We?ve all wondered how a seemingly healthy person can actually be at high risk for heart disease or a heart attack. Now researchers have uncovered a new clue to this mystery. The culprit: myeloperoxidase (MPO), a protein secreted by white blood cells that both signals inflammation and releases a bleach-like substance that damages the cardiovascular system.
A new study of published literature that reported the effect of dietary counseling for weight loss finds that, on average, dietary counseling has resulted in weight loss of approximately 6 percent of initial body weight (approximately 10-15 pounds) after one year, compared with people not involved in formal weight loss programs.
A blood component called cystatin C, used to test for early-stage kidney impairment, also may be a very early marker for those at risk of developing a condition known as pre-diabetes, a study conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo has shown.
According to a pilot study released in the International Journal of Impotence Research (http://www.nature.com/ijir), POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice was found to have beneficial effects on erectile dysfunction (ED), a disorder that affects 1 in 10 men worldwide and 10 to 30 million men in the United States alone.
New findings on the mechanisms that trigger stress-induced obesity, published today in Nature Medicineonline, could offer hope to millions.
In what they call a “stunning research advance,” investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center have been able to use simple, nontoxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals. They say the discovery, published online in Nature Medicine on July 1, could revolutionize human cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery and treatment of diseases associated with human obesity.
Health Canada is warning consumers not to use the product Encore Tabs for Men, because it contains an undeclared pharmaceutical ingredient similar to the approved drug tadalafil.
The drug most commonly used to arrest preterm labor, magnesium sulfate, is more likely than another common treatment to cause mild to serious side effects in pregnant women, according to a study from researchers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine.
The most common procedure for clearing blocked kidney arteries can also release thousands of tiny particles into the bloodstream that can impair kidney function, according to researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues.
“There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies,” say Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond, researchers at the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Center in Edmonton, Canada.