Tag Archives: medicine

An interesting item from the New York Times food blogger. Diabetes causes complications too numerous to mention, but they include heart disease, which remains our No. 1 killer. And when the cells in your brain become insulin-resistant, you start to lose memory and become disoriented. You even might lose aspects of your personality. In short, it appears, you develop Alzheimer’s. …

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that some longtime HIV patients are experiencing symptoms of aging long before those ailments normally appear.  Such reports have been appearing for several years. Patients are coming down with diseases and conditions most associated with aging even when their HIV is well controlled – even when the antiretroviral drugs used to treat it make the …

I am bored to tears with the entire subject, but since about 100 of you sent this last night: The American Academy of Pediatrics has shifted its official position on the contentious issue of infant circumcision, stating Monday that the medical benefits of the procedure for baby boys outweigh the small risks. In its first new policy statement on the …

And he did it with the help of Google. Fifteen-year-old high school student Jack Andraka likes to kayak and watch the US television show Glee. And when time permits, he also likes to do advanced research in one of the most respected cancer laboratories in the world. Jack Andraka has created a pancreatic cancer test that is 168 times faster …

A lesbian couple in Nevada say they were denied the right to make medical decisions for each other despite being in a legally recognized domestic partnership which grants them that right. When [Brittney] Leon, 26, checked into Spring Valley Hospital on July 20 with complications in her pregnancy, she assumed that her partner [Terri] Simonelli, 41, could make any necessary …

Via press release from the CDC: According to the revised guidelines, published today in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the most effective treatment for gonorrhea is a combination therapy: the injectable antibiotic ceftriaxone along with one of two other oral antibiotics, either azithromycin or doxycycline. In the past, gonorrhea has developed resistance to every antibiotic recommended for treatment, leaving …

Interesting news out of the AIDS Conference. Scientists in the United States said Wednesday they had used a cancer drug to flush out the AIDS virus lurking dormant in trial patients’ white blood cells — a tentative step towards a cure. The ability of the HIV genome, or reproductive code, to hide out in cells and be revived after decades …

Some of the most interesting items pop up on the Department of Defense’s official YouTube channel. Clip description: Scientists at the Uniformed Services University say a bug dubbed Conan the Bacterium holds the key to creating vaccines for numerous deadly diseases such as HIV and cancer. Conan has already proven effective in killing MRSA in mice at NIH.

After a German court ruled that the circumcision of minor boys constituted “grievous bodily harm,” a coalition of Jewish and Muslim groups are calling on the national legislature to pass a bill that allows the practice. “We call on the German Bundestag (lower house) and the government to act as quickly as possible to put an end to this legal …

Back in May I told you that the FDA was evaluating an in-home HIV test. Today OraSure Technologies received approval to begin selling the test kit to drugstores and online. The FDA announced today’s decision with a press release and a warning: The OraQuick In-Home HIV Test is designed to allow individuals to collect an oral fluid sample by swabbing …

A German court has outlawed circumcision for non-medical reasons. Circumcisions of young boys on religious grounds should be considered as grievous bodily harm, a German court has said, in a landmark ruling that clears up a grey area for doctors. The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled that the “fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the …

Not exactly breaking news, but here’s the NYT’s report: People with H.I.V. have more than four times the risk of sudden heart attack as their uninfected peers, Dr. Hsue and her colleagues reported last month in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The most likely explanation is that both the virus and the drugs that fight it cause …

British Columbia’s provincial Supreme Court has overturned Canada’s ban on assisted suicide. Justice Lynn Smith of the British Columbia supreme court declared the laws invalid but suspended her ruling for one year to give Canada’s federal parliament time to draft legislation with her ruling in mind. The federal government is expected to appeal against the decision. The case will likely …

New Jersey gay man Joao Simoes is suing his hospital after an on-staff doctor refused him his HIV medications. Dr. Susan Borga* allegedly later told his private physician what the patient had done to become infected was “against God’s will.” When the hospital finally permitted Simoes to call his personal physician on the third day of his stay, he learned …

Unable to weasel out of it any longer, today I made the appointment for my first colonoscopy. Eep. It’s not until August so I’ve got lots of time to plotz about it. Share your own stories and don’t spare the grim details, we’re all grownups here, sort of. Maybe I’ll go all Katie Couric and live-blog the entire thing…..

I’m one of those rare folks who are more fascinated than repelled when a nurse’s needle plunges into my arm. But I have some sturdy butch friends who get the vapors at the prospect of a shot. This is for them, surely. And chalk up another prediction for Gene Roddenberry.

Ultra Orthodox Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is the founder and head of Israel’s Shas Party, which presently holds a number of seats in the national government. Last week Yosef declared that “religious doctors” should refuse to treat non-Jews if their emergency occurs on the sabbath. During a class on Sabbath halacha relating to religious physicians, the spiritual leader of Shas said …

The Centers For Disease Control has issued a call for all “baby boomers” to get a one-time test for Hepatitis C. One in 30 baby boomers – the generation born from 1945 through 1965 – has been infected with hepatitis C, and most don’t know it. Hepatitis C causes serious liver diseases including liver cancer, which is the fastest-rising cause …

The FDA has signaled that it is about to approve the usage of Truvada as a daily preventive for HIV infection among high-risk populations. The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that Gilead Sciences’ Truvada appears to be safe and effective for HIV prevention. It concluded that taking the pill daily could spare patients “infection with a serious and life-threatening …

California has funded a controversial study to test whether giving high-risk patients a daily HIV medication will prevent their infection. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been denounced by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has launched statewide media campaigns against the concept. The pill, which is already used to treat HIV patients, will be prescribed to 700 gay and bisexual men and …