12/21/09
'What's Cancer?' tackles tough questions
When Tess Hamermesh found out her nana had cancer, her questions were simple.
"I was only 4 years old and she explained it to me as a boo-boo on her tummy," Tess said.
Tess' nana, her grandmother Beverlye Hyman Fead, recovered from her cancer, but by the time Tess was a third-grader she had lost both a grandmother and grandfather to the disease. Tess turned to her nana for comfort and with more questions about cancer. They decided to put their conversations into a book called "Nana, What's Cancer?" published by the American Cancer Society.
Children often grapple with the same types of questions as adults, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society. More...
12/21/09
Stem cell therapies for hearts inching closer to wide use
If you've just had your first heart attack, doctors may one day be able to reverse the damage done with stem cell therapy.
An intravenous method of injecting stem cells into patients who had experienced heart attacks within the previous 10 days suggested that this method works to repair -- not just manage -- heart damage, a recent study found.
The study is a step forward in a field in which a lot of approaches have been tried in animals and preliminary human trials, but none has been approved for widespread clinical use for heart patients.
The new results are a milestone in stem cell research, and for patients, said Jeffrey Karp, a researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, who runs a stem cell biology lab at Harvard University. He was not involved in the study.
Most current clinical approaches are focused on managing problems, not addressing the root of the damage, he said. More...
12/21/09
Vicks Dayquil recalled
About 700,000 units of Vicks Dayquil cold medicine were recalled Friday after a finding that the packaging was not child-proof, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The recall affects Vicks Dayquil Cold & Flu 24-Count Bonus Pack Liquicaps with the UPC no. 3 23900 01087 1, according to the product safety group. The medicine was sold between September 2008 and December 2009.
The packaging -- which is not child-resistant and lacks the statement, "This package for households without young children" -- should be kept out of the reach of young children. If a child swallows several of the pills, the child could suffer "serious health problems or death," the commission said. More...
12/18/09
Burn pits could cause long-term damage to troops
The military is backing off its previous position and acknowledging that some troops exposed to the burning of refuse on military bases could be susceptible to long-term health effects.
Since the issue first arose two years ago, Pentagon health officials have insisted that, based on its analysis, troops who were near burn pits at Joint Base Balad in Iraq -- the largest base in that country -- faced no long-term health hazards. That covered most of the troops who passed through the base. More...
12/18/09
Rare gender identity defect hits Gaza families
Two Palestinian teenagers stroll amid the mounds of rubble left by last year's Israeli military offensive, listening to the tinny beat of a Turkish pop song playing on a cell phone.
Nadir Mohammed Saleh and Ahmed Fayiz Abed Rabo are cousins and next-door neighbors. With their gelled hair, buttoned-down shirts and jeans, they look much like any other 16-year-old Palestinian boy. But looks, Ahmed says, can be deceiving.
"Only my appearance, my haircut and clothing, makes me look like a boy," Ahmed says, gesturing with his hands across his face. "Inside, I am like a female. I am a girl." More...
12/18/09
Being choosy about booze helps avoid hangover
As holiday revelers lift their glasses at office parties and New Year's bashes, they may want to keep one rule of thumb in mind: the darker the liquor, the bigger the hangover.
Although it sounds like an old wives' tale, it's actually true -- to a point, according to a new study.
Compared to clear liquors like vodka and gin, brownish spirits like whiskey and rum contain greater amounts of congeners, substances that occur naturally or are added to alcohol during the production and aging process. Congeners -- many of which are toxic -- contribute to an alcohol's unique color, odor, and taste, but they can also interfere with cell function and punish your head and belly the morning after. More...
12/18/09
Stem cell therapies
If you've just had your first heart attack, doctors may one day be able to reverse the damage done with stem cell therapy.
An intravenous method of injecting stem cells into patients who had experienced heart attacks within the previous 10 days suggested that this method works to repair not just manage heart damage, a recent study found. More...
12/17/09
Patients meet donors from largest-ever kidney swap
Thirteen patients with healthy new kidneys from what's believed to be the world's largest kidney exchange met the donors who made it happen Tuesday — including three who are sure to face the question, "Why?"
A hospice nurse who handed homemade cookies to her operating team. A retired stockbroker who had volunteered with the National Kidney Foundation and decided to walk the talk. And a woman inspired by President Barack Obama's call to volunteer. They all donated a kidney with nothing to gain — they didn't have a friend or loved one in the marathon chain of transplants that they helped make possible.
"It feels wonderful," Sylvia Glaser, 69, the hospice nurse, said Tuesday at a news conference where most of the donors and recipients met for the first time. "You are giving someone a life, and there is no substitute for that."
"It's not like I'm doing anything courageous," Bill Singleton, 62, the kidney foundation volunteer, told The Associated Press before his surgery. "If I don't volunteer, who will?" More...
12/17/09
WHO to send swine flu vaccine
The World Health Organization plans to start shipping swine flu vaccine to Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Mongolia in the next few weeks, flu chief Keiji Fukuda said Thursday.
Another 32 developing countries are in line to get the vaccine soon. The U.N. health agency has prioritized sending the shots to northern hemisphere countries first, which are being hit harder by swine flu than countries in the southern hemisphere.
The agency had hoped to send the vaccine earlier, but the effort has been delayed by manufacturing problems and bureaucracy.
When WHO declared swine flu to be a pandemic, or global outbreak, in June, it warned the virus could have a devastating impact in countries across Africa with high numbers of people with health problems like malnutrition, AIDS, and malaria. Most people who catch swine flu only have mild symptoms like a fever or cough and recover without needing medical treatment. More...
12/17/09
How to win 'Tar Wars'
I'm proud to say I live in a state that has taken tobacco control seriously, and gotten some serious results. Through hard work and constant effort, Indiana has cut our high school student smoking rates dramatically. Unfortunately, we still have the second-highest rate of adult smoking in the country.
Big Tobacco never takes a break, so neither should we.
I work in VOICE, Indiana's youth-led movement to curb smoking by teenagers and combat the tobacco industry's marketing messages that bombard us every day. I joined after I watched the city council in my hometown of Greenfield vote to require smoke-free workplaces. That really opened my eyes about tobacco.
Most people who start smoking do so while in middle or high school. The tobacco industry knows this and exploits us. So our work reaches young people and gives them the tools to resist. We teach a program called "Tar Wars'' to fourth and fifth graders, visiting every classroom in the school district. We tell them, for example, that for what they spend on cigarettes in a year, they could take a trip to Disney World. More...
12/17/09
Mom fights, gets the delivery she wants
Seven months into her pregnancy with her fourth child, Joy Szabo's obstetrician gave her some news she didn't want to hear: Because she'd had a previous Caesarean section, the hospital where she planned to deliver was insisting she have another one.
Szabo wanted a vaginal delivery, and argued with hospital executives, but they stood firm: They refused to do vaginal births after Caesareans (VBACs) because they have a slightly higher risk for complications.
After they lost that fight, Szabo and her husband, Jeff, made an unusual decision. About three weeks before her due date, Szabo moved nearly six hours away from their home in Page, Arizona, to Phoenix to give birth at a hospital that does permit women to have VBACs.
In the end, the Szabos got the birth they wanted. On December 5, their son Marcus Anthony was born in Phoenix via an uncomplicated vaginal delivery, weighing seven pounds and 13 ounces. More...
12/16/09
Airport Noise Increases Risk of Strokes
Living under a flight path can seriously damage your health. German researchers have discovered that people who are exposed to jet noise have a substantially increased risk of stroke, high blood pressure and heart disease. The findings are bound to provide further ammunition to anti-airport campaigners and make uncomfortable reading for world leaders at this week's climate summit in Copenhagen.
According to the unpublished study, commissioned by Germany's Federal Environment Agency, men who are exposed to jet noise have a 69% higher risk of being hospitalized for cardiovascular disease. Women living under flight paths fare even worse, logging a 93% higher rate of hospitalization with cardiovascular problems, compared with their counterparts in quiet residential areas. The study found that women who are exposed to jet noise (of about 60 decibels) during the day are 172% more likely to suffer a stroke. More...
12/16/09
Family doctor is key to reform
America is closer to meaningful health care reform than at any time in its history. As we have all witnessed, finding a way to both provide every American access to affordable health care while seeking to control health care costs has not been easy.
Many of the proposed solutions have led to sharp disagreements, with contention surrounding what role government should play.
One goal all sides can agree on, but have yet to meaningfully address, is the need to end the crisis of primary care in the United States.
Without taking steps to fix it, any attempt at reforming our health system cannot succeed.
Consider that the number of patients without a primary care doctor is estimated to be 60 million, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers. Most patients want their medical care to be consolidated at a single office, provided by clinicians who know them well. In a survey from the Journal of the American Medical Association, 94 percent of patients preferred seeing a primary care doctor first for their medical issues. More...
12/16/09
800,000 H1N1 vaccine doses for young children recalled
One of the five manufacturers supplying H1N1 vaccine to the United States is recalling hundreds of thousands of flu shots because they aren't as potent as they should be.
The French manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur is voluntarily recalling about 800,000 doses of vaccine meant for children between the ages of 6 months and 35 months.
The company and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized that the recall was not prompted by safety concerns, and that even though the vaccine isn't quite as potent as it's supposed to be, children who received it don't have to be immunized again against H1N1.
The CDC emphasized that there is no danger for any child who received this type of vaccine.
When asked what parents should do, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said, "absolutely nothing." He said if children receive this vaccine, they will be fine. More...
12/16/09
Legacy of sudden death spurs woman's mission
Growing up in Southern California, Holly Morrell and her brother, Eric, had no closer friends than their cousins Kyle, Mitchell and Desiree. Holly's father, Chuck, and his twin brother, Gary, were the famous "Touchdown Twins," stars at Downey High School in Modesto and then Washington State University. After a brief stint in pro football, Chuck became an actor and film producer. Gary was a sports broadcaster.
But a dark shadow was creeping toward the youngsters' sun-drenched lives. There had been hints. Their fathers' sister had died of an unknown cause at age 3. Their grandmother died of heart disease at age 54.
But those shocks were nothing like the one they got in 1975, when Kyle, just 12, collapsed in sudden cardiac arrest. He lingered in a coma for two months and then died.
Shaken, everyone in both families was screened for heart problems; Desiree and Mitchell were found to have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, a genetically carried condition that leads to thickening and weakening of the heart muscle. More...
12/15/09
AIDS activist Dennis deLeon dies at 61
Dennis deLeon, former New York City human rights commissioner and long-time AIDS activist, has died, according to the organization he helped launch. He was 61.
The Latino Commission on AIDS issued a news release Monday, saying that deLeon was a "pioneer" and a "visionary," as well as a "tireless advocate for social justice and one of the first openly HIV-positive Latino leaders in the country."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised deLeon on Monday, saying in a statement that the activist "demonstrated a lifelong commitment to public service." More...
12/15/09
Rape victims offer advice to today's college women
f you are already in college or headed there, sit down. If you're the parent or friend of a student, listen up.
One in five college women will be raped, or experience an attempted rape, before graduation. Less than 5 percent will report these crimes to officials on or off campus, and, when they do, there's a good chance the system will let them down.
These shocking statistics were first issued nine years ago in a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal laws are in place to require schools to act on these allegations and look out for the rights of victims. More...
12/15/09
Extreme diets: Life on 800 calories a day
Her death made headlines around the world: Samantha Clowe, a 34-year-old British woman, died suddenly this fall from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. At the time of her death, Clowe was following a plan called LighterLife, a very low-calorie diet designed to help obese and severely obese patients lose weight.
She was consuming 530 calories a day.
"Samantha came to LighterLife with a BMI of 37, weighing more than 17 stone [238 pounds]," says a spokesperson for the company. "Although she managed to lose 3 stone [42 pounds], her health may have already been compromised." An inquest determined that Clowe most likely died from cardiac arrhythmia but could not determine what role, if any, Clowe's diet played in the development of her condition, only that her death "may be related to her low calorie diet and weight loss." More...
12/15/09
Gaps found in young people's sex knowledge
Most sexually active unmarried young adults believe pregnancy should be planned, but about half do not use contraception regularly, according to a study published Tuesday.
The survey of 1,800 people age 18 to 29 was conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
"What is surprising is just how wide the gap is between single young adults' intentions and behavior on this very important issue," said Bill Albert, chief program officer at the organization. More...
12/14/09
Colorado's Green Rush
Driving down Broadway, it's easy to forget you are in the United States. Amid the antique stores, bars and fast-food joints occupying nearly every block are some of Denver's newest businesses: medical marijuana dispensaries.
The locals call this thoroughfare "Broadsterdam." As in Amsterdam, Netherlands, these businesses openly advertise their wares, often with signs depicting large green marijuana leaves.
"The American capitalist system is working," said attorney and medical marijuana advocate Rob Corry.
It's a matter of supply and demand.
"The demand has always been there," he said, "and the demand is growing daily because more doctors are willing to do this, and now businesses, entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop shops are cropping up to create a supply." More...
12/14/09
Marijuana Mom and the Cannabis Kid
"Every morning I would go out and talk to my girls," she said, "pray over them and ask them to provide good medicine."
Her "girls" are marijuana plants destined for her son Jason's medical marijuana dispensary in Denver. At 48, she has just wrapped up her first season as a pot farmer. Her 62 plants yielded 13 pounds.
Irwin spent most of her life as a hairdresser and salon owner in a Denver suburb.
"I was into makeup and high-heeled shoes and fancy clothes and working -- a lot," she said. "I sold my salon and moved down to the country. I wanted a change of pace."
While Mom was looking for a midlife career change, her son was building a medical marijuana business, legal in Colorado since 2000. Diane Irwin loaned him $10,000 from the sale of her salon, and he opened Highland Health, a dispensary where patients who have been certified by the state can buy marijuana. More...
12/14/09
13 kidneys to 13 patients
Renee Patterson's most precious present this Christmas won't be under her tree, and it didn't come from a store. This holiday, she says, she got her life back.
The Upper Marlboro, Maryland, resident learned nine years ago she had kidney disease. One of her kidneys began to deteriorate, and she had to begin regular dialysis. Because she couldn't find a family match, her former colleague and friend, Michael Williams, offered to donate one of his kidneys. Problem was, Patterson and Williams didn't match either. But Patterson's doctor suggested they look into the paired kidney donation program at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.
