Here in Ottawa, research continues to follow exciting avenues towards the goal of treating cancer. Innovative and elegant solutions are being applied in clinical trials. One such approach is the use of oncoviruses, viruses that target and destroy cancer cells leaving normal cells in peace. At the Ottawa Health Research Institute and the Ottawa Hospital [...]
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Archive
Category: TechnologyI am reminded of a scene from the science fiction movie Logan’s Run where a plastic surgeon uses a laser to cut the skin, makes the cosmetic change, and then seals the wound with a laser leaving no scar. Although this seemed an impossible feat of technology at the time, real science has edged closer [...]
As the focus of attention turns to the H1N1 outbreak that is now occurring across the country, the public faces an array of information sources that will influence their opinion about vaccination. There have been many claims and critiques about the H1N1 vaccine and it has become a springboard to envelop other vaccines and vaccination [...]
There are many branches of stroke research from prevention, emergency treatment, to rehabilitation technologies and therapies. When a person suffers a stroke, it is a race to try to minimize the death of brain cells that follow the initial damage and oxygen deprivation.
Original broadcast date: September 13, 2009 There are instances in clinical research when the clinical outcome goals of the study are superseded by an unexpected discovery. Researchers from the University of Florida reported in the August 13, 2009 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that the retinas of adults treated with a gene [...]
Original broadcast date: August 30, 2009 “There has to be a better way,” says orthopedic surgeon Dr Cyril Frank. What Dr. Frank refers to is the present approach used to repair damaged ligaments in joints such as the knee with methods that are still “fairly barbaric”. In that vein, the University of Calgary is expanding [...]
Original broadcast date: May 31, 2009 How well can cancer specialists, oncologists, assess how well a particular treatment is destroying a tumour? It is true that there are methods to make this determination but it could take weeks of observation before knowing whether the tumour has shrunk. Is it possible to develop a means of [...]
Original broadcast date: May 31, 2009 How well can cancer specialists, oncologists, assess how well a particular treatment is destroying a tumour? It is true that there are methods to make this determination but it could take weeks of observation before knowing whether the tumour has shrunk. Is it possible to develop a means of [...]
Original broadcast date: May 18, 2009 Of great concern to many travelers is the prevention of infectious diseases such as typhoid, hepatitis A and B, malaria, and enterotoxigenic E. coli among others. Another common form of traveler’s diarrhea caused by the bacteria campylobacter jejuni is becoming resistant to antibiotic therapy. A research group from the [...]
Bad Science
Mar 29Alternative Medicine, Book Reviews, Debunking Pseudoscience, Food, Food Science, Food Science, Health Policy, Health Policy, Health Statistics, History of Medicine, Nutrition and diet, Nutrition Science, Pharmacology, Prescription Drugs, Prevention and Screening, Pseudoscience, Psychology, Radio Interviews, Science, Technology, Toxicology, Vaccine research, Vaccines
Original broadcast date: March 29, 2009 If there is one quote that epitomizes the plethora of ideas expressed in physician and Guardian columnist Dr. Ben Goldacre’s book bad science, it is this from paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, Steven Jay Gould: “ When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their [...]
Original broadcast date: March 22, 2009 Are you getting what you ordered when dining in a restaurant that serves seafood? This is important on many levels, from honest business practices to endangered or protected species preservation to managing allergy risks. How can inspectors, and by extension the public, learn about the true source of their [...]
Original broadcast date: March 15, 2009 Although stem cell research is a common topic in the news, the issue is more in the forefront recently now that US President Obama plans to reverse restrictions placed on embryonic stem cell research enacted by the Bush administration. Two recent studies from McMaster University have added to this [...]
Original broadcast date: March 8, 2009 Through much of medical history, the approach to treating disease has been akin to using a blunt instrument to carpet bomb an area. The side effects that many treatments create is testament to the fact more than the region of the body we wish to target is being affected. [...]
Original broadcast date: March 8, 2009 How do you know that the disinfectant that claims to kill over 99 per cent of bacteria actually does just that? What are the mechanisms of action that result in this effect? Today, we are going to learn about biofilms, what they are, what they do, how we are [...]
Original broadcast date: February 8, 2009 For many people with inner ear problems, the ability to diagnose the anatomical changes due to damage or disease is problematic because of the resolution limitations of the imaging technology in use today. A new technology is in development at Dalhousie University in Halifax that circumvents these litigations using [...]
Original broadcast date: January 11, 2009 Recent reports from the Canadian Alzheimer’s Society state that the number of Canadians who will develop Alzheimer Disease will double in 25 years to 1.3 million people. They are urging more funding for research to find a means to treat and perhaps prevent the changes that occur within the [...]
