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Patients with severe asthma benefit from injections of the antibody, mepolizumab

McMaster University researchers have found patients with a very severe asthma benefit from injections of the antibody, mepolizumab.

4 Mar 2009

Naked mole rats may hold clues to successful aging

Naked mole rats resemble pink, wrinkly, saber-toothed sausages and would never win a beauty contest, even among other rodents.

4 Mar 2009

Off-label drug uses wasting millions, raising health risks

A recent study in Oregon suggests that drugs designed for treating the most severe mental illnesses are often prescribed at inappropriately low doses and at considerable expense, for use in conditions where their benefit has not been established.

4 Mar 2009

Majority of drug addicted men admit they consume drugs to increase their sexual pleasure

72.28 per cent of drug addict men admit to have consumed drugs to be able to have sexual relations and most of them (58%) choose cocaine to this purpose, the narcotic which increases the most sexual incapacitation.

4 Mar 2009

Advocates in Mexico call for greater effort against HIV/AIDS

AIDS-related mortality rates in Mexico have remained somewhat steady over the past 12 years, despite increased access to antiretroviral drugs in the country, officials at the National Institute of Public Health, or INSP, said recently, The News/Individual.com reports.

4 Mar 2009

World Food Program expands program for HIV-positive people in Rwanda

The World Food Programme recently expanded a project in Rwanda that provides food to HIV-positive people taking antiretroviral drugs, adding 10,000 participants and increasing the number of project sites from 61 to 138 across 18 districts in the country, the New Times/AllAfrica.com reports.

4 Mar 2009

Scientists create HIV strain that can infect monkeys

Scientists have created a strain of HIV that is able to infect and multiply in monkeys, leading to the possibility that researchers would be able to test HIV/AIDS drugs and vaccines in monkeys before testing them in humans, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Reuters UK reports.

4 Mar 2009

Increasing risk of HIV among seniors

People ages 50 and older are more likely to have unprotected sex than younger groups, increasing their risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, according to a recently released World Health Organization study, Reuters UK reports.

4 Mar 2009

Generic biologics face 'tough, long road to realization'

The development of new generic versions of expensive biologic drugs "faces a long, tough road to realization" because the complex generics "will likely face tough regulatory scrutiny, as well as high development and marketing costs," the Wall Street Journal reports.

4 Mar 2009

Sen. Baucus hopes to introduce comprehensive health reform legislation this summer

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Tuesday said enacting comprehensive health reform this year is his "top priority," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

4 Mar 2009

Hair helps predicts HIV antiretroviral treatment success

UCSF researchers have found that examining levels of antiretroviral drugs in hair samples taken from HIV patients on therapy strongly predicts treatment success.

3 Mar 2009

Faulty signalling in the brain may cause schizophrenia

In the biggest study of its kind, scientists looking in detail at brain samples donated by people with the condition have identified 49 genes that work differently in the brains of schizophrenia patients compared to controls.

3 Mar 2009

Opioid antagonists help pain management

Achieving effective, durable, and safe pain relief, especially in patients with chronic and/or severe pain conditions, can be difficult.

3 Mar 2009

Research looks at protective effects of acupuncture against NSAID-induced ulceration in a rat model

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used as anti-inflammatory and analgesic agents.

3 Mar 2009

Drugs that act on 'fasting signal' may curb insulin resistance in obese

A report in the March issue of Cell Metabolism , a Cell Press publication, has found that a signal known to play a role during fasting also switches on early in the fat tissue of obese mice as they progress toward type 2 diabetes.

3 Mar 2009

Angiogenesis inhibitors, study points to limitations, solutions

A new generation of cancer drugs designed to starve tumors of their blood supply - called "angiogenesis inhibitors"-succeeds at first, but then promotes more invasive cancer growth-sometimes with a higher incidence of metastases, according to a new study in animals.

2 Mar 2009

Influenza A's resistance to drug Tamiflu increasing

Influenza A viruses (H1N1 subtype) that are resistant to the drug oseltamivir circulated widely in the U.S. during the 2007-2008 influenza season, with an even higher prevalence of drug resistance during the current 2008-2009 influenza season, according to a study to be published in the March 11 issue of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

2 Mar 2009

A new monkey model for HIV

By altering just one gene in HIV-1, scientists have succeeded in infecting pig-tailed macaque monkeys with a human version of the virus that has until now been impossible to study directly in animals.

2 Mar 2009

New treatment target for chronic abdominal pain

High levels of a protein linked to the way pain signals are sent to the brain led to a decrease in abdominal pain in a recent study in mice.

2 Mar 2009

Researchers discover gene variation linked to cocaine addiction and cocaine-induced paranoia

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Yale University School of Medicine and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, have discovered that variants in the á-endomannosidase (MANEA) gene are associated with cocaine addiction and cocaine-induced paranoia in European American and African American populations.

2 Mar 2009