All Stories by Nathan Seppa
- Health & Medicine
Pancreatic enzymes may play role in shock
Pancreatic enzymes used for digestion may cause shock when they leach out of the small intestine and form a substance that activates white blood cells.
- Health & Medicine
Novel diabetes strain has rapid onset
Japanese researchers have confirmed that some patients with type 1 diabetes have a novel form of the disease that's not caused by immune cells attacking the pancreas.
- Health & Medicine
New Compounds Inhibit HIV in Lab
Two new compounds uncovered by pharmaceutical scientists block integrase, an enzyme essential to the replication cycle of the virus that causes AIDS.
- Health & Medicine
Poor glucose metabolism risks clots
Excess concentrations of insulin in the blood may hamper the body's ability to break down blood clots efficiently.
- Health & Medicine
Impotence high after prostate removal
Roughly 60 percent of men who have a cancerous prostate gland removed are subsequently impotent.
- Health & Medicine
Oxygen limits infections from surgery
Giving patients extra oxygen during and shortly after colorectal surgery halves the incidence of infection.
- Health & Medicine
Nerve cells of ALS patients harbor virus
Fragments of viral genetic material show up with unusually high frequency in nerve tissue of patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, suggesting a link between the virus and this lethal illness.
- Health & Medicine
Glutamate glut linked to multiple sclerosis
The chemical glutamate can overwhelm nervous-system cells called oligodendrocytes, adding to the nerve damage caused by wayward immune cells in multiple sclerosis.
- Health & Medicine
Hysterectomy often improves sex life
A study of more than 1,000 women who had hysterectomies finds that after the operation, women generally wanted and had sex more often, were more likely to reach orgasm, experienced less vaginal dryness, and were less likely to have pain during sex than was the case before surgery.
- Health & Medicine
Operation overload: Kids’ backpacks
Sixth-graders in Italy routinely carry school backpacks that equal, on average, 22 percent of their body weight, a finding researchers link to an earlier report that more than 60 percent of children in this age group had experienced low-back pain more than once.
- Health & Medicine
Stem cells repair rat spinal cord damage
Using embryonic stem cells from mice, researchers restored some movement in paralyzed rats that had undergone a crippling spinal injury.
