BACKGROUND Increasing resistance of oral pathogens to conventional antibacterial agents has resulted to find alternative therapies to overcome resistance development problems; hence this in vitro study was carried out to investigate the efficacy of photoelimination of Streptococcus mutans with two methods of photodynamic and photothermal therapy. METHODS Standard Suspensions of S. mutans were...

INTRODUCTION While the beneficial effects of prenatal yoga have been reported in recent years, little is known about its effectiveness in pregnant Japanese women. Despite several adverse effects, ritodrine hydrochloride is frequently prescribed to suppress preterm labor in Japan, and its usage may therefore indicate cases of preterm labor. This study aimed to clarify the association between pre...

Celiac disease is a lifelong immune-mediated systemic disorder that may develop in genetically predisposed individuals when exposed to dietary gluten. Its prevalence is estimated to be 1-3% in the European Community; in particular in children studies report a prevalence ranging from 1/500 to 1/93. Awareness of its wide clinical spectrum is mandatory and relevant to all physicians, and in partic...

Therapeutic failure of benznidazole (BZ) is widely documented in Chagas disease and has been primarily associated with variations in the drug susceptibility of Trypanosoma cruzi strains. In humans, therapeutic success has been assessed by the negativation of anti-T. cruzi antibodies, a process that may take up to 10 years. A protocol for early screening of the drug resistance of infective strai...

Purpose Manualization is considered to be an integral methodolo-gic component for rigorous research on complementary and alternative therapies. Clinical trial design of manual therapies may be especially challenging since techniques are often individualized and practitioner-dependent. Methods Here we describe our methodology in creating a standardized and reproducible massage intervention tailo...

The use of anthelmintics is strongly limited in organic farming. This may induce a change in the intensity (no of worms) and diversity (proportions of species) of helminth infection. Helminths remain a major preoccupation in organic sheep farming: high levels of infection have been recorded on several farms and helminth diversity is always higher. The helminth infection in milk cattle of northe...

Clostridium difficile-associated disease continues to be one of the leading health concerns worldwide. C. difficile is considered as a causative agent of nosocomial diarrhea that causes serious infection, which may result in death. The incidences of C. difficile infection (CDI) in developed countries have become increasingly high which may be attributed to the emergence of newer epidemic strain...

November 2006 In This Issue ● Bread and Kidney Cancer ● Nursing and CAM ● Occlusion Therapy for Lazy Eye in Children ● Joint Library Conference ● Aromatherapy and Recreational Diving ● CAM for Radiation Therapy ● NBScience International Conference of Biomedical Sciences ● Inside Natural Standard Natural Standard provides high quality, evidence-based information about complementary and alternati...

Many long-term, follow-up studies have shown that steroids are effective in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) who have undergone thymectomy. However, few long-term studies have documented the response of MG to steroids alone. We describe two patients who successfully resolved the symptoms of MG without myasthenic crisis or serious side effects by steroid treatment without thymectomy or other...

Diabetes is a significant health problem in the United States. There is a large body of research that explains the biological and pathoetiological cause(s) of this increasingly prevalent disease. There is also an increasing body of research that explores the psychosocial causes of diabetes mellitus type 2. The association between stressful work organization and diabetes has been established as ...