TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Pandemic lockdowns may have led fewer Americans to seek pain treatment last year, but folks who did seek help had higher-than-usual odds of receiving dangerous opioid painkillers, a new study says. And that could lead to a worsening of the opioid epidemic, researchersContinue Reading

MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A gene therapy that could provide a permanent cure for sickle cell disease continues to show success through a third wave of patients, researchers report. The therapy, LentiGlobin, restored normal blood function in 35 sickle cell patients who had the one-time procedure, accordingContinue Reading

THURSDAY, Nov. 18, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Gene therapy shows promise in reducing, and even halting, potentially life-threatening bleeding events in people with hemophilia, researchers report. Hemophilia A is the most common inherited bleeding disorder, affecting one in 5,000 males worldwide. It’s caused by a missing coagulation factor called FVIII.Continue Reading

TUESDAY, Nov. 16, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Heart failure patients who fit a specific profile can benefit from injection of stem cells delivered directly into their heart muscle, a new study finds. Patients with mild or moderate heart failure who have high levels of inflammation responded well to the stemContinue Reading

THURSDAY, Nov. 4, 2021 (HealthDay News) — An experimental gene therapy to boost the effectiveness of the Parkinson’s drug levodopa yielded promising results in mice, researchers report. As the loss of dopamine-releasing neurons advances in late-stage Parkinson’s, levodopa is less able to ease movement problems caused by the disease, whichContinue Reading

THURSDAY, Oct. 21, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Nine of 10 patients with so-called “bubble boy” immune disease who received gene therapy about a decade ago are still disease-free, researchers report. The gene therapy was developed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to treat the rare and deadly immuneContinue Reading