Category Archives: Health Care News
Antibiotic Overuse in Farms and MRSA Superbug Infections
Public health win: FDA ordered to act to stem antibiotic overuse in farm animals It’s a hellish and frightening prospect — the chance of acquiring Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), a staph bacterial infection that’s resistant to methicillin and common antibiotics like oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. Most commonly manifesting as ghastly, pus-filled pustules or boils that [...]
Bird Superflu Virus: Yoshihiro Kawaoka & Ron Fouchier Research Halted
Just in case you missed it, here’s something straight out of a sci-fi thriller—except that it’s true and has been recently in the news: Scientists in a lab, working on a dangerous virus that usually kills half of those infected, have mutated it to make it as contagious as the common flu. For as long [...]
Sleep Apnea Health Risks: Heart Attack & Deafness?
A sleep disorder that interrupts breathing can raise women’s risk of dying from heart attacks and having other cardiovascular problems in much the same way as it does for men. What’s more, obstructive sleep apnea is also linked with sudden hearing loss, particularly in men. These are recent findings of two independent studies, the first [...]
AICAR Exercise Pill Benefits: It Prevents Heatstroke?
‘Couch potato pill’ may prevent extreme heat sensitivity: Here’s good news for athletes who are raring to compete in, say, Tucson, Arizona on a hot summer day or cocky soldiers wanting to go on this summer’s tour of duty to Afghanistan, but who are barred from doing so because of an extreme heat sensitivity called malignant hyperthermia.
New research shows that the compound dubbed the “exercise pill” or “couch potato pill” because it slows muscle fatigue and improves muscle endurance without exercise may also be used to prevent heatstroke—at least in mice. The findings are found in a paper published by the journal Nature Medicine.
Norovirus: Vaccine for Cruise Ship Virus? Hope For Future Treatment?
Vaccine may prevent “cruise ship virus”, “winter vomiting bug”
Researchers may soon roll out a vaccine to prevent people from catching the norovirus, the “winter vomiting bug” or “cruise ship virus,” blamed worldwide for outbreaks on cruise ships or on planes and in hospitals, schools and prisons during the winter.
That is, if the researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, are able to improve an experimental vaccine developed for the first time against the highly contagious virus that brings sudden cramping, vomiting and diarrhea to three million people across the world every year.
