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Galeria de Fotos de todo el XXX Congreso Médico en Bogotá, Colombia ver este enlace
Filed under: Eventos | Tagged: Academia Nacional de Medicina de Colombia, Alberto Perez, Augusto Sarmiento, Camilo Gutierrez, Congreso Bicentenario de la Independencia de Colombia, Fernando Dangond, Jorge Otero, Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, Marco Danon, Patricia Pardo, Rodolfo Llinas, XXX Congreso USCMA | 2 Comments »
ROYAL PALM BEACH, FLORIDA–(Marketwire – Sept. 2, 2010) – The Medical Tourism Association announced today that over seventy countries have confirmed participation in the 3rd Annual World Medical Tourism and Global Healthcare Congress in Los Angeles, California, USA, September 22nd-24th, 2010.
The congress is made up of three conferences
1) Medical Tourism Conference,
2) Expatriate Healthcare Travel Insurance & Global Health Insurance Conference
3) Healthcare Development Conference; together they make most resourceful and immense congress of the world attended by government representatives, elite professionals and influencing organizations.
Designed for sharing, learning and networking, Jonathan Edelheit, CEO of the Medical Tourism Association spoke of the Congress: ”We are very excited at the caliber of participants we have for our 3rd annual global conference. The quality of the delegates of the conference is a clear indicator of the growth in the industry and the elite healthcare leaders who are presenting, sharing their insight and knowledge. We are constantly getting enormous response and are convinced that this congress will be Mecca gathering for healthcare, medical tourism & insurance professionals.”
It is important to note that Congress has created a dedicated networking sessions for business meetings. Participating organizations are commending efforts of Medical Tourism Association for creating such platform.
“The Medical Tourism Congress is an important opportunity to meet with others in the industry and advance the field of medical tourism in the United States,” said Jeff Argotsinger, Head of Swiss Re’s Medical Expense Group. ”Swiss Re appreciates the value of providing employers with the medical travel option as part of our employer stop loss coverage to reduce health care costs for eligible operations without sacrificing quality of care.”
Filed under: Eventos | Tagged: Colombia, Health care, United States, Tourism, Los Angeles, Medical Tourism Association | Leave a Comment »
Nearly 2,000 employers and unions have been approved to seek federal reimbursement for the health claims of their “early retirees,” or retired workers aged 55 or older who are too young to get Medicare, Obama administration officials announced Tuesday.
The $5 billion program is a key “bridge” provision of the new health-care law, intended to encourage employers to maintain coverage of early retirees and their families until states are able to establish federally subsidized health insurance exchanges in 2014. At that point, early retirees dropped by their employers presumably could purchase insurance through the exchanges at more affordable rates than the ones currently available to them on the individual market.
Filed under: Health Care Reform | Tagged: Obama, Medicare, Insurance, Health care, Health insurance, United States, Retirement, Washington Post, Koch Industries | Leave a Comment »
A US district judge had issued a ban on some federally-funded embryonic stem cell research. The White House says it’ll quickly appeal the decision. In the meantime, scientists are left in limbo wondering if or when their work can continue. (Aug. 24)
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Obama, AP, Embryonic stem cell, US District Judge Royce Lambert, Stem Cell, White House, Stem Cell Research | Leave a Comment »
WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department said Tuesday it will appeal a judge’s decision to block federal funding for stemcell research, risking an election year fight over hot button issues of science and religion.
“I can confirm we plan to appeal,” said Tracy Schmaller, a Justice Department spokesperson, adding that the department was “likely to file this week.”
She said the department would both appeal US District Judge Royce Lambert’s temporary suspension of federal funding for stemcell research and seek a stay of the suspension while the appeal is pending.
“The president said very plainly that this is important, life-saving research,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters earlier. “We’re reviewing all possibilities.”