Original broadcast date: January 6, 2008 When we last spoke to Dr. Ulli Krull, he talked about the development of a device that could be used to detect chemical substances in a given environment. For lack of a better analogy, it was like a Star Trek Tricorder. His present projects include developing biosensors that are [...]
Original broadcast date: January 4, 2009 Although it seems to be a device out of Star Trek, for people with severe neurological impairment that prevents them from communicating or moving, it is a device that can literally expand their world and reduce unfathomable frustration. The system uses patients’ brain waves and eye and muscular movements [...]
Despite exposure to many cancer-causing agents or carcinogens in our environment, the human body has a way to repair damaged DNA that can prevent the development of tumours. A new study published November 11, 2008 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), scientists have identified a [...]
Scientists say they are gaining insight into how the brain rewires itself as it learns new things, potentially helping them move toward better treatments for mental illness and brain injuries. Researchers report in a new study, published in the August 8, 2008 issue of Cell, that a protein appears to tell the brain that it’s [...]
Researchers from University College London have gained a new understanding of how changes in the immune system can foreshadow the expression of Huntington’s disease by 16 years. The research on this fatal neurodegenerative disease was published online in the Journal of Experimental Medicine and shed some light on possible therapies that would target the immune [...]
Physicians use various imaging technologies to screen, diagnose and follow cancerous tumours. The information they provide will show the gross location and extent of the tumour. However, cancer surgeons today operate “blind” with no clear way of determining in real-time whether they have removed all of the diseased tissue, which is the key to successful [...]
One of the biomedical engineering bottlenecks in constructing an artificial eye is that the eye is a curved object or hemispherical providing it with the ability to view a wide field of view without distortion. This is a feat that, up to now, electronic microchip technology has not been able to mimic. Researchers at the [...]
Undercooked chicken, eggs sandwiches that have gone bad, contaminated water sources while on vacation and just plain poor sanitation and agricultural practices, all the factors and more can lead to salmonella transmission and infection. What has begged the question for some time is why this particular bacterium can cause so fierce an infection while the [...]
We hear the commercials on radio and TV asking people to donate blood. It is sometimes followed by a brief notice or announcement that they are looking for blood of a particular type. This ongoing public canvassing for blood donations illustrates the issue of blood product shortages. There is always a need for blood products [...]
Although the media have not paid much attention to avian flu recently, research into an H5N1 avian flu vaccine continues. Results of a phase I and phase II trial on a new human vaccine against H5N1 bird flu virus made from cell culture instead of embryonated eggs show that it is safe and effective against [...]
Eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration result in the loss of vision in a slow and unrelenting fashion due to the deteriorating and damaged retina. A team of scientists at the Schepens Eye Research Institute and Harvard Medical School has published a study in the March issue of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual [...]
Research into breast cancer treatments continues apace and a new study to be presented at the end of May at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago introduces us to a new treatment that blocks signals within the cancer cell that cause it to grow and spread. Dr. Kathy Pritchard, Senior scientist [...]
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) was first identified and described by a French neurologist, Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, in 1868. It is the most common neurological disease affecting young adults in Canada. Women are twice as likely to develop MS as men. Every day, three more people in Canada are diagnosed with it. It can cause loss of [...]
As cancer research continues apace, there is a growing understanding of the genetic abnormalities that are intimately involved in the pathophysiology of the disease process. Understanding the mechanism of the disease allows clinical research to develop targeted treatments to better control or eradicate the tumours. A new diagnostic test created at the University of Alberta [...]
Food science is a major topic for discussion on Sunday House Call. To me, there was one seminal interview that beautifully encapsulated the exciting science and discovery of the biochemistry of foods and the role they play in fighting cancer.
The interview in June 2006 featured Dr. Richard Beliveau, author of Foods That Fight Cancer: Preventing Cancer through Diet. To date, 200,000 copies of the book have sold in Canada, an incredible number given that 5,000 is considered a best-seller.
As we discussed in our last interview of June 25, 2006, phytochemicals in the foods we eat can play a significant role in cancer prevention and overall health; literally a non-toxic version of chemotherapy. Our current Western diets seem to have weakened our body’s ability to fend off certain types of cancer among other diseases. In short, our society’s food choices have become divorced from reality and from our biology and physiology.
It seems the next logical step was to expand on the science and, at the same time, produce a book on how to incorporate these foods into our diet. With that in mind sprung his next book, Cooking with Foods that Fight Cancer.
