Health | WPN World People News

In the Middle East and North Africa, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are causing a massive amount of premature death and disability. People in Latin America and the Caribbean are living longer on the whole, yet they face increasing threats from chronic diseases. Mortality has declined in many South Asian countries, yet the number of deaths by non-communicable diseases and self-harm has skyrocketed since 1990.

Dengue fever is spreading at an alarming rate among the small population of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR). The epidemic is the worst of its kind in the country’s history, with cases reported in all 17 provinces. Seventy per cent of the 77 deaths reported have been children under age 15.

People are living longer in South Asian countries than ever before, and the region has made tremendous progress in reducing premature death and disability from communicable and nutritional diseases such as pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and malnutrition.

Wild-type and larval zebrafish carrying a mutation in the Scn1a gene (mimicking a severe form of pediatric epilepsy) were used for drug screening.

By lowering the expression of a single gene, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have extended the average lifespan of a group of mice by about 20 percent — the equivalent of raising the average human lifespan by 16 years, from 79 to 95. The research team targeted a gene called mTOR, which is involved in metabolism and energy balance, and may be connected with the increased lifespan associated with caloric restriction.

More than 65 percent of HIV-infected youth had mild to moderate impairments in fine-motor skills, memory, and other cognitive skills, although not enough to affect day-to-day functioning for most, according to a National Institutes of Health network study.