Health & Medicine
- Health & Medicine
Too Much of a Good Thing: Excess vitamin A may hike bone-fracture rate
Dietary studies suggest that people who consume large amounts of vitamin A in foods or multivitamins are more likely to suffer hip fractures than are people who ingest modest amounts.
- Health & Medicine
Do liver stem cells come from bone marrow?
Tests of liver tissue from people who've received liver or blood-marrow transplants show that stem cells in bone marrow can populate the liver as liver cells.
- 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
C-Minus—The Fallout of Parents’ Smoking
Children who live with smokers may need more oranges and other rich sources of vitamin C, a new study concludes. It finds that exposure to even a little secondhand smoke significantly depresses concentrations of this important vitamin. Oranges are usually the first food that most people think of when asked to name sources of vitamin […]
- Health & Medicine
Blood-Clot Surprise: Finding might explain a danger of Viagra
An amendment to the blood-clotting pathway might link Viagra to heart attacks in some users.
- Health & Medicine
Nifty Spittle: Compound in bat saliva may aid stroke patients
An anticlotting molecule in the saliva of vampire bats combats strokelike brain damage in mice.
- Health & Medicine
Herbal Activity
The Alternative Medicine Foundation offers a searchable database that provides scientific and general information about the biochemical activity of a variety of herbs, from Achillea (Yarrow) to Ziziphus (Jujube). The entry for each herb includes warnings about dangers to human health and links to relevant abstracts in the scientific literature. Go to: http://www.herbmed.org
- Health & Medicine
Stroke protection: A little fish helps
As little as one serving of fish per month offers protection against the most common form of stroke.
- Health & Medicine
Drug protects mouse eggs from radiation
Mice protected by a drug from radiation-induced sterility have normal offspring.
- Health & Medicine
Cheap hypertension drug works best
An old-fashioned pill for preventing high blood pressure and some heart disease appears to work better than new, more expensive drugs.
- Health & Medicine
Silencing a gene slows breast-tumor fighter
The protein encoded by the HOXA5 gene plays a key role in fighting breast cancer, helping to switch on cancer-suppressing genes.
- Health & Medicine
The Shocking Science of Tender Poultry
Just over 24 years ago, I wrote a news note on Australian experiments using low-voltage electricity to stimulate beef muscles after slaughter. Data had indicated that applying up to a 110-volt current for 90 seconds to fresh, uncut carcasses would keep the muscle from tightening–and toughening–during subsequent refrigerated storage, even if removed from the bone. […]
