Deadliest form of malaria is younger than previously believed
Malaria kills more people than any other communicable disease except for tuberculosis. It is the world’s most serious parasitic tropical disease, resulting in 1 million to 3 million deaths annually....
View ArticleSurvey shows Americans not panicking over anthrax
In the wake of biological terror attacks perpetrated by unknown persons sending anthrax-laced letters through the U.S. mail, the Harvard School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation...
View ArticleNovel anthrax treatments explored
R. John Collier, Presley Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, has been working on anthrax toxin for 15 years. He started his research because he found the...
View ArticleHIV-1 infected children benefit greatly from combination therapy
Combination therapy including protease inhibitors has been available since 1996 for adults with HIV-1 infection. The therapy has slowed the progression of HIV-1 and drastically reduced the rate of...
View ArticleTrying to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV
Harvard AIDS Institute researchers in Botswana are trying to help HIV-infected mothers and their infants. In the rural area of Molepolole, where AIDS Institute researcher Shahin Lockman lives and...
View ArticleHigh levels of Epstein-Barr virus antibodies in women linked to risk of...
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Nationwide, there are an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 people with MS. Researchers have long wondered how MS develops...
View ArticleCan weight loss decrease heart disease in type 2 diabetes?
Can weight loss decrease heart disease in type 2 diabetes? That’s the question being asked by Harvard researchers and others based at three Boston medical centers. In a nationwide study conducted...
View ArticlePowerful mutagen found in Massachusetts water
Mutagen X, a by-product of chemicals used to disinfect public water supplies, is not monitored or regulated in the U.S. water supply. A new report from researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health...
View ArticleSPH professor finds Taliban inmates dying, in need of care
Jennifer Leaning is a professor in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Population and International Health. She is also one of Physicians for Human Rights’ founders. In January 2002,...
View ArticleState of U.S. public health drinking water reliable
“Over the last century, the U.S. has set the world standard for ensuring a reliable, relatively safe drinking water supply to the general public,” said Ronnie B. Levin, a research scientist in the...
View ArticleHarvard researchers take aim at asthma
Asthma is one of the most common chronic conditions in America, afflicting about 15 million people and causing 5,000 deaths annually, according to the National Institutes of Health. Asthma rates have...
View ArticleStaying healthy amidst bacterial “Overkill”
A new book by Harvard School of Public Health Assistant Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science Kimberly Thompson takes a look at how the way we live is causing the rise of drug-resistant germs...
View ArticlePatents have negative impact on access to HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries
Researchers Joan-Ramon Borrell and Jayashree Watal collected sales data for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low- and middle-income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess the impact of patents on...
View ArticleThree in five Americans would get vaccinated for smallpox
Substantial public interest in receiving a smallpox vaccination grows in part from continuing fears about a future bioterrorist attack. Nine months after the September 11th attacks, more than four in...
View ArticleStudy suggests surprising cause of arthritis
Julia Ying Wang, a Harvard Medical School assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was exploring whether a particular class of carbohydrates called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs)...
View ArticleHormone receptor variation linked to cancer risk
Endometrial cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women in this country, according to National Cancer Institute statistics. Progesterone’s important protective role showed up three decades ago,...
View ArticleBan on coal burning in Dublin cleans the air, reduces death rates
In the 1980s, Dublin’s air quality suffered as people switched from oil to cheaper and more available coal for home and water heating. On Sept. 1, 1990, the Irish government banned the sale and...
View ArticleSpecific types of exercise can significantly reduce risk of heart disease...
A pool of 44,452 men from the Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study were monitored via questionnaire every two years from 1986 to 1998 to determine potential coronary heart disease risk factors and...
View ArticleEarly onset of perimenopause linked to economic hardship
Perimenopause is the period leading up to menopause. The World Health Organization defines perimenopause as the phase during which hormonal, biological, and clinical changes begin. Studies have shown...
View ArticleStudy: Use of acetaminophen linked to hypertension
Out of a group of 80,000 women surveyed, those who regularly took acetaminophen or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) – and had no previous history of high blood pressure – had a...
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