Body

Despite fears to the contrary, the use of drugs to end life without patient request has not increased since euthanasia was legalized in Belgium, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.091876v1?ijkey=7e8aeb7d487df3b7630863f09968fab81968bfdd (www.cmaj.ca).

The six-foot-long babies of the world's biggest shark species, Carcharocles megalodon, frolicked in the warm shallow waters of an ancient shark nursery in what is now Panama, report paleontologists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Florida.

CHICAGO (May 17, 2010) – It's no secret that pregnancy is an important time in a woman's life. While women often hear about how pregnancy causes physical changes that affect their hormone or appetite levels, these changes can have a great effect on their oral health as well. Despite the fact that good oral health is essential for the overall health of both mother and child, only 22 to 34 percent of women in the United States visit a dentist during pregnancy.

Researchers at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) and the Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital have identified a previously undiagnosed condition and successfully treated it by performing an experimental stem cell transplant.

Having spent her late teenage years in and out of hospital Katie Pulling had almost given up hope. "It was very confusing and very daunting. I kept hearing the doctors say, 'We don't know what is wrong', 'We don't know why you are so sick'," said Katie, who lives in north-eastern NSW.

New research discovers a combination of drugs that may prove to be a more effective treatment for a lethal form of leukemia. The study, published by Cell Press in the May issue of the journal Cancer Cell, reports that the new therapeutic strategy effectively targets notoriously intractable leukemia stem cells that often escape standard treatment and are a main factor in disease relapse.

What to do: walk around the block or work up a sweat in an aerobic workout at the gym? If you're looking for the best health benefits from an exercise program, a traditional aerobic fitness program that gets your heart pumping beats a walking program hands down. But if you want to get moving, a walking program is easier to do, it's good for you, and you're more likely to stick with it.

The Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (Neiker-Tecnalia) has completed a study commissioned by the Department of the Environment, Land Use Planning, Agriculture and Fisheries of the Basque Government, in which individuals of various species of wild carnivores were investigated in order to know the types and frequencies of diseases affecting them. The study was restricted to the Basque Country and showed the presence of pathogens such as Salmonella, Yersinia, Toxoplasma, Trichinella and Sarcoptes.

A natural defence mechanism against heart disease could be switched on by steroids sold as health supplements, according to researchers at the University of Leeds.

The University of Leeds biologists have identified a previously-unknown ion channel in human blood vessels that can limit the production of inflammatory cytokines – proteins that drive the early stages of heart disease.

German scientist Andre Koch from the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn together with his supervisor Dr. Wolfgang Boehme and another colleague have described two new monitor lizard species and one new subspecies from the Philippines in a recent article. The species descriptions were published in Zootaxa, the world's foremost journal for taxonomic zoology.

What is leukemia or bone cancer?

In patients with leukemia, the formation of white blood cells in the bone marrow is disrupted. This makes leukemia patients particularly susceptible to infections, because properly functioning white blood cells ensure protection against intruders such as viruses and bacteria. In the US alone, every year around 50.000 adults and children develop leukemia.

T-ALL is caused by interplay of various factors

ATS 2010, New Orleans - Sleep apnea may cause metabolic changes that increase insulin resistance, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The intermittent hypoxia associated with sleep apnea causes a distinct drop in insulin sensitivity in mice, even though chronic hypoxia, such as that associated with high altitude, did not.

The research will be reported at the ATS 2010 International Conference in New Orleans.

ATS 2010 NEW ORLEANS—Patients who encounter serious lung diseases in middle age, despite an absence of family history or other predisposing factors, may still have their genes to blame, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The study also determined that the use of a simple screening test may help identify those genetic abnormalities and allow detection before the onset of disease.

ATS 2010, NEW ORLEANS— You expect to find leading experts in the fields of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine presenting their research at the annual ATS International Conference—physicians and professors, basic scientists, fellows and post-docs, certainly. High school students? Not so much.