Health

Melbourne researchers have made a significant breakthrough which will see men with HIV able to conceive children through artificial insemination, without infecting their partners and babies.

Doctors at the Royal Womens’ Hospital Victoria have developed a program where men with HIV have the virus eliminated from sperm samples before insemination.

The hospital’s Dr Michelle Giles says the program is about helping couples get pregnant safely — via redwolf.newsvine.com

One in five Americans has hearing loss.

Yes, you heard that right.

A study published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine found that 20% of Americans over the age of 12 experience hearing loss in at least one ear. That figure surprised study leader Dr Frank R Lin, an assistant professor of otolaryngology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Linda Seaman was 12 when doctors found her first melanoma. She was 29 when they found her second, which was hidden by hair on her scalp.

Melanomas run in Mrs Seaman’s family. Her mother and uncle have both had two, and she checks her children incessantly.

Today, researchers report the discovery of a mutant gene, carried by about 200,000 Australians, which increases the risk of developing melanoma by 2½ times.

The faulty gene is more common in those with a large number of moles and a family history of the disease — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A recent survey found more than two thirds of us research our medications on-line and half of us turn to Dr Google for diagnosis. But how do you know the information you are getting online is accurate? Basically, you don’t. In fact studies show if you search Google for vaccination, 60% of the results will not only be misleading but downright scary. In a time when vaccine-preventable diseases such as whooping cough and measles are in the news again, it’s critically important to know the facts about vaccination so that you can protect your kids and yourself.

So, let’s take a look at some of the common myths about vaccination and why they’re wrong — via Mamamia

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have made a breakthrough in the use of stem cells to treat Parkinson’s disease.

Stem cells can be used to allow the body to produce dopamine, which prevents Parkinson’s.

Until now, treatment has been too risky because some of the stem cells can become carcinogenic.

But Dr Lachlan Thompson has told ABC’s AM program that scientists have now found a way to identify and separate the therapeutic cells from the dangerous ones — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The brains of boys with autism are heavier and contain many more neurons than those without the disorder, US researchers say.

The study, while small, suggests brain overgrowth may be occurring in the womb, according to the findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers carried out post-mortem examinations on the brains of seven autistic boys, aged between two and 16, most of whom had died by drowning.

The 16-year-old’s cause of death was undetermined and one eight-year-old died of muscle cancer.

When they compared them to a control group of six boys without autism who died in accidents, they found the brains of autistic boys had 67 per cent more neurons in the prefrontal cortex and were nearly 18 per cent heavier than normal brain weight for age — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Researchers at Edinburgh University in Scotland have announced that they believe the type of artificial blood they are working on could be ready for testing in humans in as little as two or three years. Made from growing stem cells taken from adult human bone marrow, the blood they create would be of the rare type O-negative that some 98% of people in need could use — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Researchers in Oxford have treated a man with an advanced gene therapy technique to prevent him from losing his sight.

It is the first time that anyone has tried to correct a genetic defect in the light-sensing cells that line the back of the eye.

The president of the Academy of Medical Sciences said the widespread use of gene therapy of this treatment will be soon be possible — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The bacteria in our gut may be controlling our lives more than we ever realised.

In the latest findings, published today in Nature, a link between gut bacteria and the development of multiple sclerosis in mice was shown. Studies have also examined gut bacteria in relation to obesity, depression and much more.

More human studies are emerging hinting at the role the bacteria in our guts may play well beyond helping us to digest our food — via redwolf.newsvine.com