Disease

For decades, those with high cholesterol have been given a list of don'ts when it comes to their diet: Don't eat cholesterol-rich eggs; don't eat butter; don't eat red meat or regular ice cream. Well, now researchers have identified a list of do's for the diet that may work to lower cholesterol levels better than avoiding those don'ts. In a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that eating cholesterol-lowering foods like nuts, soy protein, and certain fiber-rich items result in bigger drops in "bad" LDL cholesterol than avoiding...

Since scientists first mapped the human genome more than a decade ago, excitement has built about a new era of personalized medicine, in which people will ultimately be able to use the information embedded in their DNA to better prevent and treat disease. But even as the technologies that decode genomes have gotten faster and cheaper, questions have remained about how useful that information will be to a doctor and a patient trying to understand risk for a complicated disease caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, such as diabetes or cancer.

The sudden pain in Greg Hannoosh's left big toe was so intense one night he thought his entire foot was going to "blow up. " The West Newbury public relations executive hung on until morning, then hobbled in to see his doctor, who took one look at Hannoosh's swollen, angry foot and concluded that the 41-year-old had gout. "I didn't even know what that was," recalled Hannoosh, now 51. "I thought it was an old man's disease. " Gout, long known as "the disease of kings" or "rich man's disease," is a form of arthritis, first identified centuries ago, that is becoming more common as Americans age and pile...

The father of a young Georgia woman fighting a flesh-eating bacteria says his daughter is now breathing on her own. Aimee Copeland was taken off of a ventilator for several hours, representing the latest milestone in her recovery, said her father, Andy Copeland. Aimee "is breathing completely on her own! How cool is that?," her father wrote late Sunday on his blog, where he's been providing regular updates on the 24-year-old's condition. "Aimee is being Aimee," her father added in the latest update.

This month marks the debut of Lotus Tissue Repair , a Cambridge company that’s developing a treatment for a rare genetic disease called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. The disease may not be well known, but the folks behind the start-up certainly are. Lotus has closed a $26 million Series A financing round led by Boston-based Third Rock Ventures . Cofounders include Philip Reilly, a Third Rock partner and a clinical geneticist by training, and Mark de Souza, a veteran of Cambridge biotech Dyax . The disease only affects about 300 people in the United States, but...

Raising levels of "good" cholesterol may not be so good for you after all. A study published Wednesday by Boston-area scientists challenges the long-held idea that HDL cholesterol actively protects against heart disease, finding that people with genes that boosted their HDL did not have a lowered risk of heart attacks. In the study in the medical journal The Lancet, a team led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute examined the health of more than 100,000 people, some of them with genetic variations that elevated their...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The shocking self-diagnosis dawned slowly but inevitably on Dr. Richard K. Olney, a top neurologist who dedicated his career to helping those afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease. Three surgeries to relieve a compressed disk in his back did not solve the weakness that started in his right knee and spread to both legs. When his arms started to fail, he knew he was in the grips of a neurological disorder. Then his worst fears were realized: He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

LATIF NASSER was in the home stretch of a fascinating article about culture and mental illness ("The pibloktoq problem," Ideas, Jan. 8) when, suddenly, chronic fatigue syndrome arose as a candidate for "culture-bound" mental illness. Those of us who know anyone who suffers from one of the poorly understood immune disorders knows how physical these diseases really are. It's true that chronic fatigue is unknown in many societies; however, as a poorly understood disease, it is commonly misdiagnosed, or dismissed, as are so many other diseases that...

City health clinics in Manchester, N.H., are no longer test for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV starting Friday due to funding cuts by the state. The Manchester Health Department said the testing is ending because the state cut funding in its budget for the services. The services had included confidential diagnosis, testing and treatment as well as confidential HIV testing and counseling. None of those services will be offered. The department recommends that people seeking those services should contact their doctor or go to a community health center, hospital emergency department or...

Last in a series of occasional stories about the Vincent family's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Bruce Vincent sits at a table in a stark room at Massachusetts General Hospital's Charlestown research center, just a few minutes into what will be an hourlong test of his fading memory. "Next, I will read you a list of words," says research assistant Natacha Lorius, who sits across the table from him. "I need you to repeat the words back to me, in any order. "Suds, noose, spree, proxy, simile, nectar," she says, reading slowly from a list of about 15 words.

