Medical News

RSS

Tollbooth ventilation system effective in protecting workers from traffic air pollution

Although there is the potential for tollbooth workers at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel to be exposed to high levels of cancer-causing air toxins emitted from the thousands of vehicles that pass under their nose, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the tollbooth ventilation system was effective in keeping air toxins out of the tollbooth and away from the workers.

5 May 2005

Drug safety in the doctor’s office - nearly half of patients have lapses in monitoring

According to research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, only slightly more than half of patients taking chronic medications received the recommended laboratory tests to monitor drug side effects.

5 May 2005

Physician assisted suicide and why patients are motivated to seek death

Patients motivated to seek a doctor for their death wish did so after a deliberative and thoughtful process rather than on impulse, according to a research study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine .

5 May 2005

Children who have been abused are at risk of recurrence

Children who have been abused are at risk of recurrence and effective prevention strategies are urgently needed, say the authors of a randomized trial published online today by The Lancet.

5 May 2005

Cranberries good for the heart

Compounds that occur naturally in cranberries may be good for the heart, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found.

5 May 2005

Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers (MADM) - A powerful new tool to study diseases and genetics

A powerful laboratory technique used by fruit fly geneticists for more than a decade is now available to scientists studying genes and diseases in mice.

5 May 2005

Serious concerns about the use of morphine in heart patients

While patients hospitalized for a heart attack have long been treated with morphine to relieve chest pain, an analysis by researchers from the Duke Clinical Research Institute has shown that these patients have almost a 50 percent higher risk of dying.

5 May 2005

Scientists extend the lifespan of mice

Scientists at the University of Washington and their colleagues at other research centers have found a way to significantly extend the lifespan of mice while reducing the impact of the aging process. Their study, which will be published online by the journal Science on May 5, lends more credence to the free-radical theory of aging.

5 May 2005

After surgery check colon tumors for signs of syndrome, study suggests

A new study suggests that, after surgery, all colon tumors should be tested to learn if the patient may have an inherited syndrome that carries an extremely high risk of cancer. It also suggests that this prescreening can be done using a relatively inexpensive microscopy test already used in hospital pathology laboratories.

5 May 2005

Neutrophils dictate whether our immune system will permit or prevent bacterial infections

New research on a bacterium that can survive encounters with specific immune system cells has strengthened scientists' belief that these plentiful white blood cells, known as neutrophils, dictate whether our immune system will permit or prevent bacterial infections.

5 May 2005

Cancer hijacks normal wound-healing processes

Scientists have known for the last decade that a link exists between wound healing and cancer. For instance, in a 1994 experiment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, chickens infected with a cancer virus developed tumors in areas of their body that had undergone wounding or scarring, while no tumors developed in infected areas that had not suffered wounding.

5 May 2005

Does clinical depression bring about chronic pain? Or does pain lead to depression?

Does clinical depression bring about chronic pain? Or does pain lead to depression? Because these two conditions frequently co-exist--30 to 54 percent of patients with major depressive disorder also suffer persistent physical pain--there has been much speculation about whether one causes the other or whether a common underlying factor provokes both. Results of studies into the precise nature of this relationship, however, have been inconsistent.

5 May 2005

New cervical cancer drug could be a bestseller

New data released yesterday says that a new vaccine that promises to protect against cervical cancer could offer wider resistance to the disease than previously thought.

5 May 2005

Britain recalls 35 more products with Para Red dye

Thirty five products contaminated with an illegal red dye Para Red, that has been linked to cancer, were recalled on Thursday by Britain's Food Standards Agency.

5 May 2005

Two more Polio cases reported in Indonesia

Health Officials are still investigating other suspected cases which have been reported in the same area of a West Javanese province.

5 May 2005

Pretty kids get the best deal all round

Disturbing new evidence from researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada, which is hard to believe, suggests that parents take better care of pretty children than they do of ugly ones.

4 May 2005

RADAR may have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives

As many as hundreds of thousands of lives may have saved by a program that identifies serious, sometimes fatal medication reactions.

4 May 2005

New discovery could improve IVF results

Scientists in the U.S. think they may have solved the puzzle of why some embryos fail to implant in their mother's womb, which is one of the main causes of IVF failures.

4 May 2005

Malaria still biggest killer of children in Africa

According to new report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), progress has been made in preventing and treating malaria since 2000 and more countries are introducing the latest preventative measures to beat the disease.

4 May 2005

Polio threat originates in Nigeria 2 years after it was banished in most countries

Almost two years after radical Islamic preachers in Nigeria influenced parents against having their children vaccinated against polio for fear it was part of a U.S. plot against Muslims, a Nigerian strain of the virus that causes the crippling disease has occurred as far away as Indonesia.

4 May 2005