University of Nottingham researchers have developed a new ‘score’, which could be useful for general practitioners (GP) to detect heart disease in youngsters – before it damages their health. The researchers studied data of over two and half million people and then developed, validated and evaluated the new lifetime ‘score’ which takes account, among many [...]
Posts Tagged ‘disease’
New ‘score’ to predict heart disease in youngsters
December 9th, 2010 |
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Cancer drugs offer new hope for Crohnâ€s disease and sarcoidosis
December 1st, 2010 |
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A new study offers insight into a new treatment avenue for two painful inflammatory diseases: Crohn”s sisease and sarcoidosis. While the loss of NOD2 increases the risk of developing Crohn”s disease, increased activity of this gene is also thought to exacerbate symptoms. Additionally, activating NOD2 mutations can cause genetic sarcoidosis – an inflammatory disease affecting [...]
Obese kids show signs of heart disease aged just 15
November 26th, 2010 |
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A new study has shown that kids who have a high body mass index (BMI) between 9 and 12 years of age are more likely to have high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood insulin levels (all risk factors for developing heart disease) by the time they reach adolescence. A total of 5,235 children took part [...]
Diabetes drug may retard growth of cysts in polycystic kidney disease
November 12th, 2010 |
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A new study has found that a drug usually used to treat diabetes may also retard the growth of fluid-filled cysts of the most common genetic disorder-polycystic kidney disease. Researchers of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic reported that pioglitazone appeared to control the growth of PKD cysts. Using a [...]
Michael Douglas vows not to succumb to his cancer
September 13th, 2010 |
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Cancer-stricken Michael Douglas refuses to surrender himself to the disease because he believes doctors when they tell him he has a good chance of fully recovering. The movie star was diagnosed with stage four throat cancer this summer and is currently undergoing intensive treatment in a bid to beat the killer disease. Douglas has earlier [...]
Intelligence tested
July 2nd, 2010 |
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Infectious disease may explain why some countries have cleverer populations
HUMAN intelligence is higher, on average, in some places than in others. And researchers at the University of New Mexico have come up with an explanation, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Comparing the average IQ in a particular country with its disease burden (based on the reduction in life expectancy caused by 28 infectious diseases) reveals a striking correlation. At the bottom of the IQ list is Equatorial Guinea, followed by St Lucia, with Cameroon, Mozambique and Gabon tied for third last. These countries also have among the highest burdens of infectious diseases. At the opposite end of the scale, Singapore, South Korea, China and Japan show the highest intelligence scores and relatively low levels of disease. America, Britain and a number of European countries also place in the top left-hand corner of the chart. For more on this, see article.
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Disease and intelligence: Mens sana in corpore sano
July 1st, 2010 |
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Parasites and pathogens may explain why people in some parts of the world are cleverer than those in others
HUMAN intelligence is puzzling. It is higher, on average, in some places than in others. And it seems to have been rising in recent decades. Why these two things should be true is controversial. This week, though, a group of researchers at the University of New Mexico propose the same explanation for both: the effect of infectious disease. If they are right, it suggests that the control of such diseases is crucial to a country’s development in a way that had not been appreciated before. Places that harbour a lot of parasites and pathogens not only suffer the debilitating effects of disease on their workforces, but also have their human capital eroded, child by child, from birth.
Christopher Eppig and his colleagues make their suggestion in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. They note that the brains of newly born children require 87% of those children’s metabolic energy. In five-year-olds the figure is still 44% and even in adults the brain—a mere 2% of the body’s weight—consumes about a quarter of the body’s energy. Any competition for this energy is likely to damage the brain’s development, and parasites and pathogens compete for it in several ways. Some feed on the host’s tissue directly, or hijack its molecular machinery to reproduce. Some, particularly those that live in the gut, stop their host absorbing food. And all provoke the host’s immune system into activity, which diverts resources from other things. …
Alzheimer’s disease: No end to dementia
June 17th, 2010 |
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Ten years ago people talked confidently of stopping Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks. Now, they realise they have no idea how to do that
DRUG companies are notoriously secretive. The clock starts running on a patent when it is filed, so the longer something can be kept under wraps before that happens, the better for the bottom line. You know something is up, then, when a group of these firms announce they are banding together to share the results of abandoned drug trials. And on June 11th several big companies did just that. They publicised the profiles of 4,000 patients from 11 trials so that they could learn from each other’s failures. An act of selflessness, perhaps, but also one of desperation.
