Health Line

Diabetes linked to liver cancer

According to a study conducted in Italy, Type 2 diabetes is more common in patients with liver cancer than in the general population. The study was conducted on 465 patients with liver cancer and 490 controls. The results revealed that 31 percent of the patients with cancer had diabetes, while only 13 percent of those without cancer had diabetes.

What was notable was that in 84 percent of the cases, diabetes had been diagnosed six months before the diagnosis of liver cancer. This suggests that diabetes may give rise to liver cancer.

Source: Reuters

Stem cell transplant cures AIDS

In Berlin, doctors have cured a man of AIDS by giving him a transplant of blood stem cells from a donor who was resistant to the virus.

The 42-year-old patient also had leukemia, which was another incentive for doing the transplant.
Twenty months after the operation, the man has stopped taking anti-retroviral drugs and is still not affected by the virus. Although finding donors with the rare genetic mutation is hard, this operation suggests that using stem cells that have been genetically modified with the mutations could cure AIDS.
However, many American doctors feel that this method is impractical to use in countries like Africa with a high prevalence of AIDS.

Also, the success of such an operation is questionable, as prior to the operation, nearly 10 to 30 percent of the patient’s immune system has to be killed.

Source: The New York Times

Obesity in childhood ages arteries

Ultrasound imaging revealed that the neck arteries of children as young as 10 had fatty acid deposits similar to those found in 45-year-olds.

This new finding worries doctors because this implies that obese young children are at an increased risk for heart disease.

More than half of the 70 children enrolled in the study had arteries that resembled those of people 30 years older than them. These children are prone to heart attacks, stroke, and even death at a very young age. The average age of the children in the study was 13 years.

Source: msnbc.com

FDA bans Chinese milk products

The FDA has banned the imports of Chinese milk products for fear of such products being contaminated with melamine. The ban was implemented after more than 53,000 infants in China fell ill due to the consumption of melamine-contaminated infant formula.

Around 13,000 of the infants were hospitalized because of this, and at least four of them died.
The deaths were mostly due to the formation of kidney stones and crystals that led to a variety of complications.
Melamine is added to milk to increase the nitrogen content of the milk so that it appears to contain more protein.
For fear of the contamination being prevalent in many milk products, the FDA has banned many Chinese milk products, including cereals, snack foods, cheese, ice cream, candy, and puddings.

Source: CNN.com