SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome – is a viral respiratory illness caused by coronavirus, a family of viruses also implicated in the common cold. SARS is a distinct form…
The effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection depends on how well patients adhere to complicated drug regimens. Researchers found that among patients with lower levels of adherence to their…
A research team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that stroke risk for women increased proportionately with the number of cigarettes smoked each day. In contrast, women who stopped…
Type 1 diabetes develops when the body’s immune cells mistakenly attack the insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas. As islet cells die, insulin production ceases, and blood sugar levels rise,…
A research team surveyed more than 2,000 physicians at U.S. academic health centers who had provided direct patient care during the preceding year. Among the questions asked were whether the…
As the American Psychiatric Association prepares for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’s fifth edition, there is debate over whether to eliminate milder forms of diseases to prevent…
Researchers found that adult rats exposed to a social stress during adolescence (ages approximating 13 to 15 years in humans) showed a significant decrease in a specific protein found in…
In a frog, the position of the heart is determined within the first hour in the womb, Harvard scientists have discovered. Researchers all over the world believe that frogs and…
While the research is a far cry from proving that humans sprang from clay, as some creation myths assert, it does provide a possible mechanism for explaining how life initially…
Normally, a protein regulates when and how body parts develop, but when mutated, it triggers a rare, often-lethal infant leukemia called mixed lineage leukemia. The newly identified protease enzyme, Taspase1,…
Working with colleagues at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Harvard researchers found that giving mice a hormone known for building bones increased their production of blood stem cells.…
A study, published by Dana-Farber researchers in the September 2003 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, suggests that increasing medical students’ opportunities to learn about end-of-life care will…
Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their regulators, the tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), form an intriguing partnership. MMPs work by breaking down the dense matrix surrounding cells, freeing them to wander…
“Scientists have wondered for a long time why madness and creativity seem linked, particularly in artists, musicians, and writers,” notes Shelley Carson, a Harvard psychologist. “Our research results indicate that…
Alzheimer’s disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose. Though sophisticated functional and cognitive tests can help, they often fail to distinguish between Alzheimer’s and other non-amyloid-based dementias, particularly frontotemporal dementia. The…
The results of three studies published together in the Aug. 31, 2003 online edition of Nature Immunology help explain the uncanny ability of T cells to home to problem areas…
“To initiate a memory is almost like creating a word processing file on a computer,” explains researcher Matthew Walker, instructor of psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard…
The prevalence of overweight and obese children has increased by 100 percent since the 1980s. Americans spend about $33 billion a year on weight loss products and services, however, only…
“The threat of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria increased so dramatically from the 1970s to the mid-1990s that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled it a national…
Although millions of people across the country are registered organ donors, only 2 percent of them annually suffer brain death and meet the other medical requirements for being a cadaveric…
Findings from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital could eventually help to solve problems ranging from cancer, to obesity, to the development of replacement organs. The findings involve the key physiological…
A study consisted of 11 public schools, including three state university campuses and eight state colleges that fall under the purview of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (MBHE). In…
Hip and wrist factures, suffered by more than 550,000 individuals annually, are a leading cause of hospitalization and death in the elderly. Often one fracture from osteoporosis leads to another,…
Blood platelets, which are transfused into those who lose too much blood from wounds, major surgery, or cancer treatments, can be kept for only five days. Then they must be…
Called resveratrol, a wonder substance discovered by Harvard researchers seems to work in the same way as does drastic calorie cutting. Dramatic reduction of calories has been shown to increase…
Research published in the Sept. 13, 2003 issue of the medical journal The Lancet shows that global tobacco deaths were about 4.8 million in 2000, with about 2.4 million each…
At a cellular level, life-sustaining activities such as glucose metabolism were thought to be carried out by entirely different proteins from those involved in apoptosis, or cell death. “People in…
A new vaccine prods the immune system to attack both the anthrax bacterium ( Bacillus anthracis ) and the toxins it makes. This dual action represents an improvement over the…
A research team led by Stefan Heller, a principal investigator at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Eaton-Peabody Laboratory and assistant professor at the Department of Otology and Laryngology at…
“The way we look at it, Alzheimer’s disease is really cancer of the brain,” says Rachael Neve, Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital. “But neurons cannot…
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