Health and Medicine

Poor social circumstances in adulthood have been known for some time to increase heart disease risk but less attention has been paid to earlier life circumstances. A study in this week’s BMJ finds that adverse social circumstances in childhood, as well as adulthood, are strongly associated with increased risk of insulin resistance, and other heart disease risk factors.

Most people know that the hormone insulin is important for health. But the commonest type of diabetes (type 2 diabetes), whi

Atorvastatin shown to decrease heart disease and stroke in patients with hypertension and low cholesterol

A major European trial studying different blood pressure treatments and the effects of additional cholesterol lowering, announces today that it has stopped part of its trial earlier than expected because results collected already show a significant benefit to patients on one of its treatments.

It found that among 10,297 patients with hypertension and cholesterol levels lower t

Scientists at Jefferson Medical College have used gene therapy to reverse the progression of Parkinson’s disease in rats. They have found that by adding a gene for an enzyme, they were able to reprogram brain circuitry and halt the deterioration of dopamine producing brain cells, one of the key problems in the disease.

“It’s not just inserting a replacement for a missing or mutated gene as a treatment for a genetic disorder,” says Michael Oshinsky, Ph.D., research assistant professor of neu

Perhaps, bioterrorists will not be able to spread lethal bacteria of anthrax in envelopes all over the world. Siberian biologists and physics have thought up how to adapt electron accelerator that is usually used for sterilizing medical equipment for decontamination of letters. To optimize the power of the accelerator they calculated how many bacteria could get into a human body when touching the letter infected and how many bacteria should be destroyed to avoid the tragedy.

For their experi

The first clinical trial to compare directly two of the most widely-used drugs in advanced lung cancer, cisplatinin and carboplatin (both in combination with paclitaxel) – have concluded that the older drug, cisplatin, is the better treatment.

Patients given cisplatin and paclitaxel had better survival rates and their quality of life was just as good as patients receiving carboplatin and paclitaxel.

The phase III multi-national European trial involving 618 patients with advanced non

Companies that create HIV-AIDS drugs now have key information that could assist in making new medications with fewer side effects.

Researchers Henry Weiner, a professor of biochemistry at Purdue University, Steven Zollo of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Lauren Wood of the National Cancer Institute, noted the similarity between HIV-AIDS treatment side effects and naturally occurring diseases. Certain HIV-AIDS treatment side effects, such as fat loss and insulin resista