Researchers from 12 medical centers in the United States and Canada, who have performed islet transplants in 86 patients with type 1 diabetes, published their results today in the first annual report of the Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry (CITR). The report (www.citregistry.org) analyzes many factors that can affect the outcome of this experimental procedure for people with severe or complicated type 1 diabetes.
In a healthy body, the allergic response serves to protect against invasion by harmful agents. Secretions and inflammation help our immune cells get into the affected tissue, dilute the toxic agent and help wash it away. “Allergies” become a health problem when an excessive and unwanted allergic response occurs to particles that are part of our normal environment and are not actually dangerous to the body.
A blood test on expectant mothers may predict a baby’s risk of sudden infant de ath syndrome (SIDS), suggests a new research.
Injections of a hormone made by fat cells can jump-start an idling reproductive system, research shows. Twice-daily injections of leptin restored menstruation in female athletes who had become so lean that their periods had stopped.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of
the National Institutes of Health, have found promising
evidence that immune cell transplant therapy can help
shrink tumors in patients with metastatic breast cancer.
Similar therapies, which also involve transplantation of
donated immune cells, have produced dramatic anti-tumor
effects in leukemias and lymphomas-cancers of the blood
and lymph, respectively. However, previous studies have
not proven that such therapies have clinical effects on
breast cancer.
A major new research project into the causes of breast cancer was launched this week. A 50-year project, called The Breakthrough Generations Study, aims to recruit 100,000 women age 18 or older to the largest cohort ever monitored in breast cancer research.
Strategic Plan for NIH Obesity Research”, a multi-dimensional research agenda to
enhance both the development of new research in areas of
greatest scientific opportunity and the coordination of
obesity research across NIH, released.
The injectable contraceptive depot-medroxyprogesterone
acetate (DMPA) appears to increase a woman’s risk of
acquiring the sexually transmitted infections chlamydia and
gonorrhea by approximately three fold when compared to
women not using a hormonal contraceptive, according to a
study jointly funded by the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National
Institutes of Health and the U.S. Agency for International
Development’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health.
Diabetes mellitus is a complex metabolic disorder which has been recognised for thousands of years but which is still only partially understood.
Dementia is a brain disorder that seriously affects a person’s ability to carry out daily activities. The most common form of dementia among older people is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which involves the parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and language. Although scientists are learning more every day, right now they still do not know what causes AD, and there is no cure.