Medical News
Improving Understanding Of Psychiatric Disorders With The Help Of Zebrafish
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have shown that zebrafish could be used to study the underlying causes of psychiatric disorders. The study, published online in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, found zebrafish can modify their behaviour in response to varying situations...
Monitoring Fetal Heart Using Bluetooth
Checking the heart of the unborn baby usually involves a stethoscope. However, an inexpensive and accurate Bluetooth fetal heart rate monitoring system has now been developed by researchers in India for long-term home care. Details are reported in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Computers in Healthcare. Vijay Chourasia of the LNM Institute of Information Technology in Jaipur and Anil Kumar Tiwari of the Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan, in Jodhpur, explain how fetal phonocardiography is the modern equivalent of the stethoscope in ante-natal baby care...
Serious But Rare Genetic Immune Disorder Studied By Scientists
Defects in the gene that encodes the XIAP protein result in a serious immune malfunction. Scientists used biochemical analyses to map the protein's ability to activate vital components of the immune system. Their results have recently been published in Molecular Cell, a journal of international scientific repute...
Personal Genetic Test Results Have Not Driven Overuse Of Expensive Medical Care
People have more and more chances to participate in genetic testing that can indicate their range of risk for developing a disease. Receiving these results does not appreciably drive up - or diminish - test recipients' demand for potentially costly follow-up health services, according to a new study in the early online issue of Genetics in Medicine...
Anti-HIV Product For Both Vagina And Rectum Using Reduced Glycerin Formulation Of Tenofovir Vaginal Gel
A change in the formulation of tenofovir gel, an anti-HIV gel developed for vaginal use, may make it safer to use in the rectum, suggests a study published online this week in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. In laboratory tests of rectal tissue, researchers from the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) found that the reformulated gel was less harmful to the lining of the rectum than the original vaginal formulation, and just as effective in protecting cells against HIV...
Rare DNA Variations May Be Responsible For Differences In Susceptibily To Heart, Lung And Other Disorders
One-letter switches in the DNA code occur much more frequently in human genomes than anticipated, but are often only found in one or a few individuals. The abundance of rare variations across the human genome is consistent with the population explosion of the past few thousand years, medical geneticists and evolutionary biologists report in the advanced online edition of Science...
Featured Stories
Autism, Obesity And Schizophrenia Gene IsolatedThe size of a baby's head is often related to neurological disorders, such as autism - which affects 1 in 88 children. Now, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have identified genes responsible for head size at birth by inserting human genes into zebrafish. The study is published online in the journal Nature. Nicholas Katsanis, Ph.D., Jean and George Brumley Jr. M.D...
Genetic Test May Predict Risk Of SchizophreniaResearchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine have developed a test that can predict how likely an individual is to develop schizophrenia. The scientists combined data from several different types of studies in order to identify and prioritize a group of genes most associated with the disease...
Dieting During Pregnancy Is Safe And HelpfulA study in BMJ reports that the risk for serious complications, such as pre-eclampsia, diabetes and premature birth can be safely reduced even in overweight and obese pregnant women by following a healthy calorie controlled diet during pregnancy...