Health bites
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, may have found a new natural product that can relieve pain - dehydrocorybulbine, a compound found in the roots of the flowering plant Corydalis, a member of the poppy family.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, may have found a new natural product that can relieve pain - dehydrocorybulbine, a compound found in the roots of the flowering plant Corydalis, a member of the poppy family. Reporting in the journal Current Biology, they say the extract dealt with all types of pain in animals - acute, inflammatory and chronic - and doesn't appear to lose effectiveness with time. Corydalis plants grow mainly in central eastern China, where underground tubers are ground and boiled in hot vinegar to treat pain. More testing for toxicity is needed before doctors should consider prescribing it to patients, say the scientists.
High-risk adults between the ages of 55 and 80 should receive annual lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography, according to final recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force published in Annals of Internal Medicine. High-risk adults include heavy smokers or former heavy smokers who have quit within the past 15 years. In Hong Kong, about 90 per cent of male lung cancer patients are smokers, according to the Hospital Authority.