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Watermelon May Have Viagra-effectDr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center, says watermelon may have Viagra-like effects. (Credit: Image courtesy of Texas A&M University ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido. “The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in...

New York is having a cannoli conundrum. The shell-encased treats at two of the city's top bakeries tested well above the Health Department's trans-fat limit that went into effect Tuesday, according to lab results commissioned by the Daily News. Veniero's, the popular East Village eatery where one cannoli contained trans-fat levels four times above the city limit, vowed Friday to pull the shells from the shelves until the supplier it deals with bans the bad-for-you fat. "I want to thank you for alerting me," owner Robert Zerilli said. Veniero's wasn't alone. The taboo fat was also found in a cannoli...

Sgt. Lucas Gonzales, a physical therapy specialist with 225th Brigade Support Battalion, shows the staff of the Taji Healthcare Clinic how to properly use a device which provides pain relief in the back and neck. Photo by Pfc. Lyndsey Dransfield, 2nd Stryker Brigade 25th Infantry Division. CAMP TAJI — Three Soldiers from the 225th Brigade Support Battalion recently visited with the doctors, nurses and physicians of the Taji Health Clinic to provide the staff with hands-on training on some new medical equipment.Due to the devastating consequences of war, healthcare in Iraq has suffered severely over the past seven years. Coalition...

Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests. The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java. The researchers found high tofu consumption - at least once a day - was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s. The Loughborough University-led study features in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. Soy products are a major alternative protein source to meat for many people in the developing world. But soy consumption is also on the increase in the west, where it...

FOR five gruelling months, Carol Kanga suffered through treatment for a life-threatening case of throat cancer linked to an unlikely source: a sexually transmitted viral infection. Unable to swallow food or water during chemotherapy and radiation treatment, Kanga was fed through a stomach tube. "The radiation basically burns the skin off the outside and inside of your throat," said Kanga, 52. "It's like there's a fire inside your neck." Kanga's treatment was successful, but the virus that struck her is causing increasing concern among some researchers who think it is causing a small-scale epidemic of throat cancer. That virus, scientists...

WASHINGTON: US researchers reported that they may have found a way to flush out herpes viruses from hiding — offering a potential way to cure pesky and painful conditions from cold sores to shingles. They discovered that a mysterious gene carried by the herpes simplex-1 virus — the one that causes cold sores — allows the virus to lay low in the nerves it infects. It does so via microRNAs, little pieces of genetic material that regulate the activity of many viruses, the researchers report in the journal Nature. It may be possible to "wake up" the virus and then...

Scientists have found that the compound resveratrol -- found in red wine and grape skin -- slows age-related deterioration and functional decline of mice on a standard diet, but does not increase longevity when started at middle age.

A vaccine that targets a common virus may stave off glioma tumor regrowthEditor's Note: This story will be published in the next issue of Scientific American Mind.The deadliest and most common type of brain cancer has a strange bedfellow: cytomegalovirus, a kind of herpes present in about 80 percent of the U.S. population. Now scientists are exploiting this coincidence to treat the cancer with a vaccine that targets the virus and slows tumor regrowth.In 2002 scientists showed that cytomegalovirus, or CMV, was active in the brain tumors but not the surrounding healthy tissue of all 27 patients they tested who...

WASHINGTON — European scientists have shed new light on the causes of the devastating, inexplicable syndrome known as sudden infant cot death, according to a study published Thursday. The syndrome, which strikes fear into every parent's heart, affects seemingly healthy babies aged between a month to a year, and is main cause of death among infants of that age in developed nations. Now researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Italy have revealed that an imbalance of the neuronal signal, serotonin, in the brainstem caused sudden death in mice, according to the study in Science magazine. The brainstem, which...

In the early 1990s, Joel Weinstock, a gastroenterologist, encountered a puzzle. The prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (I.B.D.) across North America increased markedly during the 20th century. Many thought that “bad” genes would eventually explain the spike, but Weinstock didn’t buy it. In areas where fewer than two generations ago the I.B.D. incidence might have been as low as 1 in 10,000, it... --snip-- If eliminating worms led to an increase in disease, could re-introducing worms actually treat these diseases? In mice, the answer was yes. Worms were used to “inoculate” against mouse asthma, Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and...

