| ‘Silent killer’ as treatment for heart and lung disease
Carbon Monoxide (CO), a gas once dubbed the silent killer by the UKs health and safety executive, could provide a life-saving treatment for an incurable lung and heart condition, report researchers at Harvard Medical School, US. The researchers showed that CO can be used to reverse pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which is caused by uncontrolled proliferation of the smooth muscle cells of the pulmonary arteries blood vessels that carry blood from the heart to the lungs. Uncontrolled proliferation remodels the blood vessels, thickening the blood vessel wall and blocking blood flow. This eventually causes fatal heart failure. .
Japan sighs with relief over birth of a prince
Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth Wednesday to the royal family's first male heir in four decades, easing a succession crisis and quelling an emotional political debate over whether to allow women on the throne. Kiko, 39, underwent a Caesarean section at a Tokyo hospital, bearing a boy who is third in line to the throne after Crown Prince Naruhito and Kiko's husband, Prince Akishino, 40. The baby's name will be announced Tuesday. The arrival of a new prince -- Emperor Akihito's first grandson -- defused a succession dilemma in the coming generation of the royal family, which traces its roots back some 1,500 years. The news was cheered by many Japanese, who still maintain an enduring respect for the imperial family more than 60 years after the late Emperor Hirohito renounced his status as a divinity at the end of World War II.
Cancer death rates still declining
The death rate from most forms of cancer has continued a decline begun in the early 1990s, driven in large part by decreases in lung cancer in men, according to an annual national cancer report released Wednesday. Between 1993 and 2003, deaths from cancer dropped about 16 percent in men and 8 percent in women, the study found. Deaths from lung cancer declined about 15 percent in men. The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer also found recent increases in breast cancer appear to have leveled off, but scientists say it's too soon to call that a trend. They also uncovered a surprising jump in thyroid cancer. "The bottom line is we are making progress," said Ahmedin Jemal, program director for cancer occurrence at the American Cancer Society.
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