Health and Medicine

Study finds statistical evidence that animal-assisted therapy reduces loneliness in LTC residents

Animal-assisted therapy can effectively reduce the loneliness of residents in long-term care facilities, according to a study by Marian R. Banks of the VA Medical Center in St. Louis and William A. Banks of St. Louis University School of Medicine, Missouri.

The doctors noted that although animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is claimed to have a variety of benefits, until now almost al

Weizmann Institute scientists have uncovered a key mechanism that enables stem cells to exit the bone marrow into the blood circulation of healthy donors, as well as patients suffering from leukemia, other malignancies and blood disorders. Published in the current July issue of Nature Immunology, the findings may lead to more efficient clinical stem cell transplantations.

Bone marrow transplantation is a last-resort treatment that saves the lives of many patients with cancer and inherited b

Findings important in developing new drugs to treat inflammatory vascular diseases

An enzyme that stimulates the production of chlorine bleach in cells to kill bacteria and other invading pathogens also turns off a signal that regulates blood vessel dilation during inflammation, researchers at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center have found.

The research — conducted in collaboration with scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, UCLA and the Unive

Further study may help make biomedical devices safer and explain urinary tract infections

Researchers at the University of Washington have learned that something most people take for granted is not true: that the force of fluids within the human body helps to break the adhesive bonds of invasive bacteria and counterbalance infection.

Most scientists as well as lay people assume, for example, that a sneeze helps clear infection, or that urine helps to clear bacteria from the

Almost half of the first top 10 websites displayed by leading search engines on vaccination are emotive “anti” sites, finds a study in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Many masquerade as official scientific sites, making it easier for users to be misinformed, say the authors.

The researchers keyed in the terms “vaccination” and “immunis(z)ation” into seven leading search engines: Google; Netscape; Altavista; GoTo; HotBot; Lycos; and Yahoo. They then used just the term “vaccination,” for

High levels of personal hygiene increase the risk of eczema and asthma, shows a study of almost 11000 infants in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The research focused on participants in a long-term study of parents and children (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children). Parents were surveyed about their children’s wheezy and eczema symptoms up to the age of 6 months, and then between 30 and 42 months.

A simple hygiene score was derived on the frequency of hand-washing