Category: News Archive

In a study of 27,000 women followed for 11 years, researchers assessed various risk factors at different levels of physical activity. "Regular exercise has a big effect in preventing strokes and heart disease," says Dr Samia Mora of Harvard Medical School. The changes in risk factors such as blood pressure and inflammation explained part of […]

A new study has found variations in two genes that were more common in depressed patients who developed suicidal thoughts while taking common antidepressants. The genes help make the cell's receptors for glutamate, a chemical messenger in the brain thought to play a part in how antidepressants work. The study, published in the American Journal […]

Vaccinating older people against flu should reduce hospital admissions and deaths, but earlier studies struggled to show this: although vaccination of older people rose from 15% in 1980 to 65% in the mid-1990s, no clear fall in deaths was seen. Most Western countries still recommend vaccinating all older people, partly because it would be unethical […]

According to the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), combining a well-known, inexpensive synthetic medicine with one of the six biological medicines works best to reduce joint swelling and tenderness in rheumatoid arthritis. The review compared synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs): hydroxychloroquine, leflunomide, methotrexate and sulfasalazine; biological DMARDs: abatacept, adalimumab, anakinra, etanercept, infliximab […]

Bayer, maker of Trasylol (aprotinin), announced that a Canadian study had found preliminary evidence that patients having heart surgery were more likely to die within 30 days if they received aprotinin rather than other medicines used to reduce blood loss after surgery. The study, called Blood Conservation Using Antifibrinolytics in a Randomized Trial (BART), aimed […]

It is well known that the risk of cancer rises with age, mainly because DNA damage builds up over time. A new study suggests another reason: the gene that fights cancer becomes less active. The p53 gene is one of the most important tumour suppressor genes. When a cell's DNA is damaged, p53 coordinates a […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved raltegravir tablets (Isentress) for treating HIV-1 infection, in combination with other antiretroviral medicines. Raltegravir is the first of a new class of medicines, HIV integrase inhibitors, which block an enzyme the virus needs to multiply. Used with other medicines, it can lower the amount of HIV […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Ixempra (ixabepilone), a new anti-cancer treatment for advanced breast cancer, whether or not it has spread, that hasn't responded to other cancer medicines. The approval matters because it gives these patients a new chemotherapy option when other medicines have failed. Ixempra is used in patients who […]

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported on 17 October 2007 that there is growing evidence that preschool children can benefit from medicines for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but that their unwanted side effects need watching. In the Preschool ADHD Treatment Study (PATS), side effects occurred more often in preschool children than […]

Researchers at the University of Manchester have turned stem cells from fat tissue into nerve cells, and plan to use them to develop artificial nerves that could bring paralysed limbs back to life. In a study published in the September issue of Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for […]

Scientists at the US National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, found that high levels of certain proteins were linked with survival of the cancer cells in ovarian cancer. These proteins are part of the cell network that controls apoptosis (the cell's self-destruct programme) and responds to stress, and together they form […]

Researchers told the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions that the risk of heart disease starts early in childhood, by the age of seven, in a study of the link between body mass index (BMI) and heart disease risk. The study included 308 healthy children (158 boys and 150 girls) from the age of three. BMI […]