Free Republic

A scientist whose major breakthroughs have emerged from studying the brains of Irish families says we are only five to 10 years away from a cure for Alzheimer's disease. In a recent interview with the Irish Times, Professor Tim Lynch, currently with the Dublin Neurological Institute at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, recounted the discovery he made while working in New York almost 20 years ago, which changed the course of his research. In 1994, Lynch was part of a team studying frontotemporal dementia in an Irish American family at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. The team discovered that...

Forty-five years ago, the U..S landed a man on the Moon and brought him home safely.  The effort cost, in today's dollars, around $135 billion spent over ten years. Ever since then, whenever government wants to spend a lot of money solving a problem, the moon program is cited as an example that we can do anything we put our minds – and dollars – to. Last night, the president invoked the Moon landing to announce his initiative to cure cancer – "once and for all."  But someone should have whispered into the president's ear that the idea we can...

Hillary Clinton is laying out an aggressive plan to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease within a decade, which she says will be achieved by a dramatically boosting spending by four times the current levels. The Democratic presidential front-runner vows to spend $2 billion per year "to prevent, effectively treat and make a cure possible by 2025." She will announce her plan at a campaign stop in Iowa later on Tuesday. The annual $2 billion in spending will be part of a "historic, decade-long investment" that would bring up spending levels from the $586 million spent by the National Institutes...

A new cancer treatment strategy is on the horizon that experts say could be a game-changer and spare patients the extreme side effects of existing options such as chemotherapy. Chemotherapy and other current cancer treatments are brutal, scorched-earth affairs that work because cancer cells are slightly - but not much - more susceptible to the havoc they wreak than the rest of the body. Their side effects are legion, and in many cases horrifying – from hair loss and internal bleeding to chronic nausea and even death. But last week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time...

In the past several weeks, a number of controversial natural health doctors have died under mysterious circumstances. Some of them have even had recent encounters with federal agents and bureaucracies.Two weeks ago, the string of mysterious deaths began when Dr. Jeff Bradstreet MD was found in a river with a gunshot wound to his chest. The police claim that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted and that the death was a suicide, however, Bradstreet’s family suspects foul play.Last week, members of the family set up a donation page “To find the answers to the many questions leading up to the death...

Sad news for our patients and friends Dear Patients, Family, Friends, and Colleagues: It is with great sadness that the office of Nicholas J. Gonzalez, M.D. relays news of his untimely death on Tuesday, July 21, 2015. The cause of death was cardiac related, it appears, as he suddenly collapsed and was unable to be revived. Dr. Gonzalez was in excellent health otherwise so his passing is quite unexpected. Currently, his family is taking care of funeral arrangements and Dr. Linda Isaacs and his office staff are tending to patients. In the interim, please know Dr. Gonzalez’ office will keep...

Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Scientists Home In On Molecule Which Halts Development of Disease Cambridge scientists raise prospect of new generation of treatments after finding technique to limit development of biggest cause of dementia By John Bingham, 16 Feb 2015 Scientists have found a method which could potentially stop the growth of Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks, raising the prospect of a wave of new treatments for the condition. A team at Cambridge University, working with partners in Sweden and Estonia, has identified a molecule which can block the progress of Alzheimer’s at a crucial stage in its development. Not only is...

Washington Man Who Faces Years In Prison For Growing Medical Marijuana Has Cancer A Washington state man who is facing at least 10 years in prison if convicted in a high-profile federal case over growing medical marijuana for personal use has been diagnosed with cancer. --snip-- Harvey, along with his wife, Rhonda; their son, Rolland Gregg; Rolland's wife, Michelle Gregg; as well as close family friend Jason Zucker are all facing federal marijuana charges for growing about 70 cannabis plants for their own medical use at the Harveys' rural home. The family's defense attorneys have maintained the pot patch complied...

Bellingham Boy Fighting Flesh-Eating Bacteria SEATTLE, Wash. -- What started as a 'fat lip' from a fall, now has a local 6 year old Jake Finkbonner fighting to survive. The boy has necrotizing faciitis, a bacteria that is attacking his face. His family says the bacteria was consuming him before their eyes. The infection is so aggressive, antibiotics aren't enough. He’s had three surgeries so far to try to save his life. Jake’s father, Donny, (says)......all of us are praying for him, and we’re just in God’s hands.” Jake’s mother, Elsa says, “he didn’t have any facial features that were...

Researchers from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute have made an exciting discovery for cancer patients everywhere. A chemical found in a rare plant from Australia has the ability to "eat" cancerous tumors and completely eradicate them within days. The tumor-eating chemical is found in the seeds of berries of the Blushwood plant. The chemical, which is being called EBC-46, takes three weeks to extract and the process is quite difficult. Experts are even saying that they still don't completely understand why the chemical is in the seed of the Blushwood berry in the first place. Farming Blushwood in large quantities...

