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Cannabis use may increase risk of stroke

Regular users of cannabis could be putting themselves at risk of stroke, while they are still young, indicates a case report, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

20 Feb 2005

Quetiapine speeds up rate of decline in Alzheimers

Quetiapine, a drug commonly used in nursing homes to treat agitation and related symptoms in people with Alzheimers' disease actually worsens patients' illness, speeding up their rate of decline significantly, says a paper published on bmj.com.

20 Feb 2005

Massachusetts support of stem cell research

The Massachusetts Medical Society, the statewide association of physicians with some 18,000 members, has offered testimony before the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies in support of Senate Bill 25, An Act Promoting Stem Cell Research.

17 Feb 2005

Are hormone therapy drugs safe?

The history of hormone therapy drugs – once thought of as almost magic pills to keep women healthy, vital and young – shows why it is so important to conduct research studies to identify the risks and benefits of drugs, say researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

17 Feb 2005

$9.8 million grant to research cancer risks from space radiation

NASA awarded a research grant worth more than $9.8 million over five-years to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

16 Feb 2005

Immediate access to antibiotics stems spread of sexually transmitted diseases

In an editorial to be published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Johns Hopkins offer their support for a study which shows that providing faster, more direct access to antibiotics for partners of newly infected patients reduces re-infection rates and spread of sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea and Chlamydia, compared to standard practice.

16 Feb 2005

Young blood revives aging muscles

Any older person can attest that aging muscles don't heal like young ones. But it turns out that's not the muscle's fault. A study in the Feb. 17 issue of Nature shows that it's old blood that keeps the muscles down.

16 Feb 2005

Protein may provide a powerful new therapeutic tool for fighting kidney failure

Kidney failure is a significant risk for patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass surgery, radiologic testing, antibiotic therapy or in patients suffering from severe infections. More than 80 percent of patients with postoperative acute renal failure die.

16 Feb 2005

Changing chemistry helps explain estrogen threat to the heart

A piece of the topical puzzle of how estrogen goes from protecting women from heart disease to apparently increasing their risk later in life may have been found.

16 Feb 2005

Schizophrenia may arise from a single genetic defect

Researchers have long puzzled over the apparently multiple causes of complex developmental disorders such as schizophrenia. Individuals seem to be predisposed to the disease by a tragic, mysterious combination of genetics, prenatal trauma, viral infection, and early experience.

16 Feb 2005

Research shows that individual NAc neurons play a role in Pavlovian learning

While the brain center called the nucleus accumbens (NAc) has been called a key component of the brain's "reward" pathways, researchers' experiments with rats have now shown that the center processes not only rewarding stimuli, but also aversive stimuli.

16 Feb 2005

New findings challenge one of the established views of how nerve cells communicate with one another

Every time we move, feel emotions, think or remember, the nerve cells, or neurons, in our body transmit messages to one another via chemical signals called neurotransmitters. Within neurons are tiny organelles called synaptic vesicles that sequester neurotransmitters and release them when needed into the synapse, or space between nerve cells, where the chemical signal is transmitted to other neurons.

16 Feb 2005

$Link between lactose malabsorption and the occurrence of bone fracture in elderly people$

Link between lactose malabsorption and the occurrence of bone fracture in elderly people

Published in January and conducted by researchers from the Universities of Helsinki and Kuopio and the National Public Health Institute, the study investigated the relation between the genotype associated with lactose malabsorption and the occurrence of bone fracture in the elderly. The study included 483 elderly people in the City of Vantaa – 377 women and 106 men – all over 85 years of age.

16 Feb 2005

Novel genetic test helps detect mutations that may be missed by conventional DNA test

Researchers have identified a genetic test that when used with DNA testing would detect a higher number of genetic mutations in colorectal cancer patients, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

15 Feb 2005

New technique to identify fetal genetic material from amniotic fluid

A preliminary report suggests that cell-free fetal messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) can be extracted from amniotic fluid (fluid around the fetus), and then be analyzed to study gene expression changes that may reflect the well-being of the fetus, according to a paper in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

15 Feb 2005

New simple and cost-effective method of diagnosing hereditary genetic disorders

A technique called size-fractionation performed on a sample of the mother's blood allows researchers to identify fetal DNA molecules separate from maternal DNA as a way to determine which pregnancies may be at risk for genetic disorders, according to a preliminary communication in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

15 Feb 2005

Link between diabetes and obesity

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis used genetically modified mice to uncover a potentially important link between diabetes and obesity.

15 Feb 2005

Body mass index may be related to alcohol habits

The body mass index (BMI) of individuals who drink alcohol may be related to how much, and how often, they drink, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

15 Feb 2005

Angiogenesis inhibitor molecules defend against the development and spread of cancer

Research led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) helps explain how a group of angiogenesis inhibitor molecules serve as an important defense mechanism against the development and spread of cancer, offering key insights into why cancerous tumors grow at different rates among different individuals.

15 Feb 2005

Claims about the experimental protein-based assay are not biologically plausible

In a new study, researchers present a "cautionary tale" about what may go wrong when using the fledgling science of proteomics to devise a diagnostic test for cancer.

15 Feb 2005