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US Top Court Refuses (Dollar) 64 Mn Florida Smoking Verdicts

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Tobacco industry appeals over (Dollar) 64 million in damages awarded to former smokers for health problems resulting from their addiction, were refused by the US Supreme Court on Monday. Without giving any explanation, the top court rejected 10 new petitions filed March 28, including six from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and one from Philip Morris USA Inc. The tobacco companies were asking the nine justices to overturn decisions from Florida courts awarding large ...

Function of Blood Vessels Improved With 'Tomato Pill'

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Function of blood vessels in patients with cardiovascular disease is found to improve with a daily supplement of an extract found in tomatoes, reveals a new research from the University of Cambridge. The incidence of cardiovascular disease varies worldwide, but is notably reduced in southern Europe, where a 'Mediterranean diet' consisting of a larger consumption of fruit, vegetables and olive oil predominates. Recent dietary studies suggest that this diet reduces ...

Pap or HPV: Best Test for Cervical Cancer?

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Pap tests or HPV or both, is the question when it comes to testing for cervical cancer. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) say that while the merits of screening tests and screening intervals warrant further discussion, they firmly believe that increasing the number of women who participate in cancer screenings and ensuring that women are not lost to follow-up with lengthened screening intervals is more important than ...

Lifetime Support for Autistic Persons Comes With a Price Tag: Study

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Support for persons with autism can cost about a million or more. Bottom Line: Lifetime support for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) ranges from a cost of (Dollar) 1.4 million to (Dollar) 2.4 million in the United States and the United Kingdom. Author: Ariane V.S. Buescher, M.Sc., of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and colleagues. Background: ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by impaired ...

More Children Die Of Unspecified Viral Illness At Malda Hospital, West Bengal

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!--[if gte mso 9]xml Normal 0 /xml![endif]-- At Malda Hospital, Kolkata, two more children have succumbed to an unidentified viral illness, thereby increasing the total death toll to 12. The state health administration sent teams from the city's School of Tropical Medicine and Indian Council of Medical Research to the Malda Medical College and Hospital on Sunday where the children died. The children were admitted with ...

Bone Mass Regulated by Pathway Between Gut and Liver

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A previously unknown biological process involving vitamin B12 and taurine that regulates the production of new bone cells has been identified by researchers. This pathway could be a potential new target for osteoporosis treatment. In humans it is well known that vitamin deficiencies lead to stunted growth, but the underlying mechanisms have long been a mystery. In this study, the team was able to piece together the biological process that leads to the production ...

Caution Over New Analysis of Medicare Payments Urged by Fox Chase Doctors

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Recent release of unprecedented amounts of data from the nation's second largest health insurer, Medicare, can give a lot of information if interpreted cautiously, write two doctors at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the June 9 online edition of the iAnnals of Internal Medicine/i. In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the most detailed data in its history, related to (Dollar) 77 billion worth of physician billings to Medicare. In its analysis ...

Merck Takes Over Idenix to Boost Hepatitis C Work

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Merck, the US drugs giant, declared that it was buying Idenix Pharmaceuticals for (Dollar) 3.85 billion to bolster its pipeline of hepatitis C treatments for the widespread and largely undetected liver disease. Merck's tie-up with Idenix, which has three hepatitis C treatments in development, presents a challenge to Gilead Sciences, the US maker of the new blockbuster antiviral hepatitis C treatment Sovaldi. Merck will pay (Dollar) 24.50 per Idenix share, more than ...

Herbs that Reduce Anxiety and Depression

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Read on to find out which herbs and herbal products are useful and effective in treating the chronic and recurring disorders such as anxiety and depression.

Southeast Asia Addresses Obesity Head-On!

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Due to an alarming increase in the rates of obesity, Southeast Asian countries have set their eyes on implementing rigorous steps to help tackle the problem of obesity. Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand all face an exponential increase in their obesity rates. Growth in incomes, sluggish lifestyle and Western fatty fast food consumption are the main factors that contribute to obesity in a region that has for long opted to undereat rather than ...

Exercise Improves Survival After Breast Cancer Diagnosis

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Breast cancer is one of the commonest cancers among women in the world. Statistics indicate that breast cancer is more prevalent in developed countries such as the US, England and Australia than developing countries such as Nepal or Rwanda. The incidence of breast cancer also differs among ethnicity. For example, a href="http:www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/breast-cancer.htm" target="_blank" class="vcontentshlink"breast cancer/a is the most common cancer prevalent ...

Where can We Find Savings in Health Care?

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The effectiveness of Saving Mothers, Giving Life, a new global public-private partnership that aims to reduce maternal mortality, has now been assessed. They evaluated the first six to twelve months of the program's implementation, its ownership by national ministries of health, and its effects on health systems. According to the authors, early benefits to the broader health system included greater policy attention to maternal and child health, new health care infrastructure, ...

