Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    Sweet Treatment for SARS

    Since severe acute respiratory syndrome–or SARS–burst on the scene this past March, physicians have reported more than 8,400 cases worldwide. The flulike lung disease appears to have emerged in mainland China, where officials have acknowledged 7,083 cases so far. In the future, people with the intense flu- and pneumonia-like symptoms of SARS could find relief […]

    By Janet Raloff
  2. Health & Medicine

    Promising drug cuts tumor metabolism

    Early safety trials of an experimental medicine suggest that it could be used for treating several serious cancers.

    By Ben Harder
  3. Health & Medicine

    Immune test predicts tolerance for radiation

    A new blood test can foretell which cancer patients are likely to suffer serious delayed side effects from radiation therapy.

    By Ben Harder
  4. Health & Medicine

    Genes linked to colon cancer take sides

    Cancers on opposite sides of the colon are genetically distinct and should be studied and treated as separate entities.

    By Ben Harder
  5. Health & Medicine

    Herbal therapy may carry cancer danger

    An herbal extract that some women use to relieve symptoms of menopause increases the likelihood in mice with breast cancer that the disease will spread.

    By Ben Harder
  6. Health & Medicine

    Keeping breathing steady and safe

    Scientists may have found a way to avoid the lowered breathing rate that comes from treatment with morphine or other opiate-based narcotics and anesthetics.

    By John Travis
  7. Health & Medicine

    Metal’s Mayhem: Cadmium mimics estrogen’s effects, thwarts DNA repair

    Cadmium causes endocrine disruption by mimicking estrogen in rats and also thwarts routine DNA repair, causing mutations, two studies show.

    By Nathan Seppa
  8. Health & Medicine

    Split Ends: Cancers follow shrinkage of chromosomes’ tips

    Genetic tabs called telomeres, which normally protect the ends of chromosomes, become undersized in many tissues that later turn cancerous, new studies in people show.

    By Ben Harder
  9. Health & Medicine

    No Hiding Most Trans Fats

    The current federal food-labeling law requires that manufacturers identify the major nutrients in processed foods, including total fat. Moreover, the law mandates that the “Nutrition Facts” section of each label separately list nutrients that can pose significant health risks, such as saturated fats. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration announced that beginning in 2006, […]

    By Janet Raloff
  10. Health & Medicine

    Viral protein could help liver therapy

    Researchers have developed a method of delivering gene therapies to targeted cells that makes use of viral proteins rather than whole virus particles.

    By Ben Harder
  11. Health & Medicine

    DNA Differences Add Risk: Altered genes show up in Lou Gehrig’s disease

    People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are more likely than healthy people to have certain variations in the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene, suggesting variant VEGF contributes to the disease.

    By Nathan Seppa
  12. Health & Medicine

    Cholesterol Medicine for Eggs?

    Five years ago, a small natural-products company made waves when it marketed Cholestin, a cholesterol-lowering herbal product. The capsules contained a material made from rice fermented by a certain type of yeast. Though new to U.S. consumers, this dried version of so-called red-yeast rice has for centuries been a Chinese food coloring and herbal remedy […]

    By Janet Raloff