She became part a massive mix-and-match transplant effort ever in the U.S., involving more than a dozen kidneys. More...
12/14/09
Rare dementias
Life was good for Kenny Sparks. A handsome man with a big smile, he was well-known in his town of Little Compton, Rhode Island. He had a loving wife, two beautiful, college-age children and was the co-owner of a multimillion-dollar contracting business.
At 49 he had it all. But then he began to change. At first the family thought he had Alzheimer's disease, but then they got a diagnosis more devastating.
Kenny's wife, Cheryl, noticed the changes first.
"He was stumbling over words," she said. "And he would forget what he was saying -- but at almost 50, I think we all tend to do that." More...
12/11/09
Health care loophole would allow coverage limits
A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.
The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.
As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not "unreasonable." The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials. More...
12/11/09
Primary care shortages hitting communities
Her bedside manner is comforting, the questions to the point.
"Is the pain about the same?" asks Dr. Taghrid Altoos.
"Yeah. Yup. Still right on the side, and it's getting a little better every day," a patient says.
Dr. Altoos is a first-year resident at Exempla St. Joseph Hospital, learning her craft at a time politicians in Washington debate major changes to America's health care system.
"I actually don't think about it too much," she told us during a recent visit to the Denver hospital. "I know it will probably affect the specialists more so than the primary-care physicians. So it would probably affect me as a radiation oncologist more so than a lot of the primary- care physicians." More...
12/11/09
Cholesterol jumps with menopause
Doctors have known for years that a woman's risk of developing heart disease rises after menopause, but they weren't exactly sure why. It wasn't clear whether the increased risk is due to the hormonal changes associated with menopause, to aging itself, or to some combination of the two.
Now, we have at least part of the answer: A new study shows beyond a doubt that menopause, not the natural aging process, is responsible for a sharp increase in cholesterol levels.
This seems to be true of all women, regardless of ethnicity, according to the study, which will be published in next week's Journal of the American College of Cardiology. More...
12/11/09
Artificial retina gives woman limited vision
As a thick, gray haze began to descend over the words in her schoolbooks, and eventually the faces of loved ones, Barbara Campbell barely grasped that she was going blind.
"I didn't realize that I wasn't seeing the same as everybody else, because how would I know that?" said Campbell, 56, who began losing her sight in middle school.
By the time Campbell reached adulthood, her vision was gone.
"It's like looking through a frosted window," Campbell said of how she sees the world. "It's like that all the time."
Doctors diagnosed retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive eye disease that damages the cells of the retina, the part of the eye that detects light.
For years, Campbell survived -- even thrived -- as a blind woman navigating New York City. Then earlier this year, she went from coping with blindness to hoping she might see again. More...
12/10/09
Is there a cure for Schamberg's disease?
Schamberg's disease is also known as Schamberg's purpura and as progressive pigmented purpuric dermatitis. It is a condition associated with smooth, flat orangish-brown or rust-colored patches staining the skin. It especially affects the legs and ankles but can occur anywhere. No one knows why, but this disease is more common in males than females. It can occur at any age from childhood onward. There are a few other diseases with which this can be confused. A dermatologist often must make the diagnosis through a punch biopsy of the skin and examination of that biopsy under a microscope.
It is caused by leaky blood vessels (especially the small capillaries) leaving blood products under the skin and the subsequent breakdown of those blood cells. The iron from broken-down red cells accounts for the orangish brown tint of the skin rash. More...
12/10/09
House, Senate health care bills grow further apart
Senate Democratic leaders announced they've reached "broad agreement" on a package of provisions to replace the public option, a move that means their version of the health care bill is morphing into something that looks less and less like the House version.
Senate leaders aren't releasing details of the revised plan, so it's unclear how much of the bill will be changed.
Two Democratic sources said the deal includes a proposal to replace the public option by creating a not-for-profit private insurance option overseen by the federal Office of Personnel Management, much like the current health plan for federal workers, and another allowing people 55 or older to buy into Medicare coverage that currently is available to those 65 or older.
The compromise appears to be a far cry from the government-backed public health care option offered in the House bill. The Senate's original health care bill included a public option similar to that of the House version. The biggest difference was that under the Senate plan, states could opt out of the public option. More...
12/10/09
What really killed the beauty queen?
When Argentine beauty queen Solange Magnano approached Dr. Guillermo Blugerman in 2004 about helping her achieve a flatter stomach, the plastic surgeon says, he obliged with liposuction. But when she returned five years later requesting silicone injections for a higher, firmer rear end, he turned her away.
"I said this was not allowed to be done in Argentina," Blugerman said on the telephone from his Buenos Aires office.
Blugerman, the president of the Argentina Association of Medicine and Cosmetic Surgery said he believes Magnano then went in search of someone who would give her the injections she wanted.
"She found someone else to do this with this forbidden material," he said. More...
12/10/09
Could fat babies mean fat toddlers
A new study from Harvard Medical School found that babies who gained weight quickly had a sharply higher risk of obesity. The study followed close to 600 babies and found those in the top quarter of weight for their length at 6 months had a 40 percent higher risk of obesity by age 3 than smaller babies. More...
12/09/09
H1N1 virus attacks deep into the lungs
In the rare cases when the H1N1 virus kills, scientists have found, it penetrates deep into the lungs, creating widespread damage -- a pattern similar to what killed millions during previous flu pandemics in 1918 and 1957.
The New York Office of Chief Medical Examiner examined medical records, autopsy reports and microscopic slides of 34 people with H1N1 who died between May 15 and July 9, 2009, during the early days of the pandemic.
The report found that among those deaths, inflammation and damage in the lungs extended all the way to the alveoli, tiny sacs at the farthest end of the lungs' airways.
"Generally, flu stays in the upper airways," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "What this shows is clearly this virus has capability of infecting and causing inflammation and destruction of cells from the trachea, all the way down into smaller cells of the lungs. More...
12/09/09
White House lauds Senate Democrats
The White House on Wednesday praised a deal reached by liberal and moderate Democrats on an alternative to the government-run public health insurance option in the Senate health care bill.
"Senators are making great progress and we're pleased that they're working together to find common ground toward options that increase choice and competition," said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that the Senate Democrats had reached a "broad agreement" on a package of provisions to replace the controversial public option portion of the bill.
Republicans and some moderate Democrats oppose the public option, making it unlikely the Senate could pass a bill that contains it. More...
12/09/09
Post-traumatic stress may harm kids
Psychological trauma isn't just mental -- it may leave a visible trace in a child's brain, scientists say.
A new study published in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology found that children with symptoms of post-traumatic stress had poor function of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that stores and retrieves memories.
This is the first study to use functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to look at the function of the hippocampus in youth with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, researchers said. The findings are in line with what has been previously found in adults.
The study was led by Dr. Victor Carrion, and the senior author was Dr. Allan Reiss, both at the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition that children and adults develop in response to a traumatic event. Intrusive memories, increased anxiety and emotional arousal are some of the symptoms, and typically they begin within three months of a traumatic event, according to the Mayo Clinic. More...
12/09/09
Soy may benefit breast cancer survivors
Women with breast cancer who eat more soy are less likely to die or have a recurrence of cancer than women who eat few or no soy products, according to a new study.
In the past, physicians have often warned breast cancer patients not to eat soy. The new research represents "a complete turnaround" from the previous understanding about the link between soy consumption and breast cancer, says Sally Scroggs, a registered dietician and senior health education specialist at M.D. Anderson's Cancer Prevention Center in Houston, Texas.
"We have gone from saying, 'No soy for breast cancer survivors' to, 'It's not going to hurt,'" Scroggs says. "Now it looks like we can say, 'It may help.'" More...
12/08/09
Bryant Gumbel reveals lung cancer
Bryant Gumbel made an unexpected announcement Tuesday morning as a guest host on "Live! With Regis & Kelly." The host of HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" had surgery two months ago to remove a malignant tumor on his lung.
Gumbel, 61, appeared on the morning talk show to fill in for Regis Philbin, who recently underwent a successful hip surgery. Gumbel, a cigar smoker, brought up his surgery after chatting with co-host Kelly Ripa about his inability to dance.
"I can't," he said. "I have a note from my doctor."
The former "Today" show host explained to viewers that he has told few people about the surgery in which part of his lung was removed. More...
12/08/09
Antidepressants change personality
People who take antidepressants such as Paxil often say they feel less stressed and more outgoing, lively, and confident. Now a new study suggests it's not just because they're less depressed.
In fact, such drugs may alter two key personality traits linked to depression -- neuroticism and extraversion -- independently of their effect on depression symptoms.
"Medication can definitely change people's personalities, and change them quite substantially," says the lead author of the study, Tony Z. Tang, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The findings show that "those changes are very important," he says.
In the study, people who took Paxil (paroxetine), a selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), had a drop in neuroticism, which is a tendency toward emotional instability and negative mood. They also had an increase in extraversion, which is a tendency toward outgoingness, compared to similarly depressed people taking placebo. More...
12/08/09
Would you choose your child's gender?
Genetic screening techniques that allow parents to choose their children's gender are now more accurate than ever and are becoming increasingly mainstream, but experts are divided over whether the technology should be used in this way.
A technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) was originally developed two decades ago to allow embryos to be tested for genetic disease. It requires parents to use in vitro fertilization, where eggs are fertilized outside the womb.
With PGD, the embryos are tested for genetic disorders and only those that are free of disease are transferred to the mother's uterus. It means that parents who carry genetic defects can ensure they don't pass on a genetic illness to their children.
But PGD also can also be used to allow people undergoing in-vitro fertilization to select the gender of the embryo implanted in the mother's uterus. More...
12/08/09
Military teens have more stress
Jordan Pittard, 14, remembers feeling anxious about his father being deployed with the U.S. Army in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. His mother, Lucille, a teacher, admits struggling to have enough time to work, take care of the house and talk enough to her kids.
"There was nobody big to look up to," Jordan said. "Sometimes when my mom was away, there wasn't anybody else to help me with my homework, something personal like that, or throw a football with me."
The mother and son participated in a new study that suggests youth from military families may have higher stress levels and emotional problems than other adolescents and teens. More...
12/07/09
From fat to gym rat, woman loses 200 pounds
These days, Becky Griggs starts her morning well before the sun comes up, in time to meet her clients at the gym at 5:30. It's a big change from six years ago, when she was 352 pounds and, as she calls it, engaged in a "slow form of suicide."
She said that growing up, she was always the pudgy kid, but in hindsight, she was only slightly overweight. In her mind, though, she was a fat girl.
"We are taught what is slim and skinny and pretty and right," she said recently by phone, "but in reality, what is fit and healthy is a different thing."
Positive self-image means a lot, she said, and it has been the key to her losing more than 200 pounds. More...
12/07/09
A day in the 'normal' life of a Nobel Prize winner
She was folding laundry when the call came at 5 a.m. After she hung up the phone, Dr. Carol Greider went upstairs to wake her children. She had to tell them, even if it meant getting them out of bed early.
"I said, 'By the way, I just won the Nobel Prize. You can go back to sleep now,' " she recalled.
Until this past October, many would have described Greider as your typical working woman. A molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the mother of two children -- Gwendolyn, 10, and Charles, 13 -- she splits her time between job and family. But "typical" no longer applies.
Winning the 2009 Nobel Prize for Medicine may help her career, but it hasn't changed her attitude about home life. "I could have basked in the moment, but I had to tell my kids first. And they were thrilled, but then they wanted to know, 'Do we have to go to school today?' " she said. "Of course I said, 'No, you don't.' And they came to work with me." More...
12/07/09
The smartphone apps that could save your life
There are a growing number of smartphone applications aimed at assisting medical professionals or improving personal health.
From AirStrip OB, which lets obstetricians remotely access real-time data about newborn babies, to Epocrates, a kind of drug encyclopedia for medics, phone apps have the potential to be lifesavers.
Then there are the apps aimed at improving people's general health, such as RunKeeper, designed to make it easier to keep fit, and Absolute Fitness, which could help you keep tabs on your diet More...
12/07/09
FDA: Texas oysters linked to virus
The U.S. government warned consumers Sunday to avoid oysters from San Antonio Bay in Texas after investigators found the oysters caused a highly contagious virus.
Consumers who bought San Antonio Bay-harvested oysters on or after November 16 should throw them away, the Food and Drug Administration announced. The agency also advised restaurant managers and grocers not to serve or sell the Texas oysters.
About a dozen cases of norovirus-related illnesses in North Carolina and South Carolina were "definitely linked" to oysters recently harvested from the San Antonio Bay, FDA spokeswoman Rita Chappelle told CNN.
Texas' health department has already recalled all oysters harvested from the bay between November 16 and November 25, the health department said in a statement on its Web site. San Antonio Bay has also been closed to commercial oyster harvesting, the statement said. More...
12/04/09
Santa's wish list
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Santa Claus is a marked man.
As thousands of kids line up each day until Christmas Eve to meet the burly, bearded man in his red suit, he'll be sneezed on up to 15 times a day, have his beard pulled numerous times and possibly even be peed on.
On top of that, Santa's got one more work-related hazard on his mind: swine flu.
Greg Winters, 54, a working Santa from Branson, Mo., got his H1N1 vaccination about a month ago.
Should all working Santas get the H1N1 shot? "Absolutely," he said.
Winters said his doctor suggested that he get the shot, even calling him a "critical case." More...
12/04/09
Decrease in smoking extends life span
Although fewer people are smoking -- and therefore less likely to die from cigarette-related causes -- the obesity epidemic may negate any gains in life span, according to a new study.
By 2020, the typical 18-year-old will gain 0.31 years due to the drop in smoking rates (above and beyond life span increases caused by other factors). But the increase in obesity rates during the same period will reduce life expectancy by 1.02 years, the researchers say.
During the next 10 years, in other words, we'll lose 0.71 years of our life span, time that we would have gained if so many people weren't overweight, according to the estimates published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
In addition, the increase in quality-adjusted life expectancy -- a measure that takes into account levels of disability and other quality-of-life factors -- will be reduced by 1.32 years. If all U.S. adults were nonsmokers of normal weight, life expectancy would increase by 3.76 years, or 5.16 quality-adjusted years, according to the study. More...
12/04/09
Brain of world's best-known amnesiac mapped
Henry Molaison, known as H.M. in scientific literature, was perhaps the most famous patient in all of brain science in the 20th century.
