Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This review deals with the changes in disease prevalence in the developed and developing world. It highlights the changes brought about by control of infectious diseases and records remaining problems, particularly in tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The new thinking on risk factors for chronic diseases are described, including evidence on the need for changes in diet, e.g. free radicals, rather than cholesterol screening for the control of coronary heart disease. The current evidence on cancer and diet is described as well as the influence of electromagnetic fields in the aetiology of cancer. The need to develop better methods of assessment of the outcome of health care, rather than purely variations in frequency of treatment, is highlighted. The current concepts on the effects of ozone depletion and greenhouse warming are considered. The need for improved methods of communication of risks is highlighted.
 ...
PMID:Advances in epidemiology and disease prevention. 765 65

Genetic immunization is a new vaccine technology, where antigen encoding DNA plasmids are directly injected into muscle or skin with the purpose of eliciting an immune response to the gene product. The gene products are correctly glycosylated, folded and expressed by the host cell. This is an advantage when the antigens are difficult to obtain in the desired purity, amount or correctly glycosylated form or when only the genetic sequences are known e.g. HCV. The DNA plasmids are injected into muscles or delivered coated onto gold microparticles into the skin by a particle bombardment device, a "gene gun". Genetic immunization has demonstrated induction of both a specific humoral but also a more broadly reacting cellular immune response in animal models of cancer, mycoplasma, TB, malaria, and many virus infections including influenza and HIV. Thus, the DNA vaccine mimics a live vaccine without the biohazard. Many animal species have responded to genetic immunization and gene vaccine has also been used to induce a desired immuneresponse in patients with cancer and HIV. The technique was first described in 1992 but is developing fast. This review describes the history and principle of the technology, its advantages, problems and possible applications.
 ...
PMID:[Genetic immunization--"the biological equivalent of cold fusion"?]. 767 26

The value of ethanomedical information in drug development is based on several factors: accuracy in recording or observing the medical use of the ethnomedical preparation, whether or not the ethnomedical use can be corroborated under scientific conditions in the laboratory, the formal or informal experience of the practitioner who provides the information, the role of the placebo effect and perhaps many others. Published ethnomedical information has many strengths and weaknesses relative to the ability to establish a corresponding biological effect in the laboratory. Many of the publications contain insufficient detail for the laboratory scientist. The ability to correlate ethnomedical reports with corresponding scientific studies could lead to improved selection of plants for further study in the areas of arthritis, cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, hypertension, malaria, pain and fungal and viral infections. These analyses have been accomplished by computer analysis utilizing the NAPRALERT database. This combination of analysing ethnomedical information and published scientific studies on plant extracts (ethnopharmacology) may reduce the number of plants that need to be screened for drug discovery attempts, resulting in a corresponding greater success rate than by random selection and mass bioscreening.
 ...
PMID:Ethnopharmacology and drug development. 773 61

Small scale spatial variation and temporal heterogeneity in mosquito densities can have important consequences for disease transmission, but the extreme variation which is observed in populations of malaria vectors makes it difficult to obtain good predictions of densities for short time periods over limited areas. We have applied Bayesian techniques derived for use in cancer epidemiology in order to map densities of Anopheles gambiae s.l. and A. funestus in a Tanzanian village where there is intense transmission of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Estimates derived in this way should prove useful in vector population biology and in improving estimates of exposure-response relationships of the human host to malaria. The same methods can be applied in other fields of animal ecology.
 ...
PMID:Mapping the densities of malaria vectors within a single village. 778 22

Between 1916 and 1955 the Mayo Clinic became recognized as one of the premier institutions specializing in the treatment of syphilis. First under the direction of John H. Stokes (1916-1924) and later Paul A. O'Leary (1924-1953), its Department of Dermatology and Syphilology, together with the members of the Clinical Cooperative Study Group, oversaw the establishment of standardized methods for the administration of the existing arsenicals and the introduction of new therapies. Malaria therapy, heat therapy, penicillin, and oxytetracycline each represented important advances in the treatment of syphilis and were extensively evaluated. Two important ancillary benefits of syphilis treatment were the development of routine intravenous techniques, which would later prove invaluable for the administration of antibiotics and cancer drugs, and the establishment of large cooperative clinical trials, the first of their kind. Under the leadership of Stokes and O'Leary the department produced a stream of pivotal clinical research that contributed to the effective management of syphilis in the United States.
 ...
PMID:From mercury to malaria to penicillin: the history of the treatment of syphilis at the Mayo Clinic--1916-1955. 782 12

