New York University School of Medicine researchers provide some of the most compelling evidence yet that long-term exposure to air pollution–even at levels within federal standards–causes heart disease. Previous studies have linked air pollution to cardiovascular disease but until now it was poorly understood how pollution damaged the body’s blood vessels.
In a well-designed mouse study, where animals breathed air as polluted as the air in New York City, the researchers pi
A new study supports previous research done that used guided health imagery to help smokers quit. Guided health imagery – a technique to help patients relax their muscles and open their minds to images of health and healthy living – has long been used to help surgery and cancer patients, as well as for reducing pain and reversing negative thoughts resulting from traumatic events including rape and other types of sexual assault.
This study, published in the Journal of Nursing Scholars
JBS 2: Joint British Societies’ guidelines on prevention of cardiovascular disease in clinical practice
New joint guidelines published by six professional societies today in Heart significantly widen the criteria for prevention of heart disease and stroke in primary care, and are set to boost the numbers of patients targeted for screening and preventive treatment.
The evidence based guidelines are a collaborative effort from the British Cardiac Society, the British Hyper
Researchers have discovered that drugs, such as heart burn medications, which reduce gastric acidity, are potential risk factors for Clostridium difficile infection outside of hospitals. The new research to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) tomorrow focuses on community-acquired C. difficile, and is a follow-up to previous work by the same group that demonstrated an increased risk from these medications in hospital settings.
“We believe drugs that reduc
Neuroscientist Takes Issue with Antidepressants for Children
The question of whether SSRI antidepressants, such as fluoxetine (Prozac), are safe and more effective than dummy pills for treating child and adolescent depression (CAD) remains highly contentious, says Dr Amir Raz, Assistant Professor of Clinical Neuroscience in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University and Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, in New York City.
Regional Governments May be Reluctant to Report Outbreaks
Federal countries distribute power across central and regional governments, and this division of power can hinder national and international efforts to control infectious disease outbreaks, says a team of researchers in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.
“Canada’s experience with SARS outlines the challenges of such constitutional division of powers when it comes to managing public health crises,” says the team,
Tuberculosis is an extremely insidious disease. The pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis can rest undetected many years in the human body, and infected people show no symptoms – until the disease suddenly breaks out. Worldwide, the number of deaths related to tuberculosis amounts to 2 million per year, eight million new infections occur annually. Dangerous centers of infection are, for instance, third-world countries or prisons in countries of the former Soviet Union. In some of the prisons, one hu
A team of ophthalmologists at the University of Liverpool has become the first in the world to image geodesic structures – called CLANs – inside the human body.
Professor Ian Grierson and his colleagues have found that the shape of each CLAN is similar to the design of the framework forming the roofs over the Eden Project and the courtyard at the British Museum.
CLANs is an acronym for Cross-linked Action Networks. They are formed from the components which maintain the str
According to a well-known proverb “one apple a day keeps the doctor away“, suggesting that the healthy components which occur in fruits and vegetables can prevent diet-related diseases. Unfortunately, fresh fruits and vegetables are not always available and frozen food is not really handy either. What is less complicated, however, is dried food. During the past two years scientists from the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and the Technische Universität Dresden/Germany as well as the Zittauer
A key toxin associated with whooping cough helps the germs resist the human immune system and infect vaccinated populations. Discovery of this resistance mechanism could lead to potential new treatments for the disease, according to researchers at Penn State.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the germ Bordetella pertussis. Whooping cough can occur at any age but is generally considered a childhood disease marked by severe spells of coug
The La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology (LIAI) is making significant strides in the battle against the avian “bird” flu, with pre-clinical trials under way on a potential treatment conceived by one of its scientists. The Institute, a not-for-profit organization whose cutting-edge research focuses on infectious diseases and other immune system disorders, is also developing information for a “universal” flu vaccine, as well as researching a needle-free vaccine that would treat various influenz
How can we keep ahead in the battle against infectious diseases? The current threat of avian flu has sent panic around the globe and even in hospitals, where you might hope to be safe from disease, MRSA is a cause for concern in the health service. Sure-fire curses for these conditions seem a long way off and governments, policymakers and the public are often at a loss to know how to respond.
However, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at The University of Nottingham believe
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have identified an inherent feature of stem and progenitor cells that may promote initiation and progression of cancerous tumors.
In a study published in the December issue of Cancer Cell, the team showed that stem and progenitor cells are susceptible to a specific error during cell division that can result in severe chromosomal defects. This susceptibility may explain how a tumor-initiating cell, also known as a cancer stem cell
For two decades, doctors have followed an ethically-established agreement about the appropriate use of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) for patients who are seriously ill or in a persistent vegetative state. Generally, patients or their surrogates have been able to accept or refuse ANH based upon considerations that guide most treatment decisions, i.e., potential benefits, risks, burden, religious and cultural beliefs. The Terri Schiavo case – which included very open, dramatic disagreemen
Researchers have developed a new computerized system to easily monitor the levels of glucose in the blood of patients in intensive care. A study published today in the open access journal BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making reports that GRIP, a computer software that assists in the monitoring of glucose levels in critically ill patients, saves nurses time and effort and is more efficient than the paper-based method currently used in many intensive care units (ICUs). Monitoring blood glucos
Reminiscent of the 1966 sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage, where a surgical team is miniaturized and injected into a dying man, researchers from Harvard Medical School have used injectable self-assembling peptide nanofibers loaded with the pro-survival factor PDGF-BB to protect rat cardiomyocytes from injury and subsequent heart failure. Their study appears online on December 15 in advance of print publication in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
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