Written on July 10, 2011 by Jett Dooley
It seems climbing up the social ladder is good for your health, as a Swedish study has found that people who succeed in life have a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm studied the backgrounds and medical records of 12,030 people born between 1926 and 1958.
They found that people in low socio-economic groups and those whose parents came from a poor background had 42 per cent elevated risk of high blood pressure,
Rates of high blood pressure were also higher among those who were light at birth, of short stature and drank large quantities of alcohol.
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Written on July 8, 2011 by Jade Haigh
Did you know that the Veterans Health Administration is the largest single provider of HIV care in the United States, providing care for more than 24,000 Veterans living with HIV in 2010?
The VA has been and remains an integral part of the service delivery system for people living with HIV in our country. The agency has a history of HIV care that goes back to 1981, when the CDC reported the first cases of AIDS. Here’s a quote from a nurse whose reminiscences appear on the VA’s 30 Years of AIDS site:
I remember hearing about a disease affecting gay men in 1984, but as a Psychiatric Clinical Specialist working in Mental Health, I did not think I would be affected in my specialty area. But
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Written on July 7, 2011 by Jade Haigh
Universal testing for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, as opposed to testing based on known risk factors, is the way to go, according to a survey of people attending general outpatient clinics in Seattle. While most patients surveyed preferred to know that they were being tested and to be alerted of the results even when they were negative, the study findings, published in the June 6 issue of BMC Infectious Diseases, suggest that patients believed ensuring universal testing for HCV was more important than either soliciting patient consent for the test or providing negative test results. The need for increased HCV testing is clear. According to U.S. Read All Post…
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Written on July 7, 2011 by Jordan Ballard
Move over, Lyme disease: Another tick-borne illness is on the rise in various parts of the country, and this one can kill.
Known as babesiosis, the disease is caused by a microscopic parasite that attacks blood cells, causing flu-like symptoms that can make it difficult to accurately diagnose. Like Lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria, babesia microti parasites are carried by deer ticks.
First documented in Massachusetts in 1969, the once-obscure babesiosis has surfaced as a significant public health threat in parts of the Northeast and Upper Midwest over the last several years. A recent study in the journal , published by the U.S.
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Written on July 7, 2011 by Jett Dooley
Surgeons claim to have carried out the world’s first transplant of a fully synthetic organ, a windpipe created using a cancer patient’s stem cells and an artificial scaffold.
The 36-year-old cancer patient received the organ a month ago at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.
The process involved scientists at University College London, who were given three-dimensional scans of the windpipe of Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a geology student from Eritrea with an inoperable, cancerous tumour that was obstructing his breathing.
They created a glass mould of the windpipe and his two main bronchial tubes, which was then coated in a polymer containing millions of tiny holes.
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