“We’re reviewing it so we can keep this important, potentially life-saving research moving forward in the most ethical way possible,” he said. President Barack Obama authorized the renewal of federal funding in March 2009, reversing a ban imposed by his predecessor George W. Bush in 2001 on moral and religious grounds.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: AFP, CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, Embryonic stem cell, Obama, Stem cells, US District Judge Royce Lambert, William Caldwell | Leave a Comment »
In early 2010, some scientists offered their predictions for the new decade which this blog covered in the post, “Scientists Predict: The 2010s Will Be Freakin’ Awesome–With Lasers.” In what could be an early sign of that sunny prognostication coming true, researchers have announced that they’ve controlled the beating of an embryonic heart with an infrared laser beam. While the work is in its early stages, researchers say this remarkable advance will help them study heart disease and could one day lead to optical pacemakers.
The embryonic hearts in question came from quail eggs. Each quail embryo was only two or three days old so the heart measured just 2 cubic millimeters in volume; at that stage, the heart is essentially a clump of cells that hasn’t yet developed its four-chambered structure. The pulses of infrared light were delivered by an optical fiber that ended 500 micrometres from the embryo.
Before they switched on the laser, the heart beat once every 1.5 seconds, but firing the laser twice a second quickened the heartbeat to match the laser rate as long as the laser fired…. ”It worked beautifully: the heart rate was in lockstep with the laser pulse rate,” says [study coauthor] Duco Jansen of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. [New Scientist]
Several years ago, a different scientific team showed that laser pulses could set the pace of a cluster of heart cells in a petri dish, but the new study, published in Nature Photonics, marks the first time a laser has set the pace of an entire heart. Lead author Michael Jenkins of Case Western Reserve University says the technique will offer a new way to study heart development.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Discover Magazine, Duco Jansen of Vanderbilt University, embryonic hearts, laser pacemaker, Michael Jenkins of Case Western Reserve University | Leave a Comment »
Dr. Wes (a cardiology blogger whom all should read) wrote a very compelling post about technology and the bondage it can create for doctors:
The devaluation of doctors’ time continues unabated.
As we move into our new era of health care delivery with millions more needing physician time (and other health care provider’s time, for that matter) –- we’re seeing a powerful force emerge –- a subtle marketing of limitless physician availability facilitated by the advance of the electronic medical record, social media, and smartphones.
Doctors, you see, must be always present, always available, always giving.
These sound like dire words, but the degree to which it has resonated around the Web among doctors is telling.
Dr. Wes continues:
Increasingly the question becomes -– if we choose future doctors on their willingness to sacrifice for others without expectation of appropriate boundaries and compensation -– will we be drawing from the same pool of people as the ones who will make the best technically-skilled clinicians? What type of person will enter medicine if they know that their personal life will always take second place to patient care?
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Better Health, Devaluation of Doctors, Dr. Wes Fisher, E-Visits, Musings of a Distractible Mind | Leave a Comment »
Perhaps it’s in the nature of regenerative medicine news to multiply. Earlier today stem cell researchers announced the first clinical trial using adult stem cells to treat a spinal cord injury would begin at the end of the month. Now, two studies have hit the wire this afternoon detailing two different ways to fix damaged hearts, one by turning structural cells into beating heart tissue, another by restoring mammals’ long-lost ability to regenerate heart tissue much as some amphibians regenerate lost limbs.
The first study, conducted at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease at the University of California, San Francisco, reprogrammed fibroblasts — structural heart cells that cannot beat — into beating cells by adding a handful of genes into the mix. The team took the genes that turn cells in a developing embryo into cardiomyocytes, or beating heart tissue cells.
By adding these genes — there were only three of them — to fibroblasts removed from mice and reinserted the gene-loaded fibroblasts into living mice, the cells transformed into beating heart tissue within a day.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Spinal Injury, Regenerative Medicine, Medicine News, Reuters, Nephron, Damaged Heart | Leave a Comment »
Intel and GE will combine health-IT assets to form a company that focuses on providing medical care technologies to the elderly and people with chronic illnesses, the companies announced on Monday…
The new company will “tackle chronic diseases and age-related disease,” said Ishrak, who will serve as the company’s chairman.
