In India, a country with a vast population and a diverse socio-economic fabric, healthcare remains fraught with challenges including disparities in access. These socio-economic disparities are deep, and they influence health outcomes. It is imperative to bridge these gaps amid the ongoing epidemiological, nutritional and demographic transitions that are bringing …
the discovery of a new gene, has led scientists to create a portly breed of mice, with muscles two to three times bigger than those of normal mice. The discovery is of significance as it could help scientists to find treatments for muscular dystrophy or for the gradual muscle wasting …
SCIENTISTS have just synthesised possibly the most complex anti-cancer vaccine to treat patients suffering from prostate cancer at a bospitaJ in New York, US. Boost to immunity Sam Danishefsky and his colleagues from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York have made copies of a large active fragment, …
A MINIMAL amount of iron is critical for our health and perhaps life itself. But what researchers are now concerned with relates to the indiscriminate loading of iron supplements as well as the widespread use of vitamin C, which enhances the absorption of dietary iron from the gut. Our bodies …
THIRTY-EIGHT students of Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, were used as guinea pigs for trials of a colon cancer drug containing a radioactive element since December 1996. The shocking discovery was made recently when some students complained of headaches, body-aches and stomach pains. Three students had also developed problems in the urinary …
a recent study conducted in Hungary with the help of the World Health Organization (who) has found that workers exposed to pesticides showed a considerably higher percentage of abnormal cells than the accepted amount. According to a team headed by I Desi of the department of public health at Albert …
Research just published shows that grapes are a good source of resveratrol, which is a cancer-preventive agent. Resveratrol is a potent cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitor, which catalyses the formation of prostaglandins, which in addition to stimulating tumour cell growth, also suppresses immune surveillance. Research had earlier shown that resveratrol can inhibit …
an enigmatic protein extracted from the urine of pregnant women can slow the progression of an aids -like disease in laboratory animals. It can also destroy cells from tumours that afflict some aids patients and boost the production of immune cells, according to Robert Gallo of the University of Maryland …
A RECENT study, led by University of Arizona epidemiologist Larry Clark, says that selenium, a mineral found in seafood and liver, helps reduce the risk of certain forms of cancer. The study done on 1,312 patients revealed that when compared with people who took placebos, patients who took daily doses …
among the novel methods of combating cancer are some drugs that fight the disease by blocking blood supply to the cancerous cells. These drugs stop angiogenesis
In a desperate bid to stop mushrooming legal claims against the industry, the British tobacco firm, BAT Industries PLC, is considering settling compensation claims brought by Americans who are suffering from smoking-related illnesses. The company's shares fell sharply after a jury in Florida ordered its US tobacco unit to pay …
the Himalayan yew (Taxus wallichiana), a rare tree found in the Himalayan foothills, is fast disappearing because of largescale illegal felling for an anti-cancer drug made from its leaves and bark. The tree parts are allegedly smuggled to laboratories in the us, Germany and other Western countries involved in research …
One of the biggest tobacco lawsuits was set in motion in the US recently with lawyers sending notices to potential claimants. These include former and current flight attendants on US airlines consistently exposed to second-hand smoke. A mass mailing exercise has begun to identify non-smokers among 120,000 flight attendants who …
a study by Dale Bauman and William Kelly of the Cornell University in Ithaca, us, shows that supplementing a cow's diet with corn oil increases the amount of conjugated linoleic acid (cla), a fatty acid manufactured by bacteria in the cow's rumen, which helps in preventing melanoma and leukaemia. cla …
Two and a half-year-old Avsar Khan was diagnosed for acute megakayo blastic leukemia (a rare form of blood cancer) at the Aga Khan hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 1987. He was then referred to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The doctors gave him three months' time. December 27, …
Japanese scientists have learned that beer may inhibit the carcinogen: tryptophan pyrolysate product no-2, a heterocyclic amine, produced by burning meat, fish or tobacco leaves. This was reported by a team led by Hikoya Hayatsu, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Okayama University, in the annual meeting of the Japanese …
after the Americans, the French have followed suit. Recently, families of two lung cancer victims filed separate lawsuits against seita, the company that makes France's most famous brands of cigarettes. They have charged the company with inadequately warning consumers about the relation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. It is …
after three decades of painstaking research, a team of American researchers has at last been able to establish a direct link between smoking and lung cancer. Mikhail F Denissenko, Annie Pao, Moon-shong Tang and Gerd P Pfeifer have reported in Science (Vol 274, No 5286) the first direct evidence showing …
FRANK McCormick and his team from Onyx Pharmaceuticals, a California-based biotech firm, have thought of a crafty way to beat cancer. Mc- Cormick's logic is that if law-abiding cells could go astray under the influence of cancer, the destructive talents of a mutant virus that is a cell destroyer could …
