54
The CDC has made available online its nCoV test kit. Briefly,the kit contains primers and probes for real-time reverse-transcriptase PCR, as well as instructions for appropriate use and (critically) controls and guidelines to avoid false positives and negatives. Kits from different countries may use slightly different primers and probes, though since they ...
33
I'm going to take a shot at putting a whole lot of information into a small answer, so let me know what parts need more explanation. To any others experienced with closure, I am certainly skipping plenty of steps and ideas in attempt to convey the general.
******A general warning that graphic surgical images are used below.******
The Setup:
You asked ...
29
You are correct. For serious diseases, it would be unethical to withhold the existing treatment (Treatment A) for a placebo. Treatment A is called "standard of care", and new treatments are compared to this.
27
Pigs and swine are so poisonous that you can hardly kill them with strychnine or other poisons.
This is a non-sequitur. An animal being poisonous does not imply that it resists to poison, nor the reverse is true.
In any case, to the extent of my knowledge pigs do not produce any specific poison. Obviously, if you could provide a more specific claim, this ...
25
There are actually 3+ types of test kits widely used to diagnose diseases caused by viruses. We can check for the nucleic acid of the virus, the antigen of the virus that would cause an immune response or the antibody produced during the immune response of the patient. Since we've already got the whole sequence of the nCoV, the test kits normally used this ...
23
High oxygen concentration can be deleterious; it can induce oxidative
damage.
The systemic blood circulation would supply oxygen to the
"oxygen-deprived" lung.
Moreover, Mycobacteria can survive in anaerobic conditions.
And what if both lungs are infected? There are many flaws in the proposed therapy.
Adding this point from one of the comments below:
...
21
Doctors would recommend the use of barrier protection for couples where both partners are HIV+ because the virus can mutate. Mutated forms of the virus can become resistant to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) treatments, rendering them ineffective.
The use of barrier protection reduces the risk that a resistant mutant strain of HIV is ...
18
It's worth pointing out that the purpose of the placebo isn't really to test against no treatment, it's to test against the belief of receiving an effective treatment, for both the subject and the researcher. Loooong answer incoming...
Firstly, it's a lovely issue with medical trials that if you get a statistically valid comparison between a group who don'...
16
Necessary conditions
In order for the process culminating in appendiceal rupture to begin, there must first be proximal obstruction of the lumen (the inside cavity of the appendix) that prevents normal communication with the bowel.
Obstruction is most commonly caused by a fecalith, which results from accumulation and inspissation of fecal matter around ...
14
History
Ambroise Paré is credited with being the first to note his observations on Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT) in the 1500 though it is a technology that has been used for centuries (reference). It wasn't until the 1920's that therapeutic experimentation with maggots was instigated by William Baer, a clinical professor in orthopaedic surgery at the ...
14
Medicine is not my field, but I want to point out two things:
The former words have latin (or greek) roots, and historically latin was the international language of science. Therefore, nomenclature in different scientific fields are often based on latin.
The former words describe tissues and the related functions/processes (e.g. renal = kidney + related ...
14
One of the cornerstones of research ethics worldwide is the Nuremberg code, which was formulated shortly after the Second World War and set off by the cruelties performed by the Nazi Doctors. The Declaration of Helsinki, which is currently widely used as the guiding principle of research ethics, was directly inspired by the Nuremberg code.
Interestingly, ...
14
The methodology behind homeopathy is scientific nonsense. If you dilute anything a billion times, it will have no chemical effect, not even if you shake it all the while. So no, homeopathy does nothing for cancer, or any medical condition at all.
Of course plants can have active compounds in them, once scientists have identified those compounds, they can ...
14
Via: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1618889/
Post-mortem examination revealed extensive visceral gout in all diclofenac-treated birds (see electronic supplementary material). Histological examination revealed significant lesions in the kidneys, liver and spleen with extensive uric acid crystal deposition.
Via: https://repository.up.ac.za/...
13
The normal cardiac cycle is comprised of two distinct phases: the systolic phase in which the heart contracts, ejecting the blood, followed by the the diastolic phase when the cardiac muscle relaxes, refilling the heart with blood.
This cycle is assured by specialised cardiomyocytes (Cardiac muscle cells) that conduct electrical impulses through the heart. ...
13
Isn't it illogical to give more of insulin for a deficit amount of receptors?
