Health and Medicine

Research at Georgetown University Medical Center has led to a deeper understanding of the role that elevated cholesterol plays in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

APP, a protein found in several major organs including the brain and heart, is present in all people. Its normal function in the body is unknown, but in people with Alzheimer’s, APP is abnormally processed and converted to beta amyloid protein. When fragments of this protein break off, they become entangled, leadi

Aio! is a new Finnish diagnostic method for rapidly diagnosing an acute myocardial infarct when a patient with chest pains arrives at the hospital or consults a doctor.

The diagnostic system Aio! has been developed by Innotrac Diagnostics Oy with the goal of rapidly and accurately identifying in a patient-friendly way the markers secreted into the blood in connection with a myocardial infract. On the basis of the test result, the patient suffering from a myocardial infract can immediately b

Few of the women who undergo tubal sterilization or whose husbands undergo vasectomy later go on to regret either procedure, according to a study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study appears in the June issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The study found the proportion of women who experience regret was essentially the same -about 6 to 7 percent-five years after their hus

A new study of migraine headaches suggests behavioral therapy “not medication — may be the most effective weapon against migraine pain for teen-agers.

Researchers with the Ohio University Headache Treatment & Research Project enrolled 30 teens ages 12 to 17 in the pilot project. Half were treated with triptans — a fairly new class of drugs widely used for migraine in adults — and half were assigned to a phone-administered behavioral therapy program that included instruction in biofeedbac

The long-sought ability to control the movement of prosthetic limbs with brain waves has edged a little closer to reality.

In experiments published in the June 7 issue of the journal Science, monkeys were able to move balls around in 3D space on a computer screen just by thinking about it. With a little practice, they got even better at it.

“They achieved nearly the same accuracy and speed as normal arm movements,” said senior author Andrew Schwartz, Ph.D., of the Departme

Study has implications for lowering heart-disease risk in Type 2 diabetes patients

A drug used widely as an insulin sensitizer appears also to have a significant anti-inflammatory effect in diabetics, a property that could make it useful in helping to prevent heart disease in these patients, a study by endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo has found.

Results of the research, involving the drug rosiglitazone, were presented here today (June 15, 2002) at the annual mee