Category Health/Medical

Antibiotic use (pills/capsules) is linked to a heightened risk of bowel (colon) cancer, but a lower risk of rectal cancer, and depends, to some extent, on the type and class of drug prescribed, suggests research published online in the journal Gut.

The findings suggest a pattern of risk that may be linked to differences in gut microbiome (bacteria) activity along the length of the bowel and reiterate the importance of judicious prescribing, say the researchers.

In 2010, patients around the world took an estimated 70 billion doses of antibiotics – equivalent to 10 doses each...

Reparative medicine scientists have discovered a new compound that could shield heart tissue before a heart attack, as well as preserve healthy cells when administered after a heart attack. Imagine there were a drug that you could take soon after a heart attack that could reduce damage by protecting healthy heart muscle tissue.

“Cardiologists say that when a heart attack occurs, time is muscle,” said Robert Gourdie, director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC Center for Heart and Reparative Medicine Research.

Without oxygen supplied by blood flow, heart cells die – fast...

Innovative worm study provides new insights into genetics of addiction-prone drugs. A team at Scripps Research in Florida has discovered a biological system that manages cells’ response to opioid drug exposure. The unexpected discovery offers new ideas for improving the safety of the one of the most effective, and most abused, group of pain medications.

In a paper published as a “First Release,” in the journal Science, lead authors Kirill Martemyanov, PhD, and Brock Grill, PhD, describe how they designed and implemented a new, unbiased approach for decoding the genetic network that controls actions of opioids in a nervous system.

They used a small soil d...

Self-calibrating technology opens new opportunities for medicine and research. Researchers have developed a new self-calibrating endoscope that produces 3D images of objects smaller than a single cell. Without a lens or any optical, electrical or mechanical components, the tip of the endoscope measures just 200 microns across, about the width of a few human hairs twisted together.

As a minimally invasive tool for imaging features inside living tissues, the extremely thin endoscope could enable a variety of research and medical applications...