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Sleeping with pets can bring parasites, plague

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 11:57 by Jaspreet Virk

Do you snuggle with your pooch in bed? If so, think twice before doing this, as a new report warns that sleeping with pets puts one at risk of serious infections.

Milestone reached in disease research

Thu, 12/09/2010 - 10:08 by Prince damin

Evanston, Ill. -- U.S. researchers say they've reached a major milestone in ongoing efforts to wipe out some of the world's most lethal diseases.

Scientists at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute and Northwestern University have experimentally determined three-dimensional protein structures from a number of bacterial and protozoan pathogens, which could potentially lead to new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics to combat deadly infectious diseases, a Northwestern release said Tuesday.

Some of the structures solved by the researchers come from well-known organisms like the H1N1 flu virus and those that cause plague, cholera and rabies, the release said.

Hike in booze tax may lower alcohol-related problems--study

Sat, 09/25/2010 - 18:03 by Neka Sehgal

Perhaps the simplest and the single most effective step to ensure improved health for the community would be to raise prices of alcohol by taxing it more, claims a new study.

Gene link in vitamin deficiency, diseases

Tue, 08/24/2010 - 11:15 by Prince damin

London -- Vitamin D deficiency is known to increase susceptibility to a wide range of diseases, and British researchers say a study dramatically highlights that fact.

Scientists mapping the points on the human genome at which vitamin D interacts with human DNA have found over 200 genes that the vitamin directly influences, a release by the Wellcome Trust said Monday.

One billion people worldwide are estimated to have insufficient vitamin D, largely due to insufficient exposure to the sun and, in some cases, poor diet.

Childhood obesity on rise in US; parents deny problem--report

Tue, 07/06/2010 - 15:00 by Neha Gupta

An increasing number of kids are obese or overweight in America but their parents deny this fact, claims a recent research.

Genetic markers can predict longevity

Fri, 07/02/2010 - 23:56 by Pankaj Damin

Boston -- Genes can accurately predict how long a person will live, and they may provide clues to treat or prevent age-related diseases, a study says.

The study at Boston University identified a small set of DNA variations called genetic markers that can predict "exceptional longevity" with 77 percent accuracy, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

There's no one single "longevity gene," the study published in the journal Science said, but rather a cumulative effect of almost 150 markers, and different people show different markers.

"The study shows that there are different paths to becoming a centenarian," BU graduate student and co-author Nadia Solovieff said. "People age in different ways."

New way to study complex diseases created

Tue, 05/25/2010 - 10:35 by Pankaj Damin

Stanford, Calif. -- Scientists say a method of analyzing environmental factors developed by Stanford University might lead to new information about complex diseases.

The researchers focused on Type 2 diabetes, which results from the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. To examine genetic risk factors, scientists pore over the human genome sequence. But environmental factors have been trickier to pin down, the researchers said, because there is no way to comprehensively evaluate them.

Novel research links environmental factors and diabetes

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 15:04 by Jamie Anderson

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine can claim to have developed a novel method to decipher which foreign chemicals concur with complex diseases in the body.

Manufacturers to add safeguards to CT scanners

Fri, 02/26/2010 - 21:53 by Neha Gupta

Five leading manufacturers of CT scanners have collaborated in a decision to add new safeguard equipments to their devices.

Study: People with fat thighs may live longer

Thu, 01/14/2010 - 00:18 by Natalie James

Los Angeles, January 13:Having junk in the trunk is good for health! A new study suggests that people carrying fat on the hips, thighs and bum, rather than around the waist, enjoy some extra protection against a range of health hazards.

'Developing countries ill-prepared for swine flu outbreak'

Wed, 04/29/2009 - 17:33 by Salinder Kumar

London, April 29: Low and middle-income countries are less prepared than developed nations to fight an outbreak of swine flu, health experts say.

"Of particular concern is the ability of low-income and middle-income countries to detect and mitigate the effects of this new virus on their populations," said The Lancet, an authoritative medical journal.

"History has shown that developing countries are disproportionately affected by an influenza pandemic," it said in an editorial published Tuesday.

Study finds new way for disease to evolve

Wed, 02/18/2009 - 07:38 by Rakhi Kaptiyal

Hamilton, Ontario -- A Canadian-led study has discovered a new mode of disease evolution, giving scientists another way to identify and assign risk to emerging diseases.

Scientists at McMaster University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Illinois found bacteria can develop into illness-causing pathogens by rewiring regulatory DNA, the genetic material that controls disease-causing genes in a body. Previously, disease evolution was thought to occur mainly through the addition or deletion of genes.

"Bacterial cells contain about 5,000 different genes, but only a fraction of them are used at any given time," said McMaster University Assistant Professor Brian Coombes, who led the research. "The difference between being able to cause disease, or not cause disease, lies in where, when and what genes in this collection are turned on. We've discovered how bacteria evolve to turn on just the right combination of genes in order to cause disease in a host."