Seems like there is some confusion in the definition of type-2 DM itself. According to the American Diabetes Association:
If you have type 2 diabetes your body does not use insulin properly. This is called insulin resistance. At first, your pancreas makes extra insulin to make ...
answered Feb 28 '17 at 15:24
another 'Homo sapien'
13.7k5 gold badges54 silver badges89 bronze badges
12
The combination of these two reports from the CDC give information about the comparative prevalence of flu infection in the winter (September '12- May '13) and summer (May '13 - September '13). I'm going to assume that 2012-2013 was a fairly representative year as far as the level of detail of "do we get sick more in the winter" goes. Particularly striking ...
11
There are several proposed tests for 2019-2020 novel coronavirus responsible for the Wuhan outbreak. The main techniques these are based on are:
PCR or qPCR targeted amplification
CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing
PCR-based tests are the current standard for diagnosis of viral infections (as these are faster than protein staining and can be made widely available ...
10
It might be better to consider the sampling technology, economic and logistical issues with this question as well as the tech behind the tests.
First, some tests still will want a few milliliters of blood - e.g. cell counts for specific cell types. Then there is the need to create and stock many different kinds of sample collection devices and train the ...
9
The accepted answer is correct but I would like to point out a misunderstanding that has to underly the idea that this would work:
In reality lungs aren't a magical one-way gate for the various gases. Lungs do not extract oxygen from the air, they permit oxygen exchange between the air and the blood. Since the air normally has a higher oxygen level than ...
9
This is true for the beginning of the disease. As a reaction to the reduced sensitivity of the cells in the body to insulin (and thus less uptake of glucose from the blood and a resulting hyperglycemia) the body produces more and more insulin to cope with this problem.
At some point the insulin producing beta cells cannot increase the production anymore and ...
9
Using a single thread for a suture also known as continuous stitching has a major con that it has higher risk of failing if the suture is cut in just one place. So it is generally avoided eventhough it is very easy to do.
On the other hand interrupted stitching ( one thread for each stitch) is favoured because of lesser risk of failing, eventhough it is ...
9
Methanol is highly toxic in humans. As little as 10 ml of pure methanol can destroy the optic nerve and cause permanent blindness, while 30 ml dose is fatal (Vale et al, 2007). However, its toxic effects take hours to come up after ingestion, and antidotes are often helpful in preventing permanent damage.
Methanol exerts its toxic effects by two main ...
answered May 10 '17 at 14:31
another 'Homo sapien'
13.7k5 gold badges54 silver badges89 bronze badges
9
Here is a link to the Public Health Statement for Aluminum produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. There is much more information on the web page but the following are some of the more pertinent points to your question.
Potential Health Effects
Workers
Workers who breathe large amounts of aluminum dusts ...
9
Cigarette smokers are most certainly prone to cancer. See Cecil Medicine, Chapter 183, on the epidemiology of cancer, exposure to tobacco is the most important environmental risk factor for cancer development, at least in the US:
Exposure to tobacco is the single largest cause of cancer in the United States... All forms of tobacco can cause cancer. ...
8
Very simply putting, irregular heat beat means that the pulse is not regular. It can be diagnosed by checking your pulse clinically.
Irregularities are further classified as:
Regularly Irregular: this occurs in heart blocks where every second or third beat is skipped regularly causing a pattern. Usually as time progresses the degree of block worsens and ...
8
There is an interesting and authoritative paper on rearing of larvae of blue bottle flies for debridement purposes, cited below.
Essentially the eggs are disinfected (rinsed) using .25 % chloramine solution (NH2Cl), then the larvae are hatched and reared in aseptic conditions and fed sterilized food. There are some additional controls after initial ...
8
No, there was nothing special about Henrietta Lacks, apart from the fact that her cells have been used for so many years (without her knowledge or consent, by the way). She was not immortal, her tumor cells were. The HeLa cell line comes from her cervical cancer cells. The rest of the cells of her body were not immortal any more than yours or mine are.
Such ...
7
This is a very broad question, so I won't attempt to answer it fully. Instead, I'd recommend starting out by reading the Drug Development and Drug Discovery articles on Wikipedia, and if you have more specific questions after that then feel free to ask them here.
Basically, new drugs (either small-molecule "chemicals" or large-molecule "biologicals") are ...
7
CFTR is the gene which encodes the "Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator", which is a membrane protein. Its function is to transport chloride and other negatively charged ion like thiocyanate ions from the inside of the cell to the outside (into the extra cellular space). This happens along a gradient, meaning the ions flow from the place of ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
