Health

There’s a lot of evidence coming from the latest research into brain health that brain aging is only ‘normal and inevitable’ if you do nothing to prevent it. This means that it doesn’t have to happen to you – that you can keep your brain healthy and in ‘tip-top’ shape, enjoy being creative and improve your memory with just a little bit of effort… whatever your age.

Expenditures for the uninsured in Maryland totaled $1.47 billion in FY2002, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The sum equates to $2,371 per individual without health insurance—paid for by state and federal funds, private insurance companies, physicians, charities and the uninsured themselves.

Merck got Texas Governor Rick Perry to sign an executive order requiring every young girl in Texas to receive the Merck vaccination Gardasil at $360 for three shots of the vaccine. Unless you can demonstrate proof that you have taken the shots, you are not going to be allowed to go to school.

The way in which the pharmaceutical industry tries to influence doctors is worrying. It is encouraging that their activities are being monitored and publicised more and more.But there's still lots of reasons to be concerned.

Value-based insurance design seen as fiscally responsible, clinically sensitive approach.

The pharmaceutical industry, academia and government agencies need to work together to restore faith in drug development, say doctors. They argue that the recent litigation over the drug Vioxx, produced by Merck and Co. Inc., has highlighted the failings of the current system, which can be open to abuse.

Many cancer patients who have heart attacks often are not treated with life saving aspirin given the belief in the medical community that they could experience lethal bleeding. Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, however, say that notion is now proven wrong and that without aspirin, the majority of these patients will die.

A U.S. scientist has found a way to genetically engineer plants to make large amounts of inexpensive vaccines against disease.

A psychological technique based on Buddhist philosophy and practice may provide a solution for women who struggle with binge eating and bulimia.

Ancient doctors prescribed marijuana for all manner of afflictions. Why should modern doctors be denied the right to prescribe the same substance to those who suffer today?

PTEN is one of the most commonly mutated tumor suppressor genes. It is an antagonist for many cellular growth, proliferation and survival processes. When mutated or deleted, it causes cancers of the prostate, breast, colon, and brain. Researchers have now identified fundamentally novel regulatory mechanisms of PTEN function.

Some researchers claim that the positives of drinking red wine go beyond cardiovascular benefits. A number of studies have discovered that an antioxidant concentrated in the skin of the grape, resveratrol, may actually help inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors. Research into the properties of resveratrol also indicates that it may be helpful in the formation of nerve cells, and so could potentially be a factor in the treatment of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Packed lunches taken to school by 7-year olds are even less healthy than school meals used to be before Jamie Oliver set out to reform them. In the year 2000, school meals were every bit as bad a Jamie Oliver suggested - but that children given packed lunches instead were even worse off nutritionally.

Daily mental drills will have a lot more impact on our longevity and wellbeing than abdominal crunches and boring hours on the treadmill. The brainpower exercises we complete today can improve our mental agility as far as five years into the future. No workout at the gym can match that.

An anti-allergy drug in use for more than 40 years significantly reduced tumor growth in animal models of human pancreatic cancer and also increased the effectiveness of standard chemotherapy, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.