"My daddy's family came from the South and moved North, they came from Thibodaux Louisiana, and moved north," Molaison would say. "My mother's family came from the North and moved South." Within 15 minutes he might repeat this exact statement twice more, unable to remember that he'd already said it. Scientists studied him for most of his adult life.
This week, researchers are dissecting his brain to figure out exactly which structures contributed to his amnesia, which he suffered for more than 50 years. More...
12/04/09
Loneliness spreads in social networks
Have you ever felt cut off from other people, even if there are plenty around you? Maybe you felt all alone in the world, but you were making other people feel lonely without even realizing it.
New research suggests loneliness can actually travel from person to person, spreading up to three degrees of separation. That means if your neighbor's cousin's friend is lonely, you may have a good chance of being lonely, too.
The results, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, were also mentioned in the recent book "Connected" by Dr. Nicholas Christakis at Harvard University and James Fowler at the University of California, San Diego. The book explores how happiness, obesity, smoking and a slew of other behaviors and habits are contagious among groups of people who know one another. More...
12/03/09
To cure Alzheimer's, invest in prevention
After the Alzheimer's came, my mother could not know how shadows fell across our once ebullient family: our solidarity fractured, our tempers flaring in furious incomprehension, hearts breaking in mute despair.
None of us knew how to watch this woman disappear, her features slowly masked with blankness, her supple body rigid and wooden, her absolute vividness obliterated by the heavy fog of her disease.
As those of us touched in some way by Alzheimer's know too well, the emotional, social and economic burden of this disease is nearly unbearable -- for individuals, for families and for our country:
5.3 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease; a new case develops every 70 seconds.
One in eight people aged 65 and older has the disease, and the risk is even higher for those over 85.
Today, 9.9 million people are caring for a family member with Alzheimer's.
Alzheimer's and other dementias cost Medicare, Medicaid and businesses $148 billion annually, a number that will grow quickly and substantially as baby boomers reach age 65. More...
12/03/09
Love in the time of HIV/AIDS
Shawn Decker sported blue hair and discount orthopedic shoes. Gwenn Barringer competed in local Virginia beauty pageants and wore sashes and tiaras.
Over movies, ice cream dates and dinners at Applebee's, their friendship gradually blossomed into a romance. Barringer was smitten by Decker's wit and humor. Before meeting him, she never fathomed she'd fall in love with a man who had HIV.
"I didn't think having what I thought was a difficult extra strain on a relationship would be worth it," Barringer, an HIV/AIDS educator said. "Then you meet someone who you really like, and that changes your perspective. I would've never imagined it."
Married for five years, they are a serodiscordant couple, meaning one partner has the virus and the other does not. More...
12/03/09
Sex drive vs. golf drive
Should a man have to choose between his golf drive and his sex drive?
Doug Barron sued the PGA to get an answer. In November, the 40-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, became the first player in professional golf to be suspended for doping.
The dope in this case is synthetic testosterone and beta blockers.
Barron, a journeyman who has played Tour events for more than a decade, says he had been taking the blockers to treat a heart condition since 1987. Long banned in Olympic sports from bobsled to diving, beta blockers also reduce anxiety and muscle tremor and can sharpen focus and precision. More...
12/03/09
Flu test wrong, girl almost dies
Hayli Murphy hears her mother's cell phone ring, and she bounces off the couch to get it. Watching her run around, it's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, the 9-year-old was heavily sedated in a pediatric intensive care unit, a ventilator doing the job her lungs -- ravaged by H1N1 flu -- could no longer do.
"She was right there. She was at death's door," remembered her mother, Julie Murphy.
Hayli spent 43 days in the intensive care unit at Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida.
Looking back at her daughter's illness, one of the things that strikes her mother is that in the days before Hayli was admitted to the hospital, a test showed that she did not have the flu -- twice.
Dr. Andrew Pavia, chairman of the pandemic influenza task force for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and others are concerned that doctors are being misled by rapid flu tests and failing to treat patients who, like Hayli, really do turn out to have the flu. More...
12/01/09
'Dawn of a new era' for AIDS in South Africa?
On World AIDS Day, Zuma spoke of "the dawn of a new era" in a speech where he took a markedly different approach from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, who had questioned the link between HIV and AIDS.
Speaking in the country's capital, Pretoria, Zuma announced policies that would see more people treated for HIV, including treatment for all HIV-positive babies under the age of one. He also announced a campaign to mobilize all South Africans to be tested for HIV.
"We need extraordinary measures to reverse the trends we are seeing in the health profile of our people," he said. More...
12/01/09
College's too-fat-to-graduate rule
Most college students expect to receive their diplomas on the basis of grades, but at a Pennsylvania school, physical fitness matters too.
Students at Lincoln University with a body mass index of 30 or above, reflective of obesity, must take a fitness course that meets three hours per week. Those who are assigned to the class but do not complete it cannot graduate. More...
12/01/09
Early autism intervention in toddlers
Researchers have shown for the first time that if a child is diagnosed with autism as early as 18 months of age, offering the toddler age-appropriate, effective therapy can lead to raised IQ levels and improved language skills and behavior.
"Early intervention can be very effective for toddlers with autism," says Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, and one of the two lead authors of a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Since 2007, pediatricians have been told to screen 18-month-old children for autism. But what the next step is when such a young child is diagnosed has not been clear. More...
12/01/09
Heart scares put lives on new course
Matt Nader felt as if he had swallowed a grenade.
The intense heat in his chest was unbearable. During a 2006 high school football game, the young lineman collapsed.
A muscle twitch caused the 315-pound teenager's heart to stop pumping. He awoke in an Austin, Texas, hospital, with a new miniature internal defibrillator implanted in his chest. There was more bad news. His football career, doctors warned, was over. They told him, the strain on the field could trigger another heart attack for the 17 year old. More...
11/27/09
In cardiac arrest, think 'Stayin' Alive'
Debra Bader was taking a walk in the woods with her 53-year-old husband one morning when suddenly he collapsed. At first she thought the situation was hopeless.
"I looked at him and said, 'He's dead,' because he wasn't moving or making any sounds at all," Bader remembers. "But I pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and called 911, and then a public service announcement I'd heard on the radio popped into my head."
The one-minute PSA from the American Heart Association instructed listeners, in the event of cardiac arrest, to perform chest compressions very hard to the beat of the 1970s Bee Gees song "Stayin' Alive." When someone suffers cardiac arrest, as pop singer Michael Jackson did last week, the heart stops functioning completely, and brain death begins within four to six minutes if the victim doesn't receive help.
"I sang the song and gave directions to the EMTs at the same time. It was like, 'Stayin' alive, stayin' alive -- take a right here, take a left here -- Stayin' alive, stayin' alive -- take this path down here -- Stayin' alive, stayin' alive,' " Bader remembers. More...
11/27/09
Where to go for a healthy holiday shopping
It's that time of year to make your list, check it twice -- and hit the stores. Happily, some retailers today are realizing that shoppers want a healthy experience as well as bargains.
But which stores are doing a great job? We asked retail experts to help us review the top U.S. discount and department stores on "healthy" criteria, including comfort, cleanliness, customer service, and eco-friendliness.
Meet the retail experts
There were some disappointments (health isn't a subject some stores wish to discuss or care much about), but we were pleased to find 10 that are doing some smart things.
In fact, our winners are making shopping better for you in ways you can see (recyclable bags, healthful products, hand sanitizer) and ways you may not even notice (greener lighting and building materials, solar heating). Here's to the stores that make your blood pressure go down. More...
11/27/09
Cost of treating diabetes to triple by 2034
The number of Americans with diabetes will nearly double in the next 25 years, and the costs of treating them will triple, according to a new report.
The figures, in a University of Chicago report released Friday, add fuel to the congressional debate regarding reining in the cost of health care.
By 2034, 44.1 million Americans will be living with diabetes -- nearly twice the current number of 23.7 million, according to the report, published in the December issue of the journal Diabetes Care. About 90 percent of those with diabetes have type 2, a version of the condition that develops over time.
Accounting for inflation, the direct medical cost of treating them will rise from $113 billion annually to $336 billion, the report says. More...
11/27/09
Hand sanitizer: How it protects you
It's everywhere you look -- in schools, in shopping malls, in day care centers, in offices.
Hand sanitizer has become ubiquitous after the outbreak of the novel H1N1 flu virus. But what are its special powers? Does it really protect from viruses? And what's the best way to use it?
When it comes to choosing a hand sanitizer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the ones with alcohol for protecting against the H1N1 flu. The optimum proportion is 60 to 95 percent alcohol, according to this CDC chart showing the relative effectiveness of different types of sanitizers. More...
11/25/09
The Hajj: A perfect storm for swine flu?
Forget stampedes, fires and terrorist attacks. The big fear this year concerning the Hajj, the annual millions-strong pilgrimage to Mecca, is swine flu.
Swine flu has already killed four pilgrims this year, Saudi Arabia's health ministry announced Saturday, almost a week before the pilgrimage's peak.
Three of the victims -- a woman from Morocco and men from Sudan and India -- were in their seventies. The fourth was a 17-year-old girl from Nigeria.
The Health Ministry said none had been vaccinated against the H1N1 virus -- despite their recommendations -- and all had underlying health problems, including cancer and respiratory illness. A ministry spokesman said more than two dozen other cases had been detected among arriving pilgrims. More...
11/25/09
Staying focused on your goals during the holiday season
The holiday season is upon us and this time EVERY year I write diet, fitness, and motivation tips about how to not gain weight and let your health spiral out of control. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before so honestly why the heck am I writing about this again?! Did no one listen the last 10 years?
You are not stupid. You know how to be healthy. Eat less and move more. It doesn’t take much to know that a second helping of stuffing and pumpkin pie and yams and biscuits is a bad idea.
You know all the obvious stuff… Eat white meat turkey, not dark. Do whole grain rolls instead of biscuits. Bring fitness DVDs with you if you are traveling so you can workout on the road. Create fun family fitness activities to do together such as touch football instead of sitting around eating or watching TV. And the list goes on…
Let’s get down to the bottom of it. The holidays are a time to be grateful. Grateful for the blessings you have and the ability to create new blessings symbolized by the coming of a new year. However, at a time when we should be celebrating our lives most, we are prone to depression and dysfunction. Eating becomes gluttonous. Family issues become magnified. The gym becomes a distant memory. Stress levels go through the roof and so on.
So how do we create that shift in our thinking, behavior, and overall holiday experience? Desire. The first step is to stay focused in the present tense on the things you want for yourself and in your life. Transformation doesn’t happen in the past or in the future. It happens right now. By focusing on the positive things you crave and deserve, you shift your focus from one of resignation to one of inspiration. More...
11/25/09
10 surprising facts about cholesterol
Like most people, you probably think of cholesterol -- if you think of it at all -- and picture fatty foods and heart trouble.
Yes, elevated blood cholesterol is bad news, and 34 million Americans have levels that can increase their risk of all sorts of health problems, including a heart attack.
But if you think you've heard everything you need to know about this waxy fat, there may be a few surprises in store.
For one, cholesterol can be so high that it shows up in fatty deposits in the skin. On the other end of the spectrum, cholesterol can even be too low. More...
11/25/09
Where to go for a healthy holiday shopping
It's that time of year to make your list, check it twice -- and hit the stores. Happily, some retailers today are realizing that shoppers want a healthy experience as well as bargains.
But which stores are doing a great job? We asked retail experts to help us review the top U.S. discount and department stores on "healthy" criteria, including comfort, cleanliness, customer service, and eco-friendliness.
Meet the retail experts
There were some disappointments (health isn't a subject some stores wish to discuss or care much about), but we were pleased to find 10 that are doing some smart things.
In fact, our winners are making shopping better for you in ways you can see (recyclable bags, healthful products, hand sanitizer) and ways you may not even notice (greener lighting and building materials, solar heating). Here's to the stores that make your blood pressure go down. More...
11/24/09
Health care bill moves ahead
Senate Democrats cleared a major hurdle this weekend by voting to move ahead with debate on health care reform, but it was hardly a unified party standing behind the bill.
"We can only see the finish line; we have not yet crossed it. The road ahead will be the toughest stretch. But we have momentum and I will keep this process moving forward," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said after Saturday's vote.
After months of political maneuvering, Reid got the votes he needed to open debate on the floor -- but barely. Sixty senators, including 58 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats, supported moving ahead with the bill; the 39 Republicans who voted were all against it.
Some centrist Democrats are letting their party know that while they are open to debating the bill, they're not going to pass it as is. With so many Democrats on the fence and no Republicans leaning their way, there are still plenty of hurdles to come for the Democratic leadership and the bill.
The debate on amending the proposal will begin after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break next week and is expected to last for weeks. Top Senate Democrats have already indicated that they're willing to make some changes. More...
11/24/09
Trapped 'coma' man: How was he misdiagnosed?
A Belgian car crash victim who was misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state for 23 years was conscious the whole time, it has emerged.
Rom Houben was 23 at the time of his accident, but tests carried out by Dr. Laureys of the University of Liege, in Belgium, revealed that although Houben was believed to be in a persistent vegetative state, he was fully aware.
The case has highlighted the difficulties doctors face when trying to diagnose the level of consciousness of a patient in a coma-like state.
A study carried out last year on 103 patients by Laureys and his colleagues at Liege's Coma Science Group found that 41 per cent of patients in a Minimally Conscious State (MCS) were misdiagnosed as being in the much more serious Vegetative State (VS).
Dr. Daniel Hanley, professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, in Maryland, told CNN that VS is a coma-like state in which patients have a sleep and wake cycle, and can show reflex chewing, swallowing and blinking, but don't respond to language or stimulation. More...
11/24/09
10 surprising facts about cholesterol
Like most people, you probably think of cholesterol -- if you think of it at all -- and picture fatty foods and heart trouble.
Yes, elevated blood cholesterol is bad news, and 34 million Americans have levels that can increase their risk of all sorts of health problems, including a heart attack.
But if you think you've heard everything you need to know about this waxy fat, there may be a few surprises in store.
For one, cholesterol can be so high that it shows up in fatty deposits in the skin. On the other end of the spectrum, cholesterol can even be too low. More...
11/24/09
Thanksgiving sparks vegetable-inspired creativity
Going vegetarian on Thanksgiving doesn't mean forcing tofu into faux poultry or shaping legumes into meat-like blobs.
