Health & Medicine
- Health & Medicine
Acrylamide—From Spuds to Gingerbread
Just in time for the holiday season, the Bavarian Ministry of Health reports finding extremely high concentrations of acrylamide—a chemical that causes cancer in rats—in gingerbread. German chemists turned up acrylamide in a favorite holiday treat: gingerbread. Whether baked at home or fried at a restaurant, all hot-potato products cooked up substantial quantitites of acrylamide. […]
- Health & Medicine
Male Pill on the Horizon: Drug disables mouse sperm but wears off quickly
A new oral drug created to ease a genetic disorder could have contraceptive benefits.
- Health & Medicine
First-Line Treatment: Chronic-leukemia drug clears a big hurdle
In its first large-scale test on newly diagnosed leukemia patients, the drug imatinib—also called Gleevec and STI-571—stopped or reversed the disease in nearly all patients receiving it.
- Health & Medicine
Visionary science for the intestine
A tiny disposable flash camera that a person swallows can detect problems in the small intestine.
- Health & Medicine
Bone scan reveals estrogen effects
Using a scanning technology called microcomputerized tomography, scientists have a new way to look at the difference between bone exposed to estrogen and bone deprived of it.
- Health & Medicine
Common antibiotic may cure river blindness
Tests in cows suggest that tetracycline might kill the tiny worm that spreads river blindness, a disease that infects about 18 million people.
- Health & Medicine
Imaging Parkinson’s
A new brain-imaging technique can supply proof of Parkinson's disease in people whose symptoms fall short of the standard definition of the disease.
- Health & Medicine
Zapping bone brings relief from tumor pain
By unleashing radio waves inside bone, researchers have stopped intractable pain in people with cancer that has spread to their skeletons.
- Health & Medicine
Bilirubin: Both villain and hero?
Bilirubin, which causes jaundice in newborns, may protect against cellular damage.
- 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
An alternate approach to Parkinson’s
While levodopa is the treatment of choice for Parkinson's disease, drugs called dopamine agonists, which mimic the neurotransmitter dopamine, may work as well early in the disease, cause fewer side effects, and preserve levodopa's effectiveness.
- Health & Medicine
Bypass surgery in elderly works fine
Coronary bypass surgery works as well in people over age 75 as it does in people 15 years younger.
