World / Health & Beauty
About 300 New HIV Cases Recorded In El Salvador Following National Testing Day
14.07.2008 05:16
medicalnewstoday.com
Approximately 300 new HIV cases were reported in El Salvador following the country's National HIV Testing Day on June 27, Xinhuanet reports. HIV tests were available at no cost at Salvadoran Institute for Social Security clinics, and a total of 55,016 people were tested for the virus as part of the campaign.
World
HIV/AIDS
Tourism Is Not Contributing To Spread Of HIV In Zanzibar, Minister Says
14.07.2008 05:16
medicalnewstoday.com
The flourishing tourism industry in Zanzibar is not contributing to the spread of HIV on the archipelago, Tourism and Investment Minister Samia Sululu Hassan said on Tuesday, The Citizen reports. Answering a question from Rep.
World
HIV/AIDS
General Dental Council (CDC) Expands Tooth Whitening Duties, UK
14.07.2008 05:15
medicalnewstoday.com
Dental hygienists and dental therapists can carry out tooth whitening on the prescription of a dentist if they have the necessary additional skills, says the GDC. This clarification from the GDC follows its public consultation on the scope of practice of the dental team earlier this year. The consultation sought views on which groups of professionals should be able to do what, including tooth whitening.
World
Dentistry
Brazilian Lawmakers Reject Bill To Legalize Abortion
14.07.2008 05:15
medicalnewstoday.com
Efforts to legalize abortion in Brazil, the world's most populous Roman Catholic country, were rejected by the lower house of the country's national Congress by a 57-4 vote of the Justice and Constitution Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Reuters reports. The bill -- which has been stalled in Congress for 17 years -- is now likely to be dropped (Reuters, 7/9).
World
Gynecology
Preventive malaria treatments cut anaemia risk, improve kids’ learning
14.07.2008 04:20
b4uindia.com
Preventive malaria treatments are likely to cut anaemia risk and improve learning in school children, suggests a new study. The study led by Kenyan and British researchers revealed malaria treatment, given once per term, significantly diminished infection and anaemia risk and enhanced cognitive ability of school children. Though school based health programs helped in fighting diseases, such as worm infections, but less is known about their role in tackling malaria. During the study, the team analysed the impact of IPT, a new method of tackling malaria, involving treatment with an anti-malarial drug irrespective of whether children are infected. In a randomised placebo-controlled trial in 30 primary schools in a rural area of high malaria transmission in western Kenya, 4916 children, between 5-18 years were given three treatments (sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine combined with amodiaquine, or a dual placebo) at four-monthly intervals, once each school term. They found that IPT radically reduced the incidence of malaria infection and halved anaemia risk in children. Improvements were also seen in class-based tests of sustained attention among those receiving IPT, though educational achievement showed no impact. “Although it has long been suspected that malaria impairs school performance, this is the first study to provide evidence of a direct link between malaria and reduced attention in class,” The Lancet quoted Dr. Matthew Jukes, Assistant Professor of International Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as saying. “These results indicate that malaria infection may hinder learning and its prevention could be important to enhance the educational potential of schoolchildren,” he added. Dr. Siân Clarke, a Lecturer in Malaria Research and Control at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said, “Preventing malaria could have important health and cognitive benefits for African schoolchildren and deserves more attention. “These results show us that intermittent preventive treatment in schools is a novel and effective means to address this problem,” he added. The new research is published today in the Lancet. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Higher fuel prices may help cut road fatalities, says expert
14.07.2008 04:20
b4uindia.com
A researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) believes that higher fuel prices may lead to a reduction in the deaths from road accidents. Dr. Michael Morrisey, director of UAB''s Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, says that an analysis of yearly vehicle deaths compared to gas prices suggests that fatality rates drop significantly as people slow down and drive less. In the study report, he writes that traffic deaths could drop by more than 1,000 per month nationwide if gas remains at four dollars a gallon or higher for a year or more. "It is remarkable to think that a percent change in gas prices can equal lives saved, which is what our data show. For every 10 percent rise in gas prices, fatalities are reduced by 2.3 percent. The effects are even more dramatic for teen drivers," Morrisey said. For their study, the researchers took into account death rates and gas-price changes from 1985 through 2006. Morrisey says that this study builds on a previous study that showed that lower gas prices have the opposite effect by wiping away many of lifesaving outcomes from the enactment of mandatory seatbelt laws, lower blood alcohol limits and graduated drivers licenses for youth. The UAB-Harvard study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, showed that the more restrictive graduated license programs helped reduce traffic deaths by 24 percent among drivers aged 15 to 17. Morrisey said that the calculated percent reduction in fatalities could be extrapolated to 2008 and beyond. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Nicotine-based drugs ''may help treat dementia''
14.07.2008 04:20
b4uindia.com
