Tag Archives | Medicine

Mounting Research Shows Marijuana Fights Cancer

By on September 7, 2012 in News 16

Will the jaws of future generations drop in amazement when they learn that marijuana was banned in our society as a criminal substance? Via the Daily Beast:

Mounting evidence shows ‘cannabinoids’ in marijuana slow cancer growth, inhibit formation of new blood cells that feed a tumor, and help manage pain, fatigue, nausea, and other side effects. [This] offers hope of a non-toxic therapy that could treat aggressive forms of cancer without any of the painful side effects of chemotherapy.

Cristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells [and realized] the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.

Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC. Subsequent peer-reviewed studies in several countries would show that THC and other marijuana-derived compounds, known as “cannabinoids,” are effective not only for cancer-symptom management (nausea, pain, loss of appetite, fatigue), they also confer a direct antitumoral effect.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 16

Asian Disease Likened To New AIDS

By on August 24, 2012 in News 10

Photo: justinwdavis (CC)

The “new AIDS” is one scary headline. Marilynn Marchione reports for AP via Yahoo News:

Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.

The patients’ immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn’t known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.

This is another kind of acquired immune deficiency that is not inherited and occurs in adults, but doesn’t spread the way AIDS does through a virus, said Dr. Sarah Browne, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

She helped lead the study with researchers in Thailand and Taiwan where most of the cases have been found since 2004. Their report is in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 10

The U.S. Army’s Quest To Develop An Anti-Suicide Nasal Spray

By on August 22, 2012 in News 12

Soldier, the problem isn’t that you’re facing foreclosure on your home, physical disability, and PTSD, you just haven’t had you daily spritz of anti-suicide spray. Via Russia Today:

The US Army has awarded a scientist at the Indiana University School of Medicine $3 million to develop a nasal spray that eclipses suicidal thoughts. Dr. Michael Kubek and his research team will have three years to ascertain whether the nasal spray is a safe and effective method of preventing suicides.

The research grant comes after the Army lost 38 of its soldiers to suspected suicide in July, setting a record high. So far in 2012, the Army has confirmed 66 active duty suicides and is investigating 50 more, making a total of 116 cases.

But the naturally occurring neurochemical thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) could slow the rising suicide rate. The chemical has a euphoric, calming, antidepressant effect. TRH has been shown to decrease suicidal ideas, depression and bipolar disorders.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 12

Study: Doctors Using Dangerous Steroids On Fetuses In Experiment To Reduce Lesbianism, Tomboyism, Intersexuality

By on August 20, 2012 in News 2

In short, U.S. doctors have injected at least a thousand pregnant women with hazardous, non-FDA-approved synthetic steroids (without warning them of the risks) in a bizarre experimental effort to reduce future “tomboyism, lesbianism and bisexuality” in fetuses that may be genetically prone to those traits. The Northwestern University News Center unravels the disturbing medical news:

A new paper just published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry uses extensive Freedom of Information Act findings to detail an extremely troubling off-label medical intervention employed in the U.S. on pregnant women to intentionally engineer the development of their fetuses for sex normalization purposes.

The pregnant women targeted are at risk for having a child born with the condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), an endocrinological condition that can result in female fetuses being born with intersex or more male-typical genitals and brains. Women genetically identified as being at risk are given dexamethasone, a synthetic steroid, off-label starting as early as week five of the first trimester to try to “normalize” the development of those fetuses, which are female and CAH-affected.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 2

Nightmare Fuel: Chinese Doctor Removes Spider from Woman’s Ear Canal

By on August 10, 2012 in News 8

Via Huffington Post:

I can’t hear you, there’s a spider in my ear!

The horrifying pictures were taken at China’s Changsha Central Hospital, after the patient checked in, complaining of itching inside her left ear.

Doctors were left with the challenge of extracting the spider while trying to ensure it would not burrow deeper or even bite the woman.

Read more at Huffington Post. Or don’t. I wouldn’t blame you.

