latest health and medical news developments

Scientists Grow Human Heart Valve From Stem Cells

In a world first, British scientists grew a human heart valve from stem cells. The breakthrough, which took a decade to achieve, was led by internationally renowned heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London.

Animals tests are scheduled for later this year. If they prove successful, this method could be available within a few years to treat heart disease patients, the Daily Mail reported.

Yacoub and his team used chemical and physical means to coax bone marrow stem cells to grow into heart valve cells. They then placed the cells into scaffolds made of collagen and grew small discs of heart valve tissue.

This research is a major advance toward the goal of growing an entire beating heart, the Daily Mail reported.

"It is an ambitious project but not impossible. If you want me to guess I'd say 10 years," Yacoub said. "But experience has shown that the progress that is happening nowadays makes it possible to achieve milestones in a shorter time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some day sooner than we think."
FDA Approves Combination Diabetes Drug

A 2-in-1 tablet called Janumet to treat diabetes has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, drug maker Merck & Co. said.

Janumet contains a new Merck diabetes drug called Januvia and an older diabetes drug called metformin, the Associated Press reported. Some type 2 diabetes patients already take Januvia and metformin separately. This combined drug is designed to make it easier for patients to control their blood sugar levels, according to Merck.

Januvia, approved by the FDA last October, enhances the body's own ability to lower blood sugar levels.

Novartis AG has applied to the FDA for approval of a similar drug called Galvus, the AP reported.

Simple Tests Detect Placental Damage

A combination of simple, non-invasive tests early in pregnancy can detect placental damage that may cause stillbirth or a severely underweight premature infant, says a Canadian study that included 212 women with high-risk pregnancies.

Standard blood tests for Down syndrome and spina bifida, as well as a uterine Doppler flow test to check maternal blood flow in the placenta, and an ultrasound to check the shape of the placenta can help doctors determine if a pregnant woman has a damaged placenta, said the team at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, the Canadian Press reported.

The study appears in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Through the placenta, a developing fetus receives oxygen, nutrients and antibodies from the mother. An improperly formed or ill-functioning placenta can lead to a number of fetal problems.

"This strategy allows us to identify women that we should study to try to prevent placental damage. The first way to prevent it is to diagnoses it," principal investigator Dr. John Kingdom, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, told the CP.

There are a number of methods for treating a damaged placenta.

Gender May Be Reason Why More Men Get Skin Cancer

Ohio State University researchers have found that a naturally occurring amount of antioxidants in females may be the reason that males are three times more likely to get skin cancer.

The university scientists, led by assistant professor Dr. Tatiana Oberyszyn, investigated the incidence of squamous cell cancer -- a common type of skin cancer in humans -- in a controlled experiment on laboratory mice.

According to an Ohio State University news release, the researchers exposed the animals to UVB, a type of ultraviolet light that causes the most damage to the skin. They found that the naturally occurring amount of antioxidants produced by the female mice not only protected them three times as much from squamous malignancy, but also may have caused tumors that developed in females to be smaller than those in the male mice.

"It's given us clear evidence of a biological basis for the gender bias in developing squamous cell carcinoma," Oberyszyn is quoted as saying in the news release.

The study appears in the April 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

Why Isn't Everyone Attractive? Scientists Say They Have the Answer

British scientists say they think they've figured out why Darwin's theory of natural selection hasn't made every human good looking.

BBC News reports that New Castle University researchers have discovered a natural mutation in genetic selection that explains why even if the most attractive men and women were selected by their future mates, the so-called "good genes" wouldn't become commonplace and everyone would be pretty or handsome.

The very act of people selecting each other through sexual attraction allows for greater diversity of DNA and genetic makeup, the lead researchers professor Marion Petrie and Dr. Gilbert Roberts maintain.

"We find that sexual selection can promote genetic diversity despite expectations to the contrary," BBC News quotes Petrie as saying.

The findings are published in the latest edition of the journal Heredity.

Dramatic Increase of Deadly Dengue Fever in Mexico

A particularly deadly type of dengue fever is spreading rapidly in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, caused in part by climate changes and new migration patterns of mosquitoes that carry it.

The Associated Press reports that dengue fever, which causes high fever, nausea, severe joint pain and rashes, has increased by more than 600 percent in Mexico since 2001. To make matters worse, one-in-four cases of dengue is a particularly bad strain, a hemorrhagic type that causes both internal and external bleeding, increasing the chances of fatality.

In addition to the environmental changes, the wire service quotes Mexican health officials as saying that a failure in mosquito control has also caused an increase in dengue fever. An intensified effort to spray with insecticides in tourist areas before the Easter holiday season begins is being made, the A.P. reports.

source:www.forbes.com