Nicotine has toxic effects and carries a strong risk of addiction, but now scientists at King''s College London have found that it may hold the key to new treatments for dementia. Researchers have shown that nicotine-based drugs could boost learning, memory and attention. The effect is small, but researchers believe it may help give dementia patients up to six extra months of independent living. The King''s team, based at the Institute of Psychiatry, demonstrated the positive effects of nicotine in experiments on rats. They showed that nicotine boosted the animals'' ability to carry out a task accurately - particularly when they were also distracted. When able to give full concentration, the animals responded correctly to stimuli about 80 percent of the time. Nicotine boosted the accuracy rate by about 5 percent. However, when distracted, the animals'' success rate fell to about 55 percent. In this case nicotine brought it back up to around the 85 percent level. Researchers studied the mechanisms, which underpin the effects produced by nicotine. They showed how proteins on the surface of cells respond to the compound, and pinned down the role of several key chemicals in the brain, including dopamine and noradrenaline. It transpired that there are only subtle biochemical differences in the way nicotine stimulates the brain, and triggers addiction. Several nicotinic drugs are already in development, but the King''s team hopes its work will speed up the discovery of agents, which give the brain a bigger boost than nicotine, with longer lasting effects. "Nicotine, like many other drugs, has multiple effects, some of which are harmful, whereas others may be beneficial,” BBC quoted lead researcher Professor Ian Stolerman, as saying. "It may be possible for medicinal chemists to devise compounds that provide some of the beneficial effects of nicotine while cutting out the toxic effects," he added. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Common cold virus helps scientists locate, image prostate cancer as it spreads
14.07.2008 04:20
b4uindia.com
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have successfully used an engineered common cold virus to deliver a genetic payload to prostate cancer cells in mice, which enabled them to locate the diseased cells as they spread to the lymph nodes, the first place prostate cancer goes before invading other organs. The researchers have revealed that they used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to locate the pelvic lymph nodes, which are very difficult to find using conventional imaging tools such as CT scanning. Senior author of the study Lily Wu, a researcher at UCLA''s Jonsson Cancer Center, says that this discovery attains significance because it may enable oncologists to find the cancer''s spread earlier, when it''s more treatable, and before it invades distant organs. She says that the next step for her team will be to link the non-invasive imaging advance with a treatment component, activating a toxic agent in the genetic payload to kill the spreading cancer cells. Wu and her colleagues hope that they will someday be able to detect tiny prostate cancer metastases in patients and kill them immediately, watching the whole process on a PET scanner. "It would represent a treatment advance in patients for whom outcome is not good. This would help improve the prognosis for these patients by letting us find and treat these metastases early. If we can catch the cancer before it invades other organs, we have a better chance to change the outcomes for these patients," Nature magazine quoted Wu as saying. The researchers are presently experimenting on mouse models in Wu’s lab, with a view to refining their image-guided therapy. "I think this is very exciting for many reasons. We now know we can reach these prostate cancer metastases at an earlier stage than before, and we know we can deliver genes to those cancer cells that produce proteins that can be imaged by PET. Now we will find out how effective this genetic toxic payload is in preventing further spread of the cancer to other vital organs," Wu said. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Parkinsonian Tremor Caused By 'Cross Fire' From The Brain
14.07.2008 04:13
medicalnewstoday.com
A typical symptom of Parkinson's disease is tremor in patients. A group of scientists, including Professor Peter Tass from Forschungszentrum Julich have succeeded in demonstrating the mechanisms which cause the so-called tremor: neuron clusters in the depths of the brain drive the tremor. This discovery supports Tass' research activities aiming at developing a therapy for Parkinson's disease. A new deep brain pacemaker is to bring cells out of the diseased mode for good.
World
Parkinson's Disease
A Child's Natural Tendency To Be Empathic And Moral
14.07.2008 04:13
medicalnewstoday.com
Children between the ages of seven and 12 appear to be naturally inclined to feel empathy for others in pain, according to researchers at the University of Chicago, who used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans to study responses in children. The responses on the scans were similar to those found in studies of adults. Researchers found that children, like adults, show responses to pain in the same areas of their brains.
World
Psychiatry
Non-Parental Care Of Infants Tied To Unfavorable Feeding Practices
14.07.2008 04:12
medicalnewstoday.com
With more new mothers in the workplace than ever before, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of child-care facilities in the United States. At the same time, data from a variety of sources point to a growing prevalence of overweight infants and toddlers.
World
Children Diseases
America's Children In Brief: Key National Indicators Of Well-Being, 2008
14.07.2008 04:12
medicalnewstoday.com
The nation's fourth and eighth graders scored higher in reading and mathematics than they did during their last national assessment, according to the federal government's latest annual statistical report on the well-being of the nation's children. Not all the report's findings were positive; there also were increases in the adolescent birth rate and the proportion of infants born at low birthweight.
World
Children Diseases
Potential Reasons For School Absenteeism Revealed By Study
14.07.2008 04:12
medicalnewstoday.com
A questionnaire of Swiss schoolchildren has revealed the extent of truancy and school fear. The research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, links truancy and school fear to life events, parental behaviour and school environment. Over 800 children completed the questionnaire, once at thirteen years old and then again at sixteen years old.
World
Children Diseases
Identifying And Disrupting Key Elements Of Malaria's 'Sticky Sack' Adhesion Strategy
14.07.2008 04:12
medicalnewstoday.com
Malaria is one of the most devastating diseases afflicting humanity. It infects and debilitates about 600 million people and kills up to three million people every year, mainly in the wet tropical regions of the world. Children and pregnant women are at particularly high risk. The malaria parasite is injected into humans by an infected mosquito.
World
Children Diseases
ACR's Guidelines For CT Colonography Interpretation Examined In Study At Digestive Disease Week
14.07.2008 04:12
medicalnewstoday.com
A study presented at Digestive Disease Week® 2008 examined the American College of Radiology's (ACR) CT colonography guidelines recommending that polyps â?¤ 5mm in size not be reported on CT colonography by applying them to an endoscopic database that collected information about polyps that had been removed and processed.
World
Gastroenterology
English