Regular cannabis may increase risk of stroke in young users
...nly been 15 other cases of stroke, which have been linked to cannabis consumption. But they conclude: "Cannabis is not as safe a drug as many believeFuture studies will be needed to clarify the role of cannabis as a stroke risk factor, as it could be underestimated." An accompanying editorial, which discus...Chlamydia testing in pharmacies: Questions that need addressing
...itive or negative? How will the testing process be linked to the provision of follow up for those testing positive whether or not they receive treatment? Who will provide the sexual contact tracing facilities for people with newly diagnosed sexual infections? Who will provide safe sex advice, and who will a...Drugs aid weight loss among type 2 diabetes patients
...dra in diabetic patients. Obesity has been closely linked with type 2 diabetes. In a 2000 study, 80 to 90 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight. Obesity may also worsen problems associated with diabetes, including high blood sugar, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, say Norris and col...HIV patients may be at risk of heart problems when taking protease inhibitor drugs
... are still greater than the risk of heart problems linked to their use. They urge physicians to apply this n...e widely-used protease inhibitors may, in fact, be linked to the development of heart rhythm problems through the mechanism of blocking a channel. Ultimately...Mothers' exposure to air pollutants linked to chromosome damage in babies
...while in the womb. While previous experiments have linked such genetic alterations to an increased risk of leukemia and other cancers, much larger studies would be required to determine the precise increase in risk as these children reach adulthood. The air pollutants considered in this study include emissi...Promising treatments for Huntington's disease identified in UCI study
...MO-1 modifies the mutated Huntingtin protein (Htt) linked to the disease, changing its chemical properties and making it more toxic. In addition, they found that drugs called HDAC inhibitors, which were developed for cancer chemotherapy, were able to prevent neuron damage in fruit flies carrying mutated Htt...New highly active agents against sandfly fever
...esia). The activity of these substances is closely linked to their chemical structure, and especially to the length of the substitution group (number of carbon atoms) located in position 2 on the quinoleic nucleus. Generally, the most active quinolines are those which carry a three-carbon-atom branch and an...Clot-busting drugs may help detect potentially deadly leg clots
...hers says. About 10 percent of hospital deaths are linked to the potentially preventable scenario of clots forming in the venous system, then breaking loose. Amazingly, the body already has tPA in the lining of blood vessels to help dissolve clots; the d-dimer tests looks for the breakdown products of that...Morbidly obese pay nearly twice as much for health care
...llion in U.S. heath-care expenditures in 2000 were linked to excess body weight--a 12 percent increase from 1998. "If the number of morbidly obese Americans continues to increase over the next decade, total U.S. health-care expenditures will likely continue to rise," says Dr. Arterburn. Morbid obesity is as...Transport system smuggles medicines into brain
...omes were significantly bigger than the previously linked enzyme. Liposomes have a diameter of 100 nanometres and the enzyme a diameter of 3 to 4 nanometres. Therefore a liposome or a direct conjugation can be chosen, dependent on the intracellular destination of the medicine....UT Southwestern doctors track Oklahoma Alzheimer's patients via telemedicine
...-care connection is made using equipment in Dallas linked to satellites located where patients in the Choctaw Nation live. Patients' family members bring them to one of the four Oklahoma locations including the primary memory disorders clinic in Talihina, Broken Bow, McAlester and Hugo. "They can see me, an...Leukemia drug breakthrough study in New England Journal of Medicine
...nt. The defective 5q chromosome abnormality may be linked to other serious cancers, including leukemias and small cell lung cancer. In another finding of the same study, all the patients with the 5q deletion who became transfusion independent also went into cytogenetic remission, meaning that the chromosom...Patients with cancer have highly increased risk for blood clots
...ions, factor V Leiden and prothrombin 20210A, both linked to thrombosis. The researchers found that the overall risk of venous thrombosis was increased 7-fold in patients with a malignancy vs. persons without malignancy. Patients with hematological (related to blood) malignancies had a 28-fold increased ris...Bone density returns when teens stop using Depo Provera, Group Health study finds
...stop using the drug. Several previous studies have linked Depo-Provera to bone loss, raising concerns about its use among teens, a population in their peak bone-building years. "These findings are reassuring for those concerned about future risk of fractures," said Delia Scholes, PhD, senior investigator ...Migraine-sparked vision loss may increase stroke risk in women; Migraine
...ticular type of visual disturbance is more closely linked with increased stroke risk. Using data from The Stroke Prevention in Young Women Study conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, researchers investigated whether migraine accompanied by visual loss, versus migraine ac...New study finds kelp can reduce level of hormone related to breast cancer risk
... of the rat estrous cycle. Studies in humans have linked longer menstrual cycle lengths to lower risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers. "If you have longer cycles, you actually have fewer periods over a lifetime, which means less time is spent overall in the phases where hormone levels and breast...Phobic anxiety increases heart disease death risk among women
...r after controlling for other cardiac risk factors linked to phobic anxiety such as high blood pressure, dia...s might account for some, but not all, of the risk linked to phobic anxiety. "In other words, women who had high levels of phobic anxiety also were more likel...$10-million study explores men's role in transmitting HPV
...les in spreading the sexually transmitted organism linked to cervical cancer in women. The men will be followed every six months for four years. They need not have the HPV virus. But they must be willing to visit a clinic at Moffitt twice a year for the four-year study duration. Giuliano is Moffitt's Pro...Nanoscale diagnostic sets sights on Alzheimer's
... the brain and spinal cord have detected a protein linked in recent studies to Alzheimer's disease. If proven successful in further clinical studies, the procedure could become the first tool for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's, and the first test to conclusively identify the disease in living patients. Chad......t studies, and heavy alcohol drinking was strongly linked to the diseases noted. The risks are shown to increase with the amount of alcohol consumed yet the overall evidence does not determine "whether there is any threshold, below which no effect is evident."...