China has another death from bird flu
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China has confirmed a third human case of bird flu.
According to local media the Health Ministry has said that a 35-year-old woman farmer in Anhui province developed fever and pneumonia-like symptoms on Nov. 11 after contact with sick and dead poultry, and she died on Nov. 22.
Obese and overweight refused joint operations
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A regional health authority in the UK will refuse to treat overweight people needing hip and knee replacements on the National Health Service.
The rationing of operations in east Suffolk will save £47.9m and has come about because of “pressing financial problems” in the region.
Tiny Placental Ruptures Send HIV From Mother to Child
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HIV is likely passed from mother to child through tiny tears in the placenta that occur during labor, researchers here reported.
So-called “microtransfusions” allow the mother’s HIV-laden blood to infect the infant, according to epidemiologist Steven Meshnick, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina.
Stress Lingers in Pocket of Brain
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There may be a reason why some people need a drink or a run after a hard day at the office. The reason resides in the ventral right prefrontal cortex of the brain.
That’s the part of the brain that when activated under stress stays active long after the stressful stimulus is over, researchers here reported today. So it’s hard to just dump the stress and relax.
Chocolate Makers Fortify Cocoa Snacks for Health
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The candy-maker that markets Snickers, Dove bars, and M&M’s is going “heart healthy” with specially fortified cocoa treats.
But don’t call them candy bars, insist the confection word police at Mars, Inc. They are flavonol- and sterol-rich snacks.
Lack of Hugs Can Change Children’s Neurobiology
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Children raised in the uncaring environment of some eastern European orphanages ended up with a long-lasting deficit in two hormones involved in forming social bonds, reported researchers here.
In other words, nurture—or the lack of it—can trump nature when it comes to the ability to form social bonds, according to Seth Pollack, Ph.D., and assistant professor of psychology and of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin.
U.S. bans some of Canada’s poultry because of bird flu
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Following the discovery of a non lethal strain of the bird flu virus in a duck in British Columbia, the United States has placed an interim ban on poultry from the area.
According to Elizabeth Whiting, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Agriculture department, the U.S. will continue to accept exports from the rest of Canada.
Two Anticoagulant Therapies for Treating Acute Coronary Syndromes
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High-risk patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) treated with an early revascularization strategy and enoxaparin or unfractionated heparin at the time of hospitalization for ACS had similar outcomes at one year, including remaining at substantial risk for adverse cardiovascular events, according to a study in the November 23/30 issue of JAMA.
Patients with non–ST-segment elevation (NSTE - a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram) acute coronary syndromes (ACS) comprise a spectrum of risk for adverse cardiac events, according to background information in the article. In the Superior Yield of the New Strategy of Enoxaparin, Revascularization, and Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Inhibitors (SYNERGY) trial, patients at high risk for recurrent ischemic cardiac events were randomly assigned to receive the anticoagulants low-molecular-weight heparin (enoxaparin) or unfractionated heparin.
Were Drugs or Disease the Muse Behind These Famous Artists?
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If our modern clinical chemistry, toxicology, immunology, and infectious disease labs had existed during the 16th to early-19th centuries, the world might have missed out on the work of some of the world’s most creative painters, sculptors and poets, hints a paper recently published in November 2005 issue of the Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
According to Paul Wolf, M.D., Professor of Pathology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, artists ranging from Renaissance sculptors Benvenuto Cellini and Michelangelo to Romantic poets Coleridge and Keats, may have been creatively driven by the effects of their disease or the drugs and chemicals they ingested.
Study Confirms Physical Toll of Stressful Events
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The death of a child. Divorce. An assault. Loss of a job. These and other highly stressful events can take a toll on physical health and mortality many years later, according to a University of Michigan study published in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
And life-altering events like these are especially likely to happen to people with low levels of education and income, the study found.
World AIDS Day
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The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) joins organizations across the globe in recognizing December 1 as World AIDS Day, with its international theme of “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.” VA is keeping the promise by caring for veterans with HIV/AIDS and those at risk for the disease, carrying out research, and sharing its collective expertise with veterans, health care providers, and the public at large via a new VA HIV Web site, at http://www.hiv.va.gov.
VA is the nation’s largest single provider of health care to those infected with HIV, providing medical services to about 20,000 veteran HIV patients each year. VA investigators are involved in more than 300 HIV/AIDS-related research projects, from basic studies on how HIV affects the body to clinical trials and assessments of health services delivery. The new Web site http://www.hiv.va.gov, launched in collaboration with the Center for HIV Information at the University of California, San Francisco, provides comprehensive information on HIV/AIDS.
Critical role of p53 gene
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Fruit flies can live significantly longer, and remain healthy, when activity of the fly version of the tumor-suppressing protein p53 is reduced in nerve cells.
Published in Current Biology, the results shed important new light on the role this “protector of the genome” plays in aging and point to p53 as a viable target for anti-aging drugs.
Heart patients, do you tell your doctor you’re using alternative medicines?
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Doctors, do you ask your patients if they’re using alternative medicines?
According to the Medical Dictionary Online, alternative therapies are practices which are not currently considered an integral part of conventional medical practice and are used instead of conventional treatment.
Dietary restriction helps Parkinson’s disease patients
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A new Oregon Health & Science University and Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center study suggests that early-stage Parkinson’s disease patients who lower their calorie intake may boost levels of an essential brain chemical lost from the neurodegenerative disorder.
The study by Charles Meshul, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral neuroscience in the OHSU School of Medicine and the VAMC’s Neurocytology Lab, shows that dietary restriction reverses a Parkinson’s-induced drop in glutamate, a brain neurotransmitter important for motor control, function and learning, in a mouse model for the disease’s early stages.
Newly identified protein may help improve treatment for lung cancer
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Researchers hope that a newly identified protein can one day help improve treatment for lung cancer. The findings are reported by researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women in the United States and more effective treatment strategies are desperately needed,” said William J. Petty, M.D., from Wake Forest. “We believe we’ve uncovered why lung cancer is currently resistant to treatment with natural and synthetic derivatives of vitamin A, drugs that are highly effective for preventing and treating other types of cancer.”
