People with diabetes face special skin challenges. Because diabetes affects the capillaries, the small vessels which feed the skin its blood supply, thickening of the skin increases the difficulty to supply nutrients to the skin.
Freckles are small brownish spots of melanin on the skin of people with fair complexion. Predisposition to freckles is genetic and is related to the presence of the melanocortin-1 receptor MC1R gene variant. Freckling is caused by the same process as that which produces sun tanning, although the distribution of melanin is uneven. Most people who have freckles have light skin.
The skin is often known as “the largest organ in the human body”. This applies to exterior surface, as it covers the body, appearing to have the largest surface area of all the organs.
Early findings in the laboratory suggest that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs might prove an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
Some commonly used drugs by the elderly to treat illnesses like Parkinson’s or urinary incontinence may lead to mild mental impairment, says a study.
Eating a lot of red meat could damage the body’s DNA and raise the risk of bowel cancer, a study says.
In as many as 3 million U.S. women with coronary heart disease, cholesterol plaque may not build up into major blockages, but instead spreads evenly throughout the artery wall. As a result, diagnostic coronary angiography reveals that these women have clear arteries – no blockages incorrectly indicating low risk. Despite this, many of these women have a high risk for heart attack, according to newly published research from the National Institutes of Health.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of Ranexa (ranolazine), a new drug for the treatment of chronic angina. Ranexa, a new molecular entity (NME), is the first drug approved to treat chronic angina in over ten years. Although several pharmacological activities of ranolazine have been described, the precise way the drug works is not fully understood. Because Ranexa affects electrical conduction in the heart (prolong the QT interval), it should only be used by patients who have not responded to other anti-anginal (long-acting nitrates, calcium channel blockers and beta blockers) drugs.
Researchers say they have turned adult muscle stem cells into cartilage, and used them in animals to heal the kind of damage caused by arthritis.
There is a new, potential alternative for many of the more than 5 million Americans who take insulin injections, with the Food and Drug Administration’s approval today of the first ever inhaled insulin. Exubera, an inhaled powder form of recombinant human insulin (rDNA) for the treatment of adult patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, is the first new insulin delivery option introduced since the discovery of insulin in the 1920s.