Category Archives: Health News

The more children you have, the longer viruses will stick around, says the appropriately termed BIG LoVE (Better Identification of Germs – Longitudinal Viral Epidemiology) study out of Utah. The University of Utah researchers found that people who lived with no children got cold or flu bugs an average of three to four times a ...click here to read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning to people taking the immunomodulator drug, Gilenya, for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). The warning follows two cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) being reported in patients taking Gilenya. PML is a rare and serious brain infection caused by a virus. The John Cunningham ...click here to read more

A recent study gives scientists a better understanding of how the cellular repair process is impaired in type 1 diabetes. This knowledge also sheds light on the cause of cellular death in diabetic patients as well as the complications of diabetes. The details of the study are published in the August issue of Cell Metabolism. ...click here to read more

It looks like help really is just a phone call away. In a recent study published by JAMA Psychiatry, researchers called patients suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) using a phone to provide therapy to adults living in rural areas. They found that delivering cognitive behavioural therapy this way worked better to decrease worry, GAD ...click here to read more

Scientists have found the origin of new cells in the liver. After years of painstaking research, scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) have identified stem cells in the liver that give rise to functional liver cells. Cells in the liver must constantly be replenished as cells die off, even in a healthy organ. ...click here to read more

Of the environmental factors that causes illness, researchers are serving this one up on a platter – a melamine platter. According to researchers at the American Chemical Society, the melamine found in plates and bowls could seep into food and cause adverse health issues. The dinnerware under fire is made from melamine resin, a synthetic ...click here to read more

Losing weight usually starts with a diet. The problem is people struggle to keep the weight they’ve lost off. When they gain it back, they try another diet. The cycle repeats. This is often referred to as yo-yo dieting, since the weight fluctuates up and down. Researchers from the American Cancer society have uncovered that ...click here to read more

Researchers from the University of Texas have uncovered a potential new therapy to help treat kidney fibrosis, which leads to damage on the kidneys. The embryonic cellular process is called epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). “Our work shows that damaged kidney cells respond by undergoing EMT to protect themselves from further damage but in the process, develop ...click here to read more

New findings on insomnia pills question the standard prescribing dosages currently in practice. According to a new study done by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, people who depend on prescription sleeping pills to treat chronic insomnia may get relief from as little as half the drugs they are ...click here to read more

A team of UCLA researchers said they have figured out why ovarian cancer comes back after treatment with the chemotherapy drug carboplatin. The researchers discovered that some of the tumor cells that don’t produce the protein CA125, have a strong ability to repair their DNA and resist programmed cell death. This allows the cells to ...click here to read more

Physicians at Princeton University are urging a global fund to manage the costs of developing new vaccines and defusing crises that arise every time there is a new epidemic. The writers said the recent Ebola epidemic is a case in point. In spite of the fact that Ebola is a preventable disease, an effective vaccine ...click here to read more

Over the last 30 years cases of melanoma – a common form of skin cancer – have been on the rise. Risk factors for melanoma include over-exposure to sun, indoor tanning beds and even family history. Now, researchers from Tel Aviv University have identified a trigger which leads to melanoma. If caught early, melanoma can ...click here to read more

In what the World Health Organization (WHO) sees as an extremely promising development, an interim analysis of the Guinea Phase III efficacy vaccine trial shows that VSV-EBOV (Merck, Sharp & Dohme) is highly effective against Ebola. Preliminary results of these analyses are published in The Lancet. Though the vaccine has shown 100% efficacy in individuals ...click here to read more

Recent research from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows that a protein that was, until recently, linked only to acute symptoms following a traumatic brain injury (TBI), may also be responsible for long-term and chronic complications following brain injuries. The details of the study are ...click here to read more