Researchers have explained why our immune system usually makes us worse while trying to make us hale and hearty.

The research offers a new perspective on a component of the immune system known as the acute-phase response, a series of systemic changes in blood protein levels, metabolic function, and physiology that sometimes occurs when bacteria, viruses, or other pathogens invade the body.

This response puts healthy cells and tissue under serious stress, and is actually the cause of many of the symptoms we associate with being sick. [Read more...]

Benny can smell lung cancer in human breath samples.

The two-year-old Australian shepherd dog is among four sniffer dogs in Germany trained to detect lung cancer in breath samples of patients, their predictions of the disease matching standard medical diagnosis seven out of 10 times.

A team of doctors and dog trainers has trained sniffer dogs to distinguish between breath samples of healthy persons and lung cancer patients. Their experiments are described in today’s issue of the European Respiratory Journal. [Read more...]

Research has discovered that obese men are three times more likely to see the cancer spread beyond the prostate than those of a healthy weight.

The study suggests rising levels of obesity in recent decades could be an important factor behind higher rates of prostate cancer, although the fact the population is aging is thought to be even more important.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina, made their conclusions after looking at 287 men whose diseased prostates had been removed, who had then seen cancer return.

All had been given chemicals called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) to limit levels of natural testosterone, which is thought to trigger prostate cancer in some cases.

Those who were obese were three times more likely to have seen the returning cancer spread beyond the prostate after five years as those of a healthy weight, a process known as progression.

Dr Christopher Keto, lead author of the study, presented to the American Urological Association’s annual conference on Sunday, said: “Over the past decades, there has been increasing prevalence of obesity in the U.S. and Europe, and a high rate of prostate cancer that is the second-most lethal cancer for men.” [Read more...]