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Bacteria's sticky glue is clue to vaccine says scientist

Sticky glue secreted by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus could be the clue scientists have been searching for to make an effective vaccine against MRSA, medical researchers heard today (Wednesday 10 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin.

9 Sep 2008

Top ANZ medical body says trainee doctors need more clinical training places

The top organisation which represents university medical schools in Australia and New Zealand has issued a stark warning regarding healthcare in Australia.

9 Sep 2008

Children born prematurely are four times more likely to have behavioural disorders

Children born prematurely are four times more likely to have emotional problems or behavioural disorders, according to research led by the University of Warwick.

8 Sep 2008

Bullying parents' top concern for obese kids

As the new school year begins, many parents with overweight and obese children are worried about how their kids will be treated by other students on the playground and in the classroom.

8 Sep 2008

Binge drinking women often engage in risky sex

According to new research from the U.S., women who binge drink are more likely to indulge in unsafe sex.

8 Sep 2008

Migraine with aura may be linked to increased risk of stroke and heart attacks

Doctors need to pay special attention to people with migraine with aura as they could be at increased risk of stroke or heart attack, a London conference heard Friday 5 September.

7 Sep 2008

Computerized reminder system drove up colon cancer screening rates

A computerized reminder system used in community-based primary care doctors' offices increased colorectal cancer screening rates by an average of 9 percent, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Health System.

7 Sep 2008

Monitoring immune responses in disease

A recent study published in Clinical Immunology, the official journal of the Clinical Immunology Society (CIS), describes a new method enabling the detection of multiple parameters of single human cells.

3 Sep 2008

Mom's depression, baby's sleep linked?

If there's one thing that everyone knows about newborn babies, it's that they don't sleep through the night, and neither do their parents. But in fact, those first six months of life are crucial to developing the regular sleeping and waking patterns, known as circadian rhythms, that a child will need for a healthy future.

2 Sep 2008

Sex differences found in response to common antidepressant

Women with depression may be much more likely than men to get relief from a commonly used, inexpensive antidepressant drug, a new national study finds. But many members of both sexes may find that it helps ease their depression symptoms.

31 Aug 2008

Transformation of ordinary cells into insulin-makers improves symptoms of diabetes

Scientists in the U.S. have successfully transformed ordinary cells into insulin-producing cells in a living mouse and thereby improved the symptoms of diabetes.

28 Aug 2008

Stanford University to limit pharmaceutical industry financing of CME

Stanford University officials on Tuesday plan to announce a new policy under which pharmaceutical and medical device companies no longer will have the ability to select continuing medical education courses that they seek to finance for physicians at the university's School of Medicine, the New York Times reports.

26 Aug 2008

Stanford Medical School severely restricts industry funding of continuing education for physicians

The Stanford University School of Medicine will no longer accept support from pharmaceutical or device companies for specific programs in continuing medical education, as industry-directed funding may compromise the integrity of these education programs for practicing physicians, officials said.

26 Aug 2008

Aggressive treatment regimens can successfully treat XDR-TB, MDR-TB

Aggressive treatment regimens successfully can treat nearly half of patients with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis and can help prevent multi-drug resistant TB from developing into XDR-TB, according to a study conducted in prisons in Tomsk, Russia, and published Monday in the journal Lancet, Reuters reports. XDR-TB is resistant to the two most potent first-line treatments and at least two of the classes of second-line drugs.

26 Aug 2008

Obesity in elderly creating a ticking time bomb for health services in developed countries

Research carried out at the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England has discovered that obesity in later life does not make a substantial difference to risks of death among older people but that it is a major contributor to increased disability in later life - creating a ticking time bomb for health services in developed countries.

21 Aug 2008

Brown fat points to new ways to fight obesity

A surprise discovery -- that calorie-burning brown fat can be produced experimentally from muscle precursor cells in mice -- raises the prospect of new ways to fight obesity and overweight, say scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

20 Aug 2008

Low-level exposure cadmium linked to emphysema

New research suggests that cadmium is one of the critical ingredients causing emphysema, and even low-level exposure attained through second-hand smoke and other means may also increase the chance of developing lung disease.

20 Aug 2008

Rifamycin antibiotics attack tuberculosis bacteria with walls, not signals

Amid concerns about the rising number of new tuberculosis cases worldwide, researchers led by Rockefeller University's Seth A. Darst have reexamined and disproved a theory that describes how a potent class of antibiotics kills a deadly form of bacteria. The findings, which will appear in this week's online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, not only bring scientists closer to understanding how these antibiotics work but also how the bacteria become resistant to their effects.

19 Aug 2008

Boys more likely to grow out of asthma

According to researchers in the U.S. boys are more likely than girls to grow out of childhood asthma when they reach their teenage years.

19 Aug 2008

Stanford develop method to overcome multiple drug resistant diseases

Many drugs once considered Charles Atlases of the pharmaceutical realm have been reduced to the therapeutic equivalent of 97-pound weaklings as the diseases they once dispatched with ease have developed resistance to them.

18 Aug 2008