Studies and Analyses

A study published today in the American Gastroenterological Association’s journal Gastroenterology concludes that patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who require long-term insulin therapy are at a significantly increased risk for colorectal cancer.

Results of this retrospective cohort study, conducted on 24,918 people with type 2 diabetes, suggest that those who received more than three years of insulin therapy during the follow-up period of the study have more than three t

GVG may reduce addictive effects of ’huffing’

A new study by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory suggests that vigabatrin (a.k.a. gamma vinyl-GABA or GVG) may block the addictive effects of toluene, a substance found in many household products commonly used as inhalants. These results broaden the promise of GVG as a potential treatment for a variety of addictions. The study will be published in the December 1, 2004 issue of Syn

A new study shows that a history of smoking affects survival in patients with cancer of the head and neck. Patients who had smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime were three times more likely to have better overall survival, disease-specific survival, and recurrence-free survival compared with patients who had a current or previous history of regular smoking. There are approximately 38,000 new cases of head and neck cancer cases in the U.S. each year, the vast majority of which occur

Researchers at Purdue University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have completed a mathematical analysis showing that it isn’t quite possible to build a so-called “perfect lens,” but the underlying theory still makes it feasible to design better imaging systems.

A perfect lens would be able to focus light more narrowly than conventional lenses, making it possible to etch finer electronic circuits and create more compact and powerful computer chips. Such lenses also m

Arsenic trioxide – a highly poisonous substance best known as an effective weed killer or pesticide and notorious for being a favourite ’weapon’ of choice in murder mystery novels, is being re-invented as a treatment for a rare type of leukaemia.
It is already licensed as an orphan drug (the term for drugs intended to treat rare conditions) for patients who have relapsed after initial therapy for acute promyeloctytic leukaemia (APL).

But now, a research team led by Dr.

Benefits of non-drug techniques top most popular sleeping pill, Ambien

A study by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School has found cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is more effective than sleeping pills in treating chronic sleep-onset insomnia. The findings, which appear in the Sept. 27 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, show non-drug techniques yield better short and long-term results than the most widely prescribed sleeping