Top stories
HIV/AIDS
As southern Africa's most lethal and widespread pandemic, HIV/AIDS should be at the forefront of our national conscience. Yet the disease remains partially hidden behind the destructive shadow of stigma, preventing any comprehensive and collective action. Now the visionary Lapeng Lighthouse Project, an initiative which began in 2004 by Dr. Marlin J. McKay, an HIV/AIDS expert, is setting an example of how individual communities can be empowered to tackle the problem.
Read more >>International AIDS Society President-Elect Elly Katabira to join AIDS-Free World Co-Director Stephen Lewis and other global leaders during International AIDS Conference to call for an end to ignorance of epidemic's devastating impact among gay men worldwide.
Read more >>Chronic diseases
Abnormal brain images combined with examination of the composition of the fluid that surrounds the spine may offer the earliest signs identifying healthy older adults at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, well before cognitive problems emerge, a study by researchers at UC Davis has found.
Read more >>Infectious diseases
University of Miami researcher uses computer programs to develop a fast and efficient method of generating vaccines for new strains of flu viruses.
Read more >>Ear infections caused by more than one species of bacteria could be more persistent and antibiotic-resistant because one pathogen may be communicating with the other, encouraging it to bolster its defences. Interrupting or removing that communication could be key to curing these infections. Researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Centre publish their findings today in
mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
Read more >>Malaria
A World Cup bracelet campaign launched to coincide with the 2010 FIFA World Cup has created employment in the South African township of Khayelitsha and helped raise funds to combat malaria across Africa.
Read more >>Medical Research
Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease (GIND) and Stanford University have shown how key circuits in the brain control movement. The research, published in the journal
Nature not only establishes the function of these circuits, but offers promise for treating movement related disorders, such as Parkinson's disease.
Read more >>An international consortium of scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Toronto has identified previously unknown potential disease genes in humans and mice. Genes on the X chromosome, which regulate embryonic development, are the focus of the current publication in the renowned journal
Genome Research.
Read more >>Medical Technology
Researchers are using nanotechnology to develop a medical dressing which will detect and treat infection in wounds. The research is particularly applicable to South Africa where many children every year suffer burn injuries.
Read more >>Mental health
[Dr Ananya Mandal, MD] A new study has found that depressive disorders raise the risk of dementia. The findings of this study were published in the journal
Neurology. The study involved nearly 1000 people who were studied for up to 17 years. Those who were depressed when first examined almost doubled their risk for dementia and also increased their risk for Alzheimer's disease the study authors wrote.
Read more >> Nutrition
State authorities and aid agencies in northern Nigeria are scaling up their food security and nutrition responses in the light of coming food shortages.
Read more >>For women with low self-esteem, poor body image and a certain genetic predisposition towards an eating disorder, the messages promoted on pro-eating disorder web sites can be similar to someone considering suicide finding a loaded gun on her pillow.
Read more >>Food presented in a virtual reality (VR) environment causes the same emotional responses as real food. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal
Annals of General Psychiatry compared the responses of people with anorexia and bulimia, and a control group, to the virtual and real-life snacks, suggesting that virtual food can be used for the evaluation and treatment of eating disorders.
Read more >>Oncology
Men with faulty BRCA2 gene have estimated 1-in-15 chance of breast cancer by age 70.
Read more >>In its early stages, prostate cancer requires androgens (hormones that promote the development and maintenance of male sex characteristics) for growth, and current first-line therapies target the receptor for these hormones to slow cancer's development and spread. However, advanced prostate cancers are often androgen-independent, meaning that androgen-blocking therapies are ineffective.
Read more >>Paediatrics
More than half the paediatric fevers treated in public health clinics in Africa are caused by diseases other than malaria, according to a study by Oxford University and other research groups, whose authors caution against the "continued indiscriminate use of anti-malarials for all fevers across Africa."
Read more >>Social competence and behaviour problems that are evident at kindergarten and first grade are known to be strong predictors of a child's academic and social functioning. However, findings reported in the July issue of the
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggest that psychosocial risk factors can be identified even earlier and can be observed during the transition from preschool to formal schooling.
Read more >>According to an EarlyBird Diabetes Study in the UK, physical activity has a small role to play in obesity epidemic among children and while fatness leads to inactivity, inactivity does not lead to fatness.
Read more >>Children saw fewer television advertisements for certain foods, including those for sweets and beverages, in 2007 compared with 2003, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the September print issue of
Archives of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, children now see more fast-food ads, and racial gaps in exposure to all food advertising have increased.
Read more >>Pharmaceutical companies
This year's Pan African Health Expo and Conference is set to be the largest event in the show's six year history, with more than double the exhibition space sold compared to last year. The event is the premier showcase for the entire healthcare industry in Southern Africa, enabling manufacturers and distributors of medical technology, equipment and supplies to showcase their products to the region's healthcare professionals, facilities and institutions.
Read more >>Public health
An African study has found a link between a difficult childhood and alcohol consumption as a teenager. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health studied the association between adverse childhood experiences and drunkenness among 9189 adolescents aged 12-19 years living in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda.
Read more >>Tuberculosis
In what is claimed to be a unique collaboration, TB Alliance and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DND
i) have entered into a cross-disease license agreement to speed development of novel therapies for a range of diseases including TB.
Read more >>Women's health
Promising study may lead to potential new therapeutics for women facing triple-negative breast cancer.
Read more >>[Dr Ananya Mandal] Genital warts, commonly caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) are on the decline after routine vaccination of Australian women with a vaccine against HPV. The sexual partners of these women are also beneficiaries of the vaccine.
Read more >>
