Health

  2010 JUN 20 - (VerticalNews.com) -- Just because your mother has turned 85, you shouldn't assume you'll have to take over her financial matters. She may be just as good or better than you at making quick, sound, money-making decisions, according to researchers at Duke University.

  "It's not age, it's cognition that makes the difference in decision-making," said Scott Huettel, Ph.D., Associate Professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Duke Center for Neuroeconomic Studies. He recently led a laboratory study in which participants could gain or lose money based on their decisions ...read more

  2010 APR 25 - (VerticalNews.com) -- Adding the investigational drug telaprevir to standard treatment for hepatitis C infection cures about half the patients willing to give therapy a second try. That compares to a cure rate of just 14 percent among those who were retreated with the standard regimen, according to researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI).

  Standard treatment for hepatitis C is 48 weeks of a combination of two drugs, peginterferon alfa-2a plus the antiviral agent ribavirin. The treatment cures roughly 40 percent of who undergo it; for those who fail to respond, the only backup is a second round of therapy with the very same treatment ...read more

  2010 APR 25 - (VerticalNews.com) -- Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have identified a set of naturally occurring antibodies that can block one of the key ways the AIDS virus gains entry into certain blood cells. They say the discovery, published online in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, expands traditional notions about how the immune system fights HIV and offers a potential new strategy for HIV vaccine design.

  Researchers have been puzzled and frustrated for years by antibody responses to HIV. In most infections, antibodies that fight off invading pathogens show up quickly and get right to work. But with HIV, the most powerful antibodies typically don't materialize until weeks or even months after initial infection - way too late to be effective ...read more