Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
One-tenth of medical residents feel unprepared
Findings from a study suggest that gaps exist in the preparedness of physicians to manage the full range of patients, procedures and problems they may encounter. A surprising one in 10 of medical residents said they felt unprepared to deal with such tasks as the treatment of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, nursing home patients, management of…
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Cell death in eggs traced to smoking
A woman is born with just so many egg cells, called oocytes. When she begins ovulating, she has about 400. Even though that may seem like a lot, considering the few that would ever be fertilized, scientists have found that loss of oocytes influences a woman’s health. Early loss of oocytes leads to early menopause…
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Common aspirin reveals mechanism of insulin resistance
In 1876, a German professor described a treatment that led to rapid improvement in two men who were suffering from what doctors now recognize as classic type 2 diabetes. In the late 1950s, scattered reports about this treatment for diabetes symptoms again appeared in the medical literature; the results were equally dramatic. What was this…
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Health
Resistance to antibodies is reversed
It’s a frightening — and increasingly common — problem. A patient seeks treatment for a particular ailment in a hospital and develops an entirely different disease: a bacterial infection that is resistant to antibiotics. Researchers have worked to come up with better and more powerful antibiotics, but even an antibiotic such as vancomycin, which used…
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Researchers discover new type of cancer
A team led by a Harvard researcher has identified a new type of cancer that primarily affects young girls. Sara Vargas, an instructor in pathology at Harvard Medical School and a researcher in the Department of Pathology at Children’s Hospital in Boston, led the study that identified the new syndrome. The cancer is characterized by…
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Harvard scientists identify chromosome location of genes associated with long life
Scientists have long thought of aging as a complex process affected by perhaps a thousand genes. So a recent discovery by Harvard scientists that a gene or genes located on a region of human Chromosome 4 may help people to live to age 100 was something of a surprise. “This is the first study to…
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Drug hits new molecular target in mice
When doctors diagnose and plan treatment for breast cancers they look for various indicators of how aggressive they are and what treatments will work best. Two-thirds of breast tumors are made up of cells that have receptor molecules for estrogen on their cell surface. The growth of these estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) tumors depends in part on…
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Study shows obesity can increase risk of pancreatic cancer
Each year almost 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About the same number of people are killed by it. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. A study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Dana-Farber…
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Science & Tech
Study suggests pacemaker and defibrillator recalls on the rise
As more heart patients receive pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) generators, more recalls are being issued for the devices, according to a study led by a Harvard Medical School instructor based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Pacemakers and ICDs are two of the most remarkable medical and technological advances of the 20th century.…
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Amniotic cells may be source of new tissue
Babies born with congenital defects often require surgery. Surgeons face a problem, however — in adults, tissue for repair is borrowed from other areas of the body, but babies don’t have enough tissue to spare. Sometimes surgeons use teflon — certainly not an ideal replacement. The laboratory of Dario Fauza, Harvard Medical School instructor in…
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Inflammatory villain turns do-gooder
Many drugs try to tame inflammation by inhibiting molecular events occurring at the beginning of the body’s own immune response. But that may thwart the body’s attempt to heal. A team of Harvard Medical School researchers says a better approach may be to enhance the activity of natural compounds that work to resolve an inflammation.…
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Walking rhythm offers gait-way to reduce falls
Over the past 10 years, Jeffrey Hausdorff has studied thousands of steps from hundreds of feet. The Harvard Medical School assistant professor says that complex patterns hidden in an ordinary walk will reveal changes in the brain and body caused by aging and disease. To compile his gait analyses, Hausdorff uses mathematical tools used to…
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Diet and exercise dramatically delay type 2 diabetes
Diabetes afflicts more than 16 million people in the United States; type 2 diabetes accounts for up to 95 percent of all diabetes cases. New findings from the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a major clinical trial conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and 26 other medical centers nationwide, show that modifications in diet and exercise…
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Science & Tech
Study finds parents of chronically ill children avoid switching to HMOs
The incentive to switch health plans is usually a lower cost to the patient. So if parents of chronically ill children want to retain their old health plans instead of switching to health maintenance organizations (HMOs), they have to pay a higher price. Parents who are financially burdened may feel torn between getting the best…
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Health
Are you an ‘early bird’ or a ‘night owl’?
