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Why smokers lung is resistant to steroid treatment

UK researchers think they are close to finding the first effective treatment to fight one of the biggest killer diseases in the UK. Professor Peter Barnes will present the work at the British Endocrine Societies 2005 meeting in Harrogate.

4 Apr 2005

You might as well smoke

Information on the internet about the health risks associated with the consumption of smokeless tobacco usually overstates the risk. This is the conclusion of research published today in the Open Access journal BMC Public Health, entitled "You might as well smoke; the misleading and harmful public message about smokeless tobacco".

4 Apr 2005

Mutations in the HFE gene directly associated with chronic joint disease

Mutations in the HFE gene, which is involved in iron regulation, seem to be directly associated with chronic joint disease (or haemophilic arthropathy) among haemophilic patients, claim a team of Portuguese scientists in the April issue of the journal Blood.

4 Apr 2005

Chemoembolization, first-line treatment for liver cancer

New research by Jeff Geschwind, M.D., director of interventional radiology and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has shown that liver cancer patients, most of whom have inoperable tumours, could benefit from chemoembolization, a nonsurgical treatment option that delivers a high-dose of chemotherapy to the tumour while decreasing blood flow through the arteries feeding the tumour, known as embolization.

4 Apr 2005

Stent graft outperforms balloon angioplasty

A large, multi-center trial of 190 patients shows a new nonsurgical interventional radiology technique can benefit the more than 287,000 kidney failure patients undergoing dialysis in the United States each year.

4 Apr 2005

Oral sex not sex say teens

Many teenagers in the US do not regard oral sex as sex and one in five say they have experience of it.

4 Apr 2005

Mothers may cause girls to be picky eaters

Researchers at Appalachian State University have found that mothers who consumed more fruits and vegetables are less likely to pressure their daughters to eat and their daughters are less picky, eat more fruits and vegetables, eat fewer fats and sweets and are less likely to be overweight.

4 Apr 2005

Low levels of oral cannabis induces psychosis

Recreational cannabis use has previously been associated with psychotic reactions even in clinical situations where cannabis is administered orally at low doses, now Swiss researcher Dr. Bernard Favrat and colleagues at Institut Universitaire de Medicine Legale in Lausanne have confirmed this in the first such report, in closely monitored subjects participating in a clinical trial.

4 Apr 2005

Lack of aftercare support for mothers of twins

New research by the Twins and Multiple Births Association (Tamba) has found that nearly 50 per cent of parents are left struggling unsupported after the birth.

4 Apr 2005

New chemicals to inhibit HIV infection

In corporation with peers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York University, researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), a CAS affiliate, have come up with new chemical inhibitors against HIV reproduction, marking a significant progress in the development of anti-AIDS drugs based on natural host resistance.

4 Apr 2005

Gene could be cause of early bird disorder

A sleep disorder which makes people nod off early and wake fully alert before dawn is now thought to be caused by a mutant gene.

4 Apr 2005

Autistic children found to have abnormal metabolic profile

Autism, a neurodevelopment disorder which has increased tenfold over the last 15 years, now affects 30 of every 10,000 children in the United States.

4 Apr 2005

Withdrawal smokers feel when trying to quit may not all be due to nicotine

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have found that smoking nicotine-free cigarettes may be sufficient for suppressing some tobacco withdrawal symptoms such as a desire for sweets, hunger and the urge to smoke, suggesting that the withdrawal smokers feel when trying to quit may not all be due to nicotine.

3 Apr 2005

Blue light kills gum disease

Scientists at The Forsyth Institute have found that blue light can be used to selectively suppress certain bacteria commonly associated with destructive gum disease.

3 Apr 2005

Potential therapeutic role for the ataxin-3 protein for Machado-Joseph disease

The repetition of three little "letters" within the gene that codes for the ataxin-3 protein is both the cause of and perhaps a solution to Machado-Joseph disease and an entire family of similar genetic disorders, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

3 Apr 2005

Chronic pain treatments more effective when taken together

People suffering from chronic, debilitating pain caused by nerve damage or disease report better pain relief at lower doses of a combined drug treatment than from either drug administered individually, a new Queen’s study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) shows.

3 Apr 2005

Patch therapy provides similar pain relief as oral medications for patients with osteoarthritis (OA) knee pain

Researchers from the Altoona Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center have announced that data presented at the 24th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Pain Society suggest that patch therapy provides similar pain relief as oral medications for patients with osteoarthritis (OA) knee pain.

3 Apr 2005