Read complete article in this link
Source: Bloomberg
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Bloomberg, Intel, GE, Senior Care | Leave a Comment »
Prospects for the U.S. Medicare retiree health program brightened significantly from last year as a result of cost cuts resulting from healthcare reform legislation, a government report said on Thursday.
The Medicare hospital trust fund is not projected to exhaust its funds until 2029, 12 years later than forecast last year, according to an annual report.
However, the deep recession ate into receipts for another major program for retired Americans, Social Security, helping push it into deficit for the first time in 27 years, the same report from the two programs’ trustees said.
Filed under: Health Care Reform | Tagged: Health Care Reform, Medicare | Leave a Comment »
Medical device maker Endologix Inc. said Thursday it received Food and Drug Administration approval for its PowerFit Aortic Extensions stent.
Stents are mesh-wire tubes that are used to prop arteries open after they have been surgically cleared of fatty plaque. The device is used in surgery to repair abdominal aortic aneurysms.
Shares of Endologix fell 1 cent to $4.76 in afternoon trading.
Source : CB online/AP
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Endologix, PowerFit Aortic Extensions | Leave a Comment »
Nearly a year after the US Food and Drug Administration placed a hold on the first clinical trial of human embryonic stem cells, the company Geron has been cleared to continue its study of spinal cord injury, it announced today (July 30).
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| Human embryonic stem cells Image: Wikimedia commons, Nissim Benvenisty |
“We are pleased with the FDA’s decision to allow our planned clinical trial of GRNOPC1 in spinal cord injury to proceed,” Geron’s president and CEO Thomas Okarma said in a statement.
The Phase I trial, which aims to use human ESC-derived progenitors of neural support tissue to treat patients with severe spinal cord injury, was to be the first-ever clinical trial of a hESC-based therapy when it was cleared by the FDA in January 2009. That August, however, before any patients had received treatment, the FDAplaced a hold on the trial after cysts appeared in some of the animals given the treatment in a preclinical study.
Since then, Geron completed an additional preclinical animal study to test new markers and assays, according to today’s announcement. After submitting these results to the FDA, the hold was lifted, and the company has been cleared to begin administering the treatment to human patients.
“Our goals for the application of GRNOPC1 in subacute spinal cord injury are unchanged,” Okarma said — “to achieve restoration of spinal cord function by the injection of hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells directly into the lesion site of the patient’s injured spinal cord.”
Source: Scientist
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Embryonic stem cell, Geron, GRNOPC1, human embryonic stem cell (hESC), Thomas Okarma | Leave a Comment »
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) plan to work together to get medical device makers and hospitals the spectrum they say they need.
The news came in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding signed by FCC chair Julius Genachowski (right) and FDA administrator Margaret Hamburg.
The move comes less than a week after health IT won $400 million in subsidies aimed at improving rural hospital broadband. Over the last few years health IT has become a key driver of WiFi, the use of unlicensed frequencies to deliver broadband.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: FCC chair Julius Genachowski, FDA administrator Margaret Hamburg, Medical Body Area Networks, West wireless health institute, WiFi, Wireless medicine | Leave a Comment »
#1 Neurons complete hippocampus loop
There’s a new, important function for a once-obscure cell population in the brain: CA2 pyramidal neurons, a subset of cells in the hippocampus, form a link between electrical inputs and outputs in the hippocampus.
V. Chevaleye et al., “Strong CA2 pyramidal neuron synapses define a powerful disynaptic cortico-hippocampal loop,” Neuron, 66:560-72, 2010. Eval by Stephen Fitzjohn and Graham Collingridge, MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity, UK; Johannes Hell, University of California, Davis.
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| Neurons in the mouse brain Image: Wikimedia Commons, Neurolle |
#2 Non-overlapping neurons
The medial entorhinal cortex, a hub for memory and navigation in the brain, consists of two tangled but functionally separate networks that have different long-range axonal targets, and thus may be involved in different functions in the brain. The finding offers insights to how neural networks function, and — in conditions like epilepsy — dysfunction.
