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The typical Western diet tends to have a high glycemic index. High glycemic index foods are e.g. white bread, processed cereals, snacks, cakes and deserts, sweets and also instant foods like burgers and fried chicken.
The death rates of individual heart surgeons have been published in England and several US states for some years. A high profile investigation into high death rates at a certain cardiac centre motivated this in England. For other surgery types, death rates have been reported only at the hospital or trust level. NHS England’s “Everyone Counts” policy, introduced this Summer, means that outcomes of ten types of surgery will be reported at the individual surgeon level.
Osteoarthritis is an extremely common condition affecting about 8 million people in the UK. The elderly are particularly susceptible, with up to 45% of people over 65 years, having the disease.
Stillbirth, the birth of a baby who shows no sign of life after 24 completed weeks of pregnancy, occurs in 1 in every 200 pregnancies in the United Kingdom. That’s roughly 10 bereaved families a day.
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder, which affects the frontal and temporal lobes. Unlike other types of dementia, it more commonly occurs in individuals in their 50s and 60s, and is therefore referred to as a “younger-onset dementia”.
High mobility group A genes are highly expressed in all aggressive cancers studied to date. These genes encode the high mobility group A (HMGA) proteins. In other words, these genes provide the genetic “code” necessary to produce HMGA proteins.
Mitosis is the process by which a cell gives rise to two daughter cells. It’s the basis behind the growth of the human body, the renewal of the human body as it ages, and unfortunately, the growth of cancers.
We used 6 hours or less per 24 hours as the definition of insufficient sleep, with 7 hours or more as sufficient sleep. In general, this is considered the amount of sleep that is sufficient for adults, although there can be differences between persons with respect to the amount of sleep needed.
Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death among Hispanic/ Latino adults living in the US and this population is known to have high rates of obesity and diabetes.
Cancer immunotherapy aims to recruit a patient’s immune system to recognize cancer as foreign and dangerous and to remove it from the body, as it would an infection.
Pain is defined by the sufferer’s experience. Pain may be severe because it is intense, frequent or sustained, and because it is distressing. The severity of pain is not simply due to what is going on in the joint, but is also affected by how the body processes the pain signals, and the context in which it is experienced.
The USPSTF agreed with the CDC that since most patients (75%) who are currently infected with hepatitis C were born between 1945 - 1965, and since risk-based screening has not been successful in identifying these individuals, that a one time age-based hepatitis C blood test was necessary.
Gout is a relatively common arthritic disease that affects about 4% (I in 25) of the population. It results from the deposition of uric acid in joints due to elevated blood levels and a resulting inflammation ensues which is very painful.
Back in the early 1960s, just before chemotherapy really started to be used, only about 30% of children survived cancer. That was mainly because they had cancers that were amenable to surgery.
P53 is a tumor suppressor gene. The gene encodes for a protein that monitors the state of the cell. If something goes wrong, it stops the cell from dividing or causes the cell to commit suicide. I call it the “guardian of the genome” as it is the molecule that seems to keep cells normal. It is one of our big defenses against cancer.
Filariasis refers to a group of diseases caused by parasitic worms, which are transmitted by blood feeding insects. Two species infect the lymphatic and blood systems causing lymphatic filariasis, which in some people can lead to gross swelling of the limbs and 'elephantiasis'.
We classified ‘long-term’ cannabis use as being regular, at least weekly, cannabis use for over 12 months. This is the period of time that’s used in the DSM-IV psychiatric diagnostic manual to classify substance use disorders. In our study the average duration of at least weekly use was just over four and a half years.
As surgeons who take care of cancer patients, we have observed a troubling association between patients who suffer from infections after surgery and the rapid spread of their cancer. We have reported this in lung cancer patients, and others have made these observations in a variety of different cancers. However, the mechanisms responsible for this association are still poorly understood.
We wanted to do something a bit different than the “typical” work on caffeine and exercise, and I have considerable interest in appetite regulation, so we built up from there.
Regular pregnancy tests work a little bit like a simple light switch that you have on your wall. It’s either on or off. When it’s on, that means the test is positive; if it’s off, obviously, it’s negative.