Forget tofurkey. Why bother, some vegetarians say, with the pretense?
"That scares me," said Melissa Melcombe, a 25-year-old vegetarian. "If you try to shape a loaf like a turkey, it looks like piles of mush and ends up more comical than traditional. I don't think it's ever occurred to my family. It's kind of like making a piece of tofu look like filet mignon. We don't have to kid ourselves."
Rather than lamenting the lack of a basted bird at the center of the table, vegetarian iReporters like Melcombe relish the opportunity to experiment beyond the traditional side dishes of mashed potatoes and green bean casseroles, on the food-friendly holiday. More...
11/23/09
Senate Dems suggest they're open to altering health care bill
Amid conflicting and heated rhetoric, a political pragmatism began to emerge Sunday as senators prepared for a debate on a sweeping Democratic health care bill.
Senate Democrats barely won a vote Saturday night to open debate on the 2,074-page bill. The debate on amending the proposal is expected to last for weeks and won't begin until after Thanksgiving.
Some legislators got a head start Sunday, reciting well-honed arguments for and against the bill and offering perspectives on the political realities facing Congress.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat, acknowledged he was open to changing the bill's controversial government-run public health insurance option favored by the left.
"We are open because we want to pass the bill," Durbin told the NBC program "Meet the Press." More...
11/23/09
Cancer screenings under scrutiny
It's been a confusing week for women.
On Monday, it started with breast cancer.
A federal advisory board made a controversial recommendation that women begin routine mammograms at age 50, rather than at 40. The United States Preventive Services Task Force came under heavy criticism for its position and triggered confusion and political accusations of health care rationing.
Then, the week ended with cervical cancer.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued guidelines advising that women should receive their first cervical cancer screening, or Pap test, at the age of 21.
The group, a nonprofit organization of women's health care physicians, also recommended that patients younger than 30 be screened every two years, instead of annually, and that healthy women 30 or older be given a Pap test once every three years.
This recommendation has been far less controversial, receiving broader support from the medical community and patient advocates.
Screening for cervical cancer, compared with breast cancer, is a completely different issue, several medical experts said. More...
11/23/09
Flying with the flu?
Air travelers bracing themselves for the annual Thanksgiving rush this week may have something else to fret about: passengers who could be bringing a little extra baggage of the viral kind on board.
Of all the places where H1N1 or other flu viruses may lurk, none seems as worrisome as the cramped cabin of an airplane, where hundreds of human beings share the same space and air.
"When people come together, germs can come together too," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
"There are not that many studies about flu spreading on airplanes and trains, but anytime people are close together, there's a possibility of germs spreading."
So it may be unsettling to discover that 51 percent of Americans would fly while sick with the flu rather than pay a flight rebooking fee, according to a recent poll by TripAdvisor.com. More...
11/23/09
Parkour teaches the art of moving
Most people know him as Sean. But to his best friends, Sean Hannah is "Spiderman." Since he was a child, Hannah has been scaling fences, climbing trees and skinning knees -- all in the name of fun. He says he just likes to keep moving. "I am very active. I like to change my routine. Keep it different," he says.
Now 27, with a degree in kinesiology, Hannah has taken his rambunctious childhood pastime to a new level: Using the skills he developed as a kid, Hannah has parlayed his passion for motion into mastery of a popular physical discipline known as parkour, which he has started teaching to others.
Parkour, which in English means the "art of moving," is a physically challenging practice designed by French athlete extraordinaire David Belle. The idea is to have participants run along a route or course while navigating obstacles that may be in the way, such as walls, tree branches, steps -- even buildings. The obstacles can be (and often are) used to propel the runner and gain speed. The idea is to get from one place to another using only your body and the objects around you. More...
11/20/09
Vicks nasal spray recalled over bacteria
Procter & Gamble is recalling Vicks Sinex nasal spray in the United States, Britain and Germany after finding it contained bacteria, the company said.
Procter & Gamble said it announced the voluntary recall after finding the bacteria in a small amount of product made at a plant in Germany.
There have been no reports of illness from the bacteria, but it could cause serious infections for people with weakened immune systems or those with chronic lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis, Procter & Gamble said late Thursday.
The bacteria poses little risk to healthy people, the company said.
Cincinnati, Ohio-based Procter & Gamble said it detected the problem during routine quality control at the plant. Analysis so far shows the problem is limited to a single batch of raw material mixture involving three lots of product, which were sold only in the three countries affected by the recall, the company said.
In the United States, the recalled product is Vicks Sinex Vapospray 12-hour Decongestant Ultra Fine Mist with lot number 9239028831.
In Britain, the company is recalling Vicks Sinex Micromist Aqueous Nasal Spray with lot number 9224028832. More...
11/20/09
HIV+ soccer team scores against stigma
Somebody told me about a group of HIV positive ladies in the Epworth Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic in Zimbabwe who had formed a football team and every time they won a match, they would march through the clinic in their football jerseys singing uplifting songs in order to inspire other HIV-infected people like them.
When I heard the story it was hard to believe. Epworth is one of the poorest townships in Zimbabwe. It has a high prevalence of HIV, more than one in four are infected, and yet despite this high number, the stigma against people with HIV is horrendous.
Women especially get the worst of this. They are scorned, shunned, laughed at, kicked out of their house by their landlord, husband (who was the one who infected them in the first place) or their in-laws. More...
11/20/09
Survivors find purpose
When Lori Zeller lost her sister to suicide in 1991, she began a life of activism.
At 22, Zeller started a support group in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for loved ones left behind after a suicide. She talked to friends and co-workers about suicide prevention and signed numerous petitions to pass legislation for insurance coverage of mental health services.
But despite all her efforts, her brother took his own life 15 years later.
"I believe in the importance of prevention," said Zeller, "but it was tragically ironic that even with all the knowledge I had gained ... we were still unable to save Dave."
"That really made me angry for a while. Now, it just makes me frustrated and sad."
Zeller was one of dozens of people who shared stories of losing loved ones to suicide on CNN.com's iReport. She is part of a growing movement of survivors of suicide loss who openly speak out about the experience despite the stigma attached. More...
11/20/09
Can your doctor spot H1N1?
It was early on a Monday, just the seventh week of school, when Danelle Olivares decided she would have to keep her 5-year-old daughter home from kindergarten. Trinity had a nasty stomach bug, but no fever, and Olivares figured that a day of rest at home would make things OK.
But the morning brought no relief. Trinity was cramping, having bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. She was so pale that by late afternoon, Danelle and her husband, Michael, brought their little girl to the emergency room. She asked for water. Her legs hurt. Three hours later, she was dead. Stunned as they were, the Olivareses got another shock when doctors came back with test results: Trinity had fallen victim to the H1N1 flu. "It really blew me away," Danelle Olivares of Rio Rancho, New Mexico, told a local television station. "She never even ran a fever." More...
11/19/09
Majority of adult Americans don't want H1N1 shot
ore than half of all adult Americans say they don't want to get the H1N1 flu vaccine, according to a new national poll.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday also indicates that the number of adults who have tried to get the vaccine but were turned away is higher than the number of adults who have gotten a swine flu shot.
According to the poll, 55 percent of adults don't want to get the swine flu vaccine and don't plan to get a shot. Another one in five say they want to get inoculated but haven't taken any steps to do so; 14 percent want a shot and have tried to get it but have been unsuccessful. Just 7 percent have been inoculated for H1N1.
Why are more than half of all Americans shunning the vaccine? More...
11/19/09
U.S. health chief
A federal advisory board's recommendation that women in their 40s should avoid routine mammograms is not government policy and has caused "a great deal of confusion," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.
"My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool in the fight against breast cancer, and they still are today," Sebelius said in a statement.
"Keep doing what you have been doing for years: talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions and make the decision that is right for you."
With her statement, Sebelius waded into the controversy over Monday's announcement by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that women in their 40s should not get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer. More...
11/19/09
Senate health bill arrives
enate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping health care bill that would expand health insurance coverage to 30 million more Americans at an estimated cost of $849 billion over 10 years.
Reid and other Senate Democrats cited an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for the coverage and cost figures. The CBO estimates the proposal would reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion over the next 10 years, through 2019. Any effect on the deficit in the following decade would be "subject to substantial uncertainty," but probably would result in "small reductions in federal budget deficits," according to the CBO.
According to Reid, the savings will be substantial.
"We're not going to add a dime to the deficit, in fact, quite the opposite," Reid said. "We'll cut the problems we have with money around here by as much as three-quarters of a trillion dollars." More...
11/19/09
'I want my mammograms!'
A government task force says women in their 40s don't need annual mammograms, but Sara Fought would beg to differ: She says she's alive today because a routine mammogram found cancer when she was 42.
"I had to read the guidelines twice because I really couldn't believe women in the 40-49 age bracket were being discouraged from having mammograms," says Fought, who lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland. "That's foolhardy. They're playing with people's lives."
Fought is one of many breast cancer survivors and doctors who are outraged over the guidelines released Monday by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advising against routine mammograms for women in their 40s. More...
11/18/09
Army suicides set another yearly record
Suicides among soldiers this year have topped last year's record-breaking numbers, but Army officials maintain a recent trend downward could mean the service is making headway on its programs designed to reduce the problem, Army officials said Tuesday.
Since January, 140 active-duty soldiers have killed themselves while another 71 Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers killed themselves in the same time period, totaling 211 as of Tuesday, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, U.S. Army vice chief of staff, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. But he said the monthly numbers are starting to slow down as the year nears its end.
"This is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way," Chiarelli said.
For all of 2008, the Army said 140 active-duty soldiers killed themselves while 57 Guard and Reserve soldiers committed suicide, totaling 197, according to Army statistics. More...
11/18/09
Majority favor abortion funding ban
Six in 10 Americans favor a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion, according to a new poll.
The poll also indicates that the public might also favor legislation that would prevent many women from getting their health insurance plan to cover the cost of an abortion, even if no federal funds are involved.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning indicates that 61 percent of the public opposes using public money for abortions for women who can not afford the procedure, with 37 percent in favor of allowing the use of federal funds.
And by a 51 percent to 45 percent margin, those questioned in the survey think that women who get abortions should pay the full costs out of their own pocket, even if they have private health insurance and no federal funds are involved. The 6-point difference is within the poll's sampling error.
11/18/09
Women age 40-49
Women in their 40s should not get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer, according to updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Before having a mammogram, women ages 40 to 49 should talk to their doctors about the risks and benefits of the test, and then decide if they want to be screened, according to the task force.
For women ages 50 to 74, it recommends routine mammography screenings every two years. Risks and benefits for women age 75 and above are unknown, it said.
The group's previous recommendation was for routine screenings every year or two for women age 40 and older. More...
11/18/09
Breast 'awareness' trumps self-exams, docs say
A vacation to Washington nearly a decade ago led to a life-changing revelation for Kathi Cordsen. Passing by a breast cancer awareness event, her mother blurted it out: Her doctor had just confirmed that she had breast cancer.
She'd found the lump during a self-examination.
Fortunately, Cordsen's mom had found the cancer so early that she was able to have a lumpectomy and didn't need chemotherapy or radiation. That's why, today, Cordsen checks her own breasts every day in the shower.
"It was such an inspirational thing to find out that it saved her life, that's for sure," said Cordsen, 57, who submitted her story to CNN's iReport. "It's just important, to want to live and take care of yourself." More...
11/17/09
Heart attack patients receive radiation equivalent of 725 chest X-rays
Heart attack patients are exposed to a radiation dose equal to about 725 chest X-rays over the course of their hospital stay, according to research presented Monday at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Florida.
The radiation comes from tests such as computed tomography (CT) scans, cardiac catheterizations, and artery-clearing angioplasties.
Too much radiation can increase the risk of developing some cancers, although the benefits of such tests typically outweigh the risks when it comes to diagnosing and treating heart attacks. The cancer risk associated with an angioplasty or with a CT scan -- which delivers about 500 times more radiation than an X-ray -- is hard to measure. More...
11/17/09
Heart patients lacking vitamin D
People with heart disease and similar conditions who don't have enough vitamin D are more likely to be depressed than their counterparts with adequate levels of the "sunshine vitamin," according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando. This link seems to be even stronger in the winter.
Vitamin D is called the sunshine vitamin because the human body produces it only when exposed to sunlight -- although it takes just 10 to 15 minutes a day to make an adequate amount. Vitamin D, which helps the bones better absorb calcium, is also added to multivitamins and milk, and occurs naturally in fish.
A second study by the same team of researchers found that people age 50 or older who lack vitamin D are at a higher risk for heart disease and stroke, and are more likely to die earlier than people the same age who get adequate amounts of the vitamin.
At the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions meeting, more than 20,000 cardiologists and other physicians from around the country give presentations on new research and on advances in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease and stroke. More...
11/17/09
Wheelchair rugby puts athletes back on the team
Talbot Kennedy became a quadriplegic on the last day of high school. He's still an athlete.
Playing rugby has helped Kennedy come to terms with his injury and his new life using a wheelchair.
"I've always been active in sports, and being on a sports team, it's almost like you're part of a family," he says. "It's your second family."
The Smash Rugby team at the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, scrimmages several nights a week on an indoor basketball court.
"Take a hit Talbot," says coach and occupational therapist Amy Bohn. More...
11/17/09
Task force opposes routine mammograms
Women in their 40s should not get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer, according to updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Before having a mammogram, women ages 40 to 49 should talk to their doctors about the risks and benefits of the test, and then decide if they want to be screened, according to the task force.
For women ages 50 to 74, it recommends routine mammography screenings every two years. Risks and benefits for women age 75 and above are unknown, it said.
The group's previous recommendation was for routine screenings every year or two for women age 40 and older.
The task force is composed of 16 health care experts, none of whom are oncologists. The group reviews medical data and bases recommendations on effectiveness and risks involved. More...
11/16/09
Religious abortion rights backers push to change health care bill
The problematic intersection of health care and abortion politics will be highlighted again Monday as religious abortion rights supporters demand changes to reform legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives.
Members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice will hold a news conference calling on the Senate to alter language in the House bill that places explicit restrictions on federal funding for abortion.
"Our health care system should be inclusive and respectful of diverse religious beliefs and decisions regarding childbearing," the group said in a statement.