C. Varga et al., “Target-selective GABAergic control of entorhinal cortex output,” Nat Neurosci, 13:822-4, 2010. Eval by Edvard Moser, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway; Jeff Isaacson, University of California, San Diego.
#3 “We’re going to need a bigger model”
In a detailed mathematical analysis, researchers analyze the capacity of computational models to model neuronal oscillations — the repetitive rise and fall of membrane potentials. They find that current single-cell oscillation models are not adequate, and there is a need for additional computational models to assess this mechanism.
Read more »
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: amyloid, CA2 pyramidal neurons, dendrites, EFF-1, Hippocampus loop, Neurociencias, neuronal oscillations, Neuroscience, non overlapping neurons, synapses, synaptic plasticity, The Scientist | Leave a Comment »
Genetically identical cells may be far more different than previously believed. Published this week in Science, researchers find striking variation in levels of gene expression among individual, genetically identical E. coli, seemingly the result of simple chance.
“The paper is quite rich,” said Sanjay Tyagi, a molecular biologist at New Jersey Medical School who was not involved in the research. “People think that if an organism has a particular genotype, it determines its phenotype — that there’s a one-to-one relationship,” said Tyagi. “But as it turns out, [differences in gene expression] can arise just from chance.”
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| Microfluidic device allows multiplex imaging of library strains. Image courtesy of Yuichi Taniguchi, Paul Choi, Gene-wei Li, and Huiyi Chen, Harvard Universi |
In traditional gene expression studies, researchers grind up a population of cells, then identify overall amounts of gene products from the resulting mixture. Researchers at Harvard University instead studied cells one by one, still calculating averages but also capturing variation in the population with single molecule sensitivity — and found cells expressing genes at wildly different levels. “It’s single molecules meet systems biology,” said Sunney Xie, senior author on the paper and a chemical biologist at Harvard University.
Xie’s team, along with collaborators at the University of Toronto in Canada, tagged 1018 genes — about one-fourth of the E. coli genome — with fluorescent labels, then counted protein and mRNA copies in individual cells using a high-throughput system. They found that mRNA and protein copy numbers vary greatly from cell to cell, what researchers call “noise.”
Read more »
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Harvard University, Identical Cells, molecular biologist, sanjay tyagi, Sunney Xie, The Scientist | Leave a Comment »
Siga paso a paso via Internet – Transmisión en vivo el “XXX Congreso Médico USCMA Bicentenario” en Bogotá, Colombia
en el siguiente enlace: http://www.cwdcolombia.com/anm desde la Academia Nacional de Medicina de Colombia.
Filed under: Eventos | Tagged: Academia Nacional de Medicina de Colombia, Colombia, Congreso Bicentenario de la Independencia de Colombia, XXX Congreso USCMA | Leave a Comment »
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o puede avisar por internet a mejiaedo@gmail.com
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Congreso Bicentenario de la Independencia de Colombia, XXX Congreso USCMA | Leave a Comment »
WASHINGTON — The federal government issued new rules Tuesday that will reward doctors and hospitals for the “meaningful use” of electronic health records, a top goal of President Obama.
The rules significantly scale back proposed requirements that the health care industry had denounced as unrealistic.
The Department of Health and Human Services said doctors and hospitals could receive as much as $27 billion over the next 10 years to buy equipment to computerize patients’ medical records. A doctor can receive up to $44,000 under Medicare and $63,750 under Medicaid, while a hospital can receive millions of dollars, depending on its size.
Starting in 2015, hospitals and doctors will be subject to financial penalties under Medicare if they are not using electronic health records.
Dr. Donald M. Berwick, who was sworn in Monday as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said electronic health records would lead to “better, smoother care, more reliable care.”
Even though American health care is known for the use of advanced technology in treating patients, doctors and hospitals have been slow to replace paper records with electronic records.