Sierra Leone Doubles Ebola Death Toll

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As the international aid organisations struggled to contain the deadly epidemic, Sierra Leone doubled its death toll from the highly contagious Ebola virus. "There are now 109 suspected cases of which 42 are confirmed," said a statement from the health ministry, adding that six more people had been killed by the tropical pathogen since a death toll of six was announced a week ago. Two of the new deaths were health workers in Kailahun, an eastern district ...

Ancient Pharaonic Tomb Discovered

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A pharaonic tomb belonging to a leader from the 11th dynasty of Egypt in the city of Luxor has been discovered. The wide surface of the tomb showed it was that of "someone from the royal family or a high-ranking statesman," Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement. The Spanish team was headed by Jose Galan, who said the tomb would provide new insights into the dynasty that ruled in Luxor, the capital of Ancient Egypt. "This ...

Newly B-cell Selection Process Aids the Understanding of Antibody Diversity

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B cells, the elite soldier's of the body's immune system serve as an army that is ready to recognize and destroy the invading antigens. To do so, each new B cell comes equipped with its own highly specialized weapon, a unique antibody protein that selectively binds to specific parts of the antigen. The key to this specialization is the antigen-binding region that tailors each B cell to a particular antigen, determining whether B cells survive boot camp and are selected for ...

Mechanism That Helps Viruses Spread Revealed

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How the RNA molecules found in certain viruses can mimic the shape of other molecules in the attempt of hijacking a cell and making more viruses has now been explained by researchers. The findings by Jeffrey S. Kieft, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the School of Medicine and an early career scientist with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and his colleagues solve a biochemical and molecular mystery that has confounded scientists ...

Brain Activity Passes Through Newly Detected States to Recover Consciousness

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Anesthesia makes painful procedures bearable by derailing a conscious brain and making it incapable for sensing or responding to a surgeon's knife. But little research exists on what happens when the drugs wear off."I always found it remarkable that someone can recover from anesthesia, not only that you blink your eyes and can walk around, but you return to being yourself. So if you learned how to do something on Sunday and on Monday, you have surgery, and you wake up and you ...

Combined MMRV Vaccine Linked to Slight Rise in Adverse Events

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A slight increase in the risk of febrile seizures in children has been noted due to a combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccine as compared to separate vaccines, a study has found. The MMRV vaccine was developed for young children to reduce the number of needles they receive. However, the combined vaccine has been associated with slightly higher rates of febrile seizures. Febrile seizures can accompany high fever in young children; although ...

When Tackling Childhood Obesity, Parental Sleep as Important as Child's Sleep

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Parental sleep is related to child sleep, which is in turn, linked to a decreased risk of childhood obesity, a new study has found, claiming that sleep should be an important family value. "Parents should make being well rested a family value and a priority. Sleep routines in a family affect all the members of the household, not just children; we know that parents won't get a good night's sleep unless and until their preschool children are sleeping," said Barbara ...

Anaesthesia During Childhood may Harm Memory

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A new study has found that general anaesthesia before the age of one could impair memory later in childhood, and possibly life long. This was the conclusion of scientists who compared the recollection skills of two groups of children -- some who had undergone anaesthesia in infancy and others who had not. The children, aged six to 11 and divided into two groups of 28 each, were tested over a period of 10 months for their ability to recollect specific ...

Follicular Lymphoma Patients May Benefit From Combination Therapy

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A high risk group of patients with follicular lymphoma may benefit from a novel drug combination, a new study has found. Follicular lymphoma, a B cell lymphoma, is an incurable form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that is diagnosed each year in 120,000 people worldwide. Follicular lymphoma is characterized by slow and relentless tumor growth with inevitable relapses despite intense chemotherapy. Follicular lymphomas are driven by mutations that activate the BCL2 protein, ...

Stem Cells may be a Soft Touch for Nano-engineered Biomaterials

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Stem cell behaviour can be modified by manipulating the nanoscale properties of the material they are grown on which may improve the potential of regenerative medicine, a new study has found. Stem cells are special because they are essential to the normal function of our organs and tissues. Previous research shows stem cells grown on hard substrates go on to multiply but do not differentiate: a process by which the cells specialise to perform specific functions ...

Penn Medicine Researchers to Present at the International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders

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The featured presenters at the 18th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders will be a team of Penn Medicine researchers. Matthew Stern, MD, director of the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center in the Department of Neurology and current president of the International Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Society, will chair a plenary session entitled "New insights into the pathology, progression, and heterogeneity of ...

Protein That Keeps Blood Stem Cells Healthy as They Age Discovered

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Scientists have discovered a protein that may be the key to maintaining the health of aging blood stem cells. These stem cells can become replacement cells for those lost to wear and tear. But as the blood stem cells age, their ability to regenerate blood declines, potentially contributing to anemia and the risk of cancers like acute myeloid leukemia and immune deficiency. Whether this age-related decline in stem cell health is at the root of overall aging is unclear. The ...