Health & Medicine
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Health & MedicineAsthma pressure may shrink airways
Mechanical stress from constricting muscles could cause airway-lining cells to reproduce, eventually thickening the lining and narrowing the air passage.
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Health & MedicinePanel ups RDAs for some antioxidants
An Institute of Medicine panel reported that dietary antioxidants such as vitamins A and E can limit cellular damage from free radicals but warned that studies in people have never adequately established a direct connection between antioxidant consumption and prevention of chronic disease.
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineSilencing the BRCA1 gene spells trouble
Some breast cancer patients without a mutation in the BRCA1 gene nevertheless have an incapacitated gene, silenced by a process called hypermethylation of nearby DNA.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineThe New GI Tracts
For preventing heart disease, diets that control insulin are all the buzz.
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineTests may better detect prostate cancer
Two novel tests for prostate cancer may help physicians catch this disease earlier and with far fewer false alarms.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineFrom rabies virus to anti-HIV vaccine
Researchers working with mice are trying to fashion an HIV vaccine by using a weakened rabies virus to bring an HIV glycoprotein to the attention of the immune system.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineTreating one disease caused another
Egypt's public health service inadvertently spread hepatitis C while treating patients for schistosomiasis, a common parasitic disease, with injections of antischistomal medications.
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Health & MedicineAntacids for asthma sufferers?
People with asthma have more acidic lungs than do people who don't have the disease, a finding that may prompt the development of novel asthma treatments aimed at restoring the normal pH value of the lungs.
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Health & MedicineGene expression helps classify cancers
Using gene chips to study the activity of thousands of genes simultaneously, researchers showed that a common cancer of white blood cells—diffuse large B-cell lymphoma—is in fact two distinct diseases.
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Health & MedicineCell mixture attacks pancreas tumors
White blood cells injected into patients with pancreatic tumors incite an immune response that blunts the cancer in some patients and extends survival.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicinePig-cell grafts ease symptoms of Parkinson’s
Pig brain cells transplanted into the brains of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease help some of the patients regain mobility and the ability to do basic tasks.
By Nathan Seppa