News Medical's "Thought Leaders" series is a selection of articles written by national and
international experts and trusted advisers in health and medicine. All the articles are
written by experts who have been invited as recognised leaders in their fields to provide
a "state of the art" contribution.
Human papillomavirus is a virus that is transmitted through sexual contact. In most cases the virus is transient and causes no harm, however in some cases it can go on to cause pre-cancer lesions and cervical cancer.
Premature babies are born during their third trimester and they are vulnerable to having brain bleeds because their brains are not completely developed. There are some fragile blood vessels that are present in every developing infant, but when the babies are born early, these blood vessels can be subject to changes in blood pressure and changes in breathing patterns and, due to their fragility, they can develop a hemorrhage.
We know that vitamin D is important in keeping bones strong. In the last 30-40 years it has also been realized that vitamin D has a lot of other roles in the body. Vitamin D essentially has a role in any cell in the body that has a vitamin D receptor.
Home care agencies, like all health providers, have only a matter of days to prepare for a specific weather event like Hurricane Sandy. However, disaster preparedness planning is a core function of home care service providers.
A stroke is a sudden interruption of blood flow to the brain which deprives the brain of oxygen and nutrients. Approximately two millions brain cells die each minute during a stroke. This can lead to brain damage, physical and mental disability and death.
Vitamin D is actually a hormone. For the most part, humans obtain vitamin D through sun exposure. Ultraviolet light from the sun promotes the conversion of a compound in the skin to pre-vitamin D.
Peripheral intravenous catheters (“IV drips”) are small plastic tubes inserted into veins, most frequently in the hand or arm.
Allergies occur when the body overreacts to substances in our environment, such as pollen, dust mites and so forth. What happens is that when we are exposed to these potential threats, the immune system should react, deal with it, and then shut down.
In 2009, a new strain of influenza, or flu, virus emerged and spread rapidly to many countries around the world. It was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June 2009.
Thin-ideal internalization is the extent to which a person identifies with the cultural ideal that thinness is equivalent to attractiveness.
Mephedrone is a fairly new designer drug which has been around for a few years. It exploded in popularity in Europe (and particularly in the UK) before it started to spread in a major way elsewhere.
Cannabis has both physical and behavioural effects. People using cannabis can experience feelings of euphoria (well-being), hunger, sleepiness, problems with motor coordination, and sometimes feelings of anxiety and paranoia.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the body does not make sufficient insulin or the insulin it makes doesn’t work sufficiently well to maintain a normal level of blood glucose and so the blood glucose rises.
UV radiation is a form of energy being transmitted. Sunlight is main source of UV radiation, although manmade sources also exist, such as the lamps used in sunbeds. At the earth’s surface sunlight consists of approximately 2 percent UV light, 47 percent visible light and 51 percent IR light.
Working with individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) every day, I see the debilitating effects and long-term struggles firsthand.
For a long time there was a controversy about how anesthetics work. The large number of molecules that have anesthetic properties (from benzodiazepines to nitrous oxide) and their very different structures...
Bone marrow transplant (also called stem cell transplant) is a medical intervention that allows a physician to deliver very high doses of chemotherapy (if needed) but more importantly, deliver a new immune system to the patient to fight a disease (such as cancer).
According to the National Cancer Institute, almost 70,000 people ages 15-39 are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States. Cancers in this adolescent and young adult (AYA) population differ quite a bit across this age span.
“Self-harm” is the term used in the UK, much of Europe and elsewhere, to describe intentional self-poisoning or self-injury. Thus it includes overdoses, attempted hanging, self-cutting etc.
There are very few published estimates describing the number of deaths following surgery at a national level and none at an international level.