Health & Medicine

Health & Medicine

Fatty plaques are unstable in vessels

Fatty plaques that form on the inside of blood vessels are less stable and hence more prone to rupture than are hard, calcified plaques.

Health & Medicine

Parkinson’s implants survive in brain

Human embryonic stem cells transplanted into the brains of people with Parkinson's disease survive and grow better in patients under 60 years of age than in older patients.

Health & Medicine

Soy slashes cancer-fostering hormones (with recipe)

Asian women tend to have much lower breast-cancer rates than their Western counterparts–unless they move to Europe or North America. Then the cancers incidence in these women begins to match local norms. United Soybean Board This observation has suggested that something about the Western way of life, probably diet, promotes cancer–or that something about Eastern […]

Health & Medicine

Drug helps against certain breast cancers

In some patients, the drug trastuzumab, also called Herceptin, slows breast cancer that has spread to other organs.

Health & Medicine

Narcoleptic dogs still have their day

Evidence from studies with dachshunds and poodles is suggesting that these small breeds may serve as better models than larger dogs, such as Labrador retrievers, for the more genetically complex narcolepsy in people.

Health & Medicine

Cancer cells have a ticket to ride

Cancer cells may spread using the same system that immune system cells use to move through the body.

Health & Medicine

Gene links eyelids and early menopause

A gene that orchestrates ovary and eyelid development may be the key to early-onset menopause.

Health & Medicine

Berry promising anticancer prospects

Twelve years ago, scientists uncovered a mechanism to explain why the folk remedy of eating cranberries fights urinary tract infections. It now appears that the medicinal powers of the pucker-inducing berries might extend to breast cancer as well. Cranberry Marketing Committee For years, Najla Guthrie and her colleagues at the University of Western Ontario in […]

Health & Medicine

Making Sense of Centenarians

The number of centenarians is expected to double every ten years, making this formerly rare group one of the fastest-growing in the developed world. Researchers are turning to studies of the oldest old to determine how genes, lifestyle, and social factors contribute to longevity.

Health & Medicine

New drug to treat blood poisoning

For the first time, a drug has reduced deaths from severe sepsis, a life-threatening immune reaction occurring in 750,000 people in the United States each year.

Health & Medicine

Less morphine may be more

In mice, very low doses of morphine combined with even lower doses of a drug that usually blocks morphine's effect can give greater pain relief than higher doses of morphine alone.

Health & Medicine

Two genes tied to common birth defect

Researchers report that defects in either of two specific genes may be responsible for DiGeorge syndrome, the second most common cause of congenital heart defects in newborns.