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"Poop transplants" are an effective way to treat people with one type of intestinal bacteria infection, a new study shows. Researchers transplanted fecal matter from healthy people into the colons of people infected with the notoriously hard-to-treat Clostridium difficile bacteria, which causes severe, watery diarrhea. The researchers found that 46 out of 49 patients got better within a week of the treatment.

-Excerpt- Nearly 14,000 patients may have received the fungus-contaminated shots distributed by the New England Compounding Pharmacy in Framingham, Mass., since May. -Excerpt- A second pharmacy connected to the NECC is also being investigated. Ameridose LLC said on Friday that it has agreed to extend a temporary shutdown while state and federal regulators continue an investigation into the company. Ameridose, based in Westborough, Mass., shares some common ownership with NECC. Investigators launched an investigation on Oct. 10.

The number of U.S. deaths from fungal meningitis linked to potentially contaminated steroid injections rose to 19 with confirmation of two new fatalities in Tennessee and one each in Florida and Virginia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The deadly outbreak of the rare disease showed no signs of abating, as 14 new cases of meningitis were reported, bringing the national total to 245, plus two peripheral infections in joints.

Was it some moldy ceiling tiles? The dusty shoes of a careless employee? Or did the contamination ride in on one of the ingredients? There are lots of ways fungus could have gotten inside the Massachusetts compounding pharmacy whose steroid medication has been linked to a lethal outbreak of a rare fungal form of meningitis. The outbreak has killed at least 15 people and sickened more than 200 others in 15 states. Nearly all the victims had received steroid injections for back pain. Federal and state investigators have been tight lipped about any problems they may have seen at the...

Another 19 people have been diagnosed with fungal meningitis linked to possibly tainted vials of a steroid medication, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases to 231. The CDC said there were two additional cases of infection in joints after a steroid injection but these were not confirmed as meningitis, bringing the total of infections nationwide to 233. The death toll from the unprecedented outbreak was unchanged at 15, the CDC said.

Frail and vulnerable elderly people are being forced to rely on care in their homes from workers with convictions for theft and violence, an investigation has found.   Private care agencies, fulfilling contracts for councils across the country, have been employing convicted criminals to work in elderly people’s homes. In some cases, the criminals have been sent in without police checks or risk assessments being carried out, publicly available records show. One agency in Birmingham hired 23 people with criminal records, including assault and theft. Another in Sussex had five criminals on its books including a woman who was...

-excerpt- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the outbreak has now sickened 197 people in a 13 states.

One of the most important things people overlook in dealing with sickness is what they speak out of their mouth. You can't just speak anything because your words have an effect on your body. In the book of James he says, if you offend not in word, you are able to bridle your whole body. He also goes on to say your tongue is like the rudder of a ship, so if you want to go from sickness to healing then you are going to have to set your tongue to healing and not sickness. In 1Peter 3:10 he says,...

Study of snake venom in mice reveals potential new strategy for relieving agony A snakebite may bring on a world of hurt, but a substance found in black mamba venom could actually relieve pain. The finding reveals a new possible approach for pain treatment, researchers report online October 3 in Nature. The black mamba, Dendroaspis polylepis polylepis, is one of the most lethal snakes on Earth. But a team of researchers in France found that compounds in the snake’s venom have the same pain-banishing effect on mice that morphine does. The compounds, called mambalgins, appear to work by blocking certain...

John B. Gurdon of the U.K. and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan shared this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in so-called cellular reprogramming, which has unleashed a wave of advances in everything from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using stem cells.... It also allows scientists to create human embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos, sidestepping an approach that has long been fraught with ethical controversies. Most important, perhaps, it has significantly advanced the prospect of using a patient's own mature cells to create fresh tissue and treat disease.

It may be possible to use a drug to prevent some of the lasting and crippling damage caused by a stroke, according to doctors in the US and Canada. A safety trial, published in the Lancet Neurology medical journal, suggested the chemical NA-1 was safe to use. The study on 185 people also hinted that patients given the drug developed fewer regions of damaged brain tissue. The Stroke Association said that it was promising, but needed more research. Tests in primates had suggested NA-1 prevented brain cells dying when a stroke starved them of oxygen.

Nicotinamide, commonly known as vitamin B3, may help the innate immune system kill antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria, the so-called "superbugs". In lab work done with mice and human blood, researchers found high doses of the vitamin increased the ability of immune cells to kill the bacteria by 1,000 times.The discovery opens the door to a new arsenal of tools for dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, such as those caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus or MRSA, that have killed thousands of people around the world. They are increasing in hospitals and nursing homes, and also rising in prisons, among athletes, people in...

In any given year, 7% of adults suffer from major depression, and at least 1 in 10 youth will reckon with the disorder at some point during their teenage years. But about 20% of these cases will not respond to current treatments; for those that do, relief may take weeks to months to come. There is one treatment, however, that works much faster: the anesthetic and “club drug” ketamine. It takes effect within hours. A single dose of ketamine produces relief of depression that has been shown in studies to last for up to 10 days; it also appears to...

Beta blockers may offer little against heart attack, stroke Commonly prescribed drugs called beta blockers fail to protect against heart attacks and strokes even while helping to control heart rate and blood pressure, researchers report in the Oct. 3 Journal of the American Medical Association. Beta blockers also didn’t lessen the odds of a heart-related death, in heart attack patients or others at risk, over a median follow-up of 44 months. The American Heart Association had previously discouraged the long-term use of beta blockers as a post–heart attack treatment beyond three years. The new findings further dim the prospects for...

Method raises hopes for routine whole-genome sequencing in neonatal intensive care. A faster DNA sequencing machine and streamlined analysis of the results can diagnose genetic disorders in days rather than weeks, as reported today in Science Translational Medicine1. Up to a third of the babies admitted to neonatal intensive care units have a genetic disease. Although symptoms may be severe, the genetic cause can be hard to pin down. Thousands of genetic diseases have been described, but relatively few tests are available, and even these may detect only the most common mutations. Whole-genome sequencing could test for many diseases at...

-excerpt- All received steroid injections, mostly for back pain, a fairly typical treatment.

In a move that could alter the way that breast cancers are treated, researchers have redefined the disease into four main classes and determined that one type of breast cancer has more in common with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer than other breast cancers. The finding that a form of breast cancer may be genetically similar to a type of ovarian cancer underscores a new way thinking about cancer that moves away from defining cancers by the organ of origin. The findings are the result of the largest and most comprehensive study of the genetics of breast cancer to...

Witnesses described the 17-year-old boy as "shaking, growling, foaming at the mouth." According to police reports, Elijah Stai was at a McDonald's with his friend when he began to feel ill. Soon after, he "started to smash his head against the ground" and began acting "possessed," according to a witness. Two hours later, he had stopped breathing

The era of laptop medicine is now upon us. Make that, laptop-computer medicine. Visit your physician and odds are that he will enter the examining room with his shiny new laptop in hand. The push for electronic records in the name of medical record portability and efficient record keeping is documented in the press, and the potential advantages appear convincing.

Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation Not Associated With Lower Risk of Major Cardiovascular Disease Events In a study that included nearly 70,000 patients, supplementation with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids was not associated with a lower risk of all-cause death, cardiac death, sudden death, heart attack, or stroke, according to an analysis of previous studies published in the Sept. 12 issue of JAMA. "Treatment with marine-derived omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for the prevention of major cardiovascular adverse outcomes has been supported by a number of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and refuted by others. Although their mechanism of action is not clear,...