Back in April of 2008 I noted an interesting preliminary study on the beneficial effects of fasting before chemotherapy.

The background in short is that normal cells tend to go into dormancy when an organism fasts, while cancer cells tend to never shut their metabolism down.

Given these facts, the researchers proposed that a dormant cell is less ( Read more... )

Chemo-brain has only recently moved from "all in your head, dear" to "Huh, I guess there's something to it, at least in the short term."

A new study from Harvard and Rochester Medical Schools explains why some patients have cognitive problems long after the chemotherapy is done. One drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU),  damages the neuronal stem cells that ( Read more... )

(When in college I worked on studies of air pollution and air pollution epidemiology.  That's one reason why I like this study.)

Pollution--> inflammation--> excess clotting
A study announced today gives one answer to a big question- why do increases in PM10 air pollution (10 microns or less) cause increased mortality?  That it happens is well known ( Read more... )

(Both for work and for fun I spend plenty of time reading medical research ( Read more... )