August 25th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in News, Research
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I usually choose not to write about the “new new scientific thing” that gets picked up by the press, because early research is usually not reproducible and good science takes a long time to validate as true. But since we know that mice and rats that are kept on low-calorie diets live 30% longer (and healthier) than their fat cohorts, I was interested in a new research compound, SRT-1720, that was shown to protect obese mice from diseases of obesity. Fat mice lived 44% longer if they were given this drug.
The “designer” drug works by Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
August 22nd, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Opinion, Research
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Way back in 1946, the chartering documents for a new agency of the UN—the World Health Organization—defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
We have made astounding progress in medicine and public health since the WHO charter was crafted, yet we have actualized only part of its comprehensive vision for health. What we call health care today is really just illness care. Even our disease prevention and health promotion programs focus on reducing risk factors for disease. It is the rare initiative indeed that encourages good health for its own sake. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
August 21st, 2011 by Medgadget in Research
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A technique to identify myelination in order to map the layout of cortical areas in the human brain has been developed by researchers led by David van Essen at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. It is generally known that myelination levels are different throughout the cerebral cortex. The best way to assess it is to investigate the brain post mortem. Using the new technique of myelination mapping, it will be possible to accurately map individual cortical areas in vivo. The researchers used their method on a group of control subjects and found an excellent agreement between the spatial gradients of the myelin maps and already published anatomical and functional information about cortical areas, mostly based on post-mortem histology.
Using data from T1 and T2-weighted MRIs, the team has been able to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
August 21st, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in News, Opinion
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Right off the top, let me be clear that I am NOT minimizing the importance of this week’s news about an experimental treatment for leukemia – one that has drawn much news attention.
It is an important finding.
What I am commenting on herein is the news coverage.
The ABC television piece itself wasn’t bad, with good perspective from Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society. But the lead-in and the ending, both involving anchor Diane Sawyer, were hyperbolic. The following screenshot was part of Sawyer’s lead-in. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
August 20th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Research
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Yellow fever is an affliction caused by a potentially lethal viral (flavivirus) hemorrhagic (causes bleeding) virus common in parts of Africa and South America. A highly effective vaccine made from live virus (known as the “17D vaccine”) is currently used to inject persons to prevent yellow fever; this vaccine is known to rarely cause serious adverse effects, namely, onset of allergic reactions, or a life-threatening or fatal infection that resembles yellow fever.
So, there is need for a safer (“nonreplicating”—in other words, not based on live virus) vaccine. In a recent article, “An Inactivated Cell-Culture Vaccine against Yellow Fever,” Thomas Monath, MD and his coauthors described their experience with a potentially safer vaccine (NEJM, 2011;364:1326-33). In their study, Read more »
This post, Advancement In Research For A Safer Yellow Fever Vaccine, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
I usually choose not to write about the “new new scientific thing” that gets picked up by the press, because early research is usually not reproducible and good science takes a long time to validate as true. But since we know that mice and rats that are kept on low-calorie diets live 30% longer (and healthier) than their fat cohorts, I was interested in a new research compound, SRT-1720, that was shown to protect obese mice from diseases of obesity. Fat mice lived 44% longer if they were given this drug.