Alzheimer’s disease is one of those things that policymakers would rather hide from. It is, perhaps, the classic illness of old age. Physical frailty is expected, and can be coped with. Mental frailty is much scarier for the sufferer and more demanding for those who have to look after him. It is expensive, too. Alzheimer’s is estimated to cost America alone some $170 billion a year. And it is getting commoner as average lifespans increase. The number of people suffering from the disease is expected to triple by 2050. Effective treatments would thus be embraced with enthusiasm by sufferers and society alike. The right Alzheimer’s drug could earn a drugmaker a lot of money. The incentives are there. But the science has still failed to deliver. …
Mysterious disease claims four lives in Uttar Pradesh
April 20th, 2010 |
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A mysterious disease has claimed the lives of a four-year-old girl and three women in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district, officials said Tuesday.
The deaths took place Sunday and Monday in Mankapur, a Dalit-dominated village in Gonda, some 200 km from Lucknow. The mysterious disease is marked by tremors, convulsions and vomiting.
“We still don’t know what the [...]
Psychology: Alone in the crowd
December 10th, 2009 |
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Loneliness is a contagious disease
ON THE surface, Framingham, Massachusetts looks like any other American town. Unbeknown to most who pass through this serene place, however, it is a gold mine for medical research. Since 1948 three generations of residents in Framingham have participated in regular medical examinations originally intended to study the spread of heart disease. In the years since, researchers have also used Framingham to track obesity, smoking and even happiness over long periods of time. Now a new study that uses Framingham to analyse loneliness has found that it spreads very much like a communicable disease.
Feeling lonely is more than just unpleasant for those who yearn to be surrounded by warm relationships—it is a health hazard. Numerous studies show that loneliness reduces fruit-fly lifespans, increases the chances of mice developing diabetes, and causes a host of adverse effects in people, including cardiovascular disease, obesity and weakening of the immune system. Simply being surrounded by others is no cure. In people, the mere perception of being isolated is more than enough to create the bad health effects. However, in spite of its significant impact, precious little is known about how loneliness moves through communities. …
Walking slowly can increase your chances of death from heart disease
November 11th, 2009 |
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Older adults who walk slowly are about three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those who go at a brisk pace, research shows.
It is already known that walking pace is linked to increased hospital admissions and the incidence of falls and disability. Now experts say walking slowly is “strongly associated” with an [...]
Novel drug candidate may help treat inherited muscular wasting disease
November 7th, 2009 |
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Scientists from University of Oregon and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York have discovered a potential drug candidate that may help treat inherited muscular wasting disease.
The compound called pentamidine carries approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating a severe type of pneumonia in people with weakened [...]
How plants and bacteria ‘talk’ to thwart disease
November 6th, 2009 |
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A new study by scientists at the University of California, Davis, has revealed how plants and bacteria ‘talk’ to thwart disease.
When it comes to plants’ innate immunity, a receptor molecule in the plant pairs up with a specific molecule on the invading bacteria and the immune system swings into action to defend against the [...]
Disease outbreaks feared in tsunami-battered Samoa
October 4th, 2009 |
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Fears of deadly outbreaks of disease in tsunami-battered Samoa mounted Saturday, as frightened survivors sheltering on higher ground refused to return to their beachfront villages, aid workers said. As roads and beaches were cleared of debris and rebuilding began, planeloads of medical
Influenza vaccination: How to stop an outbreak
August 20th, 2009 |
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A mathematical model suggests a new way to allocate vaccines
THE existing formula is simple. When vaccinating against influenza, inoculate those most susceptible to the disease’s wrath. Such vulnerable types include the elderly (who are the most likely to die if infected) and infants (whose immune systems are not fully developed). This seems a reasonable policy, and it is the one that has long been promulgated by America’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC). Only recently has it been extended to include children up to the age of 18, on the basis that they are more likely than other people to catch flu in the first place, through enforced socialising at school—even though they are at little risk of dying from it.
According to Jan Medlock of Clemson University in South Carolina, and Alison Galvani of Yale, however, vaccinating those most at risk of bad effects is not the right way to deal with the disease. In a report published this week in Science, they argue that even with the extension of vaccination to school-age children, the existing policy of protecting the individual is still playing down the real public-health value of vaccines—namely that they create a so-called herd immunity which helps to break the disease’s chain of transmission. …
Intel Helps Convert Unused PC Processor Power into an Instrument to Fight Disease and Study Climate Change
August 3rd, 2009 |
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SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 3, 2009 – Often in the fight against cancer, researchers are not limited by their ingenuity, but the resources available to make research effective.