"A health care system that serves all persons with dignity and equality will include comprehensive reproductive health services." More...
11/16/09
Yoga helps even little ones channel energy, emotion
Gigi reaches up into her sun salutation. She steps back into her high lunge and kicks her legs straight into plank pose, a push-up she holds without wobbling for 10 seconds before looking up impatiently at her yoga teacher.
It's close to 6 p.m. She's had a long day.
She collapses on her mat, rolls on her back and closes her eyes. And then sends one finger digging up her nose.
What? C'mon, she's only 5. More...
11/16/09
Ghosts, monsters, dragons: What to tell kids
When Melinda Roberts is watching animated movies with her kids -- 7, 9, and 11 -- she'll help them recognize voice actors and talk about the creation process so they won't get scared.
"They can get into the story, but feel a little bit safer about it because they know who the actor is," said Roberts of San Jose, California.
A new study in the journal Child Development suggests that reassuring kids by telling them scary images aren't real is helpful for those around 7 and up, but for the younger ones it may not be preferred. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that when preschoolers get scared, they prefer to think of the fantastical threat as "nice." More...
11/16/09
Wheelchair rugby puts athletes back on the team
Talbot Kennedy became a quadriplegic on the last day of high school. He's still an athlete.
Playing rugby has helped Kennedy come to terms with his injury and his new life using a wheelchair.
"I've always been active in sports, and being on a sports team, it's almost like you're part of a family," he says. "It's your second family."
The Smash Rugby team at the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, scrimmages several nights a week on an indoor basketball court.
"Take a hit Talbot," says coach and occupational therapist Amy Bohn. More...
11/13/09
Behind the CDC's Soaring H1N1 Death Totals
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Thursday updated estimates of the number of H1N1 infections and deaths in the U.S. According to the new figures, about 4,000 Americans, including 540 children, have died of H1N1 flu, and 2 million people have been infected since April, when the novel flu virus first surfaced. The new death toll, which encompasses data through Oct. 17, represents a tripling of CDC estimates issued just last week; the number of deaths in children was quadruple last week's figures. But the increase does not mean that the disease has suddenly become more deadly or severe, according to health officials, who say they are not surprised by the higher numbers. More...
11/13/09
How to avoid falling victim to a hospital mistake
When Kerry Higuera started bleeding three months into her pregnancy, she feared she was miscarrying. Heading to the emergency room seemed like the prudent thing to do.
Higuera says she'll regret that decision for the rest of her life.
When Higuera arrived at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, Arizona, that February morning in 2008, she was put in a room and told to wait for a nurse to come get her. Soon, a nurse poked her head into her room. More...
11/13/09
Yoga helps even little ones channel energy, emotion
Gigi reaches up into her sun salutation. She steps back into her high lunge and kicks her legs straight into plank pose, a push-up she holds without wobbling for 10 seconds before looking up impatiently at her yoga teacher.
It's close to 6 p.m. She's had a long day.
She collapses on her mat, rolls on her back and closes her eyes. And then sends one finger digging up her nose.
What? C'mon, she's only 5.
This is yoga for kids. Once an oddity reserved for only the crunchiest communities, downward dog for the grade-school set is now being taught in studios from Minnetonka, Minnesota, to Moscow, Russia. And educators, including Chicago's Namaste School, which serves mostly poor kids who speak a language other than English, are turning to yoga to connect with a generation that many say has been dismissed as deficit this or hyperactive that. More...
11/13/09
H1N1 death toll estimated at 3,900 in U.S.
Nearly 3,900 people, including about 540 children, are believed to have died from the H1N1 flu in the first six months of the epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
The figure is a sharp increase from previous counts of laboratory-confirmed cases. But Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said the estimate gives a "more accurate picture" of the scale of the pandemic. More...
11/12/09
H1N1 vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur gives tour to journalists
Vaccine manufacturing giant Sanofi Pasteur opened its doors to the media Wednesday, inviting reporters to a first-of-its-kind, up-close look at its H1N1 flu vaccine production facility.
Sanofi, the only manufacturer licensed to make H1N1 vaccine in the United States, also released its final clinical trial data, a 42-day follow-up of its adult and pediatric trials. According to this latest data, a single dose of H1N1 vaccine induces a strong immune response in adults, but two doses will be needed for children 6 months to 9 years of age.
"These are extremely important data," said Wayne Pisano, president and CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, "because they once again make clear not only the immunogenicity of Influenza A [H1N1] 2009 Monovalent Vaccine manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, but also the fact that this vaccine has a safety profile similar to that observed with seasonal influenza vaccine in all age groups studied." More..
11/12/09
Overweight kids are coronary time bombs
Russell Pate was driving through a neighborhood one late afternoon when he noticed something odd.
He couldn't hear the sounds of children playing. No jump rope patter. No squeals of a bike's brake. No crack of a bat -- just silence.
The streets were deserted because the neighborhood kids were cocooned in their homes, Pate says. It was a scene he's seen over and over again.
"Now you can drive through entire neighborhoods where you know there are a lot of young kids there and hardly see any of them out," says Pate, an American Heart Association spokesman.
Pate's story reinforces what numerous medical studies say: American youths are getting less active and fatter. Medical experts say many of these couch-bound youths are becoming coronary time bombs -- they're more liable to suffer from heart disease as adults. More...
11/12/09
What are the roots of depression?
Robert Enke, the goalkeeper for the German national football team who killed himself on Tuesday, was suffering from depression, his widow has revealed.
Valentin Markser, a doctor who treated Enke, said the goalkeeper first sought treatment in 2003, when he lost his starting place at Barcelona and developed anxieties and fear of failure. The couple's biological daughter died three years ago from a heart problem when she was aged just two.
Charles L. Raison, Clinical Director of the Mind-Body Program at Emory University School of Medicine, in Atlanta, told CNN about some of the issues associated with depression. More...
11/12/09
How to avoid falling victim to a hospital mistake
When Kerry Higuera started bleeding three months into her pregnancy, she feared she was miscarrying. Heading to the emergency room seemed like the prudent thing to do.
Higuera says she'll regret that decision for the rest of her life.
When Higuera arrived at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, Arizona, that February morning in 2008, she was put in a room and told to wait for a nurse to come get her. Soon, a nurse poked her head into her room. More...
11/11/09
Women's health an 'urgent priority'
Societies fail women at key moments in their lives by not offering them quality health care, which undermines their ability to reach their full potential, the World Health Organization says in a new report.
The report declares that women's health is an "urgent priority" and says that women are shortchanged on medical care especially in adolescence and, then again, later in life.
"If women are denied a chance to develop their full human potential, including their potential to lead healthier and at least somewhat happier lives, is society as a whole really healthy?" asked Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO. "What does this say about the state of social progress in the 21st century?" More...
11/11/09
Evidence still fuzzy on cell phones, cancer
In the year since a U.S. cancer researcher's warning drew wide attention, more evidence is emerging that long-term cell phone use is associated with cancer, but there's still not a definitive explanation or proof of cause and effect.
Last summer, Dr. Ronald Herberman, then director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, issued a warning to about 3,000 faculty and staff, listing steps to avoid harmful electromagnetic radiation from cell phones. This included keeping the phone away from the body as much as possible and not allowing children to use cell phones except in emergencies.
"Since I put out that precautionary advisory in July of last year, I believe there is more indication for concern, particularly among children," he recently said. More...
11/11/09
What doctors don't tell you about C-sections
I was six months pregnant when a smiling stranger on a bus asked where I was delivering. Within minutes, this woman was sharing intimate details of her own birthing experience -- the water breaking, the contractions that failed to get closer together, and the way her doctor deftly sewed up the four-inch incision from her Caesarean section. "I'm telling you, this guy was good," she said. "Next time, I'm just scheduling my C-section. None of this pushing stuff."
I reached my stop before I could probe her for more specifics. But, I have to admit, her ringing endorsement made C-sections seem pretty appealing. After all, for most of us, the thought of pushing a baby through a centimeters-wide opening is at least daunting, if not downright terrifying. And, the fact is, a C-section is so routine these days that many regard it as simply an alternative to vaginal delivery, not major abdominal surgery. More...
11/11/09
Replenish your energy
Everyone needs carbohydrates, the body's preferred energy source. If you get regular cardiovascular exercise or train for an endurance sport, you need more daily carbs to fuel your workouts and replenish your energy stores.
Remember: all carbs are not created equal. Grains, fruit, vegetables (nutrient-rich choices) as well as candy and sweets (empty calories) are all sources of carbohydrate. Some foods, like dairy and legumes, combine carbohydrate and protein, which helps restore muscles.
The best carbs to choose are ones that contribute plenty of other nutrients such as protein, vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants. More...
11/10/09
Americans losing confidence in H1N1 battle
Americans are starting to lose confidence in the government's ability to prevent a nationwide epidemic of the H1N1 flu, according to a new national poll.
But the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Tuesday morning, indicates a small majority continue to say that the government and private industry eventually will produce enough of the vaccine for the virus, also known as swine flu, to inoculate everyone who wants it.
According to the poll, 51 percent of those questioned are confident in the government's ability to prevent an H1N1 epidemic, with 49 percent not confident. The number of Americans who are confident is down 8 percentage points from August, while the number of those not confident is up 9 percentage points. More...
11/10/09
Father gives up court battle to keep baby alive
The father of a baby born with a severe birth defect has agreed to let the child die, ending a court battle against the baby's mother, a lawyer for the hospital taking care of the baby told CNN Tuesday.
The baby's father had been fighting the mother and the hospital in London's High Court.
The child -- identified only as Baby RB -- is about a year old and suffers from congenital myasthenic syndrome, a rare genetic condition which means he cannot breathe on his own. More...
11/10/09
Dieters happier on low-fat, not low-carb, plans
People who spend a full year on a strict low-carbohydrate diet can lose weight, but they might be happier -- and lose just as many pounds -- if they focus on reducing fat intake instead of carbohydrates, new research suggests.
Weight-loss strategies like Atkins and South Beach promote sharply cutting carb intake so that your body burns fat for energy. These diets are known as ketogenic plans because, in the absence of carbohydrates, the liver breaks down fat into fatty acids and particles known as ketone bodies. More...
11/10/09
New help for moms with postpartum depression
Shortly before last Mother's Day, 28-year-old Lauren Meehan-Machos broke down in front of her startled husband. "This is more than I can handle," she sobbed.
The typically confident and self-assured Cary, North Carolina, mom -- a former Miss New Hampshire -- had felt overwhelmed and panicky since giving birth to her first child, Luke, two months prior. She'd obsessed so much about getting feedings and naps "right" that she stopped eating and sleeping herself. She cried continuously. She started throwing up. More...
11/09/09
Lower cholesterol may lessen risk of some cancers
Most people know that healthy cholesterol levels can help protect your heart. But new research suggests another potential benefit: a lower risk of developing some types of cancer.
In fact, low total cholesterol is associated with about 60 percent less risk of the most aggressive form of prostate cancer, and higher levels of good cholesterol (HDL) may protect against lung, liver, and other cancers, according to two studies published this week in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. More...
11/09/09
Treating trauma victims may cause its own trauma
They listen to tales of life's worst moments, but they can't go home and tell their spouses about what they've heard. Sometimes no amount of schooling is enough to shield them from taking on some of their patients' suffering.
Those who counsel trauma victims -- whether they be psychiatrists, social workers or advocates -- can experience an emotional toll after intensive exposure to patients' stories of horror. Experts call this phenomenon "vicarious trauma."
The impact of trauma on those who help the traumatized has become a subject of discussion as investigators try to piece together why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist at Darnall Army Medical Center, allegedly opened fire at a military processing center Thursday at Fort Hood Army Post in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others. More...
11/09/09
8 common diabetes questions answered
Nearly 24 million Americans have diabetes; another 57 million have prediabetes, a precursor to the disease. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that if the diabetes epidemic continues, one in three Americans will develop it in his or her lifetime.
That's especially bad news for women, because the disease can affect both mother and child during pregnancy, and women with diabetes are more likely to have a heart attack (and at a younger age) than women without diabetes. Along with the worries about diabetes, there's a lot of misinformation (like skinny girls can't get the disease, or eating too much candy causes it), which is why we've gathered expert answers to the most common questions. More...
11/09/09
Trial drug may help smokers kick butts
When Katherine Frazier was a teenager in Silver Spring, Maryland, back in the '60s, smoking was the "in" thing to do. She thought it was glamorous. She thought it was cool. Her friends smoked, her parents smoked, and at the time, no one knew that smoking tobacco could kill you.
Fast-forward 40 years. Frazier, 57, still smokes, but she wants to quit. She knows that the longer she puffs, the higher her risk for developing certain health problems, including heart disease and certain cancers.
In her battle against the butt, Frazier has stuck on patches, chewed gum and even tried going cold turkey. Sometimes it worked, but never for long. "I am desperate to quit smoking for good," she said.
Soon, she might have another tool at her disposal. More...
11/06/09
Heart failure may worsen with statins
It's widely known that cholesterol-lowering statins can benefit patients with heart disease, but a new study suggests they may actually harm some people with heart failure.
Heart disease can occur when arteries become clogged, but in heart failure, the heart gets progressively weaker and larger.
Still, since the study included a small number of patients and looked at only one point in time, it's too early to say if the findings have implications for heart failure patients taking statins, according to lead author Lawrence P. Cahalin, Ph.D., of Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts. Cahalin presented his findings on Tuesday at the American College of Chest Physicians annual meeting in San Diego, California. More...
11/06/09
Obesity responsible for 100,000 cancer cases
More than 100,000 cases of cancer each year are caused by excess body fat, according to a report released Thursday in Washington.
Researchers with the American Institute for Cancer Research looked at seven cancers with known links to obesity and calculated actual case counts that were likely to have been caused by obesity.
Specifically, the report says that 49 percent of endometrial cancers are caused by excess body fat. That number is followed by 35 percent of esophageal cancer cases; 28 percent of pancreatic cancer cases; 24 percent of kidney cancer cases; 21 percent of gallbladder cancer cases; 17 percent of breast cancer cases; and 9 percent of colorectal cancer cases. More...
11/06/09
How to squash worry and grab more happiness
These days it can feel like the age of anxiety is winning over the pursuit of happiness. An uncertain economy and the swine flu are just the tip of our worry iceberg.
