Category: Scientific Research

Popular indigestion pills such as Zantac and Losec have this week been pinpointed as a major cause of pneumonia, a disease that can be a killer in the elderly.

Acid suppressive drugs, as they’re known, are given to up to 70 per cent of elderly patients in hospital, and they are likely to be a major cause of pneumonia-related deaths, say researchers from Seoul National University Hospital in Korea.

The drugs increase the risk of respiratory tract infections and pneumonia, especially in close communities such as care homes and hospitals.  The researchers reckon the drugs are responsible for one out of every 200 cases of pneumonia acquired in hospital.

However, young and old are equally susceptible, and everyone who takes the drugs increases their chances of developing pneumonia.

The drugs include proton pump inhibitors – such as Losec, Prilosec and Prevacid – and histamine2 receptor antagonists, including Zantac and Cimetidine.  Indigestion drugs are the second leading medication in the world, with sales of around $26bn every year.

(Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2010; December 20; doi: 10.1053/cmaj.092129) >

Sceptics dismiss it as a placebo, but acupuncture really can reduce pain, and scientists have used brain scanners to prove it.

Acupuncture needles affect the way the brain perceives and processes pain, say researchers from University Hospital in Essen, Germany.

They tested acupuncture’s pain-relieving capabilities on a group of 18 volunteers, who had an electrical device attached to their ankles.  They had brain scans when they had acupuncture needles placed in three areas, and when the needles were removed.  All the time the device was causing pain and discomfort.

Areas of the brain that process pain had changed significantly when the acupuncture needles were inserted, the scientists discovered.

(Source: Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, Chicago,  November 30, 2010.

(NaturalNews) Diet, pollution and modern living conditions have been implicated as the factors responsible for cancer, concluded researchers, after analysing the remains of almost 1,000 individuals from ancient Egypt and Greece.

The investigation, conducted by a team from Manchester University, looked into medical literature of the time for descriptions of cancer symptoms as well as examining today’s remains for signs of the disease. They did, for the first time, manage to identify cancer in one Egyptian mummy but this remained the only example in their widespread search. With this in mind, the scientists concluded that cancer was even rarer than previously thought.

Professor Rosalie David, who led the study, said: “In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. In ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.”

The research team painstakingly pieced together the development of cancer over the last 3,000 years, much longer than several other scientific papers. They found that cancer only began to emerge as a common disease in the 1700s, and its rate of occurrence dramatically rose during the 20th century. Continue reading “Cancer is a man-made disease, research concludes”