A team of researchers, including scientists from Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet, has found that a thyroid-hormone-like substance that works specifically on the liver reduces blood cholesterol with no serious side effects. High cholesterol levels in the blood are primarily treated with a group of drugs called statins, but they are not always sufficiently effective and higher doses commonly cause adverse reactions. The new finding is based on a clinical trial, which showed that a novel drug substance called eprotirome can reduce blood cholesterol effectively in patients who...

A simple method uses stem cells from bone tissue to repair serious injuries quickly and cheaply. By Brittany Sauser A new surgical procedure can repair severe bone injuries and defects more quickly and simply than current methods, which include bone-grafting operations and lengthening procedures that involve inserting pins through the skin to pull bones together. The new technique makes use of a thin tissue called the periosteum, which lines the outer surface of all bones and contains stem cells that develop into bone to repair damage. To repair major bone breaks, or repair serious defects,...

The body’s healing system could be “supercharged” after a new discovery which gives people with heart disease or broken bones new hope of a better, faster recovery. By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent British researchers have developed a technique that boosts the number of repair cells released by the body after a major injury or disease. The discovery means more than 100 times the amount of cells are released, and the scientists hope the breakthrough could lead to speedier recoveries from serious injuries, heart attacks and other organ failures. When a person has...

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that Vitamin D is crucial to activating our immune defenses and that without sufficient intake of the vitamin, the killer cells of the immune system – T cells – will not be able to react to and fight off serious infections in the body. For T cells to detect and kill foreign pathogens such as clumps of bacteria or viruses, the cells must first be ‘triggered’ into action and ‘transform’ from inactive and harmless immune cells into killer cells that are primed to seek out and destroy all traces of a foreign...

Frozen vegetables can often contain more nutrients than fresh vegetables, a report has claimed. Produce which is frozen soon after being picked have more nutrients sealed in, scientists from the Institute of Food Research claimed Up to 45 per cent of important nutrients are lost in fresh vegetable by the time they are consumed. It can take up to two weeks for fresh produce to reach the table from being picked although the survey found that 80 per cent of shoppers thought the fresh vegetables in supermarkets were less than four days old. Read More…

A little girl covered with painful blisters because of a rare skin disease has been cured by sessions on a sunbed. Stephanie Brown, two, is the youngest person in Britain to have the unusual treatment after being born with diffuse cutaneous mastocytosis. The condition, which affects only one in half-a-million people, causes severe blistering on the body. Stephanie, from Mirfield, West Yorks, was given 30 sessions of Psoralen UVA treatment between August and November 2009. Doctors were stunned with the results which cleared her skin of blisters in less than four months. Read More…

By Rachel Ehrenberg, Science News SAN DIEGO—Fish might be brain food, but it doesn’t supply the high levels of fuel needed to keep a dolphin brain functioning. New research adds to evidence suggesting that bottlenose dolphins go into a harmless diabetic state during overnight fasting, thereby maintaining high levels of glucose in the blood. The research, presented at a news briefing February 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggests that dolphins may be a good model for studying diabetes and could offer insights into treating the disease...

Personalized blood tests on patients with cancer can tell whether treatment is working, or whether disease has returned. A sample of the tumor is used to identify the unique cancer gene sequence, meaning the blood test identifies tumor “rearrangements” of the DNA. This method of “fingerprinting” the cancer can reportedly track the development of the cancer in the specific individual’s body. Read More…

LONDON (Reuters) – British scientists have found a cheap and simple way of keeping vaccines stable, even at tropical temperatures, which they say could transform immunization campaigns in the developing world. The technology developed by Oxford University scientists and the privately owned Nova Laboratories would remove the need for costly infrastructure, like fridges and freezers that require power and can break down, and highly trained staff. “Currently vaccines need to be stored in a fridge or freezer,” said Matt Cottingham of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, who led the study....

By Fiona Macrae A prostate cancer ‘wonder pill’ could be on the market next year. Abiraterone hit the headlines two years ago, with stunning trial results in which it shrank tumours in 80 per cent of men whose cancer had spread throughout their body. The once-a-day drug also eased pain in many and was hailed as the biggest breakthrough in the field for 60 years. Read More…