In fact, scientists say women are wired to worry -- at least more so than men. In a recent Health magazine poll, 54 percent of women said they worry more than their spouse, with only 12 percent claiming their partner worries more than they do. That's thanks, in part, to the hormonal roller-coaster women ride month to month and through the years. More...
11/06/09
Greater risk for cancer, study finds
The 12-year-old girl plucked cold, slimy potato peels out of the garbage containers in a village in eastern Poland. When those trash scraps became scarce, she ate clover.
Crumbs and decomposed food sickened Betty Potash Gold and her family members, causing diarrhea and bloody vomiting, as they hid from the Nazis.
Although Gold lived through extreme hunger, mental duress and near-death experiences during the Holocaust, she and other survivors face another peril decades after the war.
"Jewish survivors of World War II who were potentially exposed to the Holocaust were at a higher risk for cancer occurrence later on in life than those not exposed," concluded a study published in the November issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Intense calorie deprivation, such as what Gold experienced, has long-term effects on survivors, said Dr. Micha Barchana, one of the study authors.
"We know that people who went through the Holocaust suffered severe calorie restriction," he said. "Calories they were taking in were 200 to 800 in this period." More...
11/05/09
Life-logging camera brings new hope for memory-loss patients
A small, wearable camera that captures images automatically could change the way memory loss patients, in particular those with Alzheimer's, are treated, experts say.
The SenseCam takes low-resolution photographs (about one third of a mega pixel), with a fisheye lens, at a rate of two per minute.
These low quality shots may not be going in the family photo album, but they are enough to prompt our brains to access previously locked information, researchers say. More...
11/05/09
AARP to back House health care bill
The AARP will endorse the House Democratic leadership's bill to overhaul health care, according to a Democratic source with direct knowledge of the plan.
The move comes as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, oversees final changes to the $1.1 trillion health care bill, which is likely set to come to a final vote Saturday.
The AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for people 50 and older.
A 42-page manager's amendment on the health care legislation posted Tuesday night made mostly technical changes in the nearly 2,000-page bill compiled from three Democratic proposals passed by three House committees. More...
11/05/09
Risks of daily aspirin may outweigh the benefits
Taking a low-dose aspirin every day can help prevent heart attacks in people who've already had one. But if you've never had a heart attack (or stroke), the risks of taking a daily low-dose aspirin outweigh the benefits, according to a U.K. report published in Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin.
About 50 million Americans take low-dose (325 milligrams per day or less) aspirin to prevent cardiovascular problems. Some do so even though they don't have heart disease or a history of heart attack or stroke, an approach known as primary prevention. More...
11/05/09
How to dodge germs
On a recent flight from San Francisco, California, to Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Julie Gerberding was thrilled to get bumped up to first class. The thrill, however, quickly disappeared: As she did her victory walk to the front cabin, she noticed that the woman in the seat next to hers was hacking up a lung.
"She was on her cell phone, saying, 'I feel miserable. I just know I have swine flu,' " Gerberding remembered. "I thought to myself, 'Oh, great.' "
For the duration of her transcontinental flight, Gerberding played viral roulette as she sat shoulder-to-shoulder next to Ms. Sneezy in a confined space.
Gerberding, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had a few strategies for avoiding this woman's germs, some of which you can use on planes, trains, automobiles and anywhere else if you get stuck next to Typhoid Mary -- or, in this case, H1N1 Mary. More...
11/04/09
2 dead, 28 sick from E. coli outbreak
Two people have died and 28 people have fallen ill with matching strains of E. coli after an outbreak in ground beef, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Sixteen of those people are in hospitals and three have developed kidney failure as a result of the contamination, the CDC said late Monday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last week that Fairbank Farms in Ashville, New York, was recalling more than half a million pounds of fresh ground beef products that may be contaminated with a strain of E. coli, a potentially deadly species of bacteria. More...
11/04/09
Boyz II Men singer has H1N1 virus
The H1N1 virus has afflicted another celebrity victim.
Shawn Stockman of the R&B group Boyz II Men has been diagnosed with the illness, fellow group members Wanya Morris and Nathan Morris told CNN.
The pair said Stockman was unable to accompany them to Atlanta on Tuesday for a scheduled performance at the 2009 Soul Train Awards.
"We tour eight months out of the year, and we are always traveling around," Nathan Morris said. "It's hectic for us always being in airplanes and airports. He got sick, and it hit him pretty hard." More...
11/04/09
Gaza on swine flu alert
Swine flu has not reached Gaza yet but with 1.5 million residents squeezed into 360 square kilometers it would appear to be a small miracle.
Gaza's Ministry of Health knows it is a matter of when not if the virus will get in. Moain Kariri, Director of Health Education, said: "It could be here tomorrow or the day after, you know there are no borders among bacteria and viruses."
H1N1 may not have arrived, but neither have the vaccines. Doctors in Gaza and the West Bank say they were expecting an initial 20,000 doses from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, but are still waiting with the order running late.
They were hoping to vaccinate 4,000 pilgrims leaving Gaza for Mecca and the Hajj later this month. That is looking far less likely.
Dr. Majdi Dhair from the Ministry of Health now says they will just have to monitor the pilgrims once they return. More...
11/04/09
Sex, then amnesia...and it's no soap opera
It was either mind-blowing or completely forgettable. Either way, Alice doesn't remember.
One August morning, Alice and her husband, Scott, had sex.
That's when things became confusing. Rather than appearing pleased, Alice, 59, seemed disoriented.
As they lay in bed, Scott (the couple asked that their last name not be used) flicked on the television, which was showing the Olympics. This perplexed Alice. "Is there an Olympics?" she asked. This was during the Michael Phelps mania, when the swimmer seemed to be everywhere. More...
11/03/09
One dose of H1N1 vaccine will protect pregnant women
Nearly all healthy pregnant women who receive a single dose of the H1N1 flu vaccine will be protected from that flu, according to just-released clinical trial data.
In a news conference Monday at the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said out of about 100 pregnant women who participated in trial studies, over 90 percent showed a robust immune response to a single 15-microgram dose of the H1N1 vaccine. And at this point, there have been no reported side effects, Fauci said.
Fauci stressed that these results should be reassuring for already-vaccinated pregnant women and this is "vital information for those who have not yet been vaccinated." He added that "pregnant women have tolerated the vaccine well, and no safety concerns have arisen." More...
11/03/09
Pregnant mother, pregnant daughter battle H1N1
Nancy Brizendine's slow-paced life in California's Antelope Valley has become something of a slick race track.
The first stunner, at 42 years old, in her 11th year of taking birth control pills, was that Brizendine and her live-in boyfriend and fishing buddy were expecting a baby.
"I was shocked. I didn't even think I could get pregnant," Brizendine said.
But concern over having a baby in her 40s soon gave way to the joy of becoming a mother for the third time. More...
11/03/09
What women's symptoms really mean
If only your body were a little more honest, figuring out what's wrong when you don't feel right would be so much easier. But often a symptom -- maybe it's a sore back, cracked lips, tingling in your legs -- has an odd or unexpected explanation.
Here, the surprising secrets behind some common complaints, and expert advice on how to get the relief you're looking for. Plus, four symptoms you should never ignore More...
11/03/09
Do digital diaries mess up your brain?
The meal you ate the first day you started working. The first exam you aced in high school. The shoes you wore to the prom.
These minute details of life often fade into the abyss of memory, which is not a perfect scrapbook of every experience. Over time, we forget details of events that happened long ago or even mis-remember them.
But today's technology creates opportunities for greater, moment-by-moment record-keeping. Archives of your blog, Facebook or Twitter feed -- both in text and in pictures -- might reveal exactly what you ate on important occasions, the papers you were proud of and the outfits you wore. More...
11/02/09
2 Tamiflu Overdoses Reported In Pa.
Two pediatric patients in Pennsylvania hospitals have received overdoses of the drug Tamiflu, which is used to treat flu symptoms.
The overdoses were the result of unawareness among staff as to the concentration of the drug given in an alternative liquid form, state health officials said.
Both children were unharmed as a result of the errors, but details of the near misses have been published in a supplementary Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory to raise awareness of the issue.
For patients who have trouble swallowing Tamiflu capsules, usually elderly and children, a liquid form of the drug is available. For facilities that have a shortage of Tamiflu in liquid form, the Food and Drug Administration approved directions listed in the product labeling for using the powder in the Tamiflu capsule to make a liquid form, which is a different concentration. More...
11/02/09
30 ways to outsmart the flu
In the new "super flu" era, who among us hasn't thought of bundling up our kiddos in hats, gloves, and surgical masks this winter? Better yet, how about plastic bubbles? (Remember that true story?)
Pediatricians' offices have been fielding calls and visits from worried moms since news of the novel flu strain -- originally called "swine flu" but now known officially as the H1N1 virus -- broke last spring and a global pandemic was declared. Yikes! How concerned should you really be? More...
11/02/09
Newborn inspires mom to lose 71 pounds
Veronica Noone had been a little overweight since her teens, and, like many people, had spent the better part of her life trying different diets, whatever was popular at the time.
Having a child changed that, she says. After she had her baby, she decided to lose the post-baby weight and the extra pounds she'd been carrying years before that. Dropping about 70 pounds in seven months, Noone's maintained a healthy weight for almost four years now. More...
11/02/09
Lab-created skin helps wounds heal
Adell Tomas, who lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, admits she has a weight problem: Ten years ago, she tipped the scales at more than 300 pounds. Because of her obesity, she developed high blood pressure, arthritis and type 2 diabetes. She says she just didn't take care of herself.
And then one day, she noticed a huge sore on the bottom of her foot. Like many diabetics, she has little feeling in her feet, so she had no idea what had caused the sore or even how long it had been there.
"It was huge and looked terribly infected," she recalled. "Dark red, almost black." More...
10/30/09
Pints for prostates
Rick Lyke was diagnosed with prostate cancer when he was 47. His response was to set up "Pints for Prostates," an organization that uses the universal language of beer to reach men with its message about the importance of prostate cancer screening.
In 2008, at the insistence of a colleague with prostate cancer, Lyke, from Charlotte, North Carolina, had himself tested for illness, even though he had no health problems.
His doctor was initially reluctant to have him tested, as men under the age of 50 aren't considered to a high-risk group for prostate cancer, but tests came back positive and Lyke needed surgery to remove the cancer. More...
10/30/09
How to keep little trick-or-treaters safe
Halloween is creeping up on us -- and as kids anticipate the occasion with excitement bordering on mania, parents often express concern.
Two of the worries topmost on parents' minds when it comes to their little trick-or-treaters: health and safety.
At a time when roughly one out of every three kids in the United States is overweight or obese, candy calories may be a new Halloween consideration. Calories can really add up for little ghouls and goblins as they pick up handfuls of sweet treats as they move from house to house. We'll show you just how many calories kids can consume in a short period, and look at what it takes to burn them off. More...
10/30/09
ERs hustling to keep up with H1N1
Nate Wordell, 7, just feels lousy: swollen eyes, cough, high fever, stomach ache and he's dehydrated. Nate has H1N1.
After toughing it out for three days at home, Nate's parents brought him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital Boston, Massachusetts. "The hardest thing for us was that we couldn't stay ahead of the medication or get him to keep any water down," says Nate's father, Michael Wordell of Auburndale, Massachusetts.
Hospitals from coast to coast are bracing for the influx of patients, just like Nate. Children's Hospital Boston has seen a 40 percent increase in patients this week alone.
"This could get pretty bad," says Dr. Anne Stack, clinical chief of emergency medicine at Children's Hospital Boston. "So we are trying to do as much as we can to prepare. But no one knows when it will end."
Many hospitals are creating alternative care sites in parking lots or in office buildings to handle an overflow of patients in the weeks ahead. Children's Hospital Boston has designated a conference room as a go-to H1N1 triage center. "We don't have additional space so we had to think outside the box," Stack says. More...
10/30/09
Is too much sleep making you tired?
Instead of feeling crisp and refreshed, Jesse Wu wakes up sluggish after 12 hours of sleep.
"If I sleep the right amount, I feel really good," said the 25-year-old who lives in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. "If I sleep too long, I feel groggy throughout the whole day."
Like Wu, some feel exhausted after long hours of rest.
"Many people will tell you, they sleep a little worse when they sleep a long time on weekends," said Dr. Daniel Kripke, co-director of Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, California. "Too much long sleep on weekends does not seem to make people feel better." But he acknowledged that the reasons haven't been determined. More...
10/29/09
Schizophrenia drugs in kids cause weight gain
Schizophrenia drugs, increasingly prescribed to children with bipolar disorder and other conditions, can cause youngsters to experience rapid weight gain, according to a new study.
Dr. Christoph U. Correll, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in the Bronx, New York, and his colleagues found that children and adolescents who take the drugs, known as atypical antipsychotics, gain an average of 10 to 19 pounds in the first few months, depending on which drug they are prescribed. More...
10/29/09
Volunteer crew hopes to spread healing
When American medical student Benjamin LaBrot traveled to Tanzania in 2005, he hauled antiseptics, insulin syringes, VapoRub, gauze, ibuprofen and other supplies in his pack. At a Masai village, he treated wounds, parasitic infections, sores and other ailments until his once-bulging backpack was depleted.
"When your backpack is empty and there are still people that have to be helped, it's extremely disappointing," he said, recalling a line of nearly 60 villagers left waiting around him.
LaBrot vowed to return someday. More...
10/29/09
Pregnant with cancer
My son is not a hugger. He's almost 2 years old, and I can count on one hand the times he's squeezed his chubby arms around my neck (they all involve my husband running the vacuum). I'm okay with this because on the rare occasion when I do get a hug, I get very emotional. I imagine most moms experience these my-heart-might-burst moments when a seconds-long embrace makes them feel like the luckiest person in the world. But for me, it's a little different. A little sweeter. And I am a lot luckier. See, I wasn't supposed to have a baby. I'm a cancer patient. Seven years ago I was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a slow-moving form of blood cancer. More...
10/29/09
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/29/halloween.calories.safety/index.html
Halloween is creeping up on us -- and as kids anticipate the occasion with excitement bordering on mania, parents often express concern.
Two of the worries topmost on parents' minds when it comes to their little trick-or-treaters: health and safety.
At a time when roughly one out of every three kids in the United States is overweight or obese, candy calories may be a new Halloween consideration. Calories can really add up for little ghouls and goblins as they pick up handfuls of sweet treats as they move from house to house. We'll show you just how many calories kids can consume in a short period, and look at what it takes to burn them off. More...
