Healthcare

Diabetes :: Safety Information on Blood Glucose Meters

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is notifying health care providers and patients of a problem with blood glucose meters made by Abbott Diabetes Care, Alameda, Calif. The meters can unintentionally be switched from one unit of measurement to another, resulting in an inaccurate blood glucose interpretation by the user. Users in the United States should make sure that their meter reading is displayed as mg/dL because an inaccurate reading can lead to taking the wrong dose of insulin or dietary changes, resulting in higher levels of sugar in the blood or hyperglycemia. Hyperglycemia can be a serious and even life-threatening condition and several cases of hyperglycemia have been reported to FDA.

Impotency :: Facts behind the Women’s & Men’s Sexual Dysfunction

Thirty-one percent of men and 43 percent of women regularly suffer from some form of sexual dysfunction. The good news is that while there is no “cure” for male impotence, there are a number of very effective treatments now widely available.

Paralysis :: Home exercise tool for people with tetraplegia

People affected by paralysis could enjoy more independence, better health and a higher quality of life thanks to an innovative system designed to improve fitness and increase arm strength.
It uses electrical signals to stimulate movement in arm muscles where function has been lost, making it possible to work an arm-exercise machine (similar to an exercise bike but worked by the arms).

Allergy :: Food Allergy Research Consortium Focuses on Peanut Allergy

The only advice doctors can give to the 4 percent of Americans with potentially life-threatening food allergies is to avoid the culprit food, often nuts or shellfish. But that may change as researchers in a new Food Allergy Research Consortium, announced, strive to develop therapies to treat and prevent food allergy.

Cancer :: True cancer-causing genes revealed by new technique

New research under the direction of Paul Khavari, MD, PhD, professor in the Program in Epithelial Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the dermatology service at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System, shows a novel and more effective way of testing which mutations cause cancer and which are mere research distractions. The work is published in the June issue of Nature Genetics.