Chronic Disease News and Research

RSS

Aboriginals in the Kimberley suffer higher dementia rates

Australian researchers have found that Aboriginal people living in the Kimberley, in northern Western Australia, have significantly higher rates of dementia than the rest of the population.

3 Nov 2008

Purple tomatoes the latest in the arsenal against cancer

British scientists have developed purple tomatoes which they believe may possibly help fight cancer.

27 Oct 2008

Chronic disease keeping older Australians out of the workforce

Chronic diseases such as diabetes and arthritis may be keeping more than 660,000 older Australians out of the workforce, Sydney University academics have found.

20 Oct 2008

Discovery of two novel gene locations that raise risk of type 1 diabetes

Genetics researchers have identified two novel gene locations that raise the risk of type 1 diabetes. As they continue to reveal pieces of the complicated genetic puzzle for this disease, the researchers expect to improve predictive tests and devise preventive strategies.

14 Oct 2008

Medicare stops paying for 10 reasonably preventable medical errors

Medicare starting Wednesday will no longer pay hospitals for additional care resulting from "reasonably preventable" errors, the New York Times reports.

5 Oct 2008

Exposure to bacteria might prevent type I diabetes

Researchers from Yale University and the University of Chicago have found a startling illustration of the potential for microbes to prevent disease - they found that mice exposed to common stomach bacteria were protected against the development of type I diabetes.

22 Sep 2008

Studies look at Hispanics' access to U.S. health care system

Three studies published online on Wednesday in the American Journal of Public Health look at how poverty, language and health insurance coverage affect access to care among foreign-born U.S. residents, particularly Hispanics, HealthDay/U.S. News & World Report reports.

22 Sep 2008

30 years on from Alma-Ata and the pendulum is swinging back to primary health care

Thirty years on from the signing of the historic Alma-Ata declaration, the famous rallying call to the global health community, the concept of Primary Health Care, which lay at its heart, is back on the global agenda.

15 Sep 2008

Depressed dialysis patients more likely to be hospitalized or die, researcher finds

Dialysis patients diagnosed with depression are nearly twice as likely to be hospitalized or die within a year than those who are not depressed, a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has found.

14 Sep 2008

Health response launched for Haiti

WHO and its partners urgently need US$ 4.2 million to provide health care for many of the 800,000 people - including children and pregnant women - affected by successive tropical storms in Haiti.

14 Sep 2008

Effectiveness of Mediterranean diet confirmed for chronic disease prevention

It is effective in chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, hypertension or osteoporosis. Experts have insisted that it is possible to prevent 80% cardiovascular diseases and 40% different types of cancer through diet, physical exercise and other healthy habits. Scientists of the UGR are specifically analysing how cells react against aggressions which cause pancreatic alterations and result in cancer.

7 Sep 2008

Discovery of new genes for inflammatory bowel disease in children

Researchers have discovered two new genes that increase the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in childhood.

31 Aug 2008

Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale reports WHO's Commission

A child born in a Glasgow, Scotland suburb can expect a life 28 years shorter than another living only 13 kilometres away. A girl in Lesotho is likely to live 42 years less than another in Japan. In Sweden, the risk of a woman dying during pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 17 400; in Afghanistan, the odds are 1 in 8. Biology does not explain any of this. Instead, the differences between - and within - countries result from the social environment where people are born, live, grow, work and age.

28 Aug 2008

Coalition calls on Presidential candidates to develop national HIV/AIDS strategy

A coalition of more than 30 HIV/AIDS advocacy groups representing minority communities in the U.S. has called on presidential candidates Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to develop a comprehensive national strategy to fight HIV/AIDS, VOA News reports.

28 Aug 2008

Presidential candidates' positions on health and economic issues

A number of newspapers have recently looked at the presidential candidates' positions on health and economic issues, and how new figures on the number of uninsured Americans may play in the campaign.

26 Aug 2008

eHealth closer to reality thanks to real-time relevant medical data extraction

In the framework of Holst Centre, IMEC - Europe's leading independent nanoelectronics research institute - has broadened the functionality and scope of its wireless health monitoring technology by linking it to real-time extraction of relevant medical data.

20 Aug 2008

Psychological stress and how it might affect allergy sufferers

A new study here shows that even slight stress and anxiety can substantially worsen a person's allergic reaction to some routine allergens.

14 Aug 2008

Prostatectomy improves outcome of some men with prostate cancer over watchful waiting

Men with early prostate cancer who undergo radical prostatectomy have a lower rate of death due to prostate cancer than men who are followed without treatment, known as watchful waiting, according to a randomized controlled trial published in the August 12 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

12 Aug 2008

Presidential candidate Nader promotes single-payer health care plan

Presidential candidate Ralph Nader (I) on Thursday criticized the U.S.'s two-party political system, which he says has been beholden to corporate interests that are preventing residents from accessing health care through a universal health care system, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

3 Aug 2008

Study sheds light on why addiction is a chronic disease

Drug addiction dramatically shifts a person's attention, priorities, and behaviors towards a focus almost entirely on seeking out and taking drugs. Now, an animal study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, has identified some of the specific long-term adaptations in the brain's reward system that may contribute to this shift.

31 Jul 2008