10/28/09
Asthma and swine flu
Nearly one-third, or 28 percent, of adults and children hospitalized with H1N1, also known as swine flu, have asthma. That's more than any other chronic condition, according to a recent analysis of cases published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
(The next most common complications on the list were diabetes and a weakened immune system, at 15 percent each.)
"Asthma was the most common underlying medical condition that we saw," says Seema Jain, M.D., a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jain's team analyzed 272 people who were hospitalized with swine flu for more than 24 hours between April and June. More...
10/28/09
First daughters get H1N1 shots as supplies increase
The first daughters have gotten it along with other children, and more residents around the nation may soon be able to get the H1N1 flu vaccine as health officials say more is on its way.
According to a statement posted on the White House Web site by Catherine McCormick-Lelyveld, press secretary for first lady Michelle Obama, daughters Sasha and Malia received their H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines last week. The president's daughters received the vaccine "after the vaccine became available to Washington, D.C., schoolchildren," according to the statement.
Since Friday, about 6 million more doses of H1N1 flu shots and nasal spray have been released. More...
10/28/09
Gates Foundation wants global health push
Global philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates are launching a major push to convince the United States to maintain government spending on worldwide health initiatives, despite the financial crisis and a soaring U.S. budget deficit.
Their goal is cut almost by half the number of child deaths each year, from 9 million to 5 million.
"This is a tragedy of almost unimaginable proportions," Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "And how we address this problem will reflect on whether we as citizens of the world are prepared to address the biggest problems in the world."
Yamada also highlighted the serious problem of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth. "There are many, many mothers who are dying at birth, many people who are not being addressed as to their biggest problems in health, and we think that this is something that is a cause of the greatest inequities in the world and should be corrected." More...
10/28/09
Devastating impact of world's tragedies
Over the last two decades humanitarian organization International Medical Corps has cared for hundreds of thousands of victims of wars and natural disasters in more than 25 countries.
From the genocide in Rwanda to the the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and Hurricane Katrina, the International Medical Corps (IMC), has witnessed first hand the devastating impact of each tragedy.
IMC recently released a book titled: "A Thousand Words: Photos from the Field," which chronicles the organization's 25-year history.
CEO Nancy Aossey told CNN, in an exclusive interview, the stories behind some of the most powerful and dramatic images, spanning more than 20 years.
"I have witnessed some of our generation's worst human tragedies -- and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit," said Aossey. More..
10/27/09
Roadside doctors with no degrees thrive in India
itting on an iron bench along a busy street, Chaman Lal sticks his fingers into a mug full of a greasy concoction and then applies the dark-red brew to areas where his patients complain of pain.
Lal -- who does not have a license to practice medicine, but claims to be a successful bone doctor and traditional healer -- says this potion of 18 herbs is a cure-all. His large signboard, placed along the roadside, claims he can even treat paralysis.
"I have a special potion for polio as well. Although I don't get polio cases these days, but it can be cured with that potion and oil massage," Lal said as he rubbed the broken ankle of a young man with the potion.
Part of India's massive informal economy, these street-side medicine men and women are called quacks by the medical association here -- but they say they are traditional healers. They cater to a huge market of poor people who cannot afford costly private health care. The number of such practitioners is unknown. More...
10/27/09
Death can tell us a lot about living
The son of a mortician from Laurel, Maryland, Wade has always been fascinated with the human anatomy. Intrigued by his father's medical books as a boy, he learned about the superior vena cava, the palmar plexus and the adductor tubercle early in life. Wade even mummified a dead rat for his ninth-grade science project. "Preserving the body was interesting to me." he says.
After a stint in Vietnam as an Air Force medic, Wade arrived at the University of Maryland School of Medicine as the director of the anatomical services division. One of Wade's responsibilities is to provide cadaver donors to local hospitals and medical institutions for surgical training.
But perhaps more intriguing, Wade's department also oversees a collection of 200 medical mummies, called the Burns Collection. Assembled in Scotland in the early 1800s by Allen Burns, an expert dissector, the mummies were used as teaching tools; eventually they were brought to Maryland and bought by the university. More...
10/27/09
Your cold and flu symptoms, explained
What it means: Your body is expelling bacteria and other particles with a sudden, involuntary burst of air. Don't suppress a sneeze, as your body is trying to evict the irritants.
When to worry: Almost never, but if sneezing interferes with your life or persists after other symptoms are gone, talk to your doctor to find out if an allergy might be the cause.
Home remedies: Using Kleenex Anti-Viral tissues helps prevent the spread of viruses. No tissue? Sneeze into your upper sleeve, not your hands. You'll be less likely to pass germs along.
Over-the-counter remedies: Some antihistamines (the sedating varieties) can help cut down on the sneeze reflex. But most experts advise you to leave this fairly innocuous symptom untreated. More...
10/27/09
Florida doctor takes health care to the disadvantaged
Elena Espinoza came to Miami's Mercy Hospital with abdominal pain. Peruvian born, she works as a housekeeper. She has no insurance. She's afraid. Afraid of the pain and discomfort in her stomach, and intimidated by the building and the system she has come to for help -- for which she can't pay.
Dr. Joe Greer has tried to help her relax. He's a gastroenterologist on a humanitarian quest to provide health care to those who don't have the money to pay him -- the homeless, the poor and immigrants. It's a trip that has taken Dr. Pedro Jose "Joe" Greer under highways and bridges, to homeless shelters, and even to the White House. More...
10/26/09
Suzanne Somers' cancer advice is risky
This week, the comedic actress Suzanne Somers is promoting her newly released book, which espouses the virtues of alternative medicine and, more important, explains why one should avoid conventional medicine.
She is a wonderful actress, and I wish she would stick to her first chosen profession. I know some people will hear her message, follow her advice because of her celebrity status and be harmed. Her medical advice may even cause death.
She joins the list of celebrities who have advocated alternative and complementary treatments for disease and non-proven conventional medicine. I have spent much of my professional career documenting disparities in outcome, higher mortality and more suffering among minorities, poor people and even the uninsured middle class who have limited or no access to conventional medicine, the therapies Somers criticizes. More...
10/26/09
Kids care for mom without arms, legs
Every morning, Lisa Strong's 10-year-old son lifts her heavy prosthetic legs and screws them into the levers in her knees. He reaches for a pair of pants and pulls them up around her waist.
Then, at the bathroom mirror, her 11-year-old daughter gingerly wiggles into the space between her mother's arms, which are big and bulky and plastic, stiff like a mannequin's. The girl twists a tube of soft pink lipstick and glides it over her mother's lips.
"I cook, I clean, I do everything, I, mostly ... I brush her hair," Chloe Strong said. "When I was younger, I didn't understand. Now I understand completely." More...
10/26/09
Cancer won't wait
On October 2, 1996, I was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer. Like many 25-year-olds, I was fearless, ready to conquer the world and without health insurance.
I was lucky. One of my sponsors, Oakley, stood up for me and threatened to take all their business elsewhere if their insurance carrier refused to cover me. Without their help, I might not be alive today. Or I might be completely broke, still trying to dig my way out of a massive pile of medical bills.
That kind of luck shouldn't have anything to do with whether the 1.5 million people in the United States who will be diagnosed with cancer this year go broke trying to get the treatment they need to survive. More...
10/26/09
Tweens challenged by grown-up malady
Hannah Powell-Auslam of La Mirada, California, had surgery this month to check her lymph nodes, just in case the breast cancer had spread.
Taylor Thompson of Little Rock, Arkansas, also had an aggressive form of breast cancer, one that has a 98 percent chance of returning. It required surgery in June.
They're two young women fighting breast cancer. Or rather, two girls: Hannah is 11. Taylor is 13.
While Taylor and Hannah's cases are rare, they're extreme examples of a troubling trend emerging with breast cancer, medical experts say. Younger women are getting a disease that usually strikes around menopause -- and no one knows why. More...
10/23/09
The Case of the Missing Assistant Surgeon
Do you know how many people are at the table with gloves on, when you have an operation? There's the surgeon and a scrub nurse, of course. A surgical tech may be there too, suctioning up those queasy fluids, holding the arm or leg we're working on, cutting sutures and holding retractors. But you have seen enough medical shows to know there's also always at least one other doctor present. We may not engage in the same kind of dramatic medical banter that fictional surgeons do (like flying a passenger jet, safe surgery should be a little bit boring), but that second doctor — the assistant surgeon — should be in the operating room for all major procedures. More...
10/23/09
Workplace health may be declining
One in three workers has at least one symptom of clinical depression; 41 percent say they feel stressed sometimes, often, or very often; and one in five has trouble falling asleep often or very often. In all, 14 percent are being treated for high cholesterol and one in five is taking blood-pressure-lowering medication.
In fact, the percentage of workers who say they're in excellent health has dropped from 34 percent in 2002 to 28 percent in 2008, according to a report recently released by the Families and Work Institute (FWI), a nonprofit research company.
"When we try to explain what happened [since 2002], it wasn't what we thought was the simple answer -- that the population is getting older and younger people simply have better health," says Ellen Galinsky, the FWI's president and cofounder. "It was a change among men and higher income employees [due to] the uncertainty around the economy and the greater pressure that people are feeling to manage their work and family life." More...
10/23/09
Breast cancer patients advised to consider options
Wallinga wept openly; she'd dreaded waking up from surgery without a breast, and now she had no choice. "I was devastated," says the 53-year-old writer from St. Cloud, Minnesota, whose breast cancer was diagnosed three years ago. "I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me."
Today Wallinga considers that delay one of the luckiest moments of her life. She says it gave her the time to investigate other procedures to reconstruct her breast besides the two her surgeon had recommended. With that time, she ultimately made a very different decision.
Wallinga's experience highlights an emerging issue in breast cancer care: With so many choices to make -- Mastectomy or lumpectomy? What type of reconstruction? To get chemotherapy or not? -- there's concern women aren't being properly informed about all the treatment options available to them. More...
10/23/09
Frustration looms as H1N1 vaccines run out
Her doctor is out of the vaccine, and so is the pediatrician. Her two older sons were not eligible for the nasal spray version because of asthma, and she was told the shot would not become available until perhaps November. Her youngest son, 2, goes to a preschool where there was recently a diagnosis of H1N1.
"I feel that the government and health officials, they knew this was big when it first started, they know the size of our population before it started, and they didn't make leaps and bounds to make sure it was available to everyone when they would need it," she said. "It shouldn't be a supply-and-demand thing." More...
10/22/09
Feds: Arrests made in California, Texas in Medicare frauds
ederal authorities Wednesday arrested seven more defendants in Southern California for allegedly defrauding Medicare, bringing to 20 the number of defendants accused in a recent series of Medicare fraud schemes totaling $26 million dollars.
"Our Medicare Fraud Strike Force will continue to be vigilant in rooting out criminals who masquerade as health care providers in order to steal from American taxpayers," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in Washington.
The latest fraud charges involve providers of durable medical equipment such as power wheelchairs and hospital beds. Authorities say company owners and marketers fraudulently ordered the devices and billed the government.
Meanwhile, in similar cases in the Houston, Texas, area, federal officials filed charges against six defendants for alleged efforts to defraud Medicare of nearly $2 million.
In the Texas case, authorities said the schemes also involved ordering of medically unnecessary durable medical equipment including so-called "arthritis kits" and braces. More...
10/22/09
Childhood cancer survivors less likely to marry
"He wasn't trying to mean anything by it, but I felt a little less desirable at that moment," she said.
Willis has generally had only positive experiences talking with potential romantic partners about her cancer history, but knows other survivors who have struggled much more with it.
Research recently published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found that adults who are childhood cancer survivors are 20 to 25 percent less likely to marry compared with their siblings and the American population. The trend held across all age groups over 25 years old, the authors wrote.
Willis, who directs survivorship programs at the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, was 15 years old when she learned she had Ewing's sarcoma, a rare cancer that located in the soft tissue outside of her skull. She went through two years of chemotherapy, four surgeries, and six weeks of radiation to eradicate the cancer. More...
10/22/09
Workplace health may be declining
One in three workers has at least one symptom of clinical depression; 41 percent say they feel stressed sometimes, often, or very often; and one in five has trouble falling asleep often or very often. In all, 14 percent are being treated for high cholesterol and one in five is taking blood-pressure-lowering medication.
In fact, the percentage of workers who say they're in excellent health has dropped from 34 percent in 2002 to 28 percent in 2008, according to a report recently released by the Families and Work Institute (FWI), a nonprofit research company. More...
10/22/09
Breast cancer patients advised to consider options
Wallinga wept openly; she'd dreaded waking up from surgery without a breast, and now she had no choice. "I was devastated," says the 53-year-old writer from St. Cloud, Minnesota, whose breast cancer was diagnosed three years ago. "I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me."
Today Wallinga considers that delay one of the luckiest moments of her life. She says it gave her the time to investigate other procedures to reconstruct her breast besides the two her surgeon had recommended. With that time, she ultimately made a very different decision. More...
10/21/09
CBO finds Dem bill with public option
CBO also found that the Democrats' bill reduces the deficit in the first ten years.
This new CBO estimate, which aides caution is not final, is significantly less than the original $1.1 trillion price tag of the original House bill that passed out of three committees this summer. More importantly, it comes under the $900 billion cap set by President Obama in his joint address to Congress last month.
CBO analyzed what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls a "more robust" public option -- one that ties reimbursement rates for doctors to current Medicare rates, plus a 5 percent increase.
At a meeting with House Democrats on Tuesday night, Pelosi did not release CBO's preliminary numbers, but told members that CBO told leaders the House bill would cost well below $900 billion. Aides say final CBO numbers could be released on Wednesday. More...
10/21/09
Medical marijuana policy move
The Justice Department this week announced that it will no longer seek to prosecute people using, prescribing, or distributing pot for medical purposes, as long as they're in compliance with local law. However, regulations in some medical marijuana states remain murky.
For example, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley recently announced a plan to crack down on all medical marijuana dispensaries in his jurisdiction, arguing that they are illegal. In California, as well as several other medical marijuana states, laws governing distribution vary from city to city and county to county. Matters are simpler in Rhode Island and New Mexico, which formally license medical marijuana providers.
