Conventional estimates for life expectancy after cancer diagnosis have been too pessimistic, suggests a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.

There are two main ways of quantifying survival estimates after cancer diagnosis. The conventional method, known as the cohort method, is based on the survival experience of cancer patients whose diagnosis occurred many years ago. This method therefore fails to disclose recent improvements in cancer detection and treatment. A recently developed alt

Poor social circumstances in adulthood have been known for some time to increase heart disease risk but less attention has been paid to earlier life circumstances. A study in this week’s BMJ finds that adverse social circumstances in childhood, as well as adulthood, are strongly associated with increased risk of insulin resistance, and other heart disease risk factors.

Most people know that the hormone insulin is important for health. But the commonest type of diabetes (type 2 diabetes), whi

Atorvastatin shown to decrease heart disease and stroke in patients with hypertension and low cholesterol

A major European trial studying different blood pressure treatments and the effects of additional cholesterol lowering, announces today that it has stopped part of its trial earlier than expected because results collected already show a significant benefit to patients on one of its treatments.

It found that among 10,297 patients with hypertension and cholesterol levels lower t

USDA Forest Service research confirms that chemicals in the leaves of the American chestnut suppress the growth of other trees and shrubs-and probably played a part in the species’ past dominance of the southern Appalachian forest.

Southern Research Station ecologist Barry Clinton (Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory)-with fellow researchers from Clemson University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill-tested the effects of fallen chestnut leaves on five tree species that historica

Scientists at Jefferson Medical College have used gene therapy to reverse the progression of Parkinson’s disease in rats. They have found that by adding a gene for an enzyme, they were able to reprogram brain circuitry and halt the deterioration of dopamine producing brain cells, one of the key problems in the disease.

“It’s not just inserting a replacement for a missing or mutated gene as a treatment for a genetic disorder,” says Michael Oshinsky, Ph.D., research assistant professor of neu

Researchers report in the Oct. 11 “Science” the first detection of a living organism that makes a copper-containing mineral structure as part of its skeleton. The finding is remarkable because the amount of copper detected in the jaw tip of the marine bloodworm would normally be toxic to an organism.

The researchers determined that copper also occurs in non-mineral form in the bloodworm jaw where it may act as a structural element in cross-linking long chains of fibrous proteins. According