the early risk of stroke in certain patients. Countless patients have suffered as a result, yet much of this research is easy and relatively cheap to do, so why has it not been done, he asks?
Virus testing best for cervical cancer screening
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An analysis of data for more than 60,000 women in North America and Europe suggests that testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) may be the best way to screen for cervical cancer.
Numerous reports have linked certain subtypes of HPV with the lesions that precede cervical cancer. Findings from individual studies have suggested that for initial screening, HPV testing is more sensitive than cytology, which involves an analysis of cervical cells taken during a Pap smear. However, firm conclusions could not be reached, due in part to differences in design between the studies.
In the current study, Dr. Jack Cuzick, from the Queen Mary School of Medicine in London, and colleagues analyzed data from all European and North American studies that included routine cytology and additional HPV testing as a parallel test.
Cheap way to produce expensive malaria drug well on the way
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U.S. researchers say a cheap way to produce an expensive but effective malaria drug is well on the way.
The researchers have created a modified form of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae that is capable of producing large amounts of artemisinic acid, which is needed to make the anti-malaria drug artemisinin.
Artemisinin is currently expensive to manufacture, and is out of reach for many in the developing world.
U.S. expert says one wild bird does not make a pandemic
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U.S. expert says one wild bird does not make a pandemic, while Egypt finds bird flu case # 12
Egyptian health officials have reported another case of human bird flu in the country bringing the total there to date to 12.
According to Health and Population Minister Hatem el-Gabali the latest case is an 18-year-old woman from a province north of Cairo who caught the virus after handling infected birds.
