...medicine and health care news

Equilibrioception or sense of balance is one of the physiological senses. It allows humans and animals to walk etc. without falling.

Neurons (also known as neurones, nerve cells and nerve fibers) are electrically excitable cells in the nervous system that function to process and transmit information.

A raw food diet consists of uncooked and unprocessed, and often organic foods. A raw food diet consists fully of foods which have not been heated above a certain temperature.

A breech birth (also known as breech presentation) refers to the position of the baby in the uterus such that it will be delivered buttocks first as opposed to the normal head first position.

In the anatomy of mammals, the diaphragm is a shelf of muscle extending across the bottom of the ribcage.

Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining human health or restoring it through the treatment of disease and injury.

Canola is a trademarked cultivar of the rapeseed plant from which rapeseed oil is obtained. It was initially bred in Canada by Keith Downey and Baldur Stefansson in the 1970s.

Diarrhea (American English) or diarrhoea (Commonwealth English) is a condition in which the sufferer has frequent and watery, chunky, or loose bowel movements.

In chemistry and biology, catalysis is the acceleration (increase in rate) of a chemical reaction by means of a substance, called a catalyst, that is itself not consumed by the overall reaction.

A soft drink is a drink that does not contain alcohol, as opposed to hard drinks, that do. In general, the term is used only for cold beverages.

Palliative care is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of the symptoms of a disease or slows its progress rather than providing a cure.

A face transplant is a skin graft that involves replacing part or all of a patient's face with a donor face.

Stress is a medical term for a wide range of strong external stimuli, both physiological and psychological, which can cause a physiological response called the general adaptation syndrome.

The anticonvulsants, sometimes also called antiepileptics, belong to a diverse group of pharmaceuticals used in prevention of the occurrence of epileptic seizures.

Self-harm (SH) is deliberate injury inflicted by a person upon his or her own body.

Medical researchers believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering.

A prison is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interred.

Firefighting is the act of extinguishing destructive fires. A firefighter fights these fires and prevents destruction of life, property and the environment.

Flatulence is the presence of a mix of gases known as flatus (lat. flatus = "wind") produced by symbiotic bacteria and yeasts living in the gastrointestinal tract of mammals.

Stomach cancer (also called gastric cancer) can develop in any part of the stomach and may spread throughout the stomach and to other organs; particularly the esophagus and the small intestine.

Myosins are a large family of motor proteins found in eukaryotic tissues. They are responsible for actin-based motility. Most myosin molecules are composed of both a head and a tail domain.

Oily fish (oil-rich fish, pelagic fish) are those fish which have oils throughout the fillet and in the belly cavity around the gut, rather than only in the liver like white fish.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of organic compounds with 1 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl.

A panic attack is a period of intense, often temporarily disabling sense of extreme fear or psychological distress, typically of abrupt onset.

Rofecoxib is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug that was used in the treatment of osteoarthritis, acute pain conditions, and dysmenorrhoea.

Botulism is a rare but serious paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin, botulin, that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.

Fertility is the ability of people or animals to produce healthy offspring in abundance, and of the earth to bear fruit.

Bruxism is grinding of the teeth. This is an oral para-functional activity observed in most people to some degree. Bruxism includes clenching and/or grinding of the teeth.

The hookworm is a nematode parasite that lives in the small intestine of its host, which may be a mammal such as a dog, cat, or human.

A hormone is a chemical messenger from one cell (or group of cells) to another. All multicellular organisms produce hormones including plants.

Memory is the ability of the brain to store, retain, and subsequently recall information.