A research team led by University of Massachusetts Amherst resource economist Sylvia Brandt, with colleagues in California and Switzerland, have revised the cost burden sharply upward for childhood asthma and for the first time include the number of cases attributable to air pollution, in a study released this week in the early online version of [...]
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have created synthetic nanoparticles that target lymph nodes and greatly boost vaccine responses, said lead author Ashley St. John, Ph.D., a researcher at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. The paper was published online in the journal Nature Materials on Jan. 22. Currently all other adjuvants (substances added to vaccines to [...]
Accelerated growth in the first three months of life, but not fetal growth, is associated with an increased risk of asthma symptoms in young children, according to a new study from The Generation R Study Group at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. “We know that low birth weight is associated with an increased risk [...]
Two years after pharmaceutical giant Roche promised the BMJ it would release key Tamiflu trial data for independent scrutiny, the safety and effectiveness of this anti-influenza drug remains uncertain, warn experts today. A new report by the Cochrane Collaboration says Roche’s refusal to provide full access to all its data leaves critical questions about how [...]
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have found a new way to block infection from the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the liver that could lead to new therapies for those affected by this and other infectious diseases. More than 170 million people worldwide suffer from hepatitis C, the disease caused by chronic HCV [...]
A worldwide study has shown that physical activity during work and leisure time significantly lowers the risk of heart attacks in both developed and developing countries. Ownership of a car and a television was linked to an increased risk of heart attacks, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The findings come from the INTERHEART study, [...]
A new study suggests that middle-aged adults recently diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension have time to try to learn how to control their high blood pressure without medications, but not too much time. The consequences of delaying effective hypertension treatment for up to a year were small—a two-day reduction in quality-adjusted life expectancy—according to a [...]
Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have shown one way in which poor nutrition in the womb can put a person at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other age-related diseases in later life. This finding could lead to new ways of identifying people who are at a higher [...]
In an analysis of data from more than 15 countries that included the U.S., Canada, Australia, and many European nations, patients in the U.S. who experienced a ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram following a heart attack) were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital at 30 days after [...]
A clinical trial testing a candidate HIV vaccine known as the STEP study was halted in September 2007 after interim analysis indicated that the vaccine did not work. Moreover, subsequent analyses indicated that the vaccine made some individuals more susceptible to HIV, in particular individuals who had pre-existing immune effectors (antibodies) that recognized a component [...]