Some allergic conditions could increase your risk of suffering from blood cancer as an adult, according to a new study published this week in BMC Public Health. This is important news for the increasingly large numbers of allergy sufferers worldwide.

“In our study, people with hives showed an increased risk of leukaemia,” said Dr. Karin Söderberg, who carried out the research with her colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. “We also found an increased risk of non-Hodgki

A patient at Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust has become the first in the UK to receive an artificial heart pump inserted without the need for surgery. Doctors at Hammersmith Hospital successfully placed the world’s smallest heart support system, a 4mm-wide device, into the patient’s heart, by inserting it into an artery in the groin and passing it up into the heart. The pump, implanted on Thursday (November 28) and removed a day later, assisted the patient’s heart in the crucial few hours aft

Illnesses and injuries leading to hospitalization or restricted activity are key sources of disability for independent older persons, regardless of physical frailty, Yale researchers report in the November 3 issue of JAMA.

“The risk of developing disability within a month of hospitalization was elevated more than 60-fold, while the risk of developing disability within a month of restricted activity was elevated nearly six-fold,” said principal investigator Thomas M. Gill, M.D.,

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA), the use of electrodes to heat and destroy abnormal tissue, is a safe and effective treatment for eradicating liver tumors that are in contact with the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, says one study in the November 2004 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, while a separate study in that same issue says that RFA becomes even more effective when alcohol is injected into a liver tumor before an RFA procedure.

In the first study, researchers from

Leading experts address need to reduce risk to global blood supply

There is increasing evidence that infectious prions that can cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human form of “mad cow” disease, can be transmitted through blood transfusion, according to Roger Eglin, Ph.D., Head of National Transfusion Microbiology Laboratories for the English National Blood Service. He spoke at a symposium on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) where he was joined b

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed three drugs to remove excess iron from the brains of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. The presence of too much iron in the brain is a hallmark of such diseases. The drugs, VK-28, HLA-20 and M30, mop up the iron before it can trigger a “brain rust” chemical reaction where highly active oxygen particles destroy brain cells.

Professor Moussa Youdim of the Faculty of Medicine and his colleagues – Prof.

One of the most promising drugs on the market today is neither new nor revolutionary. You can even buy it over the counter. What is it? Aspirin.

The November issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource covers new and not-so-new uses for this 107-year-old medication. In addition to being a fever reducer, headache tamer and arthritis soother, aspirin is now commonly used to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Aspirin also is gaining credit for possibly helping to prevent some types of

Before you pop that cookie in your mouth, take a moment to consider how long it will take to burn off those extra calories.
If you eat two cookies, about 150 calories, and you weigh about 140 pounds, you’ll have to walk more than an hour at a pace of 2 miles an hour to burn off those cookies. Speed up the walk to 3.5 mph, and you still have to walk 45 minutes. (Eating the cookies probably took less than a minute.) What if you ate a peach, with about 40 calories, instead? It would ta

Study suggests prolonged preventive effect of breastfeeding and links irregular menstrual cycles to increased risk of disease

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an inflammatory disease of the immune system, is between two and four times more likely to strike women than men. Among women, RA is more likely to develop when reproductive hormonal levels are changing, such as in the first few months following a pregnancy and around the time of menopause. Although previous researchers have stu

Research scientists at the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory in Oslo have developed a flow metre with fluid channels thinner than a strand of hair. The new device controls that patients receive the correct dosage of medicine.

The new invention is a micro-technological control instrument that can measure medicine flows. The active components in the sensor are only a few thousandths of a millimetre thick and the tiny device can measure liquid amounts of less than one-millionth of

Optical technology can give the answer to when bruising happened and how. This can be important for cases of violent crime.

In court, a bruise can sometimes be important evidence. And the age of the bruise can be instrumental if a person is to be charged for the injuries in a crime. A cross-functional research team with the Norwegian University of Scence and Technology (NTNU) is currently developing a method, based on optical technology, for dating bruises. The method will be quic

A more than 50 % increase in the life span of Zucker rats, a commonly used animal model for human obesity, was seen by enrichment of unhealthy food with a novel combination of plant sterols and mineral nutrients. Extensive studies in the University of Helsinki have shown that the increase in life span is mainly due to the ability of this new composition to lower serum cholesterol and lower blood pressure, and decrease obesity, which were all increased by the high-fat, high-salt diets without the

Research began when doctors discovered that various members of the same family had Parkinson’s. There are many kinds of Parkinson’s and some are hereditary. Now, a group of scientists have identified the gene which produces the hereditary Park8 variant of Parkinson’s in four Basque families and another in the UK. The gene is called dardarina; a term derived from Basque which means tremble. The mutation of this gene is the cause of the hereditary Park8 variant of Parkinson’s.

The research

University of York spinout Paraytec Ltd unveiled its patented analytical detection technology to an audience of investors at the White Rose Bioscience Forum today (03 November).

The company’s UV absorbance detection products use of novel, miniaturised detectors that employ capillaries as sample vessels. The products offer greatly improved sensitivity and dynamic range and have a range of applications in industry and research, including UV absorbance measurements on nanolitre volumes

A non-invasive diagnostic test for early-stage bronchial carcinoma (lung cancer) is one of the innovative technologies being presented at White Rose Bioscience Forum in York today (03 November).

Developed by Sheffield-based company Medis Diagnostics Ltd, the test – Fortel Bca – provides a reliable and accurate method of diagnosing early stage lung cancer through the analysis of a small blood sample which looks for cellular changes. The test uses data from a specially chosen pane

A research project carried out by VTT Biotechnology and the University of Helsinki has found that cloudberries and raspberries contain a phenol, ellagic tannin, that inhibits the growth of intestinal bacteria.

The study concerned commercially grown Finnish berries, particularly cloudberry and raspberry. One of the substances inhibiting growth of harmful intestinal bacteria and pathogens is a complex phenolic polymer, ellagic tannin, found in the berries. Other berries and fruit