A call to Gordon Brown to make a new start with doctors, came in the opening speech at the British Medical Association?s (BMA) annual conference. Dr Sam Everington, Acting BMA Chairman, urged the new Prime Minister to avoid future agonies for the NHS ? a health service in which doctors felt under attack.
Physicians have recognized scoliosis, the abnormal curvature of the spine, since the time of Hippocrates, but its causes have remained a mystery — until now. For the first time, researchers have discovered a gene that underlies the condition, which affects about 3 percent of all children.
The first-ever phase 1 clinical trial using gene therapy to battle Parkinson’s disease is completed by a team led by physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Latest research into health in medieval Europe — taking in everything from demonic possession to miracles of healing — is to be revealed at the University of Nottingham.
Stroke is a leading cause of hospital admission among older adults. Yet more hospital readmissions after stroke are for pneumonia or for heart disease than for another stroke, according to a study published in the June 2007 issue of the journal Stroke. This finding may alter the standard medical management of post-stroke patients.
Fibromyalgia, a chronic, widespread pain in muscles and soft tissues accompanied by fatigue, is a fairly common condition that does not manifest any structural damage in an organ. Twenty-five years ago, Muhammad B. Yunus, MD, and colleagues published the first controlled study of the clinical characteristics of fibromyalgia syndrome.
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids protect against the development and progression of retinopathy, a deterioration of the retina, in mice. This is the major finding of a study that appears in the July 2007 issue of the journal Nature Medicine.
Researchers have shown that bone marrow stem cells injected into a damaged inner ear can speed hearing recovery after partial hearing loss. The related report by Kamiya et al, “Mesenchymal stem cell transplantation accelerates hearing recovery through the repair of injured cochlear fibrocytes,” appears in the July issue of The American Journal of Pathology.
American Medical Association experts backed away from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder similar to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more.
As the proportion of older persons continues to increase at unprecedented rates worldwide, countries will need to examine and adapt national policies, particularly those relating to pension systems and health care, according to a new United Nations report.