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Mumps making a comeback in Australia

Experts are concerned that mumps, once a thing of the past, may be making a comeback in Australia and they are blaming it on the absence of proper vaccinations during childhood.

20 Oct 2008

Many parents get their children's weight wrong

Australian researchers have found that parents are often mistaken in assessing whether their child is under or overweight and as many as 4 in 10 parents get it wrong.

20 Oct 2008

Polio could be wiped out in Nigeria thanks to improved vaccine

A recently introduced polio vaccine is four times more effective at protecting children than previous vaccines and has the potential to eradicate type 1 polio in Nigeria if it reaches enough children, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

19 Oct 2008

Chance of dying from cancer before the age of 84 is falling

The chance of dying from cancer before the age of 84 is becoming much smaller for most types of cancer and should continue falling over the next 20 years according to a new study from Cancer Research UK.

19 Oct 2008

FDA approves new labeling for psoriasis drug Raptiva

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced labeling changes, including a Boxed Warning, to highlight the risks of life-threatening infections, including progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), with the use of Raptiva (efalizumab). The labeling changes are based on the FDA's post-market surveillance.

19 Oct 2008

Molecule stops DNA replication in its tracks

When a dividing cell duplicates its genetic material, a molecular machine called a sliding clamp travels along the DNA double helix, tethering the proteins that perform the replication.

19 Oct 2008

Depression and suicidal thoughts among police officers differ based on gender and work shift

A quarter of female police officers and nearly as many male officers assigned to shift work had thought about taking their own lives, a new study of police work patterns and stress headed by a University at Buffalo researcher has shown.

19 Oct 2008

Genes that control cell death may play role in age-related hearing loss

Several genes that play a role in how our body's cells normally auto-destruct may play a role in age-related hearing loss, according to research published online in the journal Apoptosis - a journal devoted to the topic of cell suicide, or programmed cell death.

19 Oct 2008

Waste from gut bacteria helps host control weight

A single molecule in the intestinal wall, activated by the waste products from gut bacteria, plays a large role in controlling whether the host animals are lean or fatty, a research team, including scientists from UT Southwestern Medical Center, has found in a mouse study.

19 Oct 2008

People with autism less influenced by gut instincts

People with autism-related disorders are less likely to make irrational decisions, and are less influenced by gut instincts, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust. The study adds to the growing body of research implicating altered emotional processing in autism.

16 Oct 2008

Increased pressure in the brain leads to vision loss more often in men

A new study shows that men are more likely to lose vision as a result of a particular cause of intracranial hypertension, or increased pressure in the brain, than women with the condition. The research is published in the October 15, 2008, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

16 Oct 2008

Governments urged to fight pneumococcal disease

Pneumococcal disease, one of the world's leading causes of death and serious illness, must be recognised as an urgent global health issue together with HIV, malaria and TB, say the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pneumococcal Disease Prevention in the Developing World in a report launching at the House of Lords today. Between 700,000 and one million children under the age of five die each year from pneumococcal disease, equivalent to malaria and more than AIDS and tuberculosis.

16 Oct 2008

Medication error rates to be reduced by technology

The use of new information technology could significantly reduce the number of drug-related injuries in Australian hospitals, according to Professor Johanna Westbrook.

16 Oct 2008

White wine as healthy for the heart as red

A new study will provide comfort to white wine lovers and give them a good excuse to pour themselves a glass of Sauvignon blanc because it now appears that white wine is just as healthy for the heart as red.

16 Oct 2008

Model against unnecessary use of antibiotics

Patients in intensive care units (ICU) are often administered antibiotics against ventilator-associated pneumonia, 'to be on the safe side'. Dutch researcher Stefan Visscher has developed a model that can quickly establish whether or not a patient has pneumonia. This can prevent unnecessary treatment with antibiotics.

15 Oct 2008

Citywide electronic health information exchange

Across the nation concerns about health-care quality and costs are growing. For the first time, both candidates aspiring to the nation's highest office are looking to greater reliance on electronic medical records as critical to any remedy.

15 Oct 2008

NIH funds two new centers for imaging technology for neurodegenerative disorders and software for protein analysis

The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today it will provide up to an estimated $11 million over the next five years to create two new Biomedical Technology Research Centers (BTRCs) that will provide researchers nationwide with access to specialized research tools, training and state-of-the-art equipment.

15 Oct 2008

Prolonging the withdrawal of life support in the ICU affects family satisfaction with care

Clinicians in the intensive care unit (ICU) often care for patients who are on several life support measures at once. When such a patient is dying and the decision is reached to withdraw life support, these clinicians may make an imperfect compromise in seeking to balance the complex needs of the patient and the patient's family - they may remove the life support measures one at a time over a period of days, rather than withdrawing all at once.

15 Oct 2008

Artificial brain-muscle connections used to restore movement to paralyzed limbs

Researchers in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have demonstrated for the first time that a direct artificial connection from the brain to muscles can restore voluntary movement in monkeys whose arms have been temporarily anesthetized. The results may have promising implications for the quarter of a million Americans affected by spinal cord injuries and thousands of others with paralyzing neurological diseases, although clinical applications are years away.

15 Oct 2008

Surface analysis exposes counterfeit medicines

CERAM Surface and Materials Analysis has published a white paper highlighting how surface analysis can expose counterfeit medicines. It describes how technologies such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (ToFSIMS) are being used in novel ways to not only analyse the composition of various pharmaceuticals, but also to determine differences in the manufacturing processes involved.

15 Oct 2008