Health News: August 2009 Archives

A team of French scientists have found the dose of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) that is just right for preventing cardiovascular disease in healthy men. The new research is published in the September Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal.

Companies are increasingly offering genetic tests directly to consumers to assess their risk for illnesses such as breast cancer or diabetes. These tests have raised concerns over whether people will receive adequate counseling -- given that the tests are not administered by health care providers -- and whether consumers' genetic information will be kept private, among other issues. (Live audio webcast available)

Even as White House attempts to speed up production and distribution of an H1N1 flu vaccine Dr. Thomas Frieden the new head of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the vaccine won't be ready until mid-October.

A new study has found important mechanism used in setting up the communications network of connections in the brain. The results of the study could help adults suffering from brain injuries and possibly help early diagnosis and treatment schizophrenia, autism or other developmental disorders.

President Barack Obama made health care his top domestic priority at Senator Kennedy's urging. With the death of Senator Kennedy a blow has been dealt in the political battle which is now raging over health care reform.

The World Health Organization chief is urging governments to prepare for a likely second wave of H1N1 outbreak.

Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. has published a feature article titled Twittering Telemedicine in the Medical Connectivity section of the latest issue. The article reports that Twitter is emerging as a potentially valuable means of real-time, on-the-go communication of health care information and medical alerts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today released guidelines for the use of antivirals in the management of patients infected with the H1N1 pandemic virus commonly known as Swine Flu. If states in part that healthy patients who don't have complications do not need to be treated with antivirals like Tamiflu.

High Hopes for a New Kind of Gene

In a beautifully written article in the July 2009 issue of Smithsonian magazine writer Sylvia Pagan Westphal describes the research of Dr. Carlo Croce, head of Ohio State University's Human Cancer Genetics Program.

At Virginia Hospital Center, treating disease doesn't require a patient-or a room.

When Cathy Turner looked at the blood sugar readings she had just taken, she was shocked. It read over 400, four times the average fasting level. She told the woman, an employee of an Arlington Virginia business she was visiting, that the test results called for a trip to her doctor.

In a paper title Genetic variation in IL28B predicts hepatitis C treatment-induced viral clearance published online in the Journal Nature researches report that they have identified a gene that predicts a response to treatment for Hepatitis C.

Biologist Phong Tran who is Associate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Associate has discovered a new mechanism in cell division which has implications for understanding aberrant chromosome's role in cancer according to the Penn Study.