Health and Medicine

Very light smokers significantly increase their risk of a heart attack, shows research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Furthermore, women are much more susceptible than men to the detrimental effects of tobacco, even if they don’t inhale.

The findings are based on a population sample of over 12,000 men and women taking part in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, which began in 1976.

The participants, all aged 20 or older at the start of the study, were monitored up

The thigh length of babies in the womb is as strong an indicator of subsequent childhood – and potentially adult – blood pressure as birthweight, suggests a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Researchers scanned 707 developing fetuses to measure the dimensions of their abdomen and head circumferences and the length of the thigh bones (femurs). The growing babies were scanned five times each between 18 and 38 weeks of pregnancy. Blood pressure was then measured in 300

Finding May Present a New Target for Anti-Cancer Drugs

Researchers at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that a known cancer-causing gene, Ras, may exert its influence through very different pathways in humans than in mice, a finding that could offer tantalizing new targets for anti-cancer therapy.

While studying the Ras, gene, Duke researchers unexpectedly found that it activates an obscure group of proteins in humans, but not in mice, in order to turn normal c

A new laser procedure that requires only local anesthetic is effective in treating nasal passageway obstructions associated with a deviated nasal septum, according to an article in the July-September issue of The Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The procedure uses heat generated by a laser to soften cartilage abnormalities so that they can be flattened or shaped to clear the nasal passages.

The septum is the cartilage wall that divides and separates the

Researchers have developed a unique vaccine that destroys a deadly toxin produced by the parasite that causes malaria, which kills more than two million people each year. The vaccine appears extremely promising in animal studies, they say.

If the drug works in humans, it could become a more effective and longer lasting anti-malarial vaccine than those currently available, according to the researchers.

Details of the research will be presented next week (Aug. 21) in Boston at the 2

’Something new and exciting’ found serendipitously

A compound that could potentially immobilize the AIDS virus or selectively extract radionuclides from nuclear wastes at various U.S.high-level storage sites has been developed by a researcher at Sandia National Laboratories who wasn’t even looking for it.

An article in the current issue of Science describes characteristics of the newly discovered, extremely active compound, called niobium heteropolyanions (het