THE Senate is near to pass ing a massive $50 billion Emergency Plan for HIV/ AIDS Relief - a bill whose priorities are based on myth, just like virtually all anti-AIDS efforts worldwide. The world's top AIDS bureaucrat recently admitted the truth: "It is very unlikely that there will be a heterosexual epidemic" outside Africa, Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization, told London's Independent newspaper. His bosses at the United Nations issued an official denial - but couldn't truly challenge his science.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey lowered a lighted match to a test tube filled with saltwater. An orange flame instantly erupted from the mouth of the tube. "I'm two for two at igniting the saltwater," Casey said with a smile. Casey spent part of Wednesday afternoon at Industrial Sales and Manufacturing Inc., watching a demonstration of Millcreek Township inventor John Kanzius' radio-frequency device. He is the latest on the list of high-ranking public officials who have trekked to the yellow-brick laboratory on West 15th Street to see the device. Gov. Ed Rendell and U.S. Rep. Phil English, of Erie, R-3rd Dist.,...

James P. Evans, a physician and molecular biologist, teaches genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He also directs the school’s Clinical Cancer Genetics Services, counseling patients about genetic testing. On weekends Dr. Evans, under the auspices of the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center — a Congressionally mandated program — teaches the nation’s judges about genetics. Dr. Evans, 49, was interviewed recently in New York; he had come to speak at the World Science Festival. Q. WHY DO JUDGES NEED TO KNOW THEIR GENETICS? A. Because they are frequently trying cases that hinge on genetics....

As one of the supposed anti-science conservatives liberals are always yammering on about, I was glad when President Bush vetoed the increase in federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I wrote about the adult stem cell success stories, and since June of last year, there have been even more exciting treatments.

New study in the FASEB Journal shows how substances similar to THC are necessary for healthy skin and may lead to new skin disease treatmentsScientists from Hungary, Germany and the U.K. have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana (THC), but these play an important part in maintaining healthy skin. This finding on "endocannabinoids" just published online in, and scheduled for the October 2008 print issue of, The FASEB Journal could lead to new drugs that treat skin conditions ranging from acne to dry skin, and even skin-related tumors. "Our...

John Kanzius couldn’t tell his wife what he was doing. He’d been diagnosed with a rare form of B-cell leukemia in 2002, and he’d endured months of chemotherapy. But still the cancer persisted. As he tells it: “I go into a partial remission or whatever. In another six or eight months, it’s back again. So, I go back into some more chemotherapy.” Then one late night in 2003, unable to sleep and energized with an idea, the chemo-battered Kanzius began to tear apart the couple’s vacation home on Sanibel Island. “Of course, I couldn’t say at that point that I’m...

The Sunshine State has about 3.8 million people without insurance, or about 21% of the population, the fourth-highest rate in the country. The "Cover Florida" plan hopes to improve those numbers by offering access to more affordable policies. As even Barack Obama says, the main reason people are uninsured isn't because they don't want to be; it's because coverage is too expensive. But the Florida reform, which both houses of the legislature approved unanimously, renounces Mr. Obama's favored remedy: It nudges the government out of the health-care marketplace. Insurance companies will be permitted to sell stripped-down, no-frills policies exempted from...

In a set of recent focus groups, participants were asked to rank the severity of various health problems, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes. On a scale of 1 to 10, cancer and heart disease consistently ranked as 9s and 10s. But diabetes scored only 4s and 5s. “The general consensus seems to be, ‘There’s medication,’ ‘Look how good people look with diabetes’ or ‘I’ve never heard of anybody dying of diabetes,’ ” said Larry Hausner, chief executive of the American Diabetes Association, which held the focus groups. “There was so little understanding about everything that dealt with diabetes.” But...

LONDON (Reuters) - Just a few more portions of broccoli each week may protect men from prostate cancer, British researchers reported on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT The researchers believe a chemical in the food sparks hundreds of genetic changes, activating some genes that fight cancer and switching off others that fuel tumors, said Richard Mithen, a biologist at Britain's Institute of Food Research.

The Government yesterday announced what it described as a 'comprehensive shakeup' of local government priorities for the next three years. At least one council has decided to take the guidance literally. Officials in Gateshead have been touring chip shops confiscating salt shakers with more than five holes in them. They have spent £2,000 on replacements, which are being given away free.

