Diseases and Conditions

The report appears in the March 1, 2011, issue of the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society. Since it first came to the public eye in the early 1980s, HIV infection has caused an estimated 25 million deaths worldwide. Patients whose immune systems are weakened by HIV infection historically have been prone to acute lung [...]

Obesity has increased significantly across the globe and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese by 2015. Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risks of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases. As white populations have served as [...]

The findings, published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, offer clinicians a proven new tool to help those with poorly controlled diabetes make lifestyle changes to improve their health, the researchers says. They noted that many educational programs for people with diabetes typically have little impact and the benefits wear off after the [...]

MND is a serious neurodegenerative disease that results in progressive paralysis and eventual death from respiratory failure. On average, a person survives two years after being diagnosed. The cause of the disease is still mainly unknown, although prenatal factors are thought to be important. Genetic factors are known to contribute to MND. In both men [...]

Rejected applicants also work less despite being in better health than accepted applicants, according to the research led by economist Seth Giertz of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On average, the study found, those rejected for benefits made 8.5 percent less than beneficiaries six years before applying — and nearly 22 percent less just prior to [...]

To explore potential interactions between HAART and the newer cancer drugs, the AIDS Malignancy Consortium (AMC), a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-supported clinical trials group founded in 1995 to support innovative trials for AIDS-related cancers, has conducted the first of a planned series of studies. John Deeken, M.D., a research physician at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer [...]

"Diabetes is a serious risk factor for ischemic heart disease," says Kenji Fukushima, MD, PhD, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Tokyo, Japan. "Most diabetic patients do not exhibit signs of myocardial ischemia and may be on course toward major cardiac events without any red alert. Molecular imaging could potentially provide an effective screening tool for at-risk [...]

Television (TV) viewing is the most commonly reported daily activity apart from working and sleeping in many populations around the world. In the United States, the average number of daily hours of TV viewing has recently been reported to be 5 hours. "Beyond altering energy expenditure by displacing time spent on physical activities, TV viewing [...]

Hepatitis C is a continuing public health problem, which is difficult to measure because symptoms occur months to years after infection. The World Health Organization estimates as many as 2 to 4 million people in the United States may have chronic Hepatitis C, and most do not know they are infected. More than a third [...]

Rett Syndrome, the most physically disabling of the autism spectrum disorders, is caused by mutations in the methyl CpG-binding protein (MeCP2). Rett Syndrome strikes little girls almost exclusively, with first symptoms usually appearing before the age of 18 months. These children lose speech, motor control and functional hand use, and many suffer from seizures, orthopedic [...]