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  Friday, February 8, 2008  

Britain 'is true Prozac Nation'
Britain is a "Prozac Nation" facing a crisis in mental health care, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg says. He has warned the over-use of pills and poor mental health services were failing the public. The party has obtained figures showing waits of more than two years for some counselling and psychotherapy services. ... MORE...

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Leprosy outbreak causes concerns in Northwest Arkansas
The medical community is warning the public: a leprosy outbreak in Springdale could blossom into an epidemic, if something isn't done soon. Doctors say at least nine cases of leprosy have been confirmed in Springdale. Local doctors say they would be shocked by even one case of leprosy in their entire career, so they say something must be done soon, in order to stop leprosy's spread ... MORE...

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  Wednesday, February 6, 2008  

New Way to Kill Viruses: Shake Them to Death
Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers presumably shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death. "The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle," said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. "If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus can be inactivated." ... MORE...

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  Thursday, January 31, 2008  

Device Zeroes In On Small Breast Tumors
A new medical imager for detecting and guiding the biopsy of suspicious breast cancer lesions is capable of spotting tumors that are half the size of the smallest ones detected by standard imaging systems, according to a new study. The results of initial testing of the PEM/PET system, designed and constructed by scientists at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, West Virginia University School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine will be published in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology on Feb. 7... MORE...

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Mutant Flu Virus Is Found That Resists Popular Drug
A small but significant percentage of the main influenza virus causing illness this winter in Europe, Canada and the United States has a mutation that makes it resistant to the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Scientists said they were surprised by the finding because they had believed that mutations of this type generally made the virus less potent and less easily spread among people. The predominant influenza virus circulating this winter is influenza A/H1N1. The Tamiflu-resistant form of the virus, known as influenza A(H1N1 H274Y), has been found with varying frequency in various areas of four European countries, Canada and the United States ... MORE...

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  Tuesday, January 29, 2008  

Midlife Slump Finds People in Their 40s Down in the Dumps
Middle age makes you miserable, so don't blame your job, your kids, your spouse, your income or lack of it, suggests an international study of 2 million people from 80 nations released today. Researchers from Great Britain and the USA analyzed data spanning more than 35 years on measures such as depression, anxiety, mental well-being, happiness and life satisfaction... MORE...

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Smoking One Joint is Equivalent to 20 Cigarettes, Study Says
Smoking marijuana is far more dangerous than smoking cigarettes, according to a group of scientists in New Zealand. The researchers found that smoking one joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer. While studies in the past have shown that marijuana can cause cancer, few have actually established a strong link between marijuana use and the actual incidence of lung cancer... MORE...

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  Monday, January 28, 2008  

Many seniors get wrong drugs, doses
A study of more than 800,000 U.S. seniors found more than 25 percent received the wrong dosage or type of medication. Lead author Mary Jo Pugh of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System in San Antonio and colleagues used Veterans Administration pharmacy and patient care records to identify instances of inappropriate prescribing among 850,154 patients who received care at 124 VA facilities from 1999 to 2000. The results, published in the journal Medical Care, found 26.2 percent of elderly patients were given drugs identified as inappropriate or suboptimal for older patients... MORE...

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Breast milk 'may be allergy key'
A study may have discovered why breastfeeding might help protect children against allergies such as asthma, scientists have said. The French research, published in Nature Medicine, shows female mice exposed to allergens can pass them directly to their offspring in milk. This allows the newborns to become "tolerant" of the substance ... MORE...

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New Alzheimer's Treatment Completes First Phase Of Testing
A molecule designed by a Purdue University researcher to stop the debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer's disease has been shown in its first phase of clinical trials to be safe and to reduce biomarkers for the disease. CoMentis, the pharmaceutical company developing the drug, announced on Jan. 7 completion of its Phase 1 study of a treatment based on the molecule. Results from the study indicate that the treatment is safe and well tolerated... MORE...

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  Friday, January 25, 2008  

US scientists close to creating artificial life: study
US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday. The move, which comes after five years of research, is seen as the penultimate stage in the endeavour to create an artificial life form based entirely on a man-made DNA genome -- something which has tantalised scientists and sci-fi writers for years. "Through dedicated teamwork we have shown that building large genomes is now feasible and scalable so that important applications such as biofuels can be developed," said Hamilton Smith, from the J. Craig Venter Institute, in the study published in Science. ... MORE...

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Mental, physical activity delays dementia
Australian researchers say they discovered that mental and physical stimulation delays the onset of dementia in Huntington's disease. Dr. Jess Nithianantharajah and Dr. Anthony Hannan of Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne said mice with the Huntington's disease gene displayed impairments on learning and memory tests at an early stage of the disease, prior to the obvious signs of movement problems. This closely correlates with observations in Huntington's disease patients, the researchers said. However, Nithianantharajah said by providing the mice with an enriched environment that enhanced their mental and physical stimulation, the mice performed better on these memory tests... MORE...

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Camera In A Pill Offers Cheaper, Easier Window On Your Insides
What if swallowing a pill with a camera could detect the earliest signs of cancer? The tiny camera is designed to take high-quality, color pictures in confined spaces. Such a device could find warning signs of esophageal cancer, the fastest growing cancer in the United States. A fundamentally new design has created a smaller endoscope that is more comfortable for the patient and cheaper to use than current technology. Its first use on a human, scanning for early signs of esophageal cancer, will be reported in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering... MORE...

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  Tuesday, January 22, 2008  

Cognitive loss linked to homocysteine
U.S. scientists have linked high levels of homocysteine -- an amino acid in the blood -- and lower cognitive performance. The ongoing "Maine-Syracuse Study," which began in l974 and involves more than 2,700 people also looked at homocysteine levels in those with a gene variation linked to Alzheimer's Disease known as apolipoprotein E4, or ApoE-e4. ... MORE...

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Epidemic superbug strains evolved from one bacterium: study
The drug-resistant "superbugs" that have cut a swathe through day care centers, schools, locker rooms and prisons across the United States in the last five years stem from one rapidly evolving bacterium, US scientists said Monday. Scientists studying the genetic make-up of these bugs, which are resistant to almost all antibiotics, say they are nearly identical clones that have emerged from a single bacterial strain, which they have dubbed USA300. ... MORE...

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