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Swine Flu Might Infect 40% Of The US Population In The Next 24 Months
Health authorities in the United States have voiced concern that 40% of the country"s whole population could be infected with the swine flu (H1N1) virus over the next 24 months. The estimates are based on data gleaned from the 1957 flu pandemic which killed nearly 70,000 people in the country. That pandemic was not as severe as the 1918-1919 Spanish flu one. If one hundred and twenty million people caught swine flu this time round, and vaccine campaigns were not successful, the eventual death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands.
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Diabetes UK Wants To Hear About Your Diabetes Experiences
Diabetes UK is looking for people with diabetes to share their experiences of supported self-management to help with our campaign for World Diabetes Day (14 November).
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Increased Occurrences Of Parasomnia Symptoms Experienced By Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients
Patients suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have an increased prevalence of parasomnia symptoms compared with the prevalence rates of individual parasomnias, according to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
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The Mystery Of Why HIV Patients Are More Susceptible To TB Infection Solved By Harvard Scientists

A team of Harvard scientists has taken an important first step toward the development of new treatments to help people with HIV battle Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) infection. In their report, appearing in the July 2009 print issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology they describe how HIV interferes with the cellular and molecular mechanisms used by the lungs to fight TB infection. This information is crucial for researchers developing treatments to help people with HIV prevent or recover from TB infection. "HIV/TB co-infection is a critical global health problem, especially in developing countries," said Naimish Patel, M.D., lead researcher on the study and Instructor of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. "We hope that these findings will lead to further studies and possible new therapies for treating or preventing tuberculosis in HIV disease." Patel and colleagues made their discovery by extracting immune cells called "alveolar macrophages" from the lungs of otherwise healthy, asymptomatic HIV-positive patients as well as from people who did not have HIV. In people who are HIV-positive, the macrophages have a decreased response to the TB bacterium when compared to people who did not have HIV. To learn why, the scientists examined lung specimens from the HIV-positive patients and found increased levels of a molecule called IL-10, which elevated the amount of a protein called "BCL-3" in alveolar macrophages and that reduced their ability to ward off TB infection. "HIV and TB represent two of the most significant health challenges in human history and the combination of the two infections is particularly devastating because HIV dramatically increases the severity of TB infection," said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, "There are still many unknowns about how HIV reduces the ability of the body to combat other infections. This study sheds light on co-infection with HIV and TB, which up to this point, has perplexed scientists and physicians alike." Cody Mooneyhan Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology


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