DAVIDSON – CVS has reopened the Minute Clinic in its downtown Davidson store, offering treatment for minor illnesses and injuries and health screenings 7 days a week. Read the full story

Chart shows this year’s flu season is producing more visits earlier in the season (SOURCE: State Department of Health)

By DAVID BORAKS
CorneliusNews.Net

The flu season is hitting earlier and harder this fall in North Carolina – and it can be deadly. A dozen North Carolina adults have died from complications of the flu virus since mid-November, including four last week. And state health officials say reports of flu-like illnesses have continued to increase above what’s usually seen at this time of year.

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By NICOLETTE LABRIJN

Everyone has heard of diabetes, but few are well-informed unless they are directly associated with the disease. When most people think of diabetes, they think of the form of diabetes that can be the result of lifestyle and health issues, including weight, diet, lack of exercise, and old age. This is Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. But another form, Type 1, is just as important to learn about: It is a disease where the immune system begins to attack itself causing the pancreas to produce little to no insulin. Read the full story

The MURDOCK Study aims to enroll 50,000 area residents for a long-term health study. (MURDOCK Study/N.C. Research Campus)

By JENNIFER MONTAGUE
CorneliusNews.net

KANNAPOLIS – So you think scientists and doctors are the only ones who make the exciting advances in medicine and disease treatments? Not so—you can play an important role, too, as subjects of the studies and trials that are a major component of medical research.

At the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, researchers are conducting one of the largest general population health studies in recent memory. The MURDOCK Study Community Registry, is a joint venture with David H. Murdock, who provided the name and the funding, and the Duke Translational Medicine Institute. MURDOCK is an abbreviation for Measurement to Understand the Reclassification of Disease of Cabarrus/Kannapolis. Its goal is to create a bank of medical information and tissue samples from 50,000 participants in this region. Researchers can then use this information to gain a better understanding of many different kinds of diseases. Read the full story

Scientists are debating the newsworthiness of a recent discovery that has the potential not to help, but to hurt. Researchers last July in the Netherlands created an airborne version of a dangerous flu virus- in essence “tweaking it genetically to make it more contagious,” according to the New York Times. Now, U.S. government advisers are urging that scientists keep the research private – so it can’t be used by terrorists or other bad guys.

LINK: Dec. 27, 2011, New York Times, “Science debate persists on deadly flu made airborne.”

Researchers at the NC Research Campus in Kannpolis are seeking to understand and treat a wide range of diseases. (N.C. Research Campus photo)

KANNAPOLIS - Ada Jenkins Center on Davidson’s West Side has become a community partner of the the MURDOCK Study, a major effort at the N.C. Research Institute in Kannapolis to collect data and better understand diseases. Meanwhile, Duke University researchers leading one of those studies are recruiting people with multiple sclerosis from across the region. Read the full story