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Medical expenditures for morbidly obese adults far outweighs that for normal-weight adults

Health-care costs for morbidly obese adults are nearly twice those of people considered to be of normal weight, says a study led by University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers.

14 Feb 2005

Paradox suggests reasons why COX-2 inhibitors hurt and help

Laboratory studies at Johns Hopkins have revealed that certain products of the enzymes COX-1 and COX-2 can both protect and damage the brain. The findings, published in the February 2005 issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry, offer tantalizing clues to why drugs like Vioxx and Celebrex, which block COX-2, can ease arthritis but potentially harm the heart and brain.

14 Feb 2005

Blips and AIDS therapy

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have concluded that sudden, temporary spikes in the amount of HIV in the body, commonly called blips, do not always mean the virus is developing resistance to AIDS drugs.

14 Feb 2005

Key insight into the process of normal synapse development may lead to improved treatment of conditions such as drug addiction and epilepsy

Communication in the brain travels from one nerve cell to another through critical connections called synapses. These neuron-to-neuron junctions form early in brain development, and their construction was thought to be guided by the nerve cells themselves.

13 Feb 2005

American Fertility Association alarmed by Judge's embryo ruling

The recent ruling in favor of a Chicago couple, who sued for wrongful death when their fertility clinic failed to preserve an embryo, raises great concerns for fertility patients across the United States.

13 Feb 2005

Study sheds light on growing pains and growth spurts

The existence of growth spurts and growing pains in children may be perpetually evident to parents, but their cause has lacked scientific explanation. A new study by Emory University anthropologist Michelle Lampl, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now sheds some light on this childhood phenomena.

13 Feb 2005

New way of transporting medicines into the brain

Dutch researcher Corine Visser investigated a new way of transporting medicines into the brain. Her approach made use of an iron transport system located on the blood-brain barrier. The smaller the medicine, the more easily it penetrates the brain.

13 Feb 2005

Why estrogenic hormones produce unintended results in women

New research is shedding light on why estrogenic hormones produce unintended results in women, giving hope to the idea that new drugs might reach their targets and work more effectively. Ultimately it could mean that postmenopausal women would know that hormone-replacement therapy would have only its intended result.

13 Feb 2005

Ingestion of afterbirth appears to promote maternal behavior in mammals

A behavioral neuroscientist at the University at Buffalo holds that the ingestion of afterbirth by a mother, a feature of pregnancy in nearly all non-human mammals, not only relieves postpartum pain, but optimizes the onset of maternal behavior by mediating the activity of specific opioid activity circuits in the brain.

13 Feb 2005

New 3-DCR HIV strain does not respond to three classes of anti-retroviral medication

A highly resistant strain of rapidly progressive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been diagnosed for the first time in a New York City resident who had not previously undergone antiviral drug treatment, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH).

13 Feb 2005

Women with a history of caesarean section deliveries do not have a higher risk of a subsequent stillbirth

"Caesarean sections have been associated with some pregnancy complications, but when a physician consults a woman with prior caesarean sections about her next pregnancy, stillbirth should not be one of the concerns," said Bahtiyar.

13 Feb 2005

Two-step approach to transform HIV into a cancer-seeking machine

Camouflaging an impotent AIDS virus in new clothes enables it to hunt down metastasized melanoma cells in living mice, reports a UCLA AIDS Institute study in the Feb. 13 online edition of Nature Medicine.

13 Feb 2005

Teaching ethical decision-making in medicine

When medical students at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine learn about ethical decision-making in patient care, one of the things they paradoxically learn is that an "ethical" problem often isn't one.

11 Feb 2005

Scientists show knocking out key signals will cause diabetes

Using a revolutionary technique to turn off chemical signals inside the cell, scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have discovered that the different metabolic abnormalities present in type 2 diabetes can be caused by knocking out two key signals in liver cells.

11 Feb 2005

Low-technology approaches to mosquito control can be effective

Over 380 000 people have been protected from dengue fever in Vietnam thanks to the implementation of a novel strategy to control mosquitoes in the country, concludes a report in this week’s issue of The Lancet.

10 Feb 2005

Not enough evidence to say gun laws reduce violence

Despite a proliferation of gun registration requirements, bans on specific firearms and “zero tolerance” policies for guns in schools over the past three decades, the jury is still out on whether these laws help prevent gun violence, according to a new review of studies in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

10 Feb 2005

Simple drug has the potential to save many lives threatened by malaria

A simple drug, given to children with severe malaria before they reach hospital, has the potential to save many lives, say researchers in this week's BMJ.

10 Feb 2005

Experimental drug Revlimid showing promise as treatment for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)

Alan List, M.D., leader of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, recently conducted a phase I/II trial of the experimental drug Revlimid showing promise as an innovative way to treat patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a form of pre-leukemia.

10 Feb 2005

Protective equipment used in rugby union has only limited effectiveness

Rugby Union has much in common with U.S. football and is played in over 120 countries throughout the world. Much of its value comes from its rich history, traditions, camaraderie and community involvement with the sport.

10 Feb 2005

People with severe illnesses and disabilities don't wallow in misery and self-pity

The researchers made their surprising finding by having 49 pairs of dialysis patients and healthy people report their mood every few hours for a week, using a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA) such as a Palm. The patients had all been in dialysis for at least three months, visiting a hemodialysis center three or more times a week for hours at a time to have their blood cleaned because their kidneys had failed.

10 Feb 2005