Saturday, Dec 27th
Last update09:19:08 AM GMT
Health Glance
The federal Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it would take steps to more stringently regulate three of the most potent forms of medical radiation, including increasingly popular CT scans, some of which deliver the radiation equivalent of 400 chest X-rays.
With the announcement, the F.D.A. puts its regulatory muscle behind a growing movement to make life-saving medical radiation — both diagnostic and therapeutic — safer.
Lingering residue from tobacco smoke which clings to upholstery, clothing and the skin releases cancer-causing agents, work in PNAS journal shows.
Berkeley scientists in the US ran lab tests and found "substantial levels" of toxins on smoke-exposed material.
They say while banishing smokers to outdoors cuts second-hand smoke, residues will follow them back inside and this "third-hand smoke" may harm.
Doing lots of exercise drastically cuts the risk of developing painful gallstones, UK researchers have found. Gallstones are common but only 30% of cases have symptoms and complications.
A University of East Anglia study of 25,000 men and women found those who were the most active had a 70% reduced risk of those complaints.
People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.
People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.
British psychologists have found evidence of a link between excessive internet use and depression, research published today has shown.
Leeds University researchers, writing in the Psychopathology journal, said a small proportion of internet users were classed as internet addicts and that people in this group were more likely to be depressed than non-addicted users.
Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse.
Yes, the drugs are effective, in that they lift depression in most patients. But that benefit is hardly more than what patients get when they, unknowingly and as part of a study, take a dummy pill—a placebo. As more and more scientists who study depression and the drugs that treat it are concluding, that suggests that antidepressants are basically expensive Tic Tacs.
Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV.
British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which is found in retroviruses like HIV and is a target for some of the newest HIV medicines.
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