Health & Medicine

Health & Medicine

Chocolate Hearts

Preliminary studies indicate that moderate consumption of chocolate products may offer cardiovascular benefits.

Health & Medicine

Olfactory cells aid spine healing in rats

Injections of olfactory ensheathing glial cells from the brain help severed spinal cords heal in rats.

Health & Medicine

Conquering Surgical Pain

Created by the Neurosurgical Service at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), these fascinating Web pages chronicle the introduction of ether as an anesthetic in 1846 at MGH and subsequent developments in anesthesiology. Go to: http://neurosurgery.mgh.harvard.edu/History/ether1.htm

Health & Medicine

Chocolate Therapies (with Recipe for Janet’s Chocolate Medicinal Mousse Pie)

Recently harvested cacao pods. Each holds several dozen seeds, from which chocolate and cocoa are made. (Allen M. Young) Copy of 1688 engraving by Phillippe Sylvestre Dufour of South American native with a chocolate pot and drinking cup at his feet and a molinet to stir the medicinal brew in his left hand. In his […]

Health & Medicine

Is Snoring a DiZZZease?

Snoring may trigger high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease or stroke.

Health & Medicine

HIV sexual spread exploits immune sentinels

The virus that causes AIDS latches onto a protein called DC-SIGN to hitch a ride on immune cells in mucus membranes and spread through the body.

Health & Medicine

Cell transplants combat diabetes in mice

Scientists have successfully reversed diabetes in mice by harvesting immature pancreatic cells that make insulin from one mouse, growing them in culture, and transplanting them into a mouse with the disease, which then recedes.

Health & Medicine

Smoking Gun? Mouse tests link nicotine to crib death

Nicotine may impair a molecule that's necessary for arousing people and other animals from sleep, an effect that could account for the heightened risk of sudden infant death syndrome in babies born to women who smoked during pregnancy.

Health & Medicine

Targeted Therapies

Tailoring prescriptions based on a person's genes may help reduce side effects and allow the development of more personalized medicine.

Health & Medicine

Protein flags colon, prostate cancers

A compound first identified as a possible culprit in Huntington's disease may be an indicator of cancers of the prostate gland and colon.

Health & Medicine

Antibodies fight Ebola virus in mouse test

Specially designed antibodies can thwart Ebola virus in mice by binding to a glycoprotein on the surface of virus-infected cells, suggesting a potential treatment for the lethal disease.

Health & Medicine

Fused cells hold promise of cancer vaccines

A vaccine composed of tumor cells fused to immune cells has helped several people survive advanced kidney cancer.