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Acid reflux disease - surgery has longterm success rate

According to a study published this week, surgery to cure acid reflux disease, the most severe form of heartburn, has shown a high degree of long-term success.

23 Oct 2005

EU considers a ban on the import of live wild birds

After confirmation that a parrot in Britain died of a virulent strain of avian flu, Britain has called for a ban on the importation of live birds.

23 Oct 2005

Bird flu found in parrot in Britain

According to the agriculture ministry in Britain, a parrot has died in quarantine and has been found to have the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu.

23 Oct 2005

Taiwan to produce its' own version of Tamiflu

Taiwan has apparently responded to bird flu fears by starting work on its own version of the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu, without waiting for the manufacturer's consent.

23 Oct 2005

Cervical cancer has profound psychosocial impact on affected women, as well as male partners

A recent study in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer revealed that women with cervical cancer have a broad range of concerns regarding cervical cancer, its treatment and additional psychosocial issues

20 Oct 2005

Method to count the absolute number of individual protein molecules inside a living cell

Yale researchers have reported a method to count the absolute number of individual protein molecules inside a living cell, and to measure accurately where they are located, two basic hurdles for studying biology quantitatively.

20 Oct 2005

New treatment advances for patients with follicular lymphoma

A newly published study recommends that doctors carefully choose their patients' initial therapies because there are significant differences in overall survival rates, according to researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center's James P. Wilmot Cancer Center.

20 Oct 2005

Deep brain stimulation can lower blood pressure

The possibility of a patient lowering their blood pressure at the flick of a switch has been raised by research led by Oxford University, which shows that stimulating parts of the brain with electrodes can change a patient’s blood pressure.

20 Oct 2005

Importance of the drug Fuzeon (enfuvirtide) in the management of HIV

New potent combinations make suppression of virus to undetectable levels more achievable for treatment-experienced HIV patients.

20 Oct 2005

Diabetes drugs may also prevent nerve degeneration caused by Alzheimer's disease

Recent research has shown a surprising link between Alzheimer’s and diabetes, two of the major health challenges facing society today. According to Dr Holscher modern lifestyle promotes the development of type 2 diabetes, which in turn could drastically increase the number of people to develop Alzheimer’s disease as people with type 2 diabetes are much more likely to develop the disease than healthy people of the same age.

20 Oct 2005

Successful prevention programs for children and adolescents

The future is bleak for children whose behavior seriously goes against the norm at a tender age. Early and long-term interventions make all the difference.

20 Oct 2005

Better knowledge of how the mechanism explaining alcohol addiction works

Alcohol, like any other substance that reinforces behaviour, such as another drug of abuse or even food, has a certain capacity to enhance social memory, that is, the ability to remember other individuals. If a mouse is administered alcohol immediately after being introduced to another animal of its own kind, the former will recognise the latter sooner.

20 Oct 2005

Defibrillators plentiful in schools but not senior centers

A greater percentage of high schools had automated external defibrillators (AEDs) - devices that can be used to treat cardiac arrest victims - than senior centers, despite the fact that cardiac arrests appear more common in senior centers, according to a study by University of Iowa researchers.

20 Oct 2005

Researchers discover the presence of functional ion channels in human embryonic stem cells

These ion channels act like electrical wires and permit ESCs, versatile cells that possess the unique ability to become all cell types of the body, to conduct and pass along electric currents.

20 Oct 2005

Menin is a key player in the development of some forms of acute leukemia

Tumor-suppressor proteins work to inhibit tumor growth in our bodies and when they win, they spare us a battle with cancer. But one such protein, menin, appears to have a split personality.

20 Oct 2005

Researchers learn to rapidly rebuild immunity in immune-suppressed cancer patients

Patients with multiple myeloma suffer from a malignant proliferation of plasma cells in their bone marrow. The standard treatment for this form of cancer is high-dose chemotherapy and transplantation of one's own blood-producing adult stem cells; however, this aggressive treatment wipes out the mature immune-system cells of patients – leaving them vulnerable to infection.

20 Oct 2005

Hepatitis C linked to illegal blood donation in China

Research in a rural province of central China has documented that illegal blood donation practices led to high hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection rates in blood and plasma donors during the 1980s and early 1990s, and that failure to screen for HCV in transfusion recipients increased their risk of infection as well

20 Oct 2005

Discovery of a new kind of messenger RNA molecule

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have discovered a new kind of messenger RNA molecule that is converted from non-protein coding status to protein coding status in response to cellular stress such as viral infection.

20 Oct 2005

Spliceosome crucial for processing non-coding RNA

The discovery in 1977 that the coding regions of a gene could appear in separate segments along the DNA won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp. The active segments of a gene were termed exons, separated from each other within the gene by inactive introns.

20 Oct 2005

Molecule P-glycoprotein (Pgp), may help reduce risk of Alzheimer's

A molecule that has long been an obstacle to cancer chemotherapy and drug treatments for brain disorders may soon become an ally in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Rochester.

20 Oct 2005