87 The story of HIV infection over the last 25 years has shed light on every aspect of medicine and its political context in our time. For most Africans and […]
Richard Lehman’s weekly review of medical journals
Gilgamesh and the Barmaid
A fragment ?from Sippar, c 1700 BCE Tablet iii The alewife spoke to him, to Gilgamesh, “Gilgamesh, where do you roam? […]
Plant of the Week: Hierochloe odorata
This is a species of grass found around the Northern hemisphere, known in Ireland as “holy grass […]
JAMA 10 Jan 2007
Clopidogrel is a mongrelly sort of name, with some speakers emphasising the dog and others the clopido. It is of course very widely used by cardiologists, especially to prevent occlusion […]
NEJM 11 Jan 2007
One respondent to my “Nightmare in NEJM Street […]
BMJ 13 Jan 2007
This issue of the new-style BMJ is full of well-presented interesting material, but as I’ve already said, none of it is original clinical research. […]
Lancet 13 Jan 2007
Your biological age is written in your telomeres, which shorten every time your cells divide. Frequently dividing cells like leucocytes lose about 50 binary pairs of DNA nucleotides per year, […]
Ann Intern Med 8 Jan 2007
A systematic review attempts to look at all studies which compare generalist with specialist care. This is doomed for various reasons discussed in the accompanying editorial, not least because most […]
JAMA 3 Jan 2007
Myocardial infarction should, as we know, be treated by immediate percutaneous coronary intervention, but even this doesn’t always restore an adequate circulation to the ischaemic area, so we can expect […]
NEJM 4 Jan 2007
Gene signatures in cancer cells are beginning to tell us which patients are most likely to survive. This sophisticated Taiwanese laboratory study identifies a five-gene signature which predicts good outcome […]