(With so many good blog posts and news stories out there - more than I can write about - I’m going to test posting once a week with highlights of the stories that caught my attention. Hopefully you will find them interesting too!)

Allergies

The journal Allergy reports that a new sublingual immunotherapy, called ‘SLIT’, shows promise in treating cat allergies by placing allergen containing drops under the tongue.

In other allergy news, Ruth from Allergizer reports that a new process to inactivate peanut allergens has been discovered.

Cancer

At Lively Women Kristen discusses the recent survey conducted by the American Cancer Society indicating that many Americans do not really have a good understanding of cancer - many people tend to believe popular wisdom rather than facts about cancer.

New data suggests that dietary calcium may reduce the risk of developing breast cancer - read more from Gloria at Dairy Calcium May Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer

Ramunas has a really informative post at www.cancer-genetics.com about gene-expression profiling oncotests: Gene-expression Profiling in Cancer | A Brief Review

That whole cancer and low cholesterol thing that came out this week - I was avoiding it, but thankfully Dr. Val wrote a good post about it. She describes it as a “gross misinterpretation of the metanalysis”.

Biotechnology

Two really cool things this week: a neuroprosthetic chip made to be implanted in the brain which may make it possible in the future for paralyzed people to control a prosthetic device with their thoughts. And a robotic ankle that is light and flexible and also allows people to walk more normally.

Nutrition

At Eating Fabulous Ruth brought up a good point about eating fruit peels and pesticides - we’re usually told the peeling is good for you - has more vitamins, fiber, etc. - but much pesticide residue is left behind?

Longevity

FuturePundit reports the news that in states where people take the latest drugs they have longer life expectancies. I wouldn’t have expected this and didn’t know which state you lived in made that much difference.

Other News

Hsien-Hsien Lei ran a poll on her blog concerning whether or not you would like to have your whole genome sequenced. She also wrote about the Personal Genome Project - which sounds pretty cool, except there is no way I would have my medical records made public - my DNA - yes!, but not the medical records.