Helium/oxygen mixture reduces airflow limitations, lung dynamic hyperinflation and sensation of ’shortness of breath’

It certainly makes sense: COPD sufferers have varying degrees of serious breathing difficulties, which keeps them from almost any kind of exercise, especially in advanced stages. So maybe “lighter than air” air would be easier to breath, reduce shortness of breath and perhaps even allow them to do some exercise with all of its physical and mental benefits.

On this World AIDS Day, December 1, one in five women with HIV in the United States has no health insurance. Half of the estimated 460,000 women and men who need lifesaving antiretroviral drugs are not getting them, according to a recent report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences.

“These figures are appalling,” said Paul Volberding, MD, chairman of the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) Board of Directors and a member of the IOM panel that wrote the

Although liposuction is mistakenly viewed by some as a “quick fix” for weight loss, liposuction patients are 3 times more likely to gain weight without adhering to a proper diet and 4 times more likely to gain weight without regular exercise says a study published in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Patients who do not follow a healthy lifestyle after liposuction may be considerably le

The EU network operation, launched last spring, generates guidelines for future health care. The operation’s perspective covers the entire regional health care sector, from service system and treatment process to construction of hospitals and utilization of new technologies.

The Future Health operation (Network for Future Regional Health Care) is coordinated by Technomedicum, an independent institute of the University of Helsinki, Finland. Twenty universities, research institutes, h

People who eat the Israeli-developed fruit known in Hebrew as pomelit (a cross between a grapefruit and a pomelo) or drink its juice regularly will be able to lower their blood cholesterol and increase their blood antioxidant activity, thus improving their chances of preventing blocked heart arteries and heart attacks, says a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

These findings were recently published by Dr. Shela Gorinstein of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and N

Cryotherapy combined with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is giving doctors unprecedented control during liver cancer treatment by allowing them to observe the tumors freezing in real time, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

“We can actually watch the iceball grow,” said Kemal Tuncali, M.D. “We have better control over the means of killing the tumor with MR guidance and cryotherapy. We can also watch ou

A potential vaccine for the deadly toxin ricin, a “Category B” biological agent, will enter the first phase of clinical testing in coming weeks at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

The Food and Drug Administration and the UT Southwestern Institutional Review Board have agreed that the trial can go forward in humans. “This is a safety and immunogenicity trial,” said Dr. Ellen Vitetta, director of the Cancer Immunobiology Center at UT Southwestern. “To test the immune resp

ALS is an incurable, paralyzing neurodegenerative disorder that strikes 5 persons in every 100,000. The disease commonly affects healthy people in the most active period of their lives − without warning or previous family history. Researchers from VIB (the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology), under the direction of Prof. Peter Carmeliet (Catholic University of Leuven), have previously shown the importance of the VEGF protein in this disease. Now, new research from thi

CAD software helps distinguish benign, malignant nodules seen on CT scans

Not all masses are cancer. When a person undergoes a scan to identify a lump or nodule, the radiologist looks at the texture, the borders and the shape to determine if it is malignant or just a benign growth.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center are developing computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) methods to make that assessment easier. A computer program reads the same

A seminar in this week’s issue of THE LANCET outlines the common but poorly understood condition of insomnia, concluding that awareness and assessment of insomnia by family doctors is a priority.

Estimates suggest that between 5 and 35% of people experience insomnia. Michael J Sateia (Dartmouth Medical School, USA) and colleagues outline how effective management of insomnia begins with recognition and adequate assessment. Family doctors and other health care providers such as

Results of a randomised trial from Uganda in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggest that the drug combination of amodiaquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine might offer the optimal treatment for malaria in terms of efficacy and cost-effectiveness in this region. The study also shows that the drug combination of chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine—the recommended first-line treatment in Uganda—is far less effective than other drug combinations.

Philip Rosenthal (University of

Authors of a public-health article in this week’s issue of THE LANCET are calling for urgent international action to address the chronic lack of investment in human resources which is limiting the chance of tackling diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB. The Lancet article is an executive summary of a fuller report about human resources investment and global health being published by Harvard University Press.

The key premise of the article and full report is that no amount o

Ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, a series of commentaries in this week’s issue of THE LANCET outline the current and future priorities in the global effort to curb the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The first commentary is a call to action for a renewed public-health strategy to prevent sexually transmitted HIV. Against a background of twenty years of debate over the value of different behaviour-change approaches, authors Daniel Halperin (University of California San Francisco, USA) a

“Smart” drugs capable of targeting specific brain cells to control psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia may be ready for early clinical trials within three years, with the launch of a $1.5 million project to take place at the Brain Research Centre (BRC), a partnership of the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI).

The new drugs would be the first significant change in decades to medications used to treat psychiatric d

Findings may aid diagnosis and indicate new treatment target for many cancers

A new study from Columbia University Medical Center finds that stomach (gastric) cancer originates from bone marrow derived stem cells (BMDC), rather than from stomach stem cells, as previously thought. The study, “Gastric Cancer Originating from Bone Marrow-Derived Cells” is published in the current issue of Science. “This was an unexpected finding, which may lead to a re-evaluation of current assumpt

For the first time ever, Emory University researchers have broken through the so-called “oxo-wall” to create stable multiple chemical bonds between oxygen and platinum – once thought impossible because oxygen is extremely unstable when combined with certain metals. The breakthrough holds the potential for numerous applications in fuel cells, catalytic converters and emerging ’green’ chemistry.

Chemical bonds between metals and oxygen are known as metal-oxo species, and