Health and Wellbeing

There may soon be help for people who have been rendered functionally deaf by problems of the middle ear. Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology have developed an implant that bypasses the defective middle ear, transmitting sounds to the inner ear by sending vibrations right through the skull bone.  Read More

One of the quirkier innovations Gizmag has clapped eyes on at this year's CES, the HAPIfork is an electronic eating utensil that monitors the extent and rate of your eating. The HAPIfork was originally developed for clinical use to encourage slower eating, with the aim of combating weight gain from hurried eating that some research suggests doesn't give the body the time it needs to feel full from more moderate food intake. Additionally, HAPILABS claims that its HAPIfork will reduce digestive problems and gastric reflux associated with rapid ingestion.  Read More

Despite decades of study, scientists remained unsure as to how insulin binds to the insulin receptor on the surface of cells to allow them to take up sugar from the blood and transform it into energy. Now, a definitive answer has now been found with a team of scientists capturing the first three-dimensional images of insulin “docking” to its receptor. It is hoped that the new knowledge can be exploited to develop new and improved insulin medications to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes.  Read More

If the clostridium difficile bacterium becomes over-abundant in a person’s colon, the results can include gastrointestinal problems such as severe diarrhea. Ordinarily, c. difficile populations are kept in check by the usually-present beneficial gut bacteria. If those “good” bacteria are killed off as a side effect of taking antibiotics, however, the nasties can take over. The treatment? Well ... it often involves having another person’s stool implanted in your gut via enema. Yikes. Fortunately, a less icky treatment is in the works, that involves the use of a “synthetic poop” known as RePOOPulate.  Read More

If someone asked you what you can do with an iPhone, you could say playing games, listening to music, watching videos and even making phone calls. One thing that you probably wouldn't mention is checking your blood oxygen saturation. But you can now add that to the list, thanks to Masimo's iSpO2 pulse oximeter.  Read More

A small company in the U.K. is developing an affordable, hand-held device that will not only diagnose malaria in the field, but will also read DNA markers that suggest which antimalarial drugs will be most effective for treatment. If fielded, such a device could help alleviate the 200+ million cases of malaria per year, as well as prevent some of the nearly one million deaths associated with malarial illness.  Read More

Scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have successfully reprogrammed ordinary heart cells to become exact replicas of so-called “pacemaker” heart cells. Such replica cells could conceivably one day be used instead of electronic pacemakers, in patients with heart disease.  Read More

Heart attack and stroke-causing plaque deposits in the arteries are typically preceded by an inflammation of the arteries in those same areas. Therefore, if doctors could be aware of those inflamed regions before plaque deposits formed and problems such as chest pains arose, a lot of hardship could potentially be avoided. Well, that soon may be possible, thanks to some tiny bubbles.  Read More

Scientists at The Rockefeller University have found that harnessing proteins from the human immune system can suppress the HIV virus in mice. Potentially, this could lead to a therapeutic approach to treating the virus that does not require a daily application of drugs.  Read More