The "Health Transition" describes the medical consequences which accompany the demographic transition and development. In many Asian countries, as the infectious diseases of infancy decline, such as diarrhea, acute respiratory disease, measles and malaria, so too, do infant mortality rates. As a consequence of falling infant mortality rates and declines in fertility, the age pyramid has become more rectangular. No longer is nearly half of the population under the age of 15 years. Diseases of adults are beginning to become predominant: trauma, heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. Life expectancy has increased along with costs of the health care system. As a fraction of per capita gross domestic product, health care is beginning to become a major national expense. It is ironic that the one vector-borne infectious disease likely to bridge the health transition in tropical countries is dengue. As evidenced by the experience of Singapore and Taiwan, modern housing and commercial development provide more, rather than fewer breeding places for Aedes aegypti. Greater affluence often means less compliance with mosquito control programs. Meanwhile, the dengue viruses, heeding some unknown genetic imperative, cause ever more severe disease. Modern Asian societies must count dengue as a real and enduring threat. To prevent costly hospitalizations and a sense of social disorder, effective measures must be adopted to achieve a significant reduction of Aedes aegypti populations. Sustained dengue control requires source reduction which, in turn depends upon imaginative leadership, skilled man power, legislative authority, an authentic national research program and intersectoral cooperation. A leadership role beckons for new actors in the control of Aedes aegypti: large municipalities, environmental agencies and the private sector.
 ...
PMID:Dengue in the health transition. 784 46

From the survey that first identified cancer effects of foetal irradiation and related sources has come support for the following hypotheses: (1) competing causes of death for childhood cancers include abortions (solid tumours) and infections (RES neoplasms); (2) the forms taken by RES neoplasms vary with the nature and intensity of indigenous infections; (3) ideal conditions for developing diffuse RES neoplasms (leukaemia) include the gross immunological incompetence caused by trisomy 21; (4) the unusually localised RES neoplasms found in children who have survived repeated attacks of malaria (Burkitt lymphoma and chloroma) are probably the result of these children having exceptionally high levels of passive as well as active immunity; and (5) when teratogenic effects of in utero mutations include faulty erythropoiesis as well as faulty leucopoiesis, infections are not the only rival causes of death.
 ...
PMID:Childhood cancers and competing causes of death. 786 38

The prevelance of IDA in industrialized countries has declined in recent decades, but there has been little change in the worldwide prevalence. IDA is currently estimated to affect more than 500 million people. Recent studies have indicated that anemia per se, the most common manifestation of iron deficiency, is less important from a public health standpoint than liabilities associated with tissue iron deficiency. The most important of the latter are an impairment in psychomotor development and cognitive function in infants and preschoolers, a deficit in work performance in adults, and an increase in the frequency of low birth weight, prematurity, and perinatal mortality in pregnancy. There have been several recent advances in combatting nutritional iron deficiency. One of the major problems has been in distinguishing iron deficiency from other causes of anemia seen epidemiologically such as malaria, HIV infection, chronic inflammation, hemoglobinopathies, and protein energy malnutrition. When combined with serum ferritin and hemoglobin determinations, the serum transferrin receptor assay is a valuable addition in epidemiologic surveys because it provides a quantitative measure of functional iron deficiency and it distinguishes true IDA from the anemia of chronic disease. The most difficult challenge is to develop effective methods of supplying iron to large segments of a population. Supplementation with iron tablets is suitable for only brief periods of need such as during pregnancy. The poor compliance with existing supplementation programs is believed to be due mainly to the gastrointestinal side effects of oral iron which can be eliminated by the use of a gastric delivery system. The most effective long-term strategy is to increase the intake of bioavailable iron in the diet. The customary approach has been to fortify a food staple such as wheat, rice, sugar, or salt, and thereby increase the iron intake of the entire population. However, because of concerns about the risk of cancer and heart disease in individuals with high iron stores, there is an increasing reluctance to supply iron to individuals who do not require it. A more effective strategy is to fortify food vehicles that are targeted to segments of the population at greatest risk of iron deficiency such as infants and school children. Because of the strong inhibitory properties of diets in regions of the world where iron deficiency is most prevalent, the use of NaFeEDTA has important advantages for food fortification.
 ...
PMID:Iron deficiency: the global perspective. 788 26

The effects of verapamil on drug responses of Trypanosoma brucei brucei were studied to determine whether drug resistance of this organism could be related to expression of a drug resistance gene as has been described for drug-resistant cancer cells and malaria. Concomitant administration of verapamil during treatment of two different strains of the parasite with ethidium or berenil resulted in enhancement of the drug effect as shown by increased formation of dyskinetoplastic organisms, increased rates of clearing of the parasites from the blood, and by enhanced survival of infected mice. Verapamil treatment was associated with increased intracellular accumulation of drug, as shown by fluorescence of cells exposed to ethidium or DAPI, a fluorescent surrogate for berenil. These results suggest the importance of exploring the expression of the multiple drug-resistance gene in this series of parasites.
 ...
PMID:Effect of verapamil on antitrypanosomal activity of drugs in mice. 790 34

Although the role of free radicals has continued to capture the imagination of scientists, the interest in nutritional aspects of free radicals is relatively recent. Oxidative stress, which often arises as a result of the imbalance in the human antioxidant status, has been implicated in ageing and in a number of human diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis, malaria and in rheumatoid arthritis. This review discusses the current status of free radicals in nutrition and dietary antioxidants and considers the possibility that use of a range of antioxidants, which have been carefully evaluated, combined with methods for measuring oxidant generation, would help to delineate the contribution of nutrients to the modulation of the consequences of free radicals in the human body.
 ...
PMID:Nutrition and health aspects of free radicals and antioxidants. 804 80


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>