News by Subject Medicine & Health

Treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) with the commonly prescribed Avodart (Dutsteride) may put men at an increased risk for diabetes, elevated cholesterol levels, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and worsening erectile dysfunction.

A major new insight into how hepatitis B virus works could pave the way for new drug treatments for the infection which is the major cause of liver cancer worldwide.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease can progress to cirrhosis and eventual liver disease. Family members of individuals diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease are at a higher risk for developing the disease themselves. This week in the JCI, a clinical trial led by Rohit Loomba at UCSD reports that these family members are also at an elevated risk for liver fibrosis.

As the obesity epidemic continues, new data shed light on which nutrients and what quantity of those nutrients promote health or disease. In the American Gastroenterological Association journal, Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, scientists report on the role of macronutrients in the development of metabolically unhealthy obesity -- cases where patients have diseases with obesity as the root cause, specifically nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Researchers have identified the mechanism which causes a build-up of fat in the liver in a disease affecting one in five in the UK -- and were able to reverse it in a mouse model.

A new report provides an overview of incidence, mortality, and survival rates and trends for liver cancer, a cancer for which death rates have doubled in the United States since the mid-1980s

New research from Sydney's Westmead Institute for Medical Research highlights the potential for zinc to be used as a simple and effective therapeutic against viral infections such as hepatitis C and influenza.