Giving Kids Tylenol Makes Vaccines Less Effective, Study Finds
Babies who took paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, right after a shot had less fever but also showed a lower immune response, possibly because the drug reduced the inflammation that may favor interactions between immune cells, according to research published in the medical journal The Lancet.
Using the painkiller, also sold under the brands Calpol in the U.K. and Anacin in the U.S., to prevent fever after vaccination “has become routine practice and is even recommended in some countries,” wrote the researchers, led by Roman Prymula of [...]
Own ntioxidant tudy Says
Those in the study with the highest amounts of antioxidant urate in their blood were 36 percent less likely to need treatment within two years for early Parkinsons symptoms than those with the lowest levels, research online today in the Archives of Neurology showed.
Raising the amount of urate is one of the “more promising” strategies in development, said senior study author Michael Schwarzschild. About one million Americans have Parkinsons, which starts with trembling and stiffness that can eventually hamper walking and talking, according to the National [...]
High Blood Pressure Causes 20% Of Demises In China, Study Says
More than 20 percent of all deaths in China were due to high blood pressure in 2005, and about 60 percent were linked to heart disease, a study of almost 170,000 people published in the latest edition of the medical journal The Lancet found. More than half of those fatalities were premature, said researchers led by Jiang He at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Encouraging Chinas people to consume less salt should be a priority for health authorities, which tend to devote more resources to fighting infectious [...]
Christmas Discovery On Cancer, Aging Brought Nobel to Two Women
Greider had been testing an enzyme, one of the proteins that start chemical reactions in the body, and was impatient to check results. What she saw was “the first clear evidence” of how cells make telomeres, small parts of human DNA that allow genes to be replicated without the loss of protein-making information, Greider said in an interview yesterday. Her comments came just hours after she and Blackburn became the first two women to share a Nobel Prize for medicine.
The enzyme, which Greider and Blackburn named [...]
3 Americans Share Nobel Medicine Prize
The research by Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak revealed the workings of chromosome features called telomeres, which play an important role in the aging of cells.
Its the first time two women have shared in a single Nobel science prize. Over the years, a total of 10 women have won the prize in medicine.
Blackburn, 60, who holds U.S. and Australian citizenship, is a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Greider, 48, is a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in [...]
Teens With Own Cars Have More Crashes, Study Finds
Teenagers with their own cars or free use of one are much more likely to get in crashes than those who share a car. And crashes are much less common among teens whose parents set clear driving safety rules.
The findings are in two studies by researchers at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and funded by State Farm Insurance Co. They were released Friday and are in the October issue of Pediatrics.
The researchers say the findings can help parents keep their kids from becoming a grim statistic: Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, killing more than 5,000 [...]
Report: 35 Million-plus Worldwide Have Dementia
The new count is about 10 percent higher than what scientists had predicted just a few years ago, because earlier research underestimated Alzheimers growing impact in developing countries.
Barring a medical breakthrough, the World Alzheimer Report projects dementia will nearly double every 20 years. By 2050, it will affect a staggering 115.4 million people, the report concludes.
“We are facing an emergency,” said Dr. Daisy Acosta, who heads Alzheimers Disease International, which released the report Monday.
The U.S. and other developed countries long have been bracing for Alzheimers to skyrocket. But the report aims to raise awareness of the threat in poorer countries, [...]
Glaxo E-mails Over Paxil Study Must Be Turned Over For Trial
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston today refused to block William Seales family from reviewing e-mails and other communications between Glaxo and Boston University researchers over Paxils birth-defect risks. The 1-year-old Seale, whose pregnant mother took the antidepressant, died in 2004 after three surgeries to address heart defects, according to court filings.
Seales family contends officials at London-based Glaxo, which funded the birth-defect research, sought to influence the studys results to help protect the company from lawsuits, Gertner said in her ruling. The study was done [...]
Thin Thighs May Signal Heart Disease, Early Death, Study Says
Researchers have been measuring body sizes and shapes for years to look for clues about who is most vulnerable to heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. While most of the effort has focused on height, weight and the size of the hips relative to the waist, no one approach stands out, doctors said.
Researchers took detailed measurements and evaluated the body composition of 1,436 men and 1,380 women in Denmark, then tracked their health for more than decade as part of a study conducted on [...]
Fighting Blindness May Prevent Demises In Ethiopia
The World Health Organization has set 2020 as the target for eliminating trachoma. The United States has been free of the disease since the 1970s, but it persists in 48 countries. In Ethiopia, a hotbed, 40 percent of children under 10 show signs of active trachoma.
“Trachoma is almost part of the definition of poverty,” said study co-author Paul Emerson of the Atlanta-based Carter Center. “Its victims are forgotten and without political voice, which is why this finding is so tremendously exciting.”
The researchers compared villages where children received the antibiotic Zithromax to villages where treatment was delayed a year. The antibiotic [...]