They callously ignored her. Esmin Green is seen in these infuriating images collapsing on the psychiatric emergency-room floor at Kings County Hospital - stared at by one worker, ignored by a security guard, and finally nudged by a health-care staffer on June 19. She lay there for an hour before doctors and nurses snapped to attention and tried to revive the 49-year-old Jamaica native. It was too late. The shocking video was released by lawyers suing KCH in federal court on an unrelated matter. "I heard about it and it's horrible how she died like that," said Green's landlady, Beatrice...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States leads the world in rates of experimenting with marijuana and cocaine despite strict drug laws, World Health Organization researchers said on Tuesday. Countries with looser drug laws have lower rates of abuse, the researchers report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine. The survey of 54,000 people in 17 countries found that 16 percent of people in the United States had used cocaine in their lifetimes -- far higher than the next highest rate, found in New Zealand, where 4.3 percent of people reported having used cocaine. More than 42 percent of...

A new test that can detect multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis in two days instead of the standard two to three months promises to help significantly improve treatment and prevent the spread of the airborne infection, the World Health Organization said on Monday. Multiple-drug-resistant TB, or MDR-TB, is a growing public health problem in the world. Five percent of new TB cases are resistant to first-line drugs. That is 450,000 of the nine million new TB cases that are detected each year, the W.H.O. says. In the United States, the prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis among foreign-born TB patients has been about 1.5 percent,...

Enlarge ImageDoggie diversity. Researchers have linked pointing, herding, and other canine traits to specific gene variations.Credit: Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition The adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks may have some basis in truth, or at least in DNA. It turns out that a pointer's point, a border collie's herding instinct, and several other canine characteristics may be hard-wired in dogs' genes, according to a new study. The advance could help breeders weed out diseases in man's best friend and shed light on the genetic basis of certain human disorders. Since humans first domesticated dogs...

COLLEGE STATION -- A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido. “The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in providing natural enhancers to the human body,” said Dr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center in College Station. “We’ve always known that watermelon is good...

I flushed my pills down the toilet. The prescription had expired. I had a queasy impulse to jettison the medicine this way because of some vague understanding that expired medicine could be dangerous. It may, but not in the way I imagined. Scientists are now finding a vast array of pharmaceuticals, from sex hormones, to anti-convulsants, to mood stabilizers, in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, the Associated Press found recently. The drugs get there via people like me, blithely tossing drugs into the water system — and through the natural metabolic practices of a country...

Healthcare Workers to Tour Cuba When Michael Moore directed the documentary SiCKO (Dog Eat Dog Films, 2007), he portrayed Cuba's public health system as an international elite that offers residents free, famously effective, cradle-to-grave medical care that rivals anything offered in the United States and Canada. Some observers challenge any glowing appraisals offered by Moore and others as being at least partially the products of a despotic propaganda machine whose gears are cranked by the Castro dictatorship. The truth about our "forbidden" neighbor's famous health system is one that few Americans have witnessed firsthand since the 1963 U.S. embargo, but...

Pot-holed roads, crumbling schools, litter-strewn streets – there’s no shortage of problem areas crying out for their attention. But councils believe they have found a better use for their money: reducing the number of holes in chip shop salt shakers. Research has suggested that slashing the holes from the traditional 17 to five could cut the amount people sprinkle on their food by more than half. And so at least six councils have ordered five-hole shakers – at taxpayers’ expense – and begun giving them away to chip shops and takeaways in their areas. Leading the way has been Gateshead...

One in four child deaths is 'avoidable' says report exposing wrong diagnoses and treatments Last updated at 23:29pm on 28.06.08   Failures in care by medical professionals, social workers and parents are responsible for one in four child deaths, according to a Government-backed report.A panel of experts reviewed 126 deaths in one year and found 'avoidable factors', such as doctors misdiagnosing a serious illness or giving the wrong treatment, in 26 per cent of cases.A further 43 per cent were due to 'potentially avoidable factors' – including missing important immunisations or delays in treatment.  Tragedy: Nine-month-old Liam Eaves died...

A group of cardiologists recently had a proposition for Dr. Andrew Rosenblatt, who runs a busy heart clinic in San Francisco: Would he join them in buying a CT scanner, a $1 million machine that produces detailed images of the heart? The scanner would give Dr. Rosenblatt a new way to look inside patients’ arteries, enable his clinic to market itself as having the latest medical technology and provide extra revenue. Although tempted, Dr. Rosenblatt was reluctant. CT scans, which are typically billed at $500 to $1,500, have never been proved in large medical studies to be better than older...

