Health

Neurons receive incoming signals through synapses at hundreds of dendritic spines, the lollipop-shaped structures with thin necks and bubblelike heads that stud the surface of dendrites. Each spine serves as…

A study that appears in the November/December 2005 issue of The Diabetes Educator examined the impact of Joslin’s Online Discussion Boards – forums in which people with diabetes can find…

Researchers have demonstrated that breastfeeding a child for one year may reduce a woman’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 15 percent. This study appeared in the Nov. 23,…

In a survey of approximately 930,000 ambulatory care patients, researchers from the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care) and colleagues found…

In a paper published in the November 2005 issue of Cell, researchers reported that the protein stathmin is essential for the fear response – both the expression of innate fear…

Congestive heart failure, which occurs when an impaired heart muscle cannot pump blood efficiently, is a growing health problem and major cause of cardiac death. The diagnosis of heart failure…

Each year, millions of children visit their family physician or pediatrician seeking treatment for sore throats. While a sore throat could indicate many common illnesses, physicians are often most concerned…

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in Americans over the age of 55. The majority of vision loss is due to neovascular AMD, the advanced form…

Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital report that Native Americans who use the hallucinogen peyote regularly in connection with religious ceremonies show no evidence of brain damage or psychological problems. In…

A study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center provides another important step in our understanding of the critical role that the brain’s molecular pathways play…

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found initial laboratory and epidemiological evidence that, for the first time, demonstrates that ginkgo may help lower a woman’s risk of developing ovarian…

Using an innovative screening approach, researchers in the lab of John Mekalanos have identified an entirely new class of antibiotics active against the cholera bacterium. While traditional antibiotics kill bacteria…

Scientists have long dreamed of prompting adult neurons of the central nervous system to regenerate. But these cells have the deck stacked against them in several ways. Molecules from the…

A diuretic drug called bumetanide may serendipitously help treat seizures in newborns, which are difficult to control with existing anticonvulsants, according to a study in the November 2005 Nature Medicine.…

Harvard researcher Piotr Naskrecki hopes his new book, “The Smaller Majority” (Harvard University Press, 2005), will win over some new advocates for the tiny creatures he has spent his life…

Dry eye syndrome is characterized by a decline in the quality or quantity of tears that normally bathe the eye to keep it moist and functioning well. The condition causes…

Encouraging findings came from an interim report from HERA, an ongoing large, international clinical trial of Herceptin, published Oct. 19, 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The analysis…

A study determined that previous measurements of the benefits of immunization have generally underestimated their economic value by focusing solely on health-related impacts such as averted illnesses, hospitalizations, deaths, disability,…

It was both unexpected and unsurprising when, in the mid -1990s, Michael Brenner, the Theodore Bevier Bayles professor of medicine, and his colleagues showed that some antigen- presenting cells display…

While there is still no consensus about the role of waxy amyloid plaques that fill the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, many in the field believe they are a root cause…

Depending on the circumstances, missing N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the brain may indicate Alzheimer’s disease, ischemic stroke, a brain tumor, or traumatic injury. And, as doctors soon learned with the AIDS…

Tim Gallagher and Bobby Harrison almost flopped into the mud of Arkansas’ Bayou de View in their haste to get out of the canoe. They crashed through the undergrowth after…

So-called “double-value” cells are produced by random errors in cell division that occur with unknown frequency. The generation of these genetically unstable cells appears to be a “pathway for generating…

“Our primary finding was that about 30 percent of those patients judged ‘too good to treat’ either died or were discharged to a rehabilitation facility,” says Eric Smith, MD, FRCPC,…

Research appearing in the October 2005 issue of the American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism suggests that high blood glucose levels early in pregnancy deprive the embryo of oxygen,…

In the 30th anniversary year for the Harvard Health Letter, the editors decided to revive a tradition and ask Harvard doctors whether they follow their own advice – two similar…

Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus Edward O. Wilson remains fascinated with the highly organized societies of ants, bees, wasps, termites, and humans. He and Bert Holldobler, with whom he shared a…

Health care in the People’s Republic of China is unequal and too expensive, and there’s not enough of it, but the Chinese government is aware of the problems and is moving to address them, China’s vice minister of health said Sept. 8 at Harvard Medical School.

Structural images that show how the SARS virus’s spike protein grasps its receptor may help scientists learn new details about how the virus infects cells and could also help in…

Li-Huei Tsai, Harvard Medical School (HMS) professor of pathology, HMS research fellow Sang Ki Park, and colleagues worked with mice and found a novel function for the molecule Par-4 (prostate…