Health and Medicine

A researcher at Aston University in Birmingham has become the first in the UK to investigate a new type of vaccination delivery that could revolutionise how we are protected against diseases including flu, hepatitis and, most excitingly, cancer.
Dr Yvonne Perrie from the School of Life & Health Sciences has received a research grant from The Royal Society for a brand new project to investigate the potential of delivering DNA vaccines by mouth.

“The patient would be given a small solutio

The findings of this research published on 30th November 2002 in The Lancet suggest that targeting the underlying cause of asthma—rather than treating symptoms of the disorder—could be more effective in reducing severe asthma attacks.

Asthma affects 5.1 million people in the UK and leads to an estimated 1,500 deaths per year, however current treatment methods, based on an assessment of symptoms and a measurement of lung function may not be the most effective.

Asthma is known to be

Results of a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggest that the antibiotic azithromycin could be an effective treatment option for children with cholera.
Cholera is a major public-health problem which is greatly under-reported; children are most affected by this bacterial disease which causes severe diarrhoea resulting in dehydration. Around 5000 deaths from cholera were reported to the WHO in 2000, probably a severe underestimate as Bangladesh—where over 200,000 people are infected with t

Authors of a UK study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggest that targeting the underlying cause of asthma—rather than treating symptoms of the disorder—could be more effective in reducing severe asthma attacks.

Conventional treatment for people with asthma relies on assessments of symptoms and simple measures of lung function. however, increased concentrations of microscopic cells called eosinophils cause the inflammation of airways in the lung that lead to asthma symptoms; eosinophils

Women with poorly controlled diabetes during early pregnancy run an increased risk of their baby being malformed, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.

Researchers in Norwich identified 158 first pregnancies in women with type 1 diabetes. They defined adverse pregnancy outcome as spontaneous abortion, major congenital malformation (potentially life threatening or associated with serious long term disability), stillbirth, or infant death.

The women were divided into two groups acc

A new study, just published in the journal Science, shows for the first time that some bacteria that cause diseases in humans use molecular hydrogen as an energy source. The research could point the way toward new treatment regimens for everything from ulcers and chronic gastritis to stomach cancer.

Microbiologists at the University of Georgia worked specifically in mice with the gastric bacterium Helicobacter pylori, a pathogen that colonizes the mucosal surfaces of the human stomach and g