Parasitologist espouses using parasitic worms for treatment of autoimmune diseases – Dr. Joel Weinstock, at Tufts Medical Center in a commentary piece published in the journal Nature, describes work that he and colleagues have been involved in that focuses on studying the possibility of introducing parasitic worms into the guts of patients suffering from autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease. The thinking he says, is that modern hygienic lifestyles may be contributing to such diseases and that reintroducing parasitic worms and perhaps certain bacteria into the gut may restore a natural balance in the gut and relieve patients of such symptoms as chronic diarrhea, bleeding and infections.

Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-p ...

A possible vaccine for lung cancer! In a country known for cigars, lung cancer is one of the major killers in Cuba. So for the past 25 years, they’ve been developing Cimamax, which is now available freely to Cubans. According to a Phase II trial conducted in Cuba in 2008, lung cancer patients who received the vaccine lived an average of four to six months longer than those who didn’t. This led Japan and some European countries to trial the drug as well.

The drug itself is far from flawless and, by attacking a cell’s protein rather than the tumour directly, can have severe side effects, including – of all things - causing a higher risk of cancer. It might not be a "cure" in the traditional sense, but it's a way of managing the disease. What t ...

Watch as a neurosurgeon opens up a patient's skull and clears the clotted blood from the surface of her brain. We probably don't have to tell you that this is extremely graphic footage, but - you've been warned.

A drug made from berries produced the blushwood tree (Hylandia dockrillii), found in Australia, has been used to treat animals with face and neck tumours, and it starts taking effect within five minutes. Human trials have now been approved. According to researchers, in 75 percent of the 300 animals cases, the tumour disappeared in individuals that were treated with isolated compound found in the seed, and has so far not come back. "The compound works in three ways essentially: it kills the tumour cells directly, it cuts off the blood supply and it also activates the body's own immune system to clean up the mess that's left behind." ...

How did doctors figure out if women were pregnant back in the day? They used frogs, of course! Before the 1960's, the only reliable pregnancy test involved injecting a woman's urine into an African clawed frog and seeing if the frog spawned.

This peculiar method, known as the 'frog pregnancy test,' may sound bizarre today, but it was a common practice in the early to mid-20th century. The African clawed frog, a species native to sub-Saharan Africa, was preferred for this test because of its unique reproductive system.

If a woman was pregnant, her urine would contain hormones that would induce the frog to lay eggs, confirming the pregnancy. While this method may seem unusual by modern standards, it was an early example of using biological indi ...

A new vaccine has successfully killed the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that causes AIDS in monkeys. It's hoped that with further research, an HIV-form of the vaccine can soon be tested in humans.