- Dr. Richard Beliveau, author of Foods That Fight Cancer: Preventing Cancer Through Diet and Cooking with Foods that Fight Cancer, Biochemistry professor and Chair in the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer at the University of Quebec at Montreal and director of the Molecular Medicine Laboratory at Sainte Justine Hospital. He is also professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal.
One of the consequences of the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease is the damaging effect it has on smaller arteries in the legs and within organs such as the kidney and heart. Although coronary artery bypass grafts are common, it is the smaller sized arteries that can remain damaged and difficult to reach and repair. Further [...]
Several months ago we talked with Dr. Paul Ridker about his study of heart disease risk markers in women that contributed to the development of the Reynolds Risk Score using C-reactive protein as a marker or indicator of the ten-year risk of developing a heart attack. Research into the prevention of cardiovascular disease continues apace. [...]
A consortium of Canadian and American researchers led by Dr. John D. Rioux, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Montreal Heart Institute and the Université de Montréal, report in the April 15, 2007 online edition of Nature Genetics the results from a search of the entire human genome for genetic risk factors leading to [...]
Human genome used to search for genetic clues for Crohn's disease Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadPeople who can’t have life-saving diagnostic tests because of their pacemakers might have a scan-worthy device in years to come. An international clinical trial of a pacemaker system, the Medtronic EnRhythm MRI SureScan pacing system, will be conducted at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, Foothills HSC in Calgary, Hopital Laval in Quebec, Montreal Heart [...]
High level spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases can paralyze a patient’s ability to breathe. This ability is wholly dependent on an intact nervous system and the diaphragm, a specialized muscle that sits just under the base of our lungs. Paralysis of this muscle as a result of nerve damage requires can result in a [...]
New device lets quadraplegic man breathe on his own for the first time in five years Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadCancer treatment success depends on early diagnosis. Lung cancer, unfortunately for many, is discovered too late. Various imaging technologies have been used to try to detect early lung cancer with some success and new detection methods are under development. In a recent study, US scientists have developed a genetic test, the results of which are [...]
Is there another method to repair a child’s defective heart valve other than invasive surgery? Two Montreal cardiologists went to London, England to learn a new technique that accomplishes just that. The procedure, called percutaneous pulmonary valve implant, replaces open-heart surgery, and was performed in February this year by Montreal cardiologists Giuseppe Martucci and Adrian [...]
New surgical technique to replace defective heart valve in children Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadA great deal of research connects nutrition with cancer risk. Overweight people are at higher risk of developing post-menopausal breast cancer, endometrial cancer, colon cancer, kidney cancer and a certain type of esophageal cancer. Now preliminary findings from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggest that eating less protein may help [...]
What is pharmacogenomics? What research is taking place in pharmacogenomics right now? What role will it play in patient care as we try to live longer, even following cancer, diabetes, heart & stroke? Pharmacogenomics is an emerging science that integrates the patient’s genomic data so as to personalize treatment and thereby improve the effectiveness and [...]
Last week I talked about how researchers had uncovered a new genetic mechanism that could explain why some people develop inflammatory bowel diseases like Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s. The discovery by a six-member Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Genetics Consortium of a genetic risk factor for IBD was reported in Science Express, the online publication of [...]
About 10 to 15 million people around the world have type 1 diabetes and require insulin to make up for the pancreas’ inability to produce enough for the body’s use. In the September 28, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine researchers from the University of Alberta studied how the clinical outcomes of [...]
As we reported on Sunday House Call in August Scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Scripps Research Institute reported progress in understanding how aging contributes to the development of Alzheimer Disease. There are many avenues of study and exploration to try to understand the mechanisms behind the expression of the disease. [...]
We have seen numerous studies in basic science research produce results that surprise the investigator and open up new insights into the pathophysiology or mechanism of disease. A study published in the July 13, 2006 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation found that a protein previously linked to the development of type 2 [...]
Chronic stress seems to trigger the premature aging of immune system cells, a new study suggests. Although people who are under stress for long periods often look haggard, scientists don’t understand how chronic stress causes damage at the cellular level. The new research focused on one sign of biological aging – caps of DNA and [...]
Genetic research continues to broaden our understanding of the mechanism or pathophysiology of diseases. Reports seem to present themselves daily about new avenues for treatments of once incurable or uncontrollable illnesses. A team from the Scripps Research Institute and the University of California School of Medicine has developed compounds that reactivate the gene responsible for [...]
Researchers at Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences, in conjunction with St George’s, University of London, are developing drugs designed to stop allergens from entering the body, which will render them harmless and stop the suffering. The head of the research team is Professor David Garrod and he says the research takes a completely new approach [...]