Nevertheless, advocates hail the news as a step in the right direction. They say the move will likely encourage more doctors to consider prescribing medical marijuana in states where it's legal. And more patients may try using the drug, which can be prescribed for chronic pain, nausea, and other conditions. More...
10/21/09
An uphill battle to combat Latino childhood obesity
Frida's mother, Blanca Sepulveda, who has watched other family members struggle with diabetes and obesity, was "devastated" to see her daughter experience similar health problems.
Now at age 11, Frida is about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs around 180 pounds, her mother said. Despite a high body weight for her age and height, Frida does not seem to have additional symptoms of diabetes -- or any other major health concerns -- but her parents are trying to reverse the weight problem Frida has had since infancy.
The San Diego, California, family is among a disproportionately high number of Latino-American families with overweight and obese children. According to the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, 16.6 percent of Latino high school students were obese and 18.1 percent were overweight. The corresponding national averages for high school students were 13.3 percent obese and 15.8 percent overweight. More...
10/21/09
Childhood cancer survivors
"He wasn't trying to mean anything by it, but I felt a little less desirable at that moment," she said.
Willis has generally had only positive experiences talking with potential romantic partners about her cancer history, but knows other survivors who have struggled much more with it.
Research recently published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found that adults who are childhood cancer survivors are 20 to 25 percent less likely to marry compared with their siblings and the American population. The trend held across all age groups over 25 years old, the authors wrote.
Willis, who directs survivorship programs at the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, was 15 years old when she learned she had Ewing's sarcoma, a rare cancer that located in the soft tissue outside of her skull. She went through two years of chemotherapy, four surgeries, and six weeks of radiation to eradicate the cancer. More...
10/20/09
H1N1 virus confirmed in Minnesota pig
We have fully engaged our trading partners to remind them that several international organizations, including the World Organization for Animal Health, have advised that there is no scientific basis to restrict trade in pork and pork products," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in the statement. "People cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products. Pork is safe to eat."
The announcement came three days after health officials announced that three pigs that were displayed during the fair had tested positive in a preliminary test for the H1N1 flu virus. Final results on the other two pigs have not been announced.
"This, of course, may be the first indication that it is present in some swine here in the United States," Gene Hugoson, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, told reporters in a conference call on Friday. More...
10/20/09
U.S. attorneys told to go after pot traffickers
A memo sent to U.S. attorneys said that in carrying out Justice pronouncements made earlier this year indicating a policy shift to end prosecutions against users, authorities should continue to pursue drug traffickers.
"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "But we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," Holder added.
The memo from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden was sent to U.S. attorneys in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. More...
10/20/09
PTSD linked to higher post-surgery
he study shows that veterans with PTSD were more likely to die within a year after surgery than those without the disease, regardless of how many years had passed since their service. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists this week.
This is the first research to examine the mortality of patients with PTSD after surgery, said study author Dr. Marek Brzezinski, anesthesiologist and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
"If you consider that perhaps more and more patients are coming, and they're going to be with us for years to come, this is obviously a huge field that needs to be addressed," he said. More...
10/20/09
Women's health problems doctors still miss
Her doctor told her: "I have no idea what it is. Wait for it to go away." It didn't go away. "I could no longer think straight, no matter how hard I tried or what I did," Price says. Worse, she suffered three straight miscarriages.
Finally, four years after this nightmare began -- after the third miscarriage -- an ultrasound revealed that her ovaries were riddled with cysts. She had polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder; symptoms include irregular periods, infertility, brain fog, and obesity.
Price's gynecologist prescribed metformin, and she finally got some relief. "I had myself back," she remembers. "I had energy, I could think, I wasn't starving all the time." Best of all, she finally had a baby, born last June. More...
10/19/09
Women's health problems doctors still miss
Her doctor told her: "I have no idea what it is. Wait for it to go away." It didn't go away. "I could no longer think straight, no matter how hard I tried or what I did," Price says. Worse, she suffered three straight miscarriages.
Finally, four years after this nightmare began -- after the third miscarriage -- an ultrasound revealed that her ovaries were riddled with cysts. She had polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder; symptoms include irregular periods, infertility, brain fog, and obesity.
Price's gynecologist prescribed metformin, and she finally got some relief. "I had myself back," she remembers. "I had energy, I could think, I wasn't starving all the time." Best of all, she finally had a baby, born last June. More...
10/19/09
Seniors Wii bowl for world record and for health
The event, put on by TexanPlus -- the Houston area's largest Medicare HMO -- drew more than 1,500 supporters and 600 senior bowlers to break a record but also to have fun and dish out a little bit of Texas-style competition and a side helping of health information.
"I'm in it to win it," one man said as he rolled his walker up to the foul line.
One booty-shakin' grandma even showed off her victory dance after she Wii-bowled a strike.
Aside from a seniors-gone-wild moment, this event served a very important purpose: to encourage seniors to get stronger and fitter, possibly saving them from life-altering injuries.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in seniors. More...
10/19/09
Three die in Detroit marathon
All three deaths occurred between 9 and 9:20 a.m. ET, Second Deputy Chief John Roach said.
A man in his 60s fell and hit his head, Roach said. The cause of the fall was unknown. The man was transported to Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Two other men, ages 36 and 26, also collapsed during the race and were pronounced dead at the hospital, Roach said. More...
10/19/09
Feds approve new HPV vaccine
Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, was approved Friday for prevention of cervical cancer and pre-cancerous lesions caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18.
The vaccine is approved for use in girls and women ages 10 to 25 years and is to be administered in three doses. After the initial shot, the second and third doses are to be given within six months.
"The licensure of Cervarix adds another option in the prevention of cervical cancer," said Dr. Karen Midthun, acting director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "It has the potential to save lives from cervical cancer as well as reduce the need for biopsies and invasive procedures associated with the necessary follow-up from abnormal Pap tests." More...
10/16/09
Don't buy swine flu drugs online
Products that are offered for sale online with claims to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus must be carefully evaluated," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said.
The FDA issued the warning Thursday after it had purchased products over the Internet that were supposed to be Tamiflu and analyzed them. Tamiflu is one of two approved anti-viral treatments for H1N1. The other is Relenza.
None of the products received by the FDA were approved for sale in the United States, and they contained various levels of oseltamivir phosphate, the drug in Tamiflu.
"Medicines purchased from Web sites operating outside the law put consumers at increased risk due to a higher potential that the products will be counterfeit, impure, contaminated or have too little or too much of the active ingredient," Hamburg said. More...
10/16/09
Doctor says near-death experiences are in the mind
The mother of two, also a grandmother, was at her job, driving a school bus for the Newton Public School District in suburban Boston, Massachusetts.
Her passengers, special-needs children, were wheelchair-bound.
Seemingly in good health and in good spirits, Geraghty was finishing up her late-morning run, transporting a student and teacher back to Newton South High School, when she realized she was in trouble.
As she was pulling into the school parking lot, she began having sharp stomach pains. She was able to park her bus, but she kept feeling worse.
The pain "went right up my arm and into my chest, and I said, 'Uh-oh, I'm having a heart attack,' " she said. More...
10/16/09
Scientists hope work with poison gas can be a lifesaver
Guiding the visitors at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is Mark Roth, a 50-year-old biologist with a tall forehead, thinning red hair and a perpetual wry smile. He asks his assistant, Jennifer Blackwood, if the rat is ready. It is. She turns a dial, and the sealed enclosure starts to fill with poison gas -- hydrogen sulfide. An ounce could kill dozens of people.
The rat sniffs the air a few times, and within a minute, his naturally twitchy movements are almost still. On a monitor that shows his rate of breathing, the lines look like a steep mountain slope, going down.
At first glance, that looks bad. We need oxygen to live. If you don't get it for several minutes -- for example, if you suffer cardiac arrest or a bad gunshot wound -- you die. But something else is going on inside this rat. He isn't dead, isn't dying. The reason why, some people think, is the future More...
10/16/09
Surviving breast cancer
While some men feel embarrassed because of "this macho crap," Criss said surviving breast cancer -- yes, men get it, too -- was actually a blessing. He was treated before the tumor could spread and said he's speaking about male breast cancer now -- during National Breast Cancer Awareness month -- to raise the profile of this rare disease.
Criss, who played drums for KISS and was known as "Catman," offered this advice to men who spot lumps in their breast: "Don't sit around playing Mr. Tough Guy. Don't say 'It's going to go away.' It might not and you might not see life anymore and how beautiful that is."
The 63-year-old musician is now cancer free.
Like many others, Criss wasn't aware men could get breast cancer. More...
10/15/09
How organs are selected for transplant
Corporal Matthew Millington, 31, died in 2008, less than a year after receiving a transplant at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire, England.
However a transplant surgeon has told CNN that smokers organs will continue to be used as long as medical services face a severe shortage of organs.
Chris Watson, vice president of the British Transplantation Society, told CNN that 49 percent of last year's lung donors in the UK were smokers More...
10/15/09
CPR beat back death
he Hardens were losing track of each other's conversations. It had been a long, exhausting day for both Scott, a sheriff's deputy, and Kathie, an elementary school teacher. The couple put their two young children to bed, turned on the Food Network for a few minutes, then called it a night. More...
10/15/09
Is autism genetic?
Alisa Rock, whose 10-year-old son Connor has autism, says parents of autistic children often align themselves with one of two camps: There are those who believe that genes cause the disorder, and those firmly convinced that environmental factors are to blame. More...
10/15/09
Mom won't be forced to have C-section
Joy is now eight months pregnant, but when this baby is born, her husband will most likely be more than 300 miles away.
The reason: Their local hospital in Page, Arizona, won't deliver the Szabos' baby vaginally as the Szabos wish, so a week or so before her November 21 due date, Joy will drive 350 miles to be near a hospital in Phoenix that will.
Their local hospital says they'll only deliver the Szabos' baby, another boy, via Caesarean section. Joy had her second son, Michael, by C-section. Page Hospital says it won't do a vaginal birth after a woman has had a C-section -- known as a VBAC -- because it has a higher than usual risk for complications. More...
10/14/09
Underlying conditions playing less of role in H1N1
Schuchat told reporters that the CDC's findings were based on data from about 1,400 adults and 500 children in 10 surveillance sites who were hospitalized with H1N1 virus, sometimes referred to as swine flu.
Those data, which Schuchat called preliminary, appear to clash with findings reported last week in an online publication of the New England Journal of Medicine that found nearly three-quarters of 272 other patients hospitalized with H1N1 had at least one underlying medical condition. More...
10/14/09
Weight losers combat fear of exercise
During high school, he got a doctor's note to excuse him from physical education. After years of overeating and under-exercising, he ballooned to around 360 pounds and felt depressed.
But before-and-after photos he posted on iReport.com show how the St. Louis, Missouri, resident transformed himself from overweight teen to muscular man. Now a fitness coach, his mission in life is to make exercise fun so that kids will want to stay healthy. More...
10/14/09
Cheating Death: Back from the dead
Chris Brooks, just 22, was out for a night of bowling with friends. Exhausted, on the way home, he texted his girlfriend, I'm dead. Fifteen minutes later, he was clinically dead suffering an unexplained cardiac arrest on the couch at home, right in front of his parents. But it wasn't the end.
The same night Chris Brooks died, he came back to life. Doctors say that for every minute without a heartbeat, your odds of survival go down 10 percent. Chris Brooks was out for more than 20 minutes -- and yet he survived, without even a hint of brain damage
10/14/09
For young mom, new CPR beat
The Hardens were losing track of each other's conversations. It had been a long, exhausting day for both Scott, a sheriff's deputy, and Kathie, an elementary school teacher. The couple put their two young children to bed, turned on the Food Network for a few minutes, then called it a night. More...
10/13/09
12-year-old fights friend's cancer
She was performing outside Washington's Union Station to help her 4-year-old friend, Taylor Love, who is suffering from cancer.
Abby sat in front of the station with a couple of her friends, singing songs and strumming a guitar. Passers-by seemed to notice the girl's singing talent, stopping to listen in the chilly weather, with a few putting money in a bucket at Abby's feet. Abby said the money will help support Taylor's family. More...
10/13/09
From an icy slope, a medical miracle emerges
What happened that day in 1999 changed her life and has redefined what is possible in cases of accidental hypothermia.
Bågenholm slid down a steep, icy gully and ended up submerged head first in a hole in the ice in a mostly frozen stream. Only her skis and Telemark boots and bindings protruded from the thick, opaque ice. As the 29-year-old struggled, her friends Marie Falkenberg and Torvind Næsheim began a frantic effort to free her, made impossible by a torrent of frigid spring runoff pouring over them into the hole where their friend was submerged.
They called for help, starting a chain of events that is now part of medical literature and local lore. More...
10/13/09
A H1N1 flu to-do
The onslaught of information about H1N1 -- be it playground rumors, employer signs telling you to cover your cough, memos from your kids' school, or scary-sounding news reports -- is making it pretty hard to figure out what you should be doing right now.
Although some people have already been vaccinated, it could be weeks -- depending on your age and risk factors -- before you even get a chance at the shot (or spray). So now what?
Sometimes it feels like you have two choices. A: Wring your hands endlessly about something over which you have no control. Or, B: Tune out the static and pretend this is all just a horrible dream. (Call it the ignore-the-whole-sorry-mess-until-my-neighbor-is-sick approach.)
10/13/09
Crush of cancer
They didn't have to say a word. I knew from their faces that something wasn't right, said Elder, 60, who hours earlier had stumbled into the ER with a stabbing pain in her abdomen. "Then one doctor said, Your right kidney ... it's breaking apart. You have a tumor ... and you also have a tumor in your left kidney.
The words "You have a tumor" were not new to Elder; her grim financial situation was.
Elder had cancer twice before -- in 1988, doctors found a tumor in her right breast, and in 2001, they found one in her left breast -- except back then, she was insured. By the time she learned that she had kidney cancer in September 2005, she was uninsured. More...
10/12/09
To vaccinate or not?
Peterson is one of many parents who are discussing -- whether in real life or on Twitter -- their skepticism of the vaccine. The vaccine is being distributed as an intranasal spray this week, and will arrive next week in injection form, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earlier this week.
The CDC and other public health authorities say the new vaccine is safe, and are encouraging everyone to get it, especially those in high risk groups. But experts acknowledge that many people struggle with the decision. More...
10/12/09
Boy pushes Congress for food allergