With the finding that fever is produced by the action of a hormone on a specific site in the brain, scientists have answered a key question as to how this adaptive function helps to protect the body during bacterial infection and other types of illness.
The UN is helping the Government of Uganda in outbreak response and containment activities following a confirmed case of Marburg virus disease, a rare but highly fatal haemorrhagic illness with epidemic potential, but there is at present no indication of a need to restrict travel or trade with the East African country.
A new study on the relationship between coffee drinking and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) confirmed that there is an inverse association between coffee consumption and liver cancer, although the reasons for this relationship are still unresolved. The results of this study appear in the August 2007 issue of Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).
Using a novel approach, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a prototype vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) that works better in animal models than the only TB vaccine now available. In this era of multi-drug resistant TB and growing numbers of people with active TB due to coinfection with HIV, the advance could herald a needed breakthrough against one of the world?s leading killers.
A special issue of the journal Homeopathy, journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy and published by Elsevier, on the ?Memory of Water? brings together scientists from around the world for the first time to publish new data, reviews and discuss recent scientific work exploring the idea that water can display memory effects.
Iowa State University researchers have developed a new technique that successfully treated rats for blindness caused by glaucoma. Their experimental treatment will be used on canine patients in the next year. If successful, it is expected to move to human trials.
Heart attack patients received lifesaving treatment quickly when hospitals and communities used an integrated, rapid transfer system to get patients to a facility equipped to perform artery-opening procedures, according to a report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Scientists have discovered that at the same time the immune system is vigorously attacking invading viruses or bacteria, it is unexpectedly reducing its production of a particular type of factor that directs the movement of immune cells.
Ionizing radiation, toxic chemicals, and other agents continually damage the body’s DNA, threatening life and health: unrepaired DNA can lead to mutations, which in turn can lead to diseases like cancer. Intricate DNA repair mechanisms in the cells’ nuclei are constantly working to fix what’s broken, but whether the repair work happens “on the road” ? right where the damage occurs ? or “in the shop” ? at specific regions of the nucleus ? is an unanswered question.
Asthma affects 300 million people worldwide and, according to World Health Organization, it killed 255 000 people in 2005. Asthma attacks are caused by an acute inflammatory reaction in the airways, a reaction that is largely due to actions of LTC4 synthase (an enzyme which catalyzes a synthesis process). For this reason asthma medicines often aim to block the downstream effects of LTC4 synthase.