Health and Medicine

Researchers from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., report wearing ionized bracelets for the treatment of muscle and joint pain was no more effective than wearing placebo bracelets in the November 2002 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Authors of the published study randomly assigned 305 participants to wear an ionized bracelet for 28 days and another 305 participants to wear a placebo bracelet for the same duration.

The study volunteers were men and women 18 and older who had sel

A diet rich in flaxseed seems to reduce the size, aggressiveness and severity of tumors in mice that have been genetically engineered to develop prostate cancer, according to new research from Duke University Medical Center. And in 3 percent of the mice, the flaxseed diet kept them from getting the disease at all.

“We are cautiously optimistic about these findings,” said Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, Ph.D., associate professor, division of urology and senior author of the study that appears in t

An international team of scientists has discovered a novel genetic trait that protects its carriers against the deadliest forms of malaria, while people without the trait are more likely to succumb to its fatal consequences.

This trait — a mutation or “polymorphism” in the NOS2 gene — controls the production of nitric oxide, a small chemical that can kill parasites and prevent malaria disease. Results of their study are published in the Nov. 9, 2002, issue of The Lancet.

The gen

Researchers studying the Hedgehog signaling pathway have identified small molecules that could form the foundations of exciting new treatments for Parkinson’s disease and certain cancers. New research published in Journal of Biology – the open access journal for exceptional research – has identified small molecules that are able to stimulate or block the Hedgehog signalling pathway, which is essential to the development, maintenance and repair of cells in the human body. The potential o

New data examines effect of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) on survival in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

The findings of a retrospective database study examining the effect of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) on survival in COPD patients1 were presented today at the American College of Chest Physicians CHEST 2002 Annual Conference in San Diego.

The investigators identified male and female patients, ages 40 and older, who were enrolled in the Lovelace

Aspirin may reduce ovarian cancer growth, a laboratory study by the USF College of Medicine has shown.

The study, published in the October issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, demonstrated that aspirin inhibited ovarian tumor cell growth by as much as 68 percent. The higher the dosage of aspirin added to the culture of ovarian cancer cells, the more growth inhibition was observed.

The researchers also found that combining aspirin with a monoclonal antibody specific for th