Clinical Research

I saw it first on The One Show!   Beetroot juice boosts stamina, new study shows, as the University of Exeter says in a press release, the gist of which is as follows: Professor Andrew Jones, of their School of Sport and Health Sciences, tested a group of male cyclists, giving them organic beetroot juice for one week, and on another occasion a blackcurrant juice placebo.  The beetroot juice allowed them to cycle for almost 16% longer.  Also, the beetroot juice reduced their resting blood pressure (as also in the case of Anita Rani, who acted as guinea-pig for The One Show…

Brain damage at birth is a horrible thing to happen to a baby.  Brain cells are very vulnerable to hypoxic / ischemic damage (the latter term referring to restricted blood supply), which makes birth a dangerous time.  Therefore, it was cheering to read a BBC news item First baby given xenon gas to prevent brain injury which led me to the Bristol University press release First newborn receives xenon gas in bid to prevent brain injury which begins In a world first, xenon gas has been successfully delivered to a newborn baby in a bid to prevent brain injury following a lack of oxygen…

We defied expectations in last week's Pepsi Throwback Challenge. We found the unusual result that our bodies, against our wills, preferred high fructose corn syrup to ordinary sugar.  Our comparison of Pepsi[TM] soda products, particularly their corn syrup 'regular formulation' against their all-sugar 'Throwback', defied our expectations. Our medical driver is that high-fructose corn syrup causes weight gain-- moreso that sugar.  There are other health issues with corn syrup.  Bad as sugar is, corn syrup is worse.  But apparently our taste buds didn't realize it. We really…

Prosopagnosia or prosopagnosia, is a perceptual deficit acquired or congenital central nervous system that prevents individuals who are affected to properly recognize people's faces, it is determined by a damaged area of the brain to the task, turn fusiform.It was studied thoroughly in the eighteenth century by several scientists, including John Hughlings Jackson and Jean Martin Charcot. The term Prosopagnosia was coined in 1947 by German neurologist Joachim Bodamer and appears to be the union of Greek words πρόσωπον (prosopon, side) and αγνωσία (agnosia, not knowledge). Since that time…

Just one small square of chocolate a day can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease, says a new study published online today in the European Heart Journal. The authors of the study believe that flavanols in cocoa may be the reason why chocolate seems to be good for people's blood pressure and heart health; and since there is more cocoa in dark chocolate, dark chocolate may have a greater effect. The study followed 19,357 people, aged between 35 and 65, for at least ten years and found that those who ate the most amount of chocolate – an average of 7.5 grams a day –…

Princeton researchers found that high-fructose corn syrup-- the basic sweetener is sodas and just about everything-- causes more weight gain that sugar.  Calorie for calorie, rats got fatter on the corn syrup than on sugar. And at the same time, PepsiCo has released 'Throwback' products-- Pepsi sodas made with sugar instead of corn syrup.  So if researchers are saying sugar is better for you, we need to check which tastes better-- corn syrup or sugar? But first, back to the Princeton tests. "The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some…

Clinical trials ended early due to positive treatment effects likely exaggerate those effects, according to a new review published in JAMA. The authors caution that researchers should resist pressures to end clinical trials early because of the potential risk to patients in the trials. The clinical trials reviewed were ended early because of a convincing -- and usually large -- apparent difference between an experimental treatment and an existing standard therapy. The studies were ended so participants taking a placebo or less effective medications could also take the studied drug. It…

EBOLA - CLINICAL SYMPTOMS:  Ebola was discovered in 1976 in Zaire and Sudan.  The virus called Ebola takes its name from the Ebola River, which flows into Zaire, where the virus was isolated for the first time.  There are 4 variants of the virus whose differences are due to the type of host they infect: Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Tai, that cause disease in humans and primates, and Ebola Reston, which causes the disease only in primates.  During the past 30 years have been recorded periodic epidemics of Ebola in central Africa particularly in Gabon, Uganda,…

Netherton syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive genodermatosis of unknown cause characterized by: erythroderma, trichorrhexis invaginata (TI) (bamboo hair), ichthyosis linearis circumflexa (ILC), atopic diathesis and failure to thrive. The syndrome is named either as Netherton or as Comel and Netherton. In 1949 Comel described ichthyosis linearis circumflexa (ILC), which consists of congenital migratory erythema and pathognomonic double-edged scales.  In 1958, Netherton described a patient with erythroderma and hair shaft abnormality. Present at birth or soon after a generalized…

I first spotted this as a small advert on Nature. "Help Reduce the Placebo Effect in Clinical Drug Trials" I smiled cynically and just had to check it out - and I was right! "Placebo responses in as many as 60% of the placebo-receiving patients often mask the efficacy of drugs in clinical trials. Biomarkers predictive of placebo responders or new methods of trial design and trial procedure are desired. The biomarker, trial design, or procedure would allow individuals likely to show a placebo-response to be identified and excluded from trials during the patient selection process." I love it:…