Health and Medicine

A group of Italian investigators led by Drs Francesco Fallo (Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Padova) and Dr Nicoletta Sonino (Department of Mental Health, Padova) explores a neglected issue: the relationship between daytime stress and the physiological lowering of blood pressure which should occur during sleep (dipping).

Scarce data are available on the influence of psychological aspects on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure patterns either in normotensive or hyper

’Surprisingly effective’ says French research team

A new drug that targets tumour blood vessels has produced a surprisingly effective response in its first patient study – shrinking the tumours in a number of patients treated so far, according to researchers carrying out the study at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France.

The drug, SU011248[1], which is given in capsule form, is a signal transduction inhibitor designed to act against several abnormally b

Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic pathogen with a diverse battery of virulence factors, each of which can act alone or in concert in the development of persistent and sometimes lethal infections such as sepsis, toxic shock syndrome, food poisoning and severe skin diseases.

Staphylococcal infections begin when the organism gains access to host tissues or the adjoining blood supply through breaches in the skin. More than 20% of healthy humans are natural carriers of S. aureus, 10%-20%

Most cancer patients are not killed by their primary tumors but succumb to metastatic disease. The most common human cancers–lung, breast, and prostate–frequently spread to bone, causing suffering and morbidity through pain, fractures, and nerve compression syndromes.

Tumor cells enter bones through blood and lymphatic vessels. In order to establish bone metastases, they have to influence bone metabolism. Most breast cancers that spread to bone express high levels of parathyroid hormone r

Thousands in southern Asia could be drinking arsenic-contaminated water from wells that are falsely labeled safe, while precious good water sits untapped in wells that are wrongly marked unsafe — a dire disparity for countries where water can be more valuable than gold.

A new study of wells in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, suggests the arsenic test kits used by field workers are frequently inaccurate, producing scores of incorrectly labeled wells. The findings were published this month

A paper published in the December, 2002 issue of Infection and Immunity by a research team at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Health Sciences Center in New Orleans provides clear evidence that the lethal toxins of such infectious bacteria as Pseudomonas and anthrax can be blocked by a drug developed at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. The compound, called D6R (hexa-D-arginine), is a potent, stable, small molecule inhibitor of furin.

Bacteria produce a number of toxins whic