Parkinson’s disease (PD) belongs to a group of conditions called motor system disorders, which are the result of the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells. The four primary symptoms of PD are tremor, or trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face; rigidity, or stiffness of the limbs and trunk; bradykinesia, or slowness of movement; and postural instability, or impaired balance and coordination. As these symptoms become more pronounced, patients may have difficulty walking, talking, or completing other simple tasks. PD usually affects people over the age of 50. Early symptoms of PD are subtle and occur gradually. In some people the disease progresses more quickly than in others. As the disease progresses, the shaking, or tremor, which affects the majority of PD patients may begin to interfere with daily activities. Other symptoms may include depression and other emotional changes; difficulty in swallowing, chewing, and speaking; urinary problems or constipation; skin problems; and sleep disruptions. There are currently no blood or laboratory tests that have been proven to help in diagnosing sporadic PD. Therefore the diagnosis is based on medical history and a neurological examination. The disease can be difficult to diagnose accurately. Doctors may sometimes request brain scans or laboratory tests in order to rule out other diseases.
At present, there is no cure for PD, but medications or surgery can provide relief from the symptoms.
What is HIV ?
A chronic, slowly progressive infectious disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which enters the body and slowly destroys the human immune system. With the virus infected people known as HIV – infected, HIV-seropositive or HIV viruses.
HIV and AIDS are not the same thing, but the virus can lead to the disease. Watch this video and learn more about HIV and AIDS
The heart is a muscle like any other in the body. It needs blood flow to supply oxygen to allow it to do work. When there isn’t enough oxygen, the muscle starts to suffer, and when there is no oxygen, the muscle starts to die.
Heart muscle gets its blood supply from arteries that start in the aorta and run on the surface of the heart, known as the coronary arteries. The right coronary artery supplies the right ventricle of the heart and the inferior (lower) portion of the left ventricle. The left anterior descending coronary artery supplies the majority of the left ventricle, while the circumflex artery supplies the back of the left ventricle. Continue reading »
Cynthia Kenyon is a structural biologist who trained at MIT and at Cambridge University under the legendary Sydney Brenner, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Medicine. In 1993 she stunned the world by announcing that her lab had suppressed a single gene in Caenorhabditis elegans worms—nematodes only a millimeter long favored by geneticists as model organisms—and doubled their normal life span. Recently, with a few more changes, she has extended their life span sixfold. Usually the worms live about 20 days. Her worms lived more than 125 days. More startling, the worms remained robust almost until they died. Kenyon is the Herbert Boyer Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco. She is also the cofounder of Elixir Pharmaceuticals, a company that plans to apply her findings and those of other researchers to create a human antiaging pill.
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