Bad breath and poor tooth care
LOCAL doctors hope regular dental cleaning, increasingly popular in Shanghai, will help improve people's teeth.
Ginseng soup for some get-up-and-go
GINSENG is the root of a slow-growing perennial herb native to the mountain forests of northeastern China, the Korean peninsula, and the far eastern regions of the Russian Federation.
Dangers of later pregnancy warmed
LONDON - Despite the growing number of older mothers, Danish doctors advised women on Friday not to postpone pregnancy because the risks are still high and the chances of a successful outcome are poor.
Apple keeps doctor away
LONDON - The old adage that an apple a day keeps the doctor away looks to have acquired an important scientific dimension. It might keep cancer away too.
Facing death with dignity
THE mention of cancer seems a taboo for most cancer patients, because the disease used to indicate certain death.
Clay beads not 'plain Janes' of jewellery world
I USED to find clay beads dull and lacklustre compared with jewellery made with precious stones.
Look to winter fashion
SUMMER is still with us, but designers are preparing autumn/winter collections to be shown on September 26 to 28 at Shanghaimart for the China International Fashion Trade Fair for Casual and Career.
Umbilical blood same as bone marrow
BOSTON - A new study of 2,165 blood and bone-marrow transplants in children has found that using a sibling's umbilical cord blood is less likely to cause the recipient's body to reject the donated material. But children who receive blood from the umbilical cords of their newborn siblings instead of bone marrow are no more likely to live longer and the transplant cells can take longer to rebuild the immune system, according to the study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Because the survival rate was the same and bone marrow transplants worked faster, the study said "overall, the data suggest that umbilical cord blood is as effective as bone marrow as a source of hematopoietic stem cells for children who receive transplants from HLA-identical (matched) siblings." The transplants are used for treating a variety of blood-related diseases, including several forms of cancer. Doctors have been using umbilical cord blood for more than a decade. Because the cells in the blood are not mature enough to spark a full-blown immune reaction - but still are able to rebuild a damaged immune system - doctors have suspected the technique may be better than using bone marrow, which may carry disease. The new study, led by Dr Vanderson Rocha of Saint Louis Hospital in Paris, compared the results of the two techniques to see which was more likely to produce graft-versus-host disease, a condition in which the donated cells' immune system attacks the body, producing rashes, fever and other symptoms. Data from two registries - one tracking 113 children who had received cord blood from siblings with identical tissue types and the other listing 2,052 bone marrow recipients who got matched marrow from a brother or sister - showed that the rate of graft-versus-host disease among cord blood recipients was about 60 per cent lower than for bone marrow recipients. Graft-versus-host disease "was lower after transplantation with cord blood than after transplantation with bone marrow," the researchers concluded. The team said that because matched siblings are often unavailable when a transplant is needed, "comparisons similar to those made in this study are needed for transplants of cord blood and bone marrow from unrelated donors." (Agencies via Xinhua)
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