Changing epidemiology of hepatitis A infection.
Viral hepatitis continues to be a major public health problem in India. Since the first officially reported epidemic of viral hepatitis in 1955 at Delhi (1), many outbreaks of hepatitis have occurred in different parts of the country (1-3). In India, hepatitis A virus (HAV) is still a major...

Premature recommendations.
I refer to a recent article based on a presentation by Dr. Dana E. King of the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston ("Moderate Drinking Cut Heart Event Risks by 38%," April 1, p. 1). I was excited to hear that former nondrinkers who started drinking moderately...

Bullous pemphigoid managed with methotrexate.
Low-dose methotrexate combined with topical betamethasone dipropionate was a sale and effective treatment for bullous pemphigoid in a retrospective study conducted by Dr. Petra Kjellman and colleagues. For the past 50 years, glucocorticoids have been the mainstay of treatment for bullous pemphigoid (BP), but the high doses...

Co-morbidities among injecting drug users with HIV in India--challenges in clinical management.
Asia currently faces an escalating HIV/AIDS epidemic with more than 8.3 million people living with HIV. In many parts of Asia, HIV epidemics have been largely driven by injection drug use. HIV rates greater than 20 per cent among injecting drug users (IDUs) have been reported in many countries,...

Premature recommendations.
It must be possible to be excited and uncomfortable at the same time, because I cringed when I read a recent article based on a presentation by Dr. Dana E. King of the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston ("Moderate Drinking Cuts Heart Event Risks by 38%," April 2008,...

Every breath you make tells of all your aches: scientists look at exhaled compounds to diagnose ills.
Scientists would like to take your breath away. Literally. Exhaled vapor holds clues to your health, revealing much more than what you ate for lunch. In recent years, researchers have been scrutinizing the misty mixture of molecules with fervor, seeking evidence of conditions ranging from sleep apnea...

Focus on blood-borne viruses.
This article highlights the rates of incidence and transmission of three well-documented BBVs. It includes information on where to find the latest legislation for safe handling of sharps and what to do following a needle-stick incident. The prevalence of blood-borne viruses (BBVs) is increasing at an alarming...

Am J Clin Nutr: Pharmacokinetics of a single, large dose of cholecalciferol.
2008;87:688-691. BACKGROUND: There is much interest in dosing vitamin D intermittently for patient convenience and long-term adherence. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to characterize the time course and response of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (calcidiol) to a large oral dose of cholecalciferol. DESIGN: One group (30 subjects) was supplemented with...

Max New York to raise its paid-up capital to Rs 2,650 cr.
Byline: Viney Sharma CHANDIGARH: MAX New York Life Insurance's paid-up capital will be in the range of Rs 2,650 crore by 2011. On December 31, 2007, the company had a paid-up capital of Rs 907 crore compared with Rs 657 crore by the end of 2006. ...

Hepatocellular carcinoma: management of an increasingly common problem.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common cancer that typically occurs in the setting of cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis virus infections. Hepatitis B and C account for approximately 80% of cases worldwide. HCC is currently the fifth most common malignancy in men and the eighth in women worldwide; its incidence...