LONDON (Reuters) - Elan and Wyeth's key new drug bapineuzumab worked for a substantial proportion of Alzheimer's disease patients in an intermediate clinical trial, supporting a prior decision to start final phase III tests. The two companies said on Tuesday that although the drug did not achieve overall statistically significant results in the phase II study, its benefits over placebo were significant in an important subgroup. The update on the antibody medicine, also known as AAB-001, is perhaps the year's most keenly awaited biotech trial result. If successful in final-stage trials, the medicine could be the world's first drug to...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are about to embark on a human trial to test whether a new cancer treatment will be as effective at eradicating cancer in humans as it has proven to be in mice. The treatment will involve transfusing specific white blood cells, called granulocytes, from select donors, into patients with advanced forms of cancer. A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice has previously been highly successful, curing 100 percent of lab mice afflicted with advanced malignancies. Zheng Cui, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor of pathology, will...

Plan for long life, without pandemic NANCY STANCILL Should doctors let people older than 85 die in a flu pandemic? A Monday news story saying a U.S. task force recommends denying lifesaving care in a pandemic or other disaster to some folks -- including healthy people above 85 -- was unsettling. They're talking about my mother, soon to be 86. My friend Karen's father, who is 92. Another friend's grandmother, 102. These people live life joyfully, with their minds and hearts intact. My mother relishes foreign travel. Karen's father loves bird watching. The 102-year-old grandmother plays a mean hand of...

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA--The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) responsible for most of the AIDS cases in the world infected people approximately 100 years ago, more than 20 years earlier than previously believed, according to findings presented here this week at the Evolution 2008 meeting. Its lesser known cousin, HIV-2, jumped into humans decades later, from a monkey species that carried the virus for just a couple of hundred years, not the millions of years researchers had assumed, according to other research presented at the meeting. Researchers are trying to pin down the origins of both HIVs to understand how often new human...

As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few. But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Friday that it would pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Steven J. Hatfill, a former Army biodefense researcher intensively investigated as a “person of interest” in the deadly anthrax letters of 2001. The settlement, consisting of $2.825 million in cash and an annuity paying Dr. Hatfill $150,000 a year for 20 years, brings to an end a five-year legal battle that had recently threatened a reporter with large fines for declining to name sources she said she did not recall. Dr. Hatfill, who worked at the Army’s laboratory at Fort Detrick...

HELSINKI, Finland, June 27 (UPI) -- Drinking a lot of coffee may lower the risk of developing liver cancer, University of Helsinki researchers said. The researchers found that coffee seems to be connected to lower blood levels of gamma-glutamyltransferase -- known as GGT -- a liver enzyme involved in the secretion and absorption of bile that has been linked to liver cancer. Residents of Finland drink more coffee per capita than Japanese, Americans, Italians and other Europeans, so researchers studied 60,323 Finnish participants ages 25 to 74 who were cancer-free at baseline. The Finns were included in seven independent cross-sectional...

Contrary to speculation that an electronic control device could induce ventricular fibrillation, the rhythm found in alleged arrest-related deaths was primarily asystole which is associated with drug overdoses and cannot be induced with electrical stimulation; and, Real time ultrasound showed that even when electronic control device probes are placed across the heart, the ECD electrical pulses have no effect on the human heart. This is in contrast with the result occasionally seen in research using small pigs, which have important physiological differences that make their cardiovascular system significantly more sensitive to electricity than in humans.

Researchers create mercury-absorbent container linings for broken CFLs Brown University engineering students Love Sarin (left) and Brian Lee display a nanoselenium-enriched cloth that can capture mercury vapor from broken compact fluorescent lamps. Brown has applied for federal patents covering the invention and plans soon to begin commercial negotiations. Credit: John Abromowski, Brown University With rising energy prices and greater concern over global warming, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are having a successful run. Sales of the curlicue, energy-sipping bulbs, which previously had languished since they were introduced in the United States in 1979, reached nearly 300 million last year. Experts expect...

Reuters Health Wednesday, June 25, 2008 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Use of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins rose by 156 percent between 2000 and 2005, with spending jumping from $7.7 billion to $19.7 billion, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported on Wednesday. "The number of people purchasing statins nearly doubled when comparing 2000 and 2005, rising from 15.8 million people to 29.7 million people," the AHRQ report reads. The total number of outpatient prescriptions for statins rose from about 90 million in 2000 to nearly 174 million in 2005. Each individual spent $484 a year on average on statins...

Aging 2008 registration is appreciated but not required. You can check in at the door at 4pm. Leading aging scientists and public policy experts will gather at UCLA tomorrow. This is the first time that an event like this has taken place anywhere. We hope to see you there! Applying the new technologies of regenerative and genetic medicine, the engineering approach to aging promises to dramatically extend healthy human life within the next few decades. How do you and your loved ones stand to benefit from the coming biomedical revolution? Are you prepared? Is society prepared? At Aging 2008 you...

It's been six weeks since my quadruple coronary bypass. Time to return to the Cardiologist; time for my first post-op EKG. Why is my EKG still bad and what is a negative T-wave? Why can't TWO doctors decide on my prescription drugs? Why aren't my surgical wounds handily healed and ready for moving on?

New research links drinking lowfat milk to lower risk for heart disease Grabbing as little as one glass of lowfat or fat free milk could help protect your heart, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers found that adults who had at least one serving of lowfat milk or milk products each day had 37 percent lower odds of poor kidney function linked to heart disease compared to those who drank little or no lowfat milk. To determine heart disease risk, researchers from several universities in the United States and Norway measured the...

Even vegetarians may not be safe from 'mad cow' prions 10:34 26 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Fancy a dose of prions with your vegetables? A new study suggests that infectious prions - thought to be the causative agents in mad cow disease and human vCJD – can survive wastewater decontamination and wind up in fertiliser, potentially contaminating fruit and vegetables. The prions would be present in such low quantities that they are unlikely to pose a health threat, but as a precaution, "we should prevent the entry of prions into wastewater treatment plants," says microbiologist Joel Pedersen,...

The finding could open the door to improved treatments. Researchers say they've discovered a gene that may make it easier for people to develop Alzheimer's disease, and it could become a target for drug treatments. "This new work not only provides a better understanding of the mechanism leading to the disease, but identifies a risk factor as an important target for therapy," said Philippe Marambaud, an assistant professor of pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and member of an international team of scientists that released its findings Wednesday. Alzheimer's disease, which causes senility and...

Exactly 15 years ago this week the world first heard the story of John Wayne and Lorena Bobbitt. John Wayne, an ex-Marine, was accused of coming home drunk and raping his wife. Lorena was accused of retaliating by cutting off her husband's penis while he was asleep. Lorena went from anonymous to notorious - her story the subject of countless newspaper and magazine articles. Now in her first ever network morning show interview she discusses how she's using her notoriety to help others. "All of a sudden, my private life is out in the open and it's an open book...

Apart from its sadness, Tim Russert’s death this month at 58 was deeply unsettling to many people who, like him, had been earnestly following their doctors’ advice on drugs, diet and exercise in hopes of avoiding a heart attack. Mr. Russert, the moderator of “Meet the Press” on NBC News, took blood pressure and cholesterol pills and aspirin, rode an exercise bike, had yearly stress tests and other exams and was dutifully trying to lose weight. But he died of a heart attack anyway. An article in The New York Times last week about his medical care led to e-mail...

Ramona Lamascola thought she was losing her 88-year-old mother to dementia. Instead, she was losing her to overmedication. Last fall her mother, Theresa Lamascola, of the Bronx, suffering from anxiety and confusion, was put on the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. When she had trouble walking, her daughter took her to another doctor — the younger Ms. Lamascola’s own physician — who found that she had unrecognized hypothyroidism, a disorder that can contribute to dementia. Theresa Lamascola was moved to a nursing home to get these problems under control. But things only got worse. “My mother was screaming and out of it,...

A few weeks ago at work, as Cassandra Nichols tried to climb a flight of stairs, she had trouble breathing. Obese for years, she now weighs almost 300 pounds and fears for her future.

Fear Factor Accompanies Generic Drugs Made In China By ROBERT COHENWASHINGTON — First, it was inexpensive toys, apparel, footwear and electronics that flooded the U.S. market from China. The next Chinese export to reach American consumers will be lower-cost generic versions of brand-name medicines. Although it will take at least several years before Chinese-made generics are available here in significant numbers, the prospect already is raising safety concerns, given China's history of substandard drugs at home, the recent scandal involving contaminated ingredients in the blood thinner heparin, and other safety problems, from tainted pet food to toothpaste. "We should be...