Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label arthritis

Vaccine for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a widespread complaint. It is usually a malady of the elderly, but the young can succumb to it too. About the only treatment available is replacement of joints with artificial ones and analgesics. A team at the University of Queensland has taken a new approach. They have developed a vaccine. Many diseases are caused by the body attacking its own tissue. Arthritis is one of these. If the immune response is suppressed, inflammation decreases. This is how the new vaccine works. All Westerners have high inflammation levels. This may be a good thing to fight injuries. However, continued long term inflammation does damage to the body. Once switched on and the immediate danger solved it needs to be turned off. The new method involves taking a sample of the patient's immune cells which are then modified in the lab. This is injected back into the patient. The immune system no longer sees the modified peptide as foreign. Other problematic...

Dangerous Love - Gonorrhoea

Millions of dollars is being spent in HIV research.  It is mainly spread by sexual contact. However, venereal diseases in general are being forgotten. Antibiotics are becoming ineffective in combating venereal diseases. Such infections have been around for thousands of years and there is still no cure. Antibiotics used to "knock it on the head" in the past. This luxury no longer exists. A serious resistant strain of gonorrhoea is extant in Australia and New Zealand. It has now arrived on our doorstep. A8806 is very similar to H041 which is absolutely untreatable. Different resistant strains have appeared in Japan, the US and Norway. Because people today are more promiscuous than ever "the clap" is spreading extremely fast. The disease affects the whole body invading mucous membranes such as the sexual organs, eyes and throat. Arthritis, heart infections and meningitis can result. Most people have serious symptoms. Pain when urinating, bl...