Residents of Lincoln and surrounding towns are invited to learn more about ticks and Lyme disease at a talk by an infectious disease consultant. The program will be at 3:30 p.m. on June 3 at Bemis Hall, 15 Bedford Road. Dr. Sam Donta, a retired medical school professor affiliated with Falmouth Hospital, will lead the free presentation.

Tufts University announced Wednesday that it intends to seek approval to build a 1,700-square-foot biosafety level 3 research laboratory within an existing building on the campus of its School of Medicine on Harrison Avenue, in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood. The school said that the facility will allow its researchers to find new ways to prevent and treat serious infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis. A biosafety level 3 lab is defined by regulators as one in which work is done with germs that may cause serious or potentially lethal disease if...

NEW YORK - In a clinical trial that could lead to treatments that prevent Alzheimer's disease, people who are genetically guaranteed to suffer from the disease years from now - but who do not yet have any symptoms - will for the first time be given a drug intended to stop them from developing it, federal officials announced Tuesday. Specialists say the study will be one of only a very few ever conducted to test prevention treatments for any genetically predestined disease. In Alzheimer's research, the trial is unprecedented, "the first to focus on people who are...

A small study raises more concern about the long-term consequences of brain injuries suffered by thousands of soldiers — suggesting they may be at risk of developing the same degenerative brain disease as some retired football players. Autopsies of four young veterans found the earliest signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in their brain tissue, Boston researchers reported Wednesday. They compared the brain tissue of some of the youngest athletes ever found with signs of early CTE, in their teens and 20s, and concluded the abnormalities were nearly identical.

The parents of a young Georgia woman battling a flesh-eating bacterial infection say they've learned to read lips and are now able to communicate with their daughter. Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Monday, Andy Copeland says his daughter Aimee Copeland told them she was thirsty, and that ice cream is the first thing she wants when she's able to eat on her own. Copeland says in online updates that 24-year-old Aimee Copeland will lose her fingers but doctors hope to save the palms of her hands, which could allow her to use prosthetics.

Doctors say a woman fighting a flesh-decaying bacteria she contracted after a zip line accident will lose her hands and remaining foot to the infection. But Aimee Copeland's father says the 24-year-old college student is improving. Andy Copeland told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ( http://bit.ly/ITgEtP) on Thursday his daughter is "coherent and alert. " Doctors treating her at an Augusta hospital say there is no indication of any brain damage and her lungs are slowly healing, but her hands and remaining foot will have to be amputated.

CONCORD, N.H. -- State health officials say a 20-year-old Newton woman died Friday of Eastern equine encephalitis. This marks the fifth confirmed case of Triple E in the state this year but the first time someone has died. Health officials said the woman was taken to a Boston hospital on Sept. 3 with symptoms of the disease. An initial test was inconclusive, according to Dr. Jose Montero, the state epidemiologist. A subsequent test confirmed yesterday that she had the disease, he said.

LSU assistant coach Steve Kragthorpe has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and is relinquishing his duties as offensive coordinator, but is remaining on the Tigers' staff. Kragthorpe, who was hired during the offseason, will remain as the quarterbacks' coach while Greg Studrawa has been elevated to offensive coordinator. The 46-year-old Kragthorpe is the former head coach at Louisville (2007-09) and at Tulsa (2003-06). He replaced Gary Crowton on the LSU staff after Crowton left to take a position at Maryland.

Former 1960s teen pop idol Bobby Vee says he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The 69-year-old, born Robert Velline in Fargo, N.D., says on his website that he was diagnosed last year. Vee was catapulted to stardom after the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP "Big Bopper" Richardson in a 1959 plane crash en route to Moorhead, Minn. Vee and his friends filled in for the trio at the Moorhead performance and soon after that he recorded his first single, "Suzie Baby," for Soma Records in Minneapolis.

WASHINGTON - The first new case of mad cow disease in the United States since 2006 has been discovered in a dairy cow in California, but health authorities said Tuesday that the animal never was a threat to the nation's food supply. The infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the United States, was found as part of an Agriculture Department surveillance program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease. No meat from the cow was bound for the food supply, said John Clifford, the department's chief veterinary officer.