Exposure to even moderate levels of arsenic in drinking water is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, especially among smokers, finds a study published on bmj.com today.
Arsenic is a natural element of the Earth's crust and high concentrations in groundwater pose a public health threat to millions of people worldwide.
Arsenic exposure and smoking each elevate the risk of disease. But when combined together, the danger of dying from cardiovascular disease is magnified, a new study finds.
Exposure to high or even moderate levels of the toxin arsenic through drinking water can elevate the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, according to a new study published in British Medical Journal. Exposed individuals who smoke were hit with a dangerous double whammy: a combined mortality risk that exceeded the influence of either factor alone.
Kidney disease affects 1 in 9 US adults, and by 2020 more than 750,000 Americans will be on dialysis or awaiting kidney transplant. Despite this growing health problem, every year fewer US medical students adopt nephrology as a career, according to a review appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).
GALVESTON, Texas — What causes a virus to suddenly begin infecting large numbers of people?
Scientists have long known that the process they call "viral emergence" involves a wide variety of factors. Some are changes in the environment, either generated by natural causes or human activity. Others are internal, arising from accidental changes — mutations —in the virus' genetic code.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — DNA from Helicobacter pylori, a common stomach bacteria, minimizes the effects of colitis in mice, according to a new study by University of Michigan Medical School scientists.
For much of the time our T cells—the white blood cells that act as the police of the immune system—are in what immunologists call a "quiescent state," a sort of standby mode. For years, scientists have wondered if quiescence occurred by default or whether T cells need to work at remaining silent. Now, researchers at The Wistar Institute provide the first direct proof that a protein, called Foxp1, actively maintains this state of quiescence in T cells until the cells are called upon by other parts of the immune system.
WHAT:Using a monkey model of AIDS, scientists have identified a vaccine-generated immune-system response that correlates with protection against infection by the monkey version of HIV, called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). The researchers found that neutralizing antibodies generated by immunization were associated with protection against SIV infection.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University-led sequencing of the Selaginella moellendorffii (spikemoss) genome - the first for a non-seed vascular plant - is expected to give scientists a better understanding of how plants of all kinds evolved over the past 500 million years and could open new doors for the identification of new pharmaceuticals.
Short courses of antibiotics appear just as effective as longer ones- and a great deal safer - in treating respiratory infections that might cause pneumonia in children on temporary breathing devices, according to a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study published online May 3 in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
PULLMAN, Wash.—A group of leading scientists, economists and farmers is calling for a broad shift in federal policies to speed the development of farm practices that are more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.
Writing in the journal Science, they say current policies focus on the production of a few crops and a minority of farmers while failing to address farming's contribution to global warming, biodiversity loss, natural resource degradation, and public health problems.
A new study of foot-and-mouth disease shows that cattle afflicted with the virus are only infectious for a brief window of time—about half as long as previously thought. This finding suggests that the controversial control measures used to halt the disease's spread, such as killing large numbers of livestock, could be reduced.
The discovery is also changing the way that scientists think about infectious diseases in general.
STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a machine already in use for the measurement of impurities in semiconductors and used it to analyze immune cells in far more detail than has been possible before. The new technology lets scientists take simultaneous measurements of dozens of features located on and in cells, whereas the existing technology typically begins to encounter technical limitations at about a half-dozen.
(Edmonton) The obesity problem plaguing Canadians is a story heard frequently these days. For Katerina Maximova, making connections between the rising body mass index, or BMI, among native-born Canadian versus immigrant children has been the focus of a recent study.
Transformative changes in markets, policy and science, rather than just incremental changes in farming practices and technology, will be critical if the United States is to achieve long-term sustainability in agriculture, according to a nationwide team of agriculturists that includes a University of California, Davis, animal scientist.
New Rochelle, NY, May 5, 2011—When children or adolescents with asthma and their parents become overly anxious about the disorder, it may impair their ability to manage the asthma effectively. A new, effective tool to assess asthma-related anxiety is described in an article in Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online.