Tag Archives: medicine

A radical new approach to treating disease Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This saying is particularly apt in medicine where doctors treat nearly every condition–from depression to hypertension–with a pill. If your doctor prescribed you anything other …

Uncovering the underworld of how Uganda’s marked medicines are stolen and sold Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | We have been waiting for close to two hours when a man emerges from a nearby thicket with water from the afternoon drizzle dripping like white beads off his very dark face and …

Tokyo, Japan | AFP | A Japanese firm is poised to carry out what it hailed as the world’s first experiment to test for cancer using urine samples, which would greatly facilitate screening for the deadly disease. Engineering and IT conglomerate Hitachi developed the basic technology to detect breast or …

2500, France | AFP | Hepatitis C is easily cured. Yet, about 400,000 people die of the liver disease every year as only a smattering get the medicine they need. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to attack the problem with more urgency, and more money. Only …

Kampala, Uganda | DAVID IRVING | Ben Franklin famously wrote: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. What he didn’t mention, despite being 83 years old, was a third, almost inevitable eventuality: ageing. Depending on when in history and where on the planet you …

Washington, United States | AFP | Global consumption of antibiotics has soared since the year 2000, stoking calls for new policies to rein in usage — and fueling fears that the worldwide threat posed by drug-resistant superbugs will spiral out of control, researchers say. A study in the Proceedings of …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The UN warned Tuesday of a ticking time bomb of drug-resistant germs brewing in the natural environment, aided by humans dumping antibiotics and chemicals into the water and soil. If this continues, people will be at an even higher risk of contracting diseases, incurable by …

Brussels, Belgium | AFP | The fight for some of the most prized spoils of Brexit comes to a climax on Monday when 27 EU states pick the new host cities for two London-based regulatory agencies. In a process only half-jokingly compared to the Eurovision Song Contest, ministers will vote …

Paris, France | AFP | Messing with your body’s clock is dangerous business, in fact it could make you sick — or worse. The inner timekeeper dubbed the “circadian clock”, governs the day-night cycle that guides sleep and eating patterns, hormones and even body temperature. It is important enough that the …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | US geneticists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were awarded the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for shedding light on the biological clock that governs the sleep-wake cycles of most living things. The team’s work revealed the role of genes in setting …