medical breakthrough

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FDA Approves Vaccine for Prostate Cancer

Provenge is first immunotherapy to gain approval

(Newser) - A first-of-a-kind prostate cancer treatment that uses the body's immune system to fight the disease received federal approval today, offering an important alternative to more taxing treatments like chemotherapy. Dendreon Corp.'s Provenge vaccine trains the immune system to fight tumors. It's called a "vaccine" even though it treats...

New Idea for Healthy Babies: Three Parents

It could be possible in 3 years

(Newser) - UK researchers have grown embryos that combine the DNA of one man and two women, a development that could help babies avoid genetic defects. In broad strokes, it works like this: Parents at risk of passing on a genetic disorder fertilize an egg, and the healthy material is extracted and...

'Puberty Pill' Could Make Kids Smarter

Drug would act on brain, blocking receptor that slows learning

(Newser) - Studying, schmudying: A pill that boosts teenagers’ ability to learn may be in the pipeline soon. A receptor in the hippocampus area of the brain appears to slow down learning when kids hit puberty, researchers at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn report. Give kids a steroid to suppress that receptor, and...

HIV Hides in Bone Marrow: Researchers

Finding may pave way for new AIDS treatments

(Newser) - The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that could point the way toward better treatments for the disease. Finding that hideout is a first step, but years of research lie ahead. Dr. Kathleen Collins...

Pig Lung Transplants for Humans Move Closer

Ethicists object to creating human-animal hybrid

(Newser) - Animal organ transplants in humans are now a step closer to reality: Scientists have successfully combined animal lungs with human blood, keeping a pig lung alive and functioning as the blood flowed through it. “The blood went into the lungs without oxygen and came out with oxygen, which is...

Man in Vegetative State 'Talks'

He communicates through brain waves linked to computer

(Newser) - A man in a deeply unconscious state for 5 years has been able to communicate with doctors using only his thoughts. In a study one Cornell neurologist called a "game changer" for the care of patients in a vegetative state, British and Belgian researchers used a brain scanner to...

Robotic Arm Obeys Thought Commands

Advanced prosthetic limb transfers feeling back to amputee

(Newser) - Electrodes implanted into an amputee allowed him to control a robot arm with his thoughts, scientists said today. Over the course of a month, 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello learned to manipulate the hand through a series of electronic implants connected to his nervous system, reports AP .

New 'Spider Pill' Roams Body Hunting Cancer

Camera pill first to be fully remote-controlled

(Newser) - It sounds like something out of science fiction, but a tiny robotic spider could save your life. Scientists have created a pill-sized camera that, once swallowed, can deploy mechanical legs and roam the body looking for cancer or other maladies, the Daily Telegraph reports. The “spider pill” is controlled...

Coffee Can Make You Hallucinate, Study Says

Too much caffeine increases odds of seeing, hearing things

(Newser) - Caffeine junkies shouldn’t always trust their ears, according to a new study. Subjects who drank the equivalent of seven cups of coffee proved three times more likely to hear voices, and slightly more likely to experience other hallucinations, than those consuming less than a cup’s worth. Researchers theorize...

Asthma Breakthrough Holds Promise

'Cellular pump' suggests possible treatments

(Newser) - Scientists have found a “cellular pump” that appears central to the development of asthma, pointing the way to possible new treatments, the BBC reports. The pump, called SERCA2, helps airway muscles relax. People with asthma had reduced SERCA2 levels, researchers found; replacing it in airway muscle cells could help...

Superbug Kills Face, Hand Transplant Patient

(Newser) - A French man who received a groundbreaking face and double hand transplant to repair damage from severe burns has died from a massive infection, reports the Independent. The patient, 30, suffered a heart attack during surgery to battle a super bug invasion in his face. Despite the problem, his body...

'Rogue' Protein Spread Key to Alzheimer's

Discovery casts light on tangles found in brains of disease sufferers

(Newser) - A protein linked to Alzheimer’s can run amok in the brain, affecting healthy tissue, scientists have found. All nerve cells contain the tau protein, but a “rogue form” can lead to protein clumps in cells, called neurofibrillary tangles, that are believed to play a major role in Alzheimer’...

Inner-Ear Woes Linked to Many Elderly Tumbles

More than half of Americans over 60 have the disorder

(Newser) - Researchers have shed light on the frequent, debilitating, and sometimes life-threatening falls among the elderly: many tumbles may be caused by inner-ear imbalances, Time reports. Some 35% of Americans over 40 have such vestibular dysfunction; the condition affects more than 50% of Americans 60 and older. An inner-ear imbalance multiplies...

Have an Itch? It's All In Your Spine

Urge to scratch comes from back not brain, researchers find

(Newser) - Scratching an itch may be an everyday activity, but it’s also a longstanding conundrum to scientists who have never been sure if the urge originated in the skin or the brain. Until now. A new study from University of Minnesota neuroscientists appears to show that both the itch, and...

Cholesterol Drugs Cut Clot Risk
 Cholesterol Drugs Cut Clot Risk 
Mar 30, 2009 11:47 AM CDT

Cholesterol Drugs Cut Clot Risk

Large study looked at other possible drug benefits

(Newser) - Cholesterol-lowering drugs showed sizable effects on patients in a new study, but not only in the realm of lowering heart attack and stroke risk. The statins, which are sold under the brand name Crestor, also dramatically cut the occurrence of potentially deadly blood clots in healthy people, reports the New ...

Brit Firm Offers Bigger Breasts From Stem Cells

Controversial cancer therapy to be used for cosmetic procedures

(Newser) - A new breast enhancement procedure using stem cells from stomach fat to grow larger breasts is being made available for the first time in the UK, reports the Times of London. The procedure has already been used in trials for use on breast cancer survivors. Now a controversial new operation...

Drug Ecstasy May Help Stress Disorder Victims

Drug may boost emotional learning, squash fear: studies

(Newser) - The drug ecstasy may help people recover from post-traumatic stress disorder, Reuters reports. The drug could help patients in therapy bond with their therapists—key to recovery—and get a better hold on their feelings, studies suggest. It may help reestablish a balance between two areas of the brain, while...

Amid Outcry, Doc Backs Off Designer Babies

Clinic will only screen embryos for disease, genetic disorders

(Newser) - After backlash from doctors, ethicists, and the public, a fertility clinic that had promised parents the option to choose certain traits for their new babies has changed its claim slightly. “We’re going to limit it to people with genetic diseases because we just cannot keep up with what’...

Critics Blast 'Designer Baby' Clinic

LA Doc offers defect-screening technique to pick eye color

(Newser) - The founders of an embryo technology that identifies birth defects are furious that a leading Los Angeles fertility clinic is using their discovery to enable couples to choose baby traits like hair and eye color. The role of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis—which identifies thousands of characteristics in a three-day embryo—...

Got Milk? It May Fight Alzheimer's

Drink is great source of key vitamin B12

(Newser) - Two glasses of milk a day could help prevent brain-deteriorating diseases like Alzheimer’s, scientists at Oxford have found. Milk, they observed, is an excellent source of vitamin B12, which experts believe helps protect nerve cells; elderly people with low B12 levels experience twice the brain shrinkage of those with...

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