The findings of the systematic review and meta-analysis, published Online First in The Lancet, suggest that investment in socioeconomic development (eg, better housing and improved education and nutrition) should be a vita ...
(HealthDay)—Plenty of Americans are eager to use their mobile phones and tablet computers to better manage their health care, a new poll finds—though the nation has a way to go before we're all consulting ...
Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday hailed the 10th anniversary of a US program to battle AIDS, saying it has helped one million babies be born disease-free to mothers infected with HIV.
(Medical Xpress)—Professor Mark Kendall of the University of Queensland, Australia, has announced at this year's TEDGLobal Conference that a skin patch he and colleagues have developed will soon begin field ...
Helping to protect newborns and older patients against more severe effects of jaundice is the hope of University of Guelph researchers, who have shown how a liver enzyme protects cells from damage caused by the condition.
Researchers at Whitehead Institute have identified a protein that is the target of glucocorticoids, the drugs that are used to increase red blood cell production in patients with certain types of anemia, including those resulting ...
Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), led by Dr. Lee Bulla, have characterized a protein produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti), which is highly toxic against Anoph ...
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, the University of Oxford, NIMR Tanzania and Retrogenix LTD, have identified how malaria parasites ...
While medical technology and healthcare standards have improved significantly over the past century, tropical diseases continue to pose a major threat to human health. At present, vaccines are unavailable ...
Malaria parasites that develop resistance to the most effective class of anti-malarial drugs may become susceptible to other treatments as a result. The discovery could reveal potential new drug options, which would be essential ...
A senior health ministry official in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday ruled out an Ebola outbreak in the northeast of the country, after possible cases were reported by United Nations staff.
A non-profit group said Friday it was launching a project to comb the catalogues of some of Japan's biggest drug companies in the hunt for treatments for diseases that kill thousands of people every year.
A study led by Boston University School of Medicine has identified a novel approach to create an unlimited number of human red blood cells and platelets in vitro. In collaboration with Boston University School of Public Health ...
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases progressing to coma or death. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
Five species of Plasmodium can infect and be transmitted by humans. Severe disease is largely caused by Plasmodium falciparum while the disease caused by Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium malariae is generally a milder disease that is rarely fatal. Plasmodium knowlesi is a zoonosis that causes malaria in macaques but can also infect humans.
Malaria transmission can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites by distribution of mosquito nets and insect repellents, or by mosquito-control measures such as spraying insecticides and draining standing water (where mosquitoes breed). Despite a clear need, no vaccine offering a high level of protection currently exists. Efforts to develop one are ongoing. A number of medications are also available to prevent malaria in travelers to malaria-endemic countries (prophylaxis).
A variety of antimalarial medications are available. Severe malaria is treated with intravenous or intramuscular quinine or, since the mid-2000s, the artemisinin derivative artesunate, which is superior to quinine in both children and adults. Resistance has developed to several antimalarial drugs, most notably chloroquine.
There were an estimated 225 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2009. An estimated 655,000 people died from malaria in 2010, a 5% decrease from the 781,000 who died in 2009 according to the World Health Organization's 2011 World Malaria Report, accounting for 2.23% of deaths worldwide. Ninety percent of malaria-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, with ~60% of deaths being young children under the age of five. Plasmodium falciparum, the most severe form of malaria, is responsible for the vast majority of deaths associated with the disease. Malaria is commonly associated with poverty, and can indeed be a cause of poverty and a major hindrance to economic development.
Inside each of us is our own internal timing device. It drives everything from sleep cycles to metabolism, but the inner-workings of this so-called "circadian clock" are complex, and the molecular processes behind it have ...
(Medical Xpress)—A team of combined researchers from Columbia Business School and Singapore Management University has found that people who have learned a second language become less proficient at speaking ...
Behind the common expression "you can't compare apples to oranges" lies a fundamental question of neuroscience: How does the brain recognize that apples and oranges are different? A group of neuroscientists ...
Recent research has shown that cancer cells have a much different – and more complex – metabolism than normal cells. Now, scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas have found that exploiting these differences might ...
Researchers have discovered and mapped the signaling network between two previously unconnected proteins, exposing a link that, if broken, could cut off cancer cell growth at its starting point.
Men who lose sleep during the work week may be able to lower their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by getting more hours of sleep, according to Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) research findings presented ...
Aspirin is known to lower risk for some cancers, and a new study led by a UC San Francisco scientist points to a possible explanation, with the discovery that aspirin slows the accumulation of DNA mutations in abnormal cells ...
(Medical Xpress)—Calories in, calories out. Any dieter is familiar with the two sides of the equation for weight loss, usually reduced to eating less and exercising more. But what controls the body's balance ...
Dawn triggers basic biological changes in the waking human body. As the sun rises, so does heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. The liver, the kidneys and many natural processes also begin shifting ...
(Medical Xpress)—When people think about genes and their relationship to cancer, most probably think about a person's hereditary cancer risk, especially after Angelina Jolie's recent news about her inherited ...