Medicine News and Research

RSS

Compounds in cocoa may help decrease blood pressure

Compounds in cocoa may help to reduce blood pressure, according to a new systematic review in The Cochrane Library. The researchers reviewed evidence from short-term trials in which participants were given dark chocolate or cocoa powder daily and found that their blood pressure dropped slightly compared to a control group.

15 Aug 2012

Medicine brand choices: an interview with Dr Lynn Weekes

In Australia, people will only be offered a choice when the brands are bioequivalent, meaning they contain the same active ingredient (i.e. the chemical in the medicine that makes it work) and have been proven to work the same in the body.

15 Aug 2012

It’s a no brainer – sports clubs urged to know concussion signs

During Brain Injury Awareness Week (August 13-19) Sports Medicine Australia, the leading Australian sports medicine and science body, is calling on all sporting clubs to ensure their concussion management practices are up to scratch.

15 Aug 2012

These are the challenges in creating the health workforce of 2025

New technologies and tests, an ageing population, greater community expectations around healthcare – including those based on the easy availability of medical information and personal health records – are just some of the factors which will make the health workforce of 2025 look very different to the health workforce of today.

14 Aug 2012

Insurance status affects survival after cardiac event

Patients admitted to hospital with an acute cardiac event have higher rates of mortality if they are underinsured compared with those who have private insurance, show US study results.

14 Aug 2012

Abdominal pain duration influences appendicitis imaging diagnosis

Clinicians should not rely on ultrasonography for diagnosing pediatric appendicitis early in the course of illness, say US researchers.

14 Aug 2012

Schizophrenia and the immune system: an interview with Prof Cyndi Shannon Weickert

Schizophrenia is the most disabling disease impacting youth today. It impacts 1% of the total population and typically causes withdrawal from society, loss in IQ, disordered thought and speech, hallucinations and delusions.

14 Aug 2012

AstraZeneca enters agreement with Pfizer for OTC NEXIUM

Pfizer Inc. today announced that it has entered into an agreement with AstraZeneca for the over-the-counter (OTC) rights for NEXIUM (esomeprazole magnesium), a leading prescription drug currently approved to treat the symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

14 Aug 2012

Latrepiridine reduces level of at least two neurodegeneration-related proteins in mice

The second of two studies on latrepirdine, recently published in Molecular Psychiatry, demonstrates new potential for the compound in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, sleep disorders, and other neurodegenerative conditions.

14 Aug 2012

New type of medical imaging could help doctors spot tumors more quickly

Scientists from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Washington University in St. Louis have developed a new type of medical imaging that gives doctors a new look at live internal organs.

14 Aug 2012

Mayo Clinic's Individualizing Medicine Conference to be held from Oct. 1-3

Mayo Clinic's Individualizing Medicine Conference, scheduled for Oct. 1-3, will draw experts from around the world to discuss the use of genomics in patient care. Physicians and researchers in this rapidly growing field are building a new type of medicine based on the genomic and molecular interactions that make each patient unique.

14 Aug 2012

Antisense therapy shows promise in treating toxoplasmosis

A targeted approach to treating toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease, shows early promise in test-tube and animal studies, where it prevented the parasites from making selected proteins. When tested in newly infected mice, it reduced the number of viable parasites by more than 90 percent, researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

14 Aug 2012

Researchers identify key element in the development of Burkitt lymphoma

Burkitt lymphoma is a malignant, fast-growing tumor that originates from a subtype of white blood cells called B lymphocytes of the immune system and often affects internal organs and the central nervous system. Now Dr. Sandrine Sander and Professor Klaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbr-ck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have identified a key element that transforms the immune cells into malignant lymphoma cells.

14 Aug 2012

Targeting elevated HLX gene expression may treat acute myeloid leukemia

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have made a discovery involving mice and humans that could mean that people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare and usually fatal cancer, are a step closer to new treatment options. Their study results were published online today in Cancer Cell.

14 Aug 2012

Novel method identifies new oncogene that contributes to development of cancer

A team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, led by Dr. Mark W. Jackson, have developed a novel method to identify genes that, when overexpressed, make normal cells behave like cancer cells.

14 Aug 2012

Study: Diabetes drugs increase patients' risk of bladder cancer

A popular class of diabetes drugs increases patients' risk of bladder cancer, according to a new study published online this month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

14 Aug 2012

Gadd45a protein plays a key role in skeletal muscle atrophy

Whether you're old, have been ill, or suffered an injury, you've watched gloomily as your muscles have atrophied. The deterioration of muscle-even slight or gradual-is about as common to the human condition as breathing.

14 Aug 2012

Eating egg yolks accelerates atherosclerosis in a manner similar to smoking

Newly published research led by Dr. David Spence of Western University, Canada, shows that eating egg yolks accelerates atherosclerosis in a manner similar to smoking cigarettes.

14 Aug 2012

BUSM part of Transthyretin Amyloidosis Cardiac Study

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have been part of a multicenter observational study called TRACS (Transthyretin Amyloidosis Cardiac Study) to help determine the health significance of a particular gene mutation which is commonly found in Black Americans.

14 Aug 2012

Springer to publish book series in cooperation with The Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Springer will publish a series of books in cooperation with The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) starting in 2013. Four books will be published annually, and will be included in the Springer series Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology.

14 Aug 2012