Harvard researchers working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that whether someone is a morning person or an evening person depends on a basic aspect of the circadian timing system that is known as intrinsic period. The study was published in the August 2001 issue of “Behavioral Neuroscience. “While some have argued that extremes…
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Health
Adult stem cells effect a cure
Using stem cells from the unborn to treat adult diseases has created an anguished public debate. Now research news from Harvard Medical School scientists may help to end that debate by showing that adult stem cells can be coaxed into performing new functions. Researchers working with diabetic mice first killed cells responsible for the diabetes.…
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An alternate take on Alzheimer’s
Much of Alzheimer’s research has focused on the role of a protein, amyloid-beta, found at high levels in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and which coagulates into plaques. Researcher Ashley Bush, a Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, believes that something else causes Alzheimer’s dementia: oxidation of trace metals in…
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Health
Fireflies seen in a new light
Anyone who has ever seen fireflies do their luminescent mating dance on a summer’s night has wondered: How do they light up like that? Now, two researchers, Sara Lewis from Tufts University and Thomas Michel from Harvard Medical School, have unraveled the mystery. Fireflies produce their light with nitric oxide, which is the same gas…
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A familiar drug gives surprising hope against diabetic blindness
A common complication of diabetes is diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by changes in the blood vessels of the retina. This form of retinopathy has long been suspected of being the result of tiny blood clots in the capillaries of the eye that lead to blockages in blood circulation…
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Health
Green vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C reduces risk of heart disease
Regularly eating fruits and vegetables, in particular green leafy vegetables and fruits that contain vitamin C, reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, according to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health. In a study, individuals who increased consumption of fruits and vegetables by one additional serving per day helped reduce their risk for…
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Gene found for rare bone disorder
Cherubism may sound angelic, but it certainly is not. The rare bone disorder afflicts children starting at about age 3 or 4, causing them to develop chubby cheeks and upward-looking eyes like those of a cherub. It is not known how many people have the disorder; about 200 cases have been described in the medical…
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Health
Breathing new life into asthma therapy
Asthma attacks have lasting effects because the lungs’ most delicate airways can become scarred. This makes future attacks all the worse. Researchers at Harvard Medical School have looked at what happens during asthma attacks, and believe that the damage to airways can be prevented or lessened by prescribing muscle relaxants in addition to anti-inflammatory steroids.…
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Introducing baby to the right bacteria
Developing a symbiotic relationship with the right bacteria is essential for a baby’s health and development. W. Allan Walker, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, has been leading research into the complex relationship among the newborn gastrointestinal system, its bacterial immigrants, and the way breast milk helps regulate the process. Walker…
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Health
Breast-feeding may limit teenage obesity
Infants who were breast-fed more than formula-fed, or who were breast-fed for longer periods, had approximately 20 percent lower risk of being overweight in their preteen and teen years, according to a recent study. In this study, breast-feeding included feeding infants breast milk extracted from breast pumps. The implications are dramatic. “Breast-feeding may prevent obesity…
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New drug dissolves stomach tumors
Since July 2000, Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researcher George Demetri and his colleagues have treated 148 patients with a rare, lethal stomach cancer known as GIST (Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor). Eighty-six of them have been taking the drug long enough to evaluate its results, and half of these patients showed a 50 percent or greater…
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Health
A potential new anthrax therapy
A vaccine to protect humans against anthrax already exists, but since infection is rare, a widespread vaccination program is not practical. To be effective against anthrax, antibiotics must be given before symptoms actually develop, which is little use to those who are infected. An unvaccinated victim of anthrax usually dies within a few days. That…
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Caffeine linked to protection from Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive nervous disease occurring generally after age 50. It destroys brain cells that produce dopamine and is characterized by muscular tremor, slowing of movement, weakness and facial paralysis. Men who drank four to five cups per day of caffeinated coffee cut the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease nearly in half compared…
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Health
Medicare rules restrict good care for dying patients
Many health care providers believe that Medicare regulations block them from providing good care to dying patients. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and RAND discovered that fact by conducting systematic interviews of health care providers. The providers were asked about fee-for-service Medicare coverage and payments for end-of-life care. Patients…
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Women’s menstrual cycle holds clue to cocaine response
During the first half of their menstrual cycles, when their estrogen levels are high, women are protected from the brain-damaging effects of cocaine use, according to a research study conducted at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., by a Harvard researcher and colleagues. Researcher Marc Kaufman believes that the finding could lead to a new drug…