Life goals an important focus for successful treatment

Details from a large-scale survey focusing on treatment goals for schizophrenia shed new light on what physicians and people with schizophrenia feel is important for long-term quality care, according to Ronald J. Diamond, M.D., co-author of the study.
“When we treat people with any kind of chronic illness, especially schizophrenia, it’s important that we listen to their life goals, what they want out of treatment and wh

Blondes and redheads not only are more susceptible to skin cancer, but the source of their skin and hair pigmentation, melanin, actually magnifies the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Melanin filters out UV radiation, but the melanin in hair follicles, particularly in light hair, actually increases the sun damaging effects of UV rays and causes cell death in the hair

A University of Michigan influenza expert is beginning a three-year direct comparison of the effectiveness of flu shots versus nasal spray flu vaccine.

Flu shots have been around since World War II, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long recommended shots as a way to prevent influenza in the elderly. The approval of a new nasal spray vaccine begs the question whether those looking to stave off the flu should stick with the tried and true injection or s

Duke University Medical Center researchers have shown that they can stimulate the body to produce its own naturally occurring growth factors to promote blood vessel growth into tissue damaged by peripheral arterial obstructive disease (PAOD). They said their finding could offer a new approach to treating the disease, which rivals coronary artery disease in its prevalence and health impact.

The researchers injected into rabbits with a version of PAOD a gene-carrying molecule, c

Using reconstituted blood – packed red cells and fresh-frozen plasma that are mixed in the operating room just before use – for heart bypass surgery in infants works better than using fresh whole blood, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Children’s Medical Center Dallas have found.

Babies who received the reconstituted blood during surgery to repair congenital heart defects on average had shorter stays in the intensive care unit and spent less time

Three University of Chicago geriatricians are calling for creative and wide-reaching solutions to the problem of sub-optimal end-of-life care for patients with dementia. An estimated 500,000 people die every year in the United States suffering from Alzheimer’s or related diseases and many of them receive inadequate pain control, are subjected to ineffective and invasive therapies such as tube feedings, and do not receive the benefits of hospice care.

“The nature of the illn

Researchers at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), in Portugal, have taken a major step forward in understanding one of the fundamental questions in the field of developmental biology today: how the organs are placed in their correct positions in the body. In a study published in the 1st October issue of the journal Genes and Development, the scientists describe, for the first time, the role of the gene Cerl-2 (Cerberus-like-2), in setting up the asymmetric distribution of organs in the

Study suggests host environment is the critical factor in aneurysm formation

When it comes to abdominal aortic aneurysms – life-threatening bulges or weak areas in the main artery feeding blood to the lower half of the body – new research shows that it is definitely better to be female. During 2000, about 11,000 people in the United States died from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. Eighty percent of these aneurysms, which doctors call AAAs for short, occur in men. Scienti

New findings explaining the complicated process by which the “energy substations” of human cells split apart and recombine may lay the groundwork for new treatment approaches to a wide range of diseases, including some cancers and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Researchers from The Johns Hopkins University’s Integrated Imaging Center; the University of California, Davis; and the California Institute of Technology collaborated on

New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reveals why red blood cells from people with sickle cell disease are stickier than healthy red cells, pointing the way to potential new treatments for sickle cell disease. The study shows that a protein found on the surface of immature red blood cells, or reticulocytes, is responsible for those cells’ adhesion to blood vessel walls.

Reticulocytes are found at considerably higher levels in the blood of sickle

Understanding how the body’s immune system recognises and responds to microorganisms can be a major step in the development of new therapies against infectious diseases. Towards this aim, a paper just released in the October issue of Embo reports1 discusses the process used by mammals to respond to bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori, Listeria monocytogenes and Streptococcus pneumoniae which are responsible for ulcers, Listeriosis and pneumonia, respectively.
In order to protect aga

A new antidepressant medication is an effective treatment for diminishing hot flashes in men who are receiving hormone therapy for prostate cancer, Mayo Clinic researchers report in the October issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

The five-week study followed 18 men who completed the therapy, illustrating that their hot flashes decreased from 6.2 per day to 2.5 per day. Hot flash scores, the frequency multiplied by the severity, decreased in the same period from 10.6 per day to 3 per d

A novel treatment using a common anesthetic drug has shown success in reducing the severe pain caused by Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), according to a study published in the September 2004 issue of Pain Medicine. CRPS, a disorder that can be associated with chronic pain resistant to conventional therapies, affects between 1.5 and 7 million people in the United States. CRPS is sometimes also known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD).

“This pain disorder can be very dif

Standards of volume that limit angioplasty procedures to more experienced hospitals and physicians will not require most patients to travel longer distances for care, according to a new study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center and Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. The findings should allay concerns about the effects of such standards on access to care for heart patients living in rural or remote areas, the researchers said.

Angioplasty opens coronary arteries c

With fewer than 1 in 3 Americans with hypertension successfully controlling his or her blood pressure, medication, diet and exercise might not be enough. Now, a promising new non-drug treatment offers an additional approach.

High blood pressure was significantly decreased using a new interactive breathing device, RESPeRATE®, according to a study published in this month’s edition of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

The multi-center randomized controlled study of

A study from the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, found that 10 or more years of mobile phone use increase the risk of acoustic neuroma and that the risk increase was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held. No indications of an increased risk for less than 10 years of mobile phone use were found.

At the time when the study was conducted only analogue (NMT) mobile phones had been in use for more than 10 years,