“Only 20 percent of doctors and 10 percent of hospitals use even basic electronic health records,” said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Obama, Electronic Health Records, New York Times, Department of Health and Human Services, Medicare, Medicaid, Dr. Donald M. Berwick, Kathleen Sebelius | Leave a Comment »
Los investigadores afirman que esos anticuerpos se encuentran en la sangre de muchos infectados con el VIH.
Un equipo de investigadores de Estados Unidos identificó tres anticuerpos naturales que son capaces de neutralizar más del 90 por ciento de las variedades principales del virus de inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) , según un artículo que publica la revista Science.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: VIH, Sida, Aids, antibodies, Xueling Wu, CD4, proteína gp120 | Leave a Comment »
Two new lab-grown versions of lungs may one day serve as a way to sidestep both animal testing and organ transplantation.
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| Image: Wikimedia commons, Patrick J. Lynch |
One engineered rat lung, described in Science Express today (June 24), even successfully helped rats breathe for brief periods.
“This is the first ever published paper that really demonstrates that regenerative medicine can provide an alternative to clinical transplantation of the lungs,” said translational medical researcher Paolo Macchiarini of Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, who was not involved in the research.
Currently, the only treatment for the lung diseases that cause some 400,000 deaths each year is to transplant a new, healthy organ — a procedure that is hampered by organ rejection complications and a severe shortage of donors. But now, bioengineer and vascular biologist Laura Niklason of Yale University and her colleagues may have developed a way to eventually address both of these issues.
Treating adult rat lungs with detergent solutions to remove their cellular components gave the researchers their starting point — a lung skeleton, or the extracellular matrix that gives the lungs their structure. The team then repopulated the lungs with epithelial and endothelial cells from rat lungs, which grew over the scaffolds to create brand new lungs.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Don Ingber, Joaquin Cortiella, Karolinska Institutet, lab grown lungs, Laura Niklason, Paolo Macchiarini, The Scientist | Leave a Comment »
Genetically modifying the stem cells of HIV patients may one day prove to be an effective, one-time therapy against the hard-to-kill virus, according to the results of a proof-of-principle trial published this week in Science Translational Medicine.
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| Human Immunodeficiency Virus Image: Wikimedia commons, NIAID |
In contrast to the widely used highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), which patients must continue for their entire lives to control the virus, such a genetic treatment has the potential to be “a single administration therapy,” said bioengineer David Schaffer of the University of California at Berkeley, who was not involved in the trial, “where you introduce [a gene] into somebody’s cells, and it stays there the rest of their lives. [That] has the potential to be a major plus,” eliminating many of the toxic effects and financial costs of HAART.
Because of these potential advantages, gene therapy — the integration of new genetic material into a patient’s genome — has been proposed as a treatment for HIV. In past clinical trials, however, the new genetic material has failed to persist more than 8 months or a year. But taking advantage of a golden opportunity in which a handful of HIV patients had to undergo bone marrow transplants, molecular geneticist John Rossi of the City of Hope cancer center in California and his colleagues introduced three different therapeutic genes into patients’ blood stem cells, then found evidence of those genetic elements in the blood up to 24 months later.
“It showed us that you can introduce genes into somebody’s blood cells, and it can stay around for years,” said Schaffer, who wrote a perspective about the paper.
Read more »
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: CCR5 gene, David Schaffer, HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Science Translational Medicine, Scientist | Leave a Comment »
An experimental pill from Pfizer Inc. shrank tumors in patients with a rare form of lung cancer that is caused by a defective gene and occurs mostly in nonsmokers, a study showed.
The medicine, crizotinib, reduced tumor size in 57 percent of patients and stopped the progression of the disease in 87 percent of those in a study released today at the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. Most of the trial’s participants never smoked or were former smokers.
