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Chinese mushrooms can improve physical well-being

Nutritionists have since joined with manufacturers to produce supplements using fermentation from this rare mushroom. One such product is CordyMax®, made with a formula recognized in China as the fermented Cordyceps mushroom mycelial product. CordyMax® has been placed under intellectual property protection, and only one company has the license for it outside of China.

19 Apr 2004

Repeated pregnancies may increase cardiovascular disease

The study was designed to measure the blood pressure responses to phenylephrine and to acute stress in conscious age-matched repeatedly breed (RB) and virgin rats.

19 Apr 2004

New scanning technology allows researchers to look into a kidney

Kidney disease may affect as many as one in twelve people, and causes millions of deaths each year. Currently, the diagnosis of kidney function relies mainly on blood and urine tests, an indirect means of figuring out how well they’re working.

19 Apr 2004

Gene discovery could improve anemia treatment in patients

Patients with inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, chronic infections and some types of cancer, often become anemic – a condition called anemia of chronic disease (ACD). While ACD rarely kills patients, it can make their lives miserable.

18 Apr 2004

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and the eighth most common in women

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and the eighth most common in women, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It is expected to be diagnosed in 38,000 men and 15,000 women in the United States in 2003. Treatment is most successful when the disease is caught early.

18 Apr 2004

New diagnostic test for latent tuberculosis introduced

The Tuberculin skin test, used to detect latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, has many drawbacks and a new diagnostic test for latent tuberculosis (QuantiFERON®-TB) has recently been introduced.

17 Apr 2004

Daycare and siblings increase likelihood of contracting respiratory syncytial virus and rhinovirus

Daycare attendance and siblings are associated with viral-induced wheezing in children. Pre-existing immunologic factors may influence the expression of viral infections in infancy, and in turn, recurrent infections may influence the development of immune responses.

17 Apr 2004

£60 million boost for pregnant mums to reduce child poverty

Public Health Minister, Yvette Cooper, will today announce a £60 million boost to tackle child poverty in low income areas even before children are born. The money will extend Sure Start programmes to cover pregnant women and their partners for the first time alongside families with children under four-years-old.

16 Apr 2004

Lack of exercise causes physical and psychological setbacks

Use it or lose it, fitness experts tell us. Now a new study offers evidence that the adage really does ring true – that a lack of exercise can not only cause physical setbacks, but also psychological setbacks as well.

16 Apr 2004

Delirium in ICU patients a predictor of mortality

Between 60 percent to 80 percent of these patients develop a brain dysfunction known as delirium, which according to a group of physicians at Vanderbilt Medical Center is an independent predictor of mortality.

16 Apr 2004

Blood pressure testing in people under 35 often misdiagnosed

Doctors who routinely measure blood pressure in people under 35 are more likely to misdiagnose than to detect hypertension correctly, according to a study in this week's BMJ. This could lead to unnecessary lifelong treatment for many.

16 Apr 2004

New insights into how tumors neutralize CD8 T cells

Scientists have speculated that this may be because the immune response is not strong enough, or because it does not last long enough to have an effect. Hence the increasing efforts to develop cancer vaccines that induce, strengthen, and increase the duration of immunological attack against cancer cells.

16 Apr 2004

New forensic tool to detect infectious diseases

Tests for the detection of infectious diseases in North Queensland will be faster and cheaper, thanks to the purchase of new equipment in James Cook University's School of Biomedical Sciences.

16 Apr 2004

Three hours exercise reduces risk of breast cancer

Three hours of moderate exercise per week significantly reduced circulating estrogens in postmenopausal women, according to a new study published in the current issue of Cancer Research. The finding may explain why women who exercise regularly lower their risk for breast cancer.

16 Apr 2004

Citrus soda culprit in patient’s medical mystery

It took a team of medical sleuths at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to get to the bottom of what was causing the 35-year-old to have abnormal blood chemistries during a post-transplant check up.

16 Apr 2004

Patient uses inorganic blood substitute

A patient who is losing large amounts of blood presents a medical emergency, requiring proper blood-typing and immediate access to multiple units of compatible blood.

16 Apr 2004

Proteomics techniques to find a possible predictor of response in a chemoprevention trial

Using new technology associated with the study of proteins, or proteomics, scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their colleagues have made a step toward predicting which people with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), an inherited condition that often leads to colon cancer, will respond to the prevention drug celecoxib.

16 Apr 2004

Beer increases risk of gout

The first large epidemiological study to assess the age-old belief that alcohol consumption increases the risk of gout is published in the April 2004 issue of THE LANCET. A prospective study of nearly 50,000 men showed that beer drinking was more likely to be associated with gout than spirits; whereas moderate wine consumption was not linked to a risk of the disease.

16 Apr 2004

Decongestant may increase blood pressure

A common ingredient in over-the-counter decongestants -- pseudoephedrine -- may increase blood pressure and the risk of life-threatening or disabling strokes in susceptible patients, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have reported.

15 Apr 2004

North America's largest-ever breast cancer enrolls 19,000th participant

Leaders of North America's largest-ever breast cancer prevention trial, the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), are striving to reach a major milestone this summer: the enrollment of the study's 19,000th — and final — participant.

14 Apr 2004