All Stories by Nathan Seppa
- Health & Medicine
Gene Tied to Heightened Diabetes Risk
People with three particular variations within the gene that encodes the protein calpain-10 face triple the risk of getting type II diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Damage Patrol: Enzyme may reveal cancer susceptibility
People with lung cancer show less DNA-repair activity by a certain enzyme than people without the disease do.
- Health & Medicine
Coronary calcium may predict death risk
The amount of calcium in the coronary arteries can serve as a risk marker for people who are otherwise without heart disease symptoms.
- Health & Medicine
Grades slipping? Check for snoring
Children who snore frequently are more likely to struggle with their schoolwork than are children who rarely snore.
- Health & Medicine
Double Shot: Anthrax vaccine gets makeover
An experimental anthrax vaccine appears to spur production of antibodies that stop the bacterium and disable the anthrax toxin at the same time.
- Health & Medicine
Better Bones: Women benefit from low dose of estrogen
Ultralow doses of estrogen and progesterone given to postmenopausal women boost bone density compared with placebos, without causing the adverse effects seen in some women who get larger doses of these hormones.
- Health & Medicine
Old polio vaccine free of HIV, SIV
Three laboratories analyzing remaining samples of polio vaccine used in the late 1950s find that none contains any human or simian immunodeficiency virus, or chimpanzee DNA—making polio vaccine unlikely to be the cause of the initial HIV outbreak in central Africa.
- Health & Medicine
Stem-cell transplant works on lupus
Severe lupus can be reversed with a transplant of the patient's own bone marrow stem cells, after they're allowed to mature outside the body, and medication that neutralizes self-attacking immune cells.
- Health & Medicine
Nerves in heart show damage in Parkinson’s
Some patients with Parkinson's disease also have destruction of nerve terminals in the heart that affects blood pressure.
- Health & Medicine
Drug reduces risks for dialysis patients
Kidney-dialysis patients getting the vitamin D drug paricalcitol survive longer than those getting a similar medication called calcitriol.
- Health & Medicine
Blood Sugar Fix
A new class of experimental drugs that mimic the actions of the hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 shows benefits against type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes.
- Health & Medicine
Virus Shield: Ebola vaccine works fast in monkey test
Tests on monkeys show that an experimental vaccine can build immunity against Ebola virus within a month, suggesting the vaccine might help contain outbreaks of the deadly pathogen.