 

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 8

Digital Pills Tell Whether You Took Your Medicine

By on August 1, 2012 in News 2

The ostensible purpose is to monitor whether the elderly and forgetful are keeping up with regimens. However, it’s easy to imagine a future in which criminals are paroled on the condition that they take behavior-altering drugs, et cetera. Via Nature:

Digestible microchips embedded in drugs may soon tell doctors whether a patient is taking their medications as prescribed. These sensors are the first ingestible devices approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To some, they signify the beginning of an era in digital medicine.

The sand-particle sized sensor consists of a minute silicon chip containing trace amounts of magnesium and copper. When swallowed, it generates a slight voltage in response to digestive juices, which conveys a signal to the surface of a person’s skin where a patch then relays the information to a mobile phone belonging to a healthcare-provider.

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute…says that the 2010s will be known as the era of digital medical devices.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 2

California Doctors Banned For Unauthorized Human Experiments

By on July 28, 2012 in News 5

Shades of Nazi Germany? Alyssa Newcomb reports for ABC News:

Two University of California at Davis surgeons have been banned from doing human research after they injected bacteria into the head wounds of consenting terminally ill patients without university authorization, according to a letter sent from the school to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The university ordered Drs. J. Paul Muizelaar and Rudolph J. Schrot to immediately “cease and desist” doing the procedure last fall, according to the letter, dated Oct. 17, 2011, obtained by the Sacramento Bee.

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi has ordered a review into the actions of Muizelaar, who is chairman of the department of neurological surgery at UC Davis, and Schrot, an assistant professor…

Continue Reading · 5

What It’s Like Living Without The Ability To Feel Pain

By on July 18, 2012 in News 4

A reminder that suffering has its purpose? 31-year-old Steven Pete was born with congenital analgesia – a rare genetic disorder rendering him unable to experience pain, though he has a sense of touch. Via the BBC, he explains that life without pain is a curse:

Steven Pete and his brother were born with the rare genetic disorder congenital analgesia. They grew up – in Washington state – with a sense of touch but, as he explains in his own words, without ever feeling pain.

It first became apparent to my parents that something was wrong when I was four or five months old. I began chewing on my tongue while teething. They took me to a paediatrician where I underwent a series of tests.

During my early childhood I was absent from school a lot due to injury and illness. There was one time, at the roller-skating rink. I can’t recall all of the details, but I know that I broke my leg.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 4

International Body Harvesting Network Uncovered In Ukraine

By on July 18, 2012 in News 2

Transplanted body parts could save your eyesight, your smile, your ability to walk … but the question is from where they were taken. The Sydney Morning Herald peeks inside a booming new business:

“Two ribs, two Achilles heels, two elbows, two eardrums, two teeth, and so on” … On February 24, Ukrainian authorities made an alarming discovery: bones and other human tissues crammed into coolers in a grimy white minibus. Investigators grew even more intrigued when they found, amid the body parts, envelopes stuffed with cash and autopsy results written in English.

[It] was not the work of a serial killer but part of an international pipeline of ingredients for medical and dental products that are routinely implanted into people around the world … the remains of dead Ukrainians were destined for a factory in Germany belonging to the subsidiary of a US medical products company, Florida-based RTI Biologics.

RTI is one of a growing industry of companies that make profits by turning mortal remains into everything from dental implants to bladder slings to wrinkle cures.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 2

Invention Makes It Possible To Live Without Breathing

By on June 29, 2012 in News 1

We’ve breathed the same old way for far too long — it was high time for an update. Initially, it will be an emergency medical solution, but perhaps someday a workaround for living in a hopelessly polluted world. Via Unexplained Mysteries:

Scientists have invented particles able to keep a person alive even if they are unable to breathe. The breakthrough treatment works by oxygenating the blood through an injection that can keep someone alive for up to 30 minutes even if they are unable to breath at all and could save thousands of lives. The injected particles contain oxygen within a layer of natural molecules known as lipids.

Previous attempts at developing a treatment of this nature had failed because the injections caused a gas embolism rather than oxygenation of the cells. ”We have engineered around this problem by packaging the gas into small, deformable particles,” said scientist John Kheir.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 1