Pfizer’s drug is the only compound in human testing to target a defect in a gene called ALK, which can turn deadly when a piece of it breaks away and fuses with a neighboring gene, causing cells to grow out of control, said Alice Shaw, a thoracic cancer specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The gene flaw occurs in about 5 percent of lung cancer patients. If effective in larger studies, the drug could be available in 2013 and generate annual sales of $800 million, said Barclays Capital analyst Tony Butler, in a note to clients.
“The drug has shown remarkable activity against tumors,” said Shaw, one of the study’s researchers. “As a lung cancer doctor, you just don’t see changes like this in patients.”
Crizotinib is among 24 new tumor-fighting medicines that New York-based Pfizer is developing to help offset the $11 billion in revenue it will start losing next year when generic copies of its cholesterol pill Lipitor enter the market.
Countering Setbacks
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Bloomberg, Pfizer, Lung Tumors, Shannon Pettypiece, Crizotinib, gene called ALK, Alice Shaw, Massachusetts General Hospital, thoracic cancer specialist, Lung cancer | Leave a Comment »
Researchers in Cleveland may be close to a medical breakthrough in the fight against breast cancer.Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic claim a single vaccination can prevent breast cancer tumors from forming in animals, while stopping the growth of existing tumors. While the group is optimistic, they warn it’s a big leap from results in animals to similar results in humans.Human trials could begin next year.
Source: 13ABC
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Cleveland Clinic, Breast Cancer, Vaccine breast cancer | Leave a Comment »
After a 15-year marathon, researchers have created the first cell controlled by a synthetic genome, reported online today at Science.
The advance, a landmark in synthetic biology, could someday be used to engineer microbes for environmental or medical applications.
“This is a very impressive piece,” said Jim Collins, a bioengineer at Boston University, who was not involved in the study. The research is a “methodological tour de force,” said Collins.
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| Images of synthetic (top, expressing blue reporter genes) and wildtype (bottom) M. mycoides strains Image courtesy of Science/AAAS |
Combining a series of techniques developed since 1995, J. Craig Venter and colleagues at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland began with a digitized genome sequence of Mycoplasma mycoides, a fast-growing bacterium with a 1-million-base genome. They ordered the pieces of that genome from a DNA sequence manufacturer, then used yeast to stitch the pieces together into a whole genome. The researchers transferred the synthetic M. mycoides genome into a M. capricolum recipient cell, replacing the native DNA, and the cell successfully booted up the new genome. The finished product was capable of replication and had all the expected properties of a M. mycoides cell.
“They are living cells,” Venter told The Scientist. “The only difference is they have no natural history. Their parents were the computer.”
The effort cost an estimated $40 million, with 20 people working for more than a decade, according to Science. “It was one hurdle after another,” said Venter (who is a member of The Scientist’s editorial board). In 2007, when the team first tried to transplant a natural chromosome from one bacterial species to another, it didn’t work. They soon realized the problem was methylation: The transplanted DNA didn’t have the same methylation patterns as the excised DNA, so the recipient cell’s restriction system chewed up the foreign DNA. “It took two years to solve that problem,” said Venter.
Read more »
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Boston University, Institute in Rockville Maryland, J. Craig Venter, Jim Collins, Mycoplasma mycoides, Scientist, Synthetic genome | Leave a Comment »
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER (AP) – 18 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service on Friday released the guidelines that small companies can use to apply for tax credits to spur medical research.
The credit will cover up to 50 percent of the cost of qualifying biomedical research, up to a maximum credit of $5 million per business. The credit is only available to companies with fewer than 250 employees.
“This new tax credit will help advance research to find lifesaving treatments and help U.S. companies lead the way in innovative medical discoveries,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.
The IRS released the rules companies will need to follow to apply to have their research projects certified as eligible to participate in the government’s Therapeutic Discovery Project Program.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: AP, Health Tax Credits, IRS, Martin Crutsinger | Leave a Comment »
Oh, how I loves me an alt-med smackdown: at a meeting of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors, Dr. Tom Dolphin, deputy chairman, said:
Homeopathy is witchcraft. It is a disgrace that nestling between the National Hospital for Neurology and Great Ormond Street [in London] there is a National Hospital for Homeopathy which is paid for by the NHS [National Health Service].
