Medical researchers in Spain say they are close to being able to grow human hearts for transplants outside the body.Doctors have already grown and transplanted a number of human organs, including windpipes, ears, tear ducts and an artery, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.Now, they want to recreate a heart. Researchers in Spain say although the country has the highest number of organ donors in the world, only about 10 percent of patients in need of a new heart get one.Dr. Francisco Fernand

Strabismus refers to the condition where, when a person is looking at an object, one eye looks directly at the object while the other eye is looking elsewhere. Pediatric strabismus is a common condition seen in approximately 2 percent of children. This can be a cosmetic problem, and may cause a developmental delay in normal visual function, and poor vision. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment is important. Strabismus is divided into various forms depending on the expression type. Intermitte

From horseback riding to physical exercise, new therapies designed to balance the brain and better emotional conditions are raising hopes to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder without drugs. Chung Yoo-sook, a doctor at the department of neuropsychiatrics at Samsung Medical Center, plans to run a three-month clinical trial to test the effectiveness of a horseback riding program in treating ADHD children. Typical treatment methods for ADHD patients are mostly drug-based, using attentio

U.S. children ages 2-4 who drank skim milk or 1 percent milk had higher body mass index than those drinking whole milk, researchers say. Rebecca Scharf and Mark DeBoer, both of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and Ryan Demmer of Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University said the study involved 10,700 pre-school children. At age 2 the children body mass index was calculated and parents were asked what type of milk they gave their children. The children, a representative

 Prescribing drugs to boost memory and thinking abilities in healthy children and teens to study is misguided, U.S. researchers say. Study author Dr. William Graf of Yale University in New Haven, Conn., said some parents request doctors to prescribe attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs for their children who don't meet the criteria for ADHD, to help them study for tests."Doctors caring for children and teens have a professional obligation to always protect the best interests of the chi

I feel that more people are becoming worried about lung cancer these days. I have had students in their 20s come in with chest pain, who were found to have normal lungs, but insisted on a full check up because their uncle died of lung cancer. Of course, lung cancer can cause chest pain. This does not mean that all chest pain is caused by lung cancer. Many patients, on the other hand, can be diagnosed with lung cancer even without any symptoms.Get tested if you see blood in your phlegmThere are s

High-performance microscopes are powerful tools in dental treatment, but only a handful of university hospitals and professional clinics possess such equipment.These microscopes magnify the treatment area by 10 to 26 times, which allows dentists to detect miniscule cracks and nerve damage in the teeth that are invisible to the naked eye. In the past, it was difficult to detect the precise location of infection, and thus dentists frequently removed healthy teeth surrounding the infection point as

The Korea Food and Drug Administration declared every Wednesday of the third week of the month as “No Soup Day,” aiming to reduce the nation’s sodium intake. Koreans usually eat meals with soups including “jjigae,” or Korean-style stew, which contains large amounts of salt. The KFDA hopes that the designation of No Soup Day would encourage people to eat less salt.According to a national nutritional survey in 2011, Koreans consume the most salt -- approximately 30 percent of total intake -- from

A study suggested that melittin, a toxin found in bee stings, could destroy HIV cells and lead to the development of related drugs. Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis argued that the potent toxin in bee stings could selectively kill HIV cells if attached to nanoparticles. The melittin attached to the nanoparticles could rip holes in the outer layer of the HIV cells and destroy them, leaving other body cells intact, the research paper claimed. While most anti-HI

A dentist was detained by police on suspicions of pulling out a patient’s teeth after a quarrel over a medical bill, a Spanish daily reported Monday.According to ABC newspaper, a 39-year-old dentist from Zaragoza is accused of removing several implanted teeth from a middle-aged female patient in February. The victim -- who was being treated by the doctor for months -- asked the dentist why her bill had amounted to thousands of euros, which led to a heated argument. The dentist then sat her down

Symptoms related to the brain can include loss of consciousness, headache, dizziness, tingling of the skin, language disturbance, double vision, gait abnormalities, memory loss, sensory loss, and abnormal movements such as tremor and rigidity. Headaches and dizziness can arise from brain disorders, but abnormalities may not present themselves upon examination even with the presence of symptoms. People may feel the need to undergo tests, in particular, a brain MRI to confirm the diagnosis when th