With no proven drugs to treat Ebola and experimental ones in short supply, the health authorities are planning to turn instead to a treatment that is walking around in the outbreak zone in West Africa. That would be the blood of people who have been sickened by the Ebola virus but have since recovered. Their blood should contain antibodies that might help other patients fight off the infection. The World Health Organization is making it a priority to try such convalescent blood or plasma, as it is called, and is talking with the affected countries about how to do it....

A twice-a-day pill that can cure baldness caused by alopecia has been developed by scientists. It has enabled three patients to grow back a full head of hair within the space of just five months. Researchers now plan to carry out further tests in the hope that it will eventually be rolled out as a standard treatment. Between 1 in 500 and 1 in 1,000 Britons are thought to suffer from alopecia areata and it is most common in young adults aged 15 to 29. It is thought to be caused by a problem with the immune system which results...

BOSTON (CBS) – Scientists at Yale may have discovered quite the off-label use for an FDA-approved arthritis drug. During a trial, which stretched for eight months, a 25-year-old man with almost no hair on his body grew a full head following treatment with the drug. He reported no noticeable side effects. The patient was suffering from a rare, highly visible disease known as alopecia universalis, which has no cure or approved long term treatment. The disease causes the loss of almost all body hair. According to scientists involved in the trial, the patient also grew eyebrows, eyelashes, and facial, armpit,...

Half of patients diagnosed with cancer today will effectively be “cured” according to the authors of new research, which shows survival rates in England and Wales have doubled since the 1970s. Experts hailed the landmark findings as a “tipping point” in the war on cancer, and said dramatic improvements in diagnosis and treatment meant the disease could soon be treated as a chronic condition, instead of a death sentence. The landmark study of 7 million cancer patients suggests that 50 per cent of patients diagnosed today can expect to survive for at least 10 years - by which point their...

(Reuters) - Scientists seeking a cure for AIDS say they have been inspired, not crushed, by a major setback in which two HIV positive patients believed to have been cured found the virus re-invading their bodies once more. True, the news hit hard last month that the so-called "Boston patients" - two men who received bone marrow transplants that appeared to rid them completely of the AIDS-causing virus - had relapsed and gone back onto antiretroviral treatment. But experts say the disappointment could lay the basis for important leaps forward in the search for a cure. "It's a setback for...

Scientists have developed breakthrough drugs that cure skin cancer. The treatment is already having “spectacular” effects in seriously ill melanoma patients—and could soon be used to defeat other types of cancer. … One in six patients ravaged by deadly skin cancer are already being cured by the drugs, the European Cancer Congress was told yesterday, with the possibility of more than half being saved with an new combination. … The first is ipilimumab—or “IPI”. According to research presented to the European congress in Amsterdam yesterday, 17 percent of patients are cured by this drug alone. But many more—perhaps more than...

The scientists discovered that the ceramide-1 phosphate transport protein (CPTP) regulates levels of biologically active lipids, which are molecules such as fatty acids that often play a role in cell signaling. They found that CPTP's main function is to transport ceramide-1-phosphate (C1P), a lipid that helps regulate cell growth, survival, migration and inflammation. Specifically, C1P increases the production of pro-inflammatory eicosanoids – powerful signaling molecules that contribute to chronic inflammation in diseases such as cancer, asthma, atherosclerosis and thrombosis – and the discovery of CPTP sheds a light on the cellular mechanisms that contribute to these diseases. "We may have...

DAFRUSA: The Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) hosted a group of prominent figures from the African American community at the National Press Club to speak out against gun control legislation currently being considered on Capitol Hill. --snip-- The news conference is to rally behind the tradition of former slave and great American orator Frederick Douglass who said, "A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box."

Gray hair -- one of the classic signs of aging that can lead to a midlife crisis for some -- may some day be a thing of the past, much to the chagrin of hair-dye manufacturers and Corvette salesmen. A team of European researchers claims to have found not only the root cause of gray hair, but also a treatment for the condition. Additionally, their treatment may help people with vitiligo, a condition that causes the loss of pigment in patches of skin, they say. It's been known for years that hair turns gray due to a natural buildup of...

<p>Researchers might have found the Holy Grail in the war against cancer, a miracle drug that has killed every kind of cancer tumor it has come in contact with.</p> <p>The drug works by blocking a protein called CD47 that is essentially a "do not eat" signal to the body's immune system, according to Science Magazine.</p>