Ha! I couldn’t have said it better myself. Despite what homeopaths say, homeopathy has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt to have no effect above that of a placebo. That won’t stop homeopaths from still claiming it works; they’ll use anecdotes, they’ll use evidence distorted and twisted into a Möbius strip, or they’ll simply make stuff up.
At best, belief in provably false things like homeopathy is a colossal waste of money, and at worst belief in homeopathy can kill you. That’s why skeptics are fighting the practice of homeopathy all over the world, from the UK to Australia.
And before you say, “Well, it’s just water so it does no harm, right?” I’ll remind you that people are then drinking plain old water instead of taking real medicine. That’s the real danger of homeopathy (and other alt-med nonsense). So unless the health problem you’re having is dehydration, taking homeopathic “remedies” does in fact do quite a bit of harm.
And that’s why I’m so happy that doctors and the government in the UK are being vocal about this nonsense. Sure, caveat emptor and all that, but when people — especially people with the veneer of a medical imprimatur — are pushing something we know doesn’t work to people who are sick or worried over a sick loved one, then it’s time to step in and do something.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: British Medical Association, Discover, Homeopathy | Leave a Comment »
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men. But ignorance and embarrassment often prevent them from seeking treatment.
Some of the experiences of prostate cancer survivors have been turned into a play called Couples by the UK-based Prostate Cancer Charity. Healthcheck’s Claudia Hammond went to meet them and find out more.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: BBC News, Health Check, Claudia Hammond, Prostate Cancer | Leave a Comment »
The improvements made to the SF have resulted in a device that is clinically usable. The increases in scanning and display resolution have made it possible to guide procedures involving fine structures such as blood vessels. Additional work is currently underway to further improve the ergonomics and increase the SF’s capabilities.
One of these improvements will be the addition of Doppler information to the display, which may aid in vascular access procedures. We believe the SF may have a broad impact on US guidance and we envision widespread use especially by the health-care professional who currently does not use ultrasound.
A future version of the SF could be collapsible and small enough to fit into the clinician’s pocket, much like a stethoscope or palmpilot does today.
Complete article REFINING THE SONIC FLASHLIGHT FOR INTERVENTIONAL PROCEDURES
George Stetten – University of Pittsburg – Dept of Bioengineering, has been interviewed by Bloomberg News during their INNOVATORS Episode 2 Medicine program April 2010. Catch this episode here
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, Dept of Bioengineering, Gary Rosensteel, George Stetten, Michael B. Horowitz MD, Nikhil B. Amesur MD, University of Pittsburg, Wilson M. Chang MS | Leave a Comment »
Material from crushed up crab and shrimp shells can restore electrical function to damaged guinea pig spinal cords, suggesting it may one day serve as a treatment for spinal cord injuries, according to a study published April 16th in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
This paper is an “intriguing first step,” said Scott Whittemore, professor of neurological surgery at the University of Louisville, who was not involved in this research. But there are many steps that need to be taken first, he cautioned. “There needs to be more research and data presented before this is applied in a clinical setting,” he added.
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Image: Wikimedia commons, Alex |
Trauma to the spinal cord often results in the deterioration of cell membranes, which then results in cell and tissue death, often leading to paralysis. One way to help eliminate loss of body functions is to seal the deteriorating cell membranes, researchers suggest. Chitin — the main component of crustacean exoskeletons and fungi cell walls, previously used to build scaffolding for tissue growth — has recently been suggested to stimulate spinal cord regeneration in rats.
Filed under: Noticias | Tagged: Center for Paralysis Research, Scott Whittermore, Spinal Injury, University of Louisville, Youngnam Cho | Leave a Comment »
CNN.com – Health JAMA John Hopkins Surgery Archives Health Care Reform News Aesthetic Medicine Unknown Feed MedicineNet Daily News
