St. John's wort amplifies effect of blood thinner Plavix
...patients to tell their health care providers about all the herbal remedies they take, as well as their conventional prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications. "Drugs can interact with drugs, and drugs can interact with herbals, and the result in either case can be dangerous," says lead author ...Studies underscore genetic involvement in nicotine addiction & aggressive hostility
...in why in humans (the gene is found in essentially all animals), CHRNA4 polymorphisms are associated with nicotine dependence. People with certain gene variations may be able to tolerate more nicotine before they get sick and as a result smoke more in the first place, promoting addiction. Nicotine is a...Three anti-platelet drugs used in combination are safe
...nd aspirin daily for 6 months were administered to all patients in the CREST trial while a total of 705 o...ticipated in the study. "This is good news because all three anti-platelet medications work in somewhat different ways and in combination they may prove to...UCSD-Utah team develops mouse model to test therapies for macular degeneration
...s, with dry AMD accounting for about 90 percent of all AMD. STGD strikes about 30,000 children and young adults in the U.S. Macular degeneration is caused by the deterioration of the central portion of the retina, the inside back layer of the eye that records images and sends them via the optic nerve f...Jefferson Lab medical imager spots breast cancer
... Dr. Rosen says. The PEM unit missed three tumors, all of which were located very close to the chest wall, an area that PEM doesn't image well. And of the 20 lesions spotted by the PEM system, one was not picked up by mammography. A subsequent biopsy revealed that this additional lesion was cancerous. "W...Columbia researchers receive $3 million to combat genetic killer of infants & toddlers
...ministration and research community. One third of all Columbia researchers study the brain and nervous s...nce and SMA research," said Dr. Fischbach. "Given all that is already known about SMA scientifically, the expanded research that this funding supports wil...A shallow hip socket predicts osteoarthritis of the hip
...sample, whose mean age was 65 years. At baseline, all participants underwent radiographs in order to detect the presence and assess the depth and degree, using the center-edge angle, of acetabular dysplasia. Participants were also evaluated for current BMI and history of heavy, physically demanding wor...School-based smoking prevention programs ineffective
...P. Rivara, M.D., M.P.H.. At the time of the study, all authors were at the University of Washington....The impact of cruciate ligament rupture on osteoarthritis of the knee
...ssess the prevalence of cruciate ligament tears in all groups. Rupture of the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) was extremely rare, found in less than one percent of the case group and none of the controls. Complete ACL tears, however, were present in nearly one-quarter of the case subjects, compared w...Study reveals frequent non-guideline treatment of late-life depression
...ediately following diagnosis of depression. Almost all the seniors studied (84%) were given some form of medication, but incredibly only slightly more than half (55%) were given the recommended first-line antidepressants according to the Canadian Psychiatric Association. "The rest (45%) were given other ...Some HIV patients at risk of exhausting treatment options
...aising the concern that these patients may exhaust all currently available treatment options. Researchers at six large HIV centres in southeast England monitored 16,593 individuals who had attended one of the centres for care between 1996 and 2002. They found that, although patients infected with HIV are...Heart surgeons publish death rates
...ty rates in this week's BMJ. The results show that all surgeons are performing to satisfactory standards....s of individual surgeons and can be reassured that all are performing to satisfactory standards." This type of analysis could stimulate improvements in sys...HIV testing should no longer be accorded any special status
...serious diseases without an in-depth discussion of all possible results, provided that the test result, positive or negative, should benefit the patient. Routine voluntary counselling and testing was appropriate to the 1980s, but times have changed and the benefits of early diagnosis of HIV are multiple....Inflammation elevates risk of cardiac death in rheumatoid arthritis patients
...e researchers collected detailed information about all study subjects' cardiac events and their cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index and smoking. They also collected information on indicators of systemic inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis disease ...Sunflower seed oil can protect low birth weight babies from infection
...mature birth are responsible for more than half of all neonatal deaths. Preterm very low birth weight babies (weighing less than 1500g) are particularly vulnerable; they have mortality rates of 50% upwards in both hospital and community settings in developing countries. Gary Darmstadt (John Hopkins Unive...Three out of the four million newborn babies who die each year could be saved
...9% of these deaths occur in poor countries, almost all published research relates to the 1% of newborn de...highest risk of death on the first day of life. Of all deaths in children under the age of five years, nearly 40% occur during the first four weeks of life...Medical technologies may hinder rather than help newborn survival
...initial visit was in their first trimester. 97% of all women had at least one ultrasound scan and 31% had...039 of 2403) in 2004, reaching 82% (374 of 456) of all private deliveries in 2004. The mean birthweight of babies decreased and the proportion of children...Orthodontists must brace against back pain
...layout of work and equipment for orthodontists and all other dental workers....York study tests enhanced care for depression patients
...ollaborative approach improves depression care but all that evidence has been gathered outside the UK, mainly in the USA. In consultation with organisations in the field and patients, our research will develop a UK-appropriate protocol that is faithful to the original models, while taking account of our ...Mayo Clinic develops first genomic-based test to predict stroke from ruptured brain aneurysm
...lready known. However, approximately 90 percent of all cases of aneurysm -- a dangerous thinning of blood vessel walls in the brain -- fall into the "sporadic" category. While development of sporadic brain aneurysm is relatively common (as autopsies have shown) many people have them and have no symptoms ...