Featured series 
Tag: Medicine
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Health
Increasing growth hormone release reduces abdominal fat
Treatment with an investigational drug that induces the release of growth hormone significantly improved the symptoms of HIV lipodystrophy, a condition involving redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in patients receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection.
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Health
Feminist pioneers discuss women’s health policy
More than three decades after publication of the taboo-shattering book on female health, “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” activists are still struggling to bring attention to women’s health issues amid the national debate over medical insurance coverage, said one of the book’s authors and feminist pioneer Judy Norsigian.
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Health
Scientists identify gene responsible for statin-induced muscle pain
Statins, the popular class of drugs used to lower cholesterol, are among the most commonly prescribed medications in developed countries. But for some patients, accompanying side effects of muscle weakness and pain become chronic problems and, in rare cases, can escalate to debilitating and even life-threatening damage.
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Health
Flavonoid-rich diet helps women decrease risk of ovarian cancer
New research out of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including nonherbal tea and broccoli, was associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. The researchers also found a decreased risk in women who consumed large amounts of the flavonoid luteolin, which…
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Campus & Community
HMS’s Dohlman receives AAO’s highest honor
Claes H. Dohlman, Harvard Medical School (HMS) professor of ophthalmology emeritus and cornea surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI), received the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s most prestigious award, the Laureate Recognition Award, at the academy’s annual meeting Nov. 10-13 in New Orleans. In addition, a new HMS professorship named in his honor…
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Campus & Community
Hermes C. Grillo
Hermes C. Grillo, M.D., world renowned Thoracic Surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, died Saturday, October 14, 2006 near Ravenna, Italy in an automobile accident. He and his wife, Sue, were traveling in their beloved Italy visiting family and planned to attend the Italian Association for Thoracic Surgery, at which he was to be an…
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Campus & Community
HMS’s Dohlman receives AAO’s highest honor
Claes H. Dohlman, Harvard Medical School (HMS) professor of ophthalmology emeritus and cornea surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI), received the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s most prestigious award, the Laureate Recognition Award, at the academy’s annual meeting Nov. 10-13 in New Orleans. In addition, a new HMS professorship named in his honor…
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Health
Politics of pain — from Percodan to Kevorkian
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 6), physicians, historians of science, and members of the general public gathered in the gymnasium at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to hear about pain.
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Health
Study: Single muscle far more complex than previously believed
New research from Harvard’s Concord Field Station has shown that the common perception of a muscle as a single functional unit is incorrect and that different sections within an individual muscle actually do different work.
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Health
Beta-carotene reduces dementia risk in men
Researchers affiliated with the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) report in the Nov. 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine evidence that men who take beta-carotene supplements for 15 years or longer may have less cognitive decline and better verbal memory than those who do not.
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Health
Flavonoid-rich diet helps women decrease risk of ovarian cancer
New research out of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including nonherbal tea and broccoli, was associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer.
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Health
Researchers track down arthritis gene
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a gene involved in rheumatoid arthritis, a painful inflammation that affects 2.1 million Americans and which can destroy cartilage and bone within the afflicted joint.
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Campus & Community
HMS Dean Flier hails new, cooperative era in Harvard science
Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier said Friday (Nov. 2) that new approaches are needed to advance the fight against disease and embraced cross-institutional collaborations at Harvard as a way to bring new thinking to old problems.
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Health
1.8 million veterans lack health coverage
Of the 47 million uninsured Americans, one in every eight (12.2 percent) is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance who are also Harvard Medical School researchers. The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Approximately 1.8…
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Health
Med students don’t study war, ethics
A new survey of U.S. medical students shows they receive little training about what they should or should not do in wartime, despite ethical questions over physician involvement in prisoner interrogation and a legal framework making a “doctor draft” possible.
