http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress) -- Female drink-drivers are more likely to be older, better-educated and divorced, widowed or separated, research has shown. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-reveals-profile-female-drink-drivers.html Health Wed, 25 May 2011 11:21:04 EST news225541243 All animals face the challenge of deciding which chemicals in the environment are useful and which are harmful. A new study greatly improves our understanding of how animals sense an important class of potentially harmful chemicals: weak acids. The study appears online on May 16 in the Journal of General Physiology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-animals-potentially-acids.html Medical research Mon, 16 May 2011 12:31:18 EST news224767867 New techniques in science and technology allow the medical community to continually improve patient care and experience, but as these new procedures are introduced, physicians must closely consider the relative risks and benefits for each patient. Laparoscopic surgery offers the short-term benefits of smaller incisions, shorter hospital stays, and less pain during recovery, but are there negative consequences in the long run for some patients? Certain groups of patients, like those with localized renal masses, may be more appropriately treated through surgical techniques that focus on preserving as much functional kidney as possible––especially since emerging data suggests that a loss of kidney function can lead to higher long-term risks of morbidity and mortality. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-procedure-trends-patients-clinically-localized.html Other Mon, 16 May 2011 09:56:08 EST news224758550 A new report from the National Research Council lays out a framework for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to systematically evaluate and compare the public health consequences of its decisions concerning a wide variety of products. Moreover, the risk-assessment framework provides a common internal language to discuss potential options and draws extensively on well-vetted risk literature to define the relevant health dimensions for FDA decision making. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-fda-health-consequences-decisions.html Medications Mon, 09 May 2011 11:36:56 EST news224159801 Arsenic exposure and smoking each elevate the risk of disease. But when combined together, the danger of dying from cardiovascular disease is magnified, a new study finds. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-cigarette-arsenic-exposure-deadly-combination.html Cardiology Fri, 06 May 2011 04:20:41 EST news223874409 On the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a comment published by Lancet Oncology describes the known health consequences of the 1986 event. The authors are Kirsten B. Moysich, PhD, MS, and Philip McCarthy, Jr., MD, both of Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), and Per Hall, PhD, of Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden — who have contributed to numerous scholarly articles on this topic, including the first major United Nations Report into the effects of the Chernobyl accident in 2000. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-chernobyl-years-lessons-japan.html Cancer Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:12:45 EST news223114350