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Rada Rouse

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News Articles

Unhealthy lifestyles tip the scales in stressed workers

Unhealthy lifestyles tip the scales in stressed workers

JOB stress coupled with self-reported unhealthy lifestyle puts individuals at increased risk of coronary artery disease (CAD), according to findings of a meta-analysis of seven cohort studies.

Coronavirus spreads among close human contacts: WHO

Coronavirus spreads among close human contacts: WHO

THE World Health Organization (WHO) has warned a novel coronavirus (nCoV) which has killed at least 18 people in the Middle East can transmit from human to human.

Researchers find nicotine may prevent Parkinson’s

Researchers find nicotine may prevent Parkinson’s

DIETARY nicotine might protect against Parkinson’s disease, researchers say.

Children’s diarrhoea linked to bottled water over tap

Children’s diarrhoea linked to bottled water over tap

DRINKING bottled water is associated with norovirus (NoV) infection in young Vietnamese children admitted to hospital with acute gastroenteritis, according to surprising research findings.

Study shows bid for salt restrictions had no impact

Study shows bid for salt restrictions had no impact

DESPITE calls for food manufacturers to reduce sodium levels in their products, Americans are still consuming twice as much salt as recommended, at about two teaspoons a day, a study shows.

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Blogs

The upside of gene expression for diabetes

NEW research has discovered that iron chelation may assist in restoration of normal function of pancreatic islets in people with type 2 diabetes.Dr Jenny Gunton and colleagues at Sydney’s Garvan Institute for Medical Research set out to examine what was different about islets from people with type 2 diabetes compared to people with normal glucose tolerance.Examining gene expression, they saw that a transcription factor called hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1α) impacts many genes affecting glucose uptake in the pancreas.Genetically engineered mice without the HIF-1α  gene were also found to be mildly glucose intolerant.This suggested that if there was a drug which increased ...

Do-it-yourself medicine

DNA hacking may render doctors’ diagnoses redundant, according to Belgian industrial designer Tuur van Balen.He has been trying to hook up humans to microorganisms so that we may all become “our own doctors and pharmacists”.The idea is to build a synthetic immune system, an external network of microorganisms that will sense maladies and grow the necessary cures.According to Mr van Balen – who is collaborating on this project with the Imperial College, London, no less – it’s the ultimate in personalised medicine.Every evening a person hooks up to bubbling cauldrons of yeast-like organisms, kept alive with sugar and water, and ...

Breathing fresh air into asthma research

WHEN it comes to conquering asthma, we may well have hit the wall within current paradigms of research.  At a recent thoracic physicians’ conference, two keynote speakers touched on similar issues in calling for new international collaborative efforts to understand the complexity of the disease. Despite substantial decreases in mortality, asthma incidence has increased 10- to 15-fold over the past 50 years, Professor Stephen Holgate from the University of Southampton, UK, says. The bid to find new therapeutics has so far failed, and industry may well abandon R&D in this area unless a new direction is found, he contends.  “We need to understand the ...

Egyptian mummies unravel true origins of atherosclerosis

THE atherosclerotic consequence of a diet high in saturated fat is well known today, but it’s not, apparently, a modern disease.Egyptologists with access to high-tech methods of investigating ancient mummies have demonstrated clogged arteries occurred among the rich and privileged thousands of years ago.Atherosclerosis has in fact been observed in human remains of ancient Chinese elites, and among peoples whose diet was exceptionally high in animal fats, such as Eskimos from 400 BC.Computed tomography of Egyptian mummies of high social status shows evidence of vascular calcification and atheromatous deposits, researchers say.By putting together evidence from the scans and translations of ...

Is hypnosis a breath of fresh air for respiratory disorders?

Hypnotists are usually considered to be entertainers from a bygone era, like ventriloquists or hat-and-cane vaudevillians. But this colourful history gives the technique a bad rap when it comes to consideration of its usefulness in clinical settings, proponents say. There is no consensus definition for clinical hypnosis. But practitioners say it has nothing to do with taking control of an unwitting subject by swinging a pocket watch in front of their eyes.On the contrary, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, they say.In a recent article in a paediatric respiratory journal, Professor Ran Anbar, president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and a New ...

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