Nathan Seppa
Biomedical Writer (retired September 2015)
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All Stories by Nathan Seppa
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Health & Medicine
Preventive drugs protect children
Preventive treatment with inexpensive drugs decreases rainy-season cases of malaria in Senegal.
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Health & Medicine
Umbilical Bounty: Cord blood shows value against leukemia
Umbilical cord blood transplants offer a viable treatment alternative for leukemia patients who don't have a matching bone marrow donor.
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Health & Medicine
Drugs counteract irritable bowel syndrome
Antibiotics can knock out bacteria overload in the small intestine, temporarily reversing irritable bowel syndrome.
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Health & Medicine
Problems for Preemies: Early birth is linked to insulin overproduction
Children born prematurely are more likely than their full-term counterparts to develop insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes.
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Health & Medicine
Trials affirm value of drug
The drug STI-571, previously shown to work against chronic myelogenous leukemia, also helps patients who have slipped into an acute, highly lethal form of this cancer.
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Health & Medicine
Old and new drugs may fight myeloma
In some people with a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma, treatment with thalidomide or PS-341, which induces programmed cell death, may improve their chances of survival.
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Health & Medicine
Antibiotics, vitamins stall stomach cancer
A 6-year study shows that vitamin C, beta-carotene, and antibiotics can reverse premalignant conditions that could otherwise lead to stomach cancer.
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Health & Medicine
Staph receptor as drug target
A receptor molecule on the surface of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus might present an exploitable weak spot in the microbe's defenses.
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Health & Medicine
A vaccine for cervical cancer
A vaccine against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, has proved 94 percent effective in preventing the virus from infecting women.
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Health & Medicine
Marker signals esophageal cancer
Silencing of the gene that encodes the cancer-suppressing protein APC is common in people with esophageal cancer, suggesting that physicians might use this genetic abnormality as a marker for the disease.
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Health & Medicine
Is penicillin-allergy rate overstated?
A study finds that 20 of 21 people who reported having a penicillin allergy when filling out paperwork during a hospital visit in fact don't have one, suggesting that the prevalence of this allergy is overstated.
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Health & Medicine
Malaria vaccine shows promise in Mozambique
An experimental malaria vaccine tested on children in Mozambique provides some protection against the potentially life-threatening disease.