China plague death prompts alert
August 2nd, 2009 |
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By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
Thousands of people have been placed in quarantine in north-western China after a man died of pneumonic plague.
Chinese authorities say the man who died was a 32-year-old herdsman from a sparsely populated area mostly inhabited by Tibetans.
Most of the other 11 people infected with the disease are relatives of the dead man.
The local government has not yet said when the man died but it has sealed off the town where the outbreak occurred.
It says there are enough supplies to feed the 10,000 or so people who live in the town of Ziketan, near Xinghai in Qinghai province, during the quarantine period.
Pneumonic plague is a virulent form of the disease that attacks the lungs. It can spread from person to person, or from animals to people.
Initial symptoms include fever, headache and shortness of breath.
To reduce the chances of death, anyone infected needs to receive treatment within 24 hours of the first symptoms.
This is not the only contagious disease that China is grappling with at the moment.
It has taken very strict measures to control the spread of swine flu – which has also led to thousands of people being quarantined. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Swine flu ‘hits pregnant harder’
July 29th, 2009 |
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Pregnant women are four times more likely than the general population to be hospitalised by HIN1 swine flu, US research shows.
The findings suggest pregnancy does increase the risk of complications.
It underlines the need to ensure pregnant women get speedy anti-viral treatment, and are made a top priority when a vaccine becomes available.
The study, by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appears in The Lancet medical journal.
Scientists studied 34 confirmed or probable cases of swine flu infection among pregnant women.
"We must remember that most pregnant women who catch the disease are likely to make an uncomplicated recovery"
Department of Health
They found 11 were admitted to hospital – a rate four times higher than that seen in the general population.
The women covered a broad range of ages and races and were in various stages of pregnancy. Six subsequently died after developing pneumonia.
None of the women who died had been given anti-viral drugs promptly, within the first 48 hours of symptoms occurring.
Five of these women underwent caesarean deliveries. Four of the babies have now left hospital, and the fifth, born very prematurely, is doing well. None of the babies showed any sign of swine flu infection.
Historical echoes
The researchers accepted that doctors might be more likely to admit pregnant women to hospital than other patients – but said this was unlikely to be the only explanation for the higher hospitalisation rate.
It may be that pregnancy weakens the immune system, making complications more likely.
Writing in The Lancet, the researchers, led by Dr Denise Jamieson, said: "On the basis of our investigation, pregnant women seem to be at increased risk for complications from pandemic H1N1 virus infection, with a higher estimated rate of hospital admission than in the general population.
"Although the decision to admit a pregnant woman is complex and might include considerations beyond simply the severity of disease, that a high proportion of influenza-related deaths in the US have been in pregnant women is concerning."
A similar pattern was seen in the flu pandemics of 1918 and 1957, when death rates for pregnant women were higher than for non-pregnant women.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "This study is a reminder that pregnant women can be at increased risk from swine flu, but we must remember that most pregnant women who catch the disease are likely to make an uncomplicated recovery.
"Pregnant women should make early contact with their GP if they have flu-like symptoms."
The spokesman said the anti-viral drug Relenza was available in an inhaled form which would not reach the foetus, and so pose no risk to it at all.
Pregnant Sharon Pentleton, from Saltcoats, Ayrshire, had to be flown to Sweden for specialist care last week after developing a rare complication following infection with swine flu.
Ms Pentleton, who is having her blood circulated through a machine, is described as "stable, but critical".</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Human trials for first genetically engineered malaria vaccine to begin soon
July 29th, 2009 |
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A team of Australian scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the US, Japan and Canada, has created a weakened strain of the malaria parasite that will be used as a live vaccine against the disease.
The vaccine will be trailed in humans from early next year at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in [...]
Women respond differently to heart failure treatment than men
July 28th, 2009 |
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Women are likely to respond differently to heart failure treatment than men, according to a new study.
The study raises concerns over whether current practices provide the best care to the sufferers.
The researchers have found that striking differences in the risk factors for developing heart failure (HF) and patient prognosis between men and women.
“Current practice is [...]