New Delhi: India recorded 25 million cases of Malaria and 30,000 deaths in the year 2009 - according to the World Health Organisation. That's one tenth the number of cases worldwide. And now a bigger threat emerging is that of drug resistance. About ten years ago, the most commonly used anti-malaria drug Chloroquine, stopped working against the malaria parasite, forcing countries to switch to the second line of treatment, called ...
09:24 AM, Apr 25, 2011
London: Giving people a tablet of the stress hormone cortisol can help reduce their fear of heights. The hormone, which is part of the body's "fight or flight" reaction to danger, appears to open the brain up to being reprogrammed and to permanently remove anxieties. Tests on 40 patients with acrophobia - a fear of high places and edges - found those given cortisol in combination with behavioural therapy dramatically...
11:32 AM, Mar 29, 2011
Washington: The Food and Drug Administration has approved a breakthrough cancer medication from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. that researchers have heralded as the first drug shown to prolong the lives of patients with advanced skin cancer. The federal health agency approved the injectable drug, called Yervoy, for late-stage or metastatic melanoma. Melanoma is the deadliest type of skin cancer, but the FDA has only approved two other drugs for advanced melanoma....
12:49 PM, Mar 26, 2011
London: There's now scientific backing for the old adage that laughter is the best medicine, as a new study has claimed that a hearty chuckle promotes healing by speeding up blood flow. It is likely to put you on the road to recovery more quickly than any hi-tech treatment, simply by increasing your blood circulation, said the researchers. A team led by researchers at the University of Leeds that carried...
02:50 PM, Mar 10, 2011
Toronto: Scientists are developing a universal blood product that would do away with the necessity of matching blood groups before transfusion. Maryam Tabrizian and colleagues from McGill University in Canada note that blood transfusions require a correct match between a donor and the recipient's blood. This can be a tricky proposition given that there are 29 different red blood cell types, including the familiar ABO and Rh types, reports the...
12:40 PM, Mar 10, 2011
London: Next time you spot a spider in your bedroom, don't panic, as scientists say one of their species may actually help boost a man's libido. A single bite from the Brazilian wandering spider has been shown to have side-effects including four-hour long erections. Now, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia in the US found that the toxins in the arachnid's venom contains a possible breakthrough for erectile dysfunction,...
07:34 PM, Mar 08, 2011
Washington: Scientists have produced what they claim is a ground-breaking gel which can heal wounds after sinus surgery without causing any negative side-effects. A US-based medical technology company Medtronic has purchased the patent to the medical gel application developed by the University of Otago in partnership with the University of Adelaide and a New Zealand-based company Robinson Squidgel. The gel could potentially lead to a reduction in the number of...
11:28 AM, Mar 02, 2011
New Delhi: Even after 100 years of use, doctors across the world have no clue how aspirin exactly works in protecting against heart attack and stroke. India will now soon be part of a trial - conducted by Medanta Medicity in collaboration with Duke Medicine, North Carolina - to better understand aspirin's effect on the body. "We're going to use newer modalities to study the effect of aspirin, how the...
01:11 PM, Feb 23, 2011
New Delhi: After much ado the drug controller has finally recommended a ban on the pediatric formulation of Nimesulide, a popular drug for common fever and pain. Nimesulide has been known for its adverse effects on the liver for the last ten years. The Drug Technical Advisory Board has recommended a ban on a total of five controversial drugs already banned in the west. Cisapride, used to treat heartburn has...
10:25 AM, Feb 22, 2011
London: A British surgeon has saved his long-lost friend's life by diagnosing his burst appendix online, thanks to popular social networking site 'Facebook', a media report said. Rahul Velineni, 30, logged on mid-shift and saw posts from his former schoolmate telling friends that his stomach was in agony. The medic did not have his phone number because they had lost touch -- so messaged him from Swansea Hospital: "Sounds bad,...
07:24 PM, Feb 15, 2011
London: A ban on the sale of Ayurvedic and other herbal medicines will take effect across Europe from May 1 following a European Union directive introduced as a response to growing concern over adverse effects of such alternative medicines. Users and promoters of such medicines have called the EU directive called The Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, 2004/24/EC, "discriminatory and disproportionate". Ayurvedic and traditional herbal medicines will need to licensed...
05:56 PM, Feb 03, 2011
New Delhi: Who says alcohol is always bad for health? Ask doctors and they will tell you how a few drops of alcohol can cure you of a rare genetic heart disorder through a technique that is fast replacing the conventional surgical method. Alcohol septal ablation is the technique used to treat muscles hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) which causes abnormal muscle growth leading to obstruction of blood flow. "In alcohol septal...
11:21 AM, Feb 01, 2011
Sydney: Many common drugs, including some antibiotics, anti-histamines and anti-psychotics, can cause a potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythm, known as arrhythmia. The group of drugs most commonly associated with this side-effects are anti-psychotic drugs, taken by patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. Patients taking these drugs are up to three times more likely to die of sudden cardiac death due to an abnormal heart rhythm, the journal Nature Structural...
01:56 PM, Jan 31, 2011
From India's first indigenous Swine flu vaccine to a superbug named after India, catch the top health news of 2010. ...
12:02 PM, Dec 31, 2010
London: A diet drug that helps women drop two dress sizes in six months could be available in just three years. The jab has produced "phenomenal" results helping men and women who have struggled with their weight for years shed a stone and a half (or roughly 9.5 kg). This makes the drug, called liraglutide, more than twice as good as anything on the market. It also lowers blood pressure,...
12:53 PM, Dec 27, 2010
London: A new kind of experimental HIV medicine can halt one of the earliest stages of HIV infection and may lead in future to a novel class of drugs to fight other dangerous viruses, German scientists said on Wednesday. The drug, being developed by small privately held Hannover-based firm VIRO Pharmaceuticals, is called VIR-576 and reduced the amount of HIV infection in the blood by as much 95 percent in...
01:17 PM, Dec 23, 2010
London: Giving alternative treatments such as homeopathic remedies instead of conventional medicines to children may have deadly side effects in rare instances, a new analysis says. Australian researchers monitored reports from pediatricians in Australia from 2001 to 2003 looking for suspected side effects from alternative medicines like herbal treatments, vitamin supplements or naturopathic pills. They found 39 reports of side effects including four deaths. The study published online on Thursday...
10:14 AM, Dec 23, 2010
London: A ‘fountain of youth' drug which could help people stay fit and healthy long into old age has been unveiled by doctors. In tests, tiny amounts of the drug lenalidomide massively boosted immune system chemicals key to fighting off invaders from bugs to tumours. Concentrations of one of the protective compounds rose more than 100-fold. Bolstering the body's defences could also make vaccines such as the flu jab more...
04:32 PM, Dec 16, 2010
Singapore: Parents may soon be able to find out if their unborn child is prone to any inherited diseases, researchers said on Thursday, after developing a non-invasive technique to draw the entire gene map of the human fetus. By analyzing a sample of the mother's blood, which contains DNA from the fetus, scientists in Hong Kong and the United States were able to identify all the DNA strands that belong...
12:17 PM, Dec 10, 2010
New York: Women seeking medical abortion, sometimes called the "abortion pill," often first undergo an ultrasound test, but a new study suggests that may be an unnecessary step. In the US, medical abortions can be performed within nine weeks of the first day of a woman's last menstrual period. Most medical abortions involve taking the drug mifepristone (Mifeprex) followed by misoprostol, which causes the womb to contract. There are no...
05:36 PM, Dec 09, 2010
