'Chocolate cough remedy' in sight

Scientists are carrying out the ending stages of clinical trials of a drug that contains theobromine, an ingredient found in chocolate and cocoa.

The UK developers say the drug could be on the marketplace within two years.

Each year in Britain an estimated 7.5m people suffer from persistent cough - a cough lasting more than two weeks.

Fearless woman's brain reveals key to phobias

The case of a literally unafraid woman rendered so after brain damage has helped scientists prove that a part of the brain structure regulating emotions is the key to human and animal phobia.

The 44-year-old mother of three, referred to in the journal present Biology as SM, has a rare psychological impairment due to a genetic disease called lipoid proteinosis that left holes where her amygdala — the brain’s danger detector — would normally reside.

Health Risks Rise for Medicare Patients in Year After Stroke

Within a year of having a stroke, almost two-thirds of Medicare patients die or wind up back in the hospital, a new research reports.

The findings highlight the need for better valuable care for stroke patients, in the hospital and after they are sent home, experts noted.

"Patients with acute ischemic stroke are at very high risk for recurrent hospitalization and post discharge mortality," told Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, chief of cardiology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and the study's lead researcher.

Report: About 17% in U.S. get sick from food each year

One in six Americans gets ill from food each year, and about 3,000 die from those illnesses, according to record released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"These are preventable diseases," said Chris Braden, acting director of the division of food-borne, water-borne and environmental diseases at the CDC. "We need to do more to lower the impact of these sickness in the U.S."

The numbers mark the first time since 1999 that the federal government has updated the estimates for food-borne illnesses. The latest figures are lower than those in the 1999 report, which estimated that one in four Americans got sick from food each year and that 5,000 died.

Many Brain Tumor Patients Turn to Alternative Therapies

About 40 percent of patients with incurable brain tumors use different therapies in addition to conventional treatments, finds a new study.

German researchers asked 621 patients with incurable grade II to grade IV gliomas (tumors) about their apply of alternative therapies.

Of those who used different remedies, 39 percent used homeopathy, 31 percent used vitamin supplements and 29 percent tried psychological therapies.

Diabetes Advance: Researchers Grow Insulin-Producing Cells From Testes

New study suggests it may be possible for people with type 1 diabetes to grow their own insulin-producing cells -- an advancement that could lead to a cure for this form of diabetes.

The preliminary findings are slated to be presented at the American Society of Cell Biology 50th yearly meeting in Philadelphia.

“The aim here is to cure diabetes, not to treat it,” says study author G. Ian Gallicano, PhD, an associate professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular and cellular biology and the director of the Transgenic Core Facility at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Study: 99% of Children Living in Apartments May Be Exposed to Secondhand Smoke

There are fewer and fewer places where smokers can light up these days, with smoking bans being instituted by governments and private companies in virtually every public place, from offices and airplanes to bars and restaurants. And now there's proof that supports bringing no smoking policies to the only remaining place (other than outdoors) where smokers can still light up inside their homes.

Or, at least where smokers are living in apartments. In a study of tobacco exposure from secondhand smoke in more than 5,000 children, researchers led by Dr. Karen Wilson at University of Rochester found that youngsters aged 6 to 18 years who lived in multi-unit housing had a 45% raise in a chemical byproduct of tobacco in their blood compared with children who lived in detached family homes. And these were youngsters who lived in units where nobody smoked inside the apartment itself, meaning that the exposure was occurring primarily via secondhand smoke drifting in from other units.