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$78 billion spent for heart disease care in 2006

Opening blocked arteries, trying to keep heart attack victims alive, fixing defective heart valves, and treating other heart ailments cost $78 billion in 2006 - roughly 8 percent of the more than $1 trillion spent on all medical care for the community population, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

30 Mar 2009

The spread of drug resistant HIV-1

Drug-resistant forms of HIV can be spread between individuals who have not received anti-retroviral treatment, according to Professor Deenan Pillay from University College, London and the Health Protection Agency, speaking at the Society for General Microbiology meeting at Harrogate.

30 Mar 2009

Tea tree oil and silver effective in treating skin infections

In the fight against infected skin wounds, mixing tea tree oil and silver or putting them in liposomes, (small spheres made from natural lipids), greatly increases their antimicrobial activity and may minimise any side effects.

30 Mar 2009

Researchers find direct link between oxidative stress and inflammatory signals in the blood

The finding could lead to improved strategies for preventing several diseases by including antioxidants in the diet and for reducing the impact of inflammation in critically ill patients by adding cysteine to intravenous or tube feeding.

30 Mar 2009

Targeted drug therapy prevents exercise-induced arrhythmias

A 12-year-old Dutch boy - bedridden for three years because of an inherited cardiac arrhythmia syndrome - can now join his friends on the soccer field thanks to a discovery made by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers.

30 Mar 2009

War wounded at risk for superbugs

Soldiers who survive severe injuries on battlefields such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan can be at risk from developing infections of their wounds with multidrug resistant bacteria.

30 Mar 2009

Increased awareness and diagnosis of celiac disease would bring health care costs savings

A study published in Journal of Insurance Medicine by members of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center has demonstrated an economic benefit to the diagnosis of celiac disease in a national managed-care population in the United States.

30 Mar 2009

Slow-growing tuberculosis bacteria point the way to new drug development

The discovery of a large number of slow-growing Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which cause tuberculosis (TB), in the lungs of TB patients could be an important step forward in the design of new anti-TB drugs.

30 Mar 2009

Discovery of new tumor suppressor gene

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have identified a gene that suppresses tumor growth in melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

30 Mar 2009

Corthera's Relaxin in acute heart failure shows promising results

Corthera Inc. has announced that results from Pre-RELAX-AHF, the Phase II portion of a Phase II/III multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled international study, demonstrated promising efficacy and safety for relaxin, the company's investigational drug for treatment of acute heart failure (AHF).

30 Mar 2009

Possible new way to stop cancer from spreading

Based on research that reveals new insight into mechanisms that allow invasive tumor cells to move, researchers at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida have a new understanding about how to stop cancer from spreading.

30 Mar 2009

Drug-coated stents lower risk of heart attack and death

Heart disease patients 65 and older who receive stents coated with medicine to prevent blockages are more likely to survive and less likely to suffer a heart attack than people fitted with stents not coated with medication, according to a new study supported by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the American College of Cardiology's National Cardiovascular Data Registry.

30 Mar 2009

Angiogenesis inhibitor improves glioblastoma survival by reducing edema

The beneficial effects of anti-angiogenesis drugs in the treatment of the deadly brain tumors called glioblastomas appear to result primarily from reduction of edema - the swelling of brain tissue - and not from any direct anti-tumor effect, according to a study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers.

30 Mar 2009

Researchers examine relationship between multiple births and maternal depressive symptoms

Mothers of multiples have 43 percent increased odds of having moderate to severe depressive symptoms nine months after giving birth compared to mothers of single-born children, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

30 Mar 2009

Gene linked to lupus might explain why females are 10 times more susceptible to the disease

In an international human genetic study, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a gene linked to the autoimmune disease lupus, and its location on the X chromosome might help explain why females are 10 times more susceptible to the disease than males

30 Mar 2009

Childhood obesity may begin in early infancy

As childhood obesity continues its thirty-year advance from occasional curiosity to cultural epidemic, health care providers are struggling to find out why-and the reasons are many. Increasingly sedentary environments for both adults and children, as well as cheap and ubiquitous processed foods no doubt play a role, but researchers are finding more evidence that the first clues for childhood obesity may begin as far back as early infancy.

30 Mar 2009

Male circumcision reduces men's risk of contracting HPV, herpes, study says

Male circumcision can reduce a man's risk of contracting the sexually transmitted infections human papillomavirus and herpes, according to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Wall Street Journal reports.

30 Mar 2009

Cepheid announces new TB test for use in developing countries

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company Cepheid on Tuesday announced it has developed a rapid diagnostic test for tuberculosis that it will sell at a reduced cost in developing countries, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The test was developed in partnership with the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

30 Mar 2009

Tanzania hopes to eradicate Malaria by 2015, health official says following release of global malaria map

The Tanzanian government has expressed hope that the country will be able to eradicate malaria by 2015, Aisha Kigoda, deputy minister for health and social welfare, said Tuesday following the release of a global malaria map that identifies areas at high risk of malaria, the Guardian/IPP Media reports.

30 Mar 2009

$44 billion needed by 2015 to control TB, health officials say at close of stop TB partnership forum

About 1,300 health officials on Wednesday at the close of the 3rd Stop TB Partnership Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said that $44 billion is "needed from now until 2015 to reach" World Health Organization targets aimed at controlling the disease in the 22 countries with the highest TB burden worldwide, AFP/Google.com reports.

30 Mar 2009