All Stories by Damaris Christensen
- Health & Medicine
Dietary Dilemmas
Low-carbohydrate diets, such as the Atkins diet, could be more effective for weight loss than low-fat diets are.
- Health & Medicine
Getting the Bugs Out of Blood
Researchers are developing methods for inactivating all sorts of pathogens that could be found in blood, including West Nile virus, an emerging infection recently brought to the United States from Africa.
- Health & Medicine
In Silico Medicine
Medical researchers are increasingly turning to computer simulations to help them understand the complexity of living systems, design better drugs, and treat patients more effectively.
- Health & Medicine
Keeping the beat
Muscle cells taken from embryonic rats and put into an adult rat's heart can transmit the electric signals that govern the heartbeat.
- Tech
Robotic heart surgery
By using robotic rather than conventional open-heart techniques, doctors can perform heart surgery with smaller incisions, giving patients less pain and speeding recovery.
- Health & Medicine
Cycling and surgery have similar effect
Among people with chest pain because of clogged heart arteries, regular exercise on a stationary bike reduced symptoms better than surgery did.
- Health & Medicine
A hot new therapy?
Spending time in a sauna improves heart function in people with chronic heart failure.
- Health & Medicine
Duct tape sticks it to warts
Treating a wart with a covering of duct tape seems to be more effective—and less painful—than removing the wart by freezing it with liquid nitrogen.
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- Health & Medicine
Old Drug, New Uses?
A hormone called erythropoietin, long used to treat anemia, also seems to protect against nerve damage and holds promise as a new therapy for stroke and spinal cord injury.
- Health & Medicine
Stressing out
A gene variant reduces people's response to the stress hormone cortisol, and people with the variant are less likely to have risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Lingering legacy of Sept. 11, 2001, on firefighters’ health
Of the New York firefighters involved in the rescue and recovery effort after last year's terrorist attacks, relatively few have developed chronic coughs and respiratory problems, but among those who did, the problems seem unusually severe.
