Body

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Despite an international effort to raise awareness about epilepsy in resource-poor nations, a recently published study found nearly 50 percent of pharmacies in Zambia do not carry antiepileptic drugs, seriously hampering efforts to tackle one of the most cost-effective chronic conditions to treat.

The metal chromium is an essential nutrient for plant and animal metabolism, but it can accumulate to toxic and hazardous levels in the environment when discharged in industrial waste water; a point made infamous by the movie Erin Brockovich.

Having a family history of breast cancer can lead some women to wonder if the risk is out of their control. However, a study of more than 85,000 postmenopausal women, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, observed that regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, and drinking less alcohol lowers breast cancer risk for those with and without a family history of the disease.

Contrary to what many oncologists believe, patients with metastatic breast cancer live longer on average if their chemotherapy is continued after their cancer is brought under control, a new meta-analysis shows.

The new results, presented at the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), address an important area of debate in cancer treatment.

DALLAS – Oct. 11, 2010 – The use of estrogen therapy by postmenopausal women might increase the risk of developing kidney stones, according to findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers.

Eating steamed pears, having a soothing massage or bathing in a herbal mixture are just some of indigenous health practices used by older people to ward off or treat influenza, according to research published in the October issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

Other traditional measures discovered by nurse researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University included being rubbed with a coin, eating cheese, yoghurt and honey and having warm drinks made with ginger or lemon.

Women with an aggressive subtype of metastatic breast cancer appear to live an average of almost five months longer when treated with iniparib plus chemotherapy, compared to chemotherapy alone, the results of a randomized Phase-II trial show.

The first study of its kind comparing two different approaches to treating newly diagnosed multiple myeloma has found that both treatments achieved a positive response, researchers said at the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy.

Dr Antonio Palumbo from Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria San Giovanni Battista of Torino in Italy and colleagues tested the two approaches for using the drug in a Phase-III trial of 402 patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

Whale feces -- should you be forced to consider such matters -- probably conjure images of, well, whale-scale hunks of crud, heavy lumps that sink to the bottom. But most whales actually deposit waste that floats at the surface of the ocean, "very liquidy, a flocculent plume," says University of Vermont whale biologist, Joe Roman.

In a Canadian first, the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre used a new kind of left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to treat a patient with advanced heart failure. The new device is longer lasting than older generation LVADs and may eliminate the need for a second LVAD – a major drawback with the old technology.

The patient, 61-year-old Marva Lorde of Mississauga, suffered a heart attack in 2007 and underwent several treatments for heart failure – including a 10-day intensive care unit stay, angioplasty and pacemaker implantation –culminating in a cardiac arrest in June 2008.

Researchers have dramatically advanced medicine's understanding of how cancer migrates, showing that cancer cells are accompanied by growth-enabling stromal cells when they travel in the bloodstream to new sites in the body.

The discovery by medical scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) challenges the prevailing belief that metastasis is the sole preserve of cancer cells. The finding has implications for all solid tumours and could lead to more effective treatments for some of our most aggressive cancers.

Despite its primitive structure, the North American comb jellyfish can sneak up on its prey like a high-tech stealth submarine, making it a successful predator. Researchers, including one from the University of Gothenburg, have now been able to show how the jellyfish makes itself hydrodynamically 'invisible'.