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Stories written by George

Parkinson’s disease responds positively to gene therapy

Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson’s disease patients can benefit from gene therapy according to a new study published Thursday in The Lancet. Researchers applied the experimental gene therapy on 37 individuals diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Sixteen of them received gene therapy while 21 others had bogus treatments. Motor skills of the participants who had gene therapy improved by 23 […]

Life expectancy in the U.S. improves to 78 but whites still live longer than blacks

Life Expectancy

Life expectancy in the United States hit 78 years for the first time since records began and continuing the general upward trend since World War II ended. Americans born in 2009 were expected to live up to 78 years and 2 months on average according to the new report by the Centers for Disease Control […]

Obesity epidemic partially solved by weight loss surgery

Obesity

Obesity rates in the United States have doubled in the last 30 years and today some 34 percent of Americans are considered obese according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But weight loss surgery is now a viable and effective option for severely obese people according to the American Heart Association. […]

Childhood cancer survivors can solve their fertility problems with new technique

Childhood Cancer

Childhood cancer patients are sometimes rendered infertile by the treatments they receive to get rid of the disease. Many of their sperm cells die during the process and they tend to have difficulty having children. If they are advised promptly, young men can store their sperm through a sperm bank, although most are not told […]

Swine flu pandemic handling fell short of expectations, WHO admits

Swine Flu

Swine flu or the H1N1 outbreak in 2009 could have been handled better by health officials, a preliminary report by the World Health Organization said today. The United Nations health agency had formed a committee to look into how effective it was in handling the pandemic. The panel concluded that WHO committed some mistakes that […]

Emphysema screening before symptoms appear being developed by researchers

Emphysema

Emphysema can be detected earlier with a new blood test being developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. If validated by larger studies and approved, the new screening method may be included in an individual’s annual physical examination. The development is good news to smokers who are the most afflicted with emphysema, a lung […]

Cancer survival rates improving due to early detection, report says

Cancer Survival Rates

The number of American cancer survivors have grown by hundreds of thousands each year, so much so that at least one in 20 adults in the country today is a cancer survivor. Some 40 years ago, there were about 3 million cancer survivors in the United States. That number rose to 10 million in 2001 […]

Lupus drug ‘Benlysta’ gets thumbs up from federal health officials

Lupus Drug

Lupus drug Benlysta became the first medication in more than 50 years on Wednesday to get approval to treat the autoimmune condition. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the approval after an advisory panel endorsed the drug in November. Seven other lupus drugs failed to get past through the clinical trial stage in recent […]

Heart muscle damage evident in older marathon runners

Heart Muscle

Heart muscle damage is associated with excessive and long-term exercise, a new British study recently published in The Journal of Applied Physiology shows. The researchers picked older runners who participated in at least 100 marathons and those who were Olympic distance runners. Twelve athletes were aged 50 and above and 17 others, 26 to 40 […]

Lack of sleep will worsen your gambling habits

Lack of Sleep

Lack of sleep has been shown in a recent study to promote compulsive gambling habits. Brain activity among sleep-deprived people tend to make them overly optimistic about their chances, researchers from Duke University said. The report published in the medical journal Neuroscience involved magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of those suffering from lack of sleep […]

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