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Smoking is No. 1 health concern for children and adolescents in the United States

It's only natural to for adults to worry about children's health and well-being at school, on the roads and even online.

4 May 2007

Master regulator for epithelial tissue regeneration found

The skin's ability to replace the tissue it sloughs off is controlled by a variety of genes.

4 May 2007

Tight diabetes control does not impact cognitive ability in type 1 diabetes

A study led by researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center provides good news for patients with type 1 diabetes who want to maintain tight blood glucose control and thus significantly reduce their risk of developing the devastating complications of the disease, heart disease, kidney failure, eye disease and blindness and nerve damage.

4 May 2007

Women from all ethnic backgrounds are more successful at passing UK medical exams than their male counterparts

Women from all ethnic backgrounds are more successful at passing UK medical exams than their male counterparts, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Medicine.

4 May 2007

New tool refines heart risk prediction

For about 10 years, the Framingham risk score has been used to estimate a person's chances of having a heart attack based on just six bits of information -- age, sex, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, smoking status, and systolic blood pressure.

2 May 2007

Efforts to standardize heart care are working

People who suffer a heart attack or severe chest pain today are much less likely to die, or to experience long-lasting effects, than their counterparts even a few years ago, according to a new international study in the May 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

2 May 2007

FDA announces new food protection post

Commissioner of Food and Drugs Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach today announced the creation of the position of Assistant Commissioner for Food Protection to provide advice and counsel to the Commissioner on strategic and substantive food safety and food defense matters.

2 May 2007

Why do some people get fat even when they eat relatively little?

What creates that irresistible urge for a bag of potato chips or a hunk of chocolate cake, as opposed to a nice crisp apple? Can food urges be irresistible?

2 May 2007

Adolescent risk inventory can help decrease teen risk behaviors

Research shows that adolescents who engage in one form of risky behavior, like drug or alcohol use, are likely to engage in other risky behaviors like self-harm, or having unprotected sex, but often times these behaviors are not discussed during a medical or mental health exam.

1 May 2007

Moderate coffee drinking reduces many risks

Although the American Society for Nutrition's popular ,controversy session, at Experimental Biology 2007 focuses on the health effects of coffee drinking, panel chair Dr. James Coughlin, a toxicology/safety consultant at Coughlin & Associates, says that recent advances in epidemiologic and experimental knowledge have transformed many of the negative health myths about coffee drinking into validated health benefits.

1 May 2007

Scientists find new way to analyze the moving parts of large proteins

Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University have discovered a new way to analyze the moving parts of large proteins , a breakthrough that will make it easier for structural biologists to classify and scrutinize the active sites of proteins implicated in cancer and other diseases.

1 May 2007

NEJM publishes perspective pieces responding to Supreme Court ruling federal abortion ban constitutional

The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday published three perspective pieces responding to the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling on Wednesday to reinstate a federal law banning so-called "partial-birth" abortion, overturning the rulings of three appeals courts.

30 Apr 2007

Scientists find last unknown enzyme in the synthesis of vitamin C in plants

Vitamin C is possibly the most important small molecule whose biosynthetic pathway remained a mystery.

30 Apr 2007

Schering-Plough announces European approval of new formulations of AERIUS (Desloratadine)

European Commission approves AERIUS Tablets (2.5 mg and 5 mg) and AERIUS Oral Solution (0.5 mg per 1ml).

30 Apr 2007

Green tea may help prevent bone destruction in arthritis

In rheumatoid arthritis, a person's own immune system attacks the joints by activating the synovial tissue that lines the body's movable joints, causing inflammation, swelling, pain and eventually erosion of the bone and cartilage and deformation of the joint.

30 Apr 2007

Scientists identify key mechanism for successfully transplanting tissue into the adult central nervous system

Scientists at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, have identified a key mechanism for successfully transplanting tissue into the adult central nervous system.

27 Apr 2007

New genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes

In the most comprehensive look at genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes to date, a U.S.-Finnish team, working in close collaboration with two other groups, has identified at least four new genetic variants associated with increased risk of diabetes and confirmed existence of another six.

27 Apr 2007

New mechanism identified for resistance to targeted lung cancer drugs

An international research team, led by investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), has found a new way that some lung tumors become resistant to treatment with targeted therapy drugs like Iressa and Tarceva.

27 Apr 2007

No evidence to support the use of Dan Shen for ischemic stroke

The herbal medicine Dan Shen, a standard treatment for ischemic stroke in China, lacks strong scientific evidence to support such use, according a new review of studies.

27 Apr 2007

Researchers find clear genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes

Scientists from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Lund University and Novartis have announced the discovery of three unsuspected regions of human DNA that contain clear genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and another that is associated with elevated blood triglycerides.

27 Apr 2007