Health and Medicine

First amphetamine-based long-acting stimulant offers all-day symptom control in children
A research team led by a Massachusetts General Hospital investigator has found that a long-acting form of the stimulant medication Adderall is effective in controlling symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children when taken in a single morning dose. The standard form of Adderall, which is made up of several amphetamine-based drugs, is only effective for four hours. This new f

A careful study by a group of investigators of the University of Giessen suggests that there is no indication for mercury intoxication or amalgam allergy as a cause of somatic complaints.

To deepen the understanding of the numerous unspecific complaints which are related to the dental material amalgam both in patients and physicians, an interdisciplinary case-control study regarding toxicological, allergic, psychological and psychiatric aspects was conducted. Forty patients with amalgam-asso

A group of investigators of the University of Cagliari found an interesting association between chemokinines and dementia in Down’s syndrome, which may have far reaching implications.

People with Down`s syndrome (DS) show early Alzheimer-like dementia. It has been suggested that the pro-inflammatory cytokine class plays a role in Alzheimer`s disease (AD). The study aims at verifying whether pro-inflammatory cytokines in DS are correlated with age, affective symptoms and intellectual decline

A new screening test to be piloted in Bristol could help to revolutionise the way children with leukaemia are treated by enabling doctors to fine tune treatment to the needs of each individual patient.

Experts from five centres – Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, London and Sheffield – will pilot the test for the most common form of the childhood leukaemia – acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). The team at the University of Bristol and Bristol Royal Hospital for Children is using special technology c

The collaboration between cardiologist and orthopedist may at first seem novel, if not odd. But just such an interdisciplinary connection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has yielded potentially useful fruit: a bioengineered, rhythmically beating experimental model of heart muscle.

The new model system is a bioartificial trabeculum, or BAT. Trabecula are thin sections of cardiac tissue within the inner surface of the heart’s main pumping chambers. Although still some

The long-term use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not increase the risk of endometrial cancer and may even protect the endometrium (the lining of the uterus) from the disease, concludes a study in this week’s BMJ.

In one of the largest long-term studies of its kind researchers from across the UK collected data from 534 postmenopausal women. Before the study began, 364 of the women had taken oestrogen and progestogen hormone replacement therapy in which the two hormones were given s