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Science & Tech
New laser nanoantenna shows unprecedented detail
In a stunning feat of nanotechnology engineering, researchers from Harvard University have demonstrated a laser with a wide-range of potential applications in chemistry, biology, and medicine. Called a quantum cascade (QC) laser antenna, the device is capable of resolving the chemical composition of samples, such as the interior of a cell, with unprecedented detail.
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Campus & Community
University announces this year’s public-spirited Zuckerman Fellows
A trustee of the University of Notre Dame, a former naval intelligence officer, and a former special assistant to the Iraqi Ministry of Health are among this year’s Zuckerman Fellows.
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Health
Panel investigates media reporting on science and politics of stem cells
Stem cells, politics, “fairness,” and what one participant termed “the disintegration of traditional journalism,” were all on the bill at Thursday night’s (Oct. 18) public forum titled “Stem Cells and the Media,” hosted by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
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Health
Nanowire makes own electricity
Harvard chemists have built a new wire out of photosensitive materials that is hundreds of times smaller than a human hair. The wire not only carries electricity to be used in vanishingly small circuits, but generates power as well.
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Campus & Community
Junior faculty, clinicians receive Shore Fellowships
The Eleanor and Miles Shore 50th Anniversary Fellowship Program for Scholars in Medicine has announced the selection of more than 90 junior faculty members, researchers, and clinicians as fellows for the 2007-08 academic year. Fellows generally receive between $25,000 and $30,000 for one year.
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Health
Study probes academic, industry relationships
A study led by members of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy (MGH-IHP) has found that institutional academic-industry relationships — financial relationships companies have with medical schools or teaching hospitals rather than with individual physicians or scientists — are as common and pervasive as individual relationships. The report, the first nationwide look at…
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Campus & Community
Joseph Vacanti wins 2007 John Scott Medal
Acting for the city of Philadelphia, the board of directors of city trusts has awarded John Homans Professor of Surgery Joseph P. Vacanti the 2007 John Scott Medal. The award is given to men and women whose inventions have contributed in some outstanding way to the “comfort, welfare, and happiness” of mankind.
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Campus & Community
Shore Fellows awarded valuable time
N. Stuart Harris, an emergency physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, is also an active researcher doing groundbreaking research on hypoxia — a shortage of oxygen in the body.
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Health
Hormone therapy for prostate cancer puts heart at risk
Administering androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) prior to surgery and combining ADT with radiation therapy are popular approaches to treating men diagnosed with advanced or high-risk localized prostate cancer. However, the potentially negative side effects of ADT are just now being explored. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that ADT may increase the…
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Health
Data on life expectancy show many countries clustered in high mortality ‘traps’
Growing recognition of the importance of health as a contributing factor to economic development and societal change has prompted the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) to add a new subsection on sustainable health to its existing section on sustainable Development.
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Health
At HMOs, Medicaid patients fare worse than others
Once viewed as a panacea to the nation’s health care problems, HMOs have fallen out of favor. Commercially insured patients who flooded into HMOs, or managed care, in the early 1990s left in droves by the end of the decade. Medicaid patients, however, don’t always have the luxury of choosing their health plans, and the…
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Health
Second pathway behind HIV-associated immune system dysfunction is discovered
Researchers at the Partners AIDS Research Center (PARC) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may have discovered a second molecular “switch” responsible for turning off the immune system’s response against HIV. Last year, members of the same team identified a molecule called PD-1 that suppresses the activity of HIV-specific CD8 T cells that should destroy virus-infected…
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Health
Stem Cell Summit draws 500 participants
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Wed-nesday (Oct. 3) called on those attending the second day of a Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)-sponsored Stem Cell Summit to support his proposed $1 billion life sciences initiative “so we can get partnering with you.”
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Campus & Community
Chili pepper cocktail points to wide-awake surgery
Imagine an epidural or a shot of Novocain that doesn’t paralyze your legs or make you numb yet totally blocks your pain. This type of pain management is now within reach. As a result, childbirth, surgery, and trips to the dentist might be less traumatic in the future, thanks to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital…