Nathan Seppa
Biomedical Writer (retired September 2015)
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All Stories by Nathan Seppa
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Health & Medicine
Heartburn drugs linked to vitamin deficiency
People who take Nexium, Prilosec and other medicines more prone to low B12 levels.
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Health & Medicine
Triplet births decline as IVF practice evolves
The number of U.S. pregnancies resulting in three or more babies has gone down since 1998.
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Health & Medicine
Cell counts provide a read on ovarian cancer
New technology might discern which tumors are most dangerous and help guide treatment.
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Health & Medicine
Simple dietary supplements could help stave off AIDS
Many people newly infected with HIV stayed healthy on regimen involving multivitamins and selenium.
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Health & Medicine
Thalidomide treats Crohn’s disease
Study of children with the inflammatory bowel disorder raises possibility of new use for tainted drug.
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Health & Medicine
Whooping cough vaccine may still allow some level of infection
Animal tests show pertussis shots stave off symptoms but allow spread of the bacteria.
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Health & Medicine
Eating nuts may extend a person’s life
People who regularly ate peanuts or tree nuts were less likely to die during decades-long studies.
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Health & Medicine
Changes in malaria parasite may make Africans more susceptible
Ominous signals are emerging simultaneously in population studies and under the microscope that Plasmodium vivax, a malaria parasite well known in Asia and Latin America, may have found a way to infect Africans.
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Health & Medicine
Old drug, new tricks
Metformin, cheap and widely used for diabetes, takes a swipe at cancer.
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Health & Medicine
Prion mutation yields disease marked by diarrhea
Rare prion ailment starts in adulthood, attacking the gut before brain.
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Health & Medicine
Marrow transplant for child with leukemia cures allergy
A bone marrow transplant rid one child of his blood cancer and also an immune reaction to peanuts.
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Life
Newborns’ weak immunity may allow helpful bacteria to gain a foothold
Though infant immune systems raise risk of infection, they also allow good microbes into the body, study in mice shows.