All Stories by Nathan Seppa
- Health & Medicine
Hidden Damage: Parkinson’s harm to nerves in heart may explain dizziness and fainting
Parkinson's disease patients have damaged nerve endings in the heart, kidneys, and thyroid gland, suggesting the disease harms the autonomic nervous system that regulates involuntary functions of these and other organs and glands.
- Health & Medicine
Risk Factor: Genetic defect hikes breast cancer threat
A mutation already linked to several types of cancer doubles the risk of breast cancer in a woman and multiplies men's slight risk of the disease even more dramatically.
- Health & Medicine
Cardiac Culprit: Autopsies implicate C-reactive protein in fatal heart attacks
Of people who died suddenly, those who succumbed to a heart attack had an abundance of the inflammation indicator C-reactive protein in the blood, even though few had had outward signs of heart problems.
- Health & Medicine
Drug for dry mouth may prevent lung cancer
A drug prescribed for a condition called dry mouth stymies formation of precancerous lung lesions in cigarette smokers.
- Health & Medicine
Gene mutation tied to lung cancer
Scientists have identified a gene, dubbed LKB1/STK11, that is often mutated in people with a particularly deadly form of lung cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Compound attacks pancreatic cancer
A protein fragment dubbed NK4 can stall the development of pancreatic cancer in mice.
- Health & Medicine
St. John’s wort hinders cancer drug
The herbal remedy St. John's wort can interfere with the effectiveness of the anticancer drug irinotecan.
- Health & Medicine
Pulse pressure linked to dialysis death rate
People on kidney dialysis who have high pulse pressure—the difference between the top and bottom numbers on a blood pressure reading—seem to be at a greater risk of dying than those with low pulse pressure.
- Health & Medicine
Clotting protein hinders nerve repair
A blood-clotting protein called fibrin seems to exacerbate the regrowth problems that plague severed nerves.
- Health & Medicine
Researchers find how rhubarb remedy eases cholera
Researchers in Japan have identified a natural compound responsible for the effectiveness of one rhubarb-based remedy to combat the overwhelming diarrhea that comes with cholera.
- Health & Medicine
Brave New Drug: Compound stops cowpox and smallpox viruses
A new drug called HDP-CDV stops smallpox virus from replicating in lab tests and cowpox virus from replicating in mice, suggesting it could work as a treatment for smallpox in people.
- Health & Medicine
Clot busters may put elderly people at risk
Very elderly people who get clot-dissolving drugs immediately after a heart attack are more likely to die during their hospital stay than similar-age patients who don't get them.
