A Danish study finds that patients who were hospitalized for pneumonia and taking statins at the time (cholesterol-lowering drugs) had one-third lower death rate than those not taking statins.

According to experts, the findings are preliminary and further research is needed to prescribe statins as infection fighters.

Dr. Reimar W, Thomsen, who led the study, says: “We must interpret these findings with care.” The study has been published in Oct. 27 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Thomsen adds, “Staists have an anti-inflammatory effect, and we have just begun to understand that systemic infections like pneumonia cause inflammation can possibly trigger many adverse reactions in human bodies.”

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Researchers find a considerable increase in HIV infection among injecting drug users.

A report that has been published in the British medical journal The Lancet shows that almost 3 million self-injecting drug users in the world are HIV-positive.

More than 40% drug users are infected in nine countries. The authors of the report showed concern about the lack of data from African countries and said the risk factors were greater in the continent. …Click here to read more

“Cryptosporidium parvum”, a typical protozoa-infection that causes acute, watery, and non-bloody diarrhea in small children in developing countries and immune-compromised patients is becoming a concern for scientists the world over. This infection may also cause anorexia related watery diarrhea in HIV infection. Such an infection will result in to nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.

Resistivity property of these protozoa to the water chlorination has caused massive epidemic in the United States. Scientists have also expressed that it has attained a status of a ‘prospective bio-terrorism agent’. There are neither vaccines nor effective drugs available to respond to these multiple threats to human health.

A major breakthrough has been achieved as scientists at the ‘Brandeis University’ and the ‘University of Georgia’ has been successful in identifying the lead compounds that can resist the attacks of this protozoa. In the published details of this research in the journal “Chemistry and Biology”, the scientists hope that their findings will pave the way for further development of an effective antibiotic treatment.

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