A Johns Hopkins-led team of experts in genetics, immunology, epidemiology and allergic disease has embarked on a four-year effort to map the genetic code, or whole genome, of 1,000 people of African descent, including men and women from Baltimore. Researchers say their initial goal is to find genetic variations underlying asthma and to explain why the disease disproportionately afflicts blacks…
Many developing countries rely on traditional medicine as an accessible and affordable treatment option for human maladies. However, until now, scientific data has not existed to evaluate the potential toxicity of medicinal plant species in Peru. Scientists from the William L. Brown Center of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St…
More than 10 years after 9/11, when thousands of rescue and recovery workers descended on the area surrounding the World Trade Center in the wake of the terrorist attacks, a research team led by Benjamin J. Luft, M.D., the Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine, and Medical Director of Stony Brook’s World Trade Center Health Program, and Evelyn Bromet, Ph.D…
A study conducted by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has found that diesel exhaust particulates (DEP) and house dust extract (HDE) causes pulmonary inflammation that aggravates asthma…
A first-of-its-kind study is giving smokers one more reason to quit as a New Year’s resolution…
A commentary by Dr. David Spence of The University of Western Ontario and Dr. Meir Stampfer of the Harvard School of Public Health in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) argues that vitamin therapy still has a role to play in reducing stroke. Vitamin B therapy was once widely used to lower homocysteine levels…
Acupuncture significantly reduces levels of a protein in rats linked to chronic stress, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have found. They say their animal study may help explain the sense of well-being that many people receive from this ancient Chinese therapy…
In the Christmas issue published on bmj.com today, Professor Sir Malcolm Green explains: “a review of a historical study from 1848 reveals that cod liver oil was an effective treatment for tuberculosis.” 1,077 individuals with consumption (tuberculosis) were enrolled to participate in the study conducted by physicians at the Hospital for Consumption, Chelsea (now the Royal Brompton Hospital)…
Does vitamin D supplementation protect people from bone fractures, cancer and cardiovascular disease? Researchers wrote in Annals of Internal Medicine in two separate articles that so far there is no compelling evidence to support any of these claims. Article 1 - studies have indicated that vitamin D supplementation may play a role in reducing the risk of developing cancer and bone fractures…
Scientists have discovered a missing link between the body’s biological clock and sugar metabolism system, a finding that may help avoid the serious side effects of drugs used for treating asthma, allergies and arthritis…
