A new study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health finds that folic acid supplements can dramatically lower blood arsenic levels in individuals exposed to arsenic through contaminated drinking water. This toxic element, naturally present in some aquifers used for drinking, is currently a significant public health problem in at least 70 countries, including several developing countries and also parts of the U.S.
Researchers in the United States and Sweden have identified a genetic region associated with increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic and debilitating inflammatory disease of the joints that affects an estimated 2.1 million Americans.
A human embryonic stem cell is reined in – prevented from giving up its unique characteristics of self-renewal and pluripotency – by the presence of a protein modification that stifles any genes that would prematurely instruct the cell to develop into heart or other specialized tissue.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health has awarded the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine a $1.18 million grant to develop rabies virus vaccines. This award is the continuation of a previous four-year $837,000 grant issued by NIAID in 2002 to initiate the study.
Dogs that bite children have often not bitten kids before, but they tend to have underlying behavioural or medical problems, indicates research in the journal Injury Prevention.
Flu vaccine delivered through painless microneedles in patches applied to the skin could soon be an alternative to delivery through hypodermic needles, according to researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Using new grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling approximately $11.5 million over five years, researchers from the two institutions plan to develop a new vaccine product using the microscopic needles.
Specialised bath products to relieve the symptoms of allergic (atopic) eczema are of “questionable” value, says the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB). The NHS forks out more than £16 million a year on bath emollients, equivalent to almost 40% of the total cost of eczema treatments prescribed for pre-school children, says DTB.
The fight against the deadly tropical disease Leishmaniasis, also known as black fever, has been boosted by scientists at the University of Durham, whose new screening system has raised the possibility of new, safer drugs.
Health Canada is advising Canadians, especially pregnant and breastfeeding women, not to use Calabash chalk because of the potential health risk due to high levels of lead.
When an adult suffers a cardiorespiratory arrest the rapid application of an electrical discharge with a defibrillator can avoid sudden death in many cases. Nevertheless, defibrillation also has its impediment or enemy: time. For every minute that passes from the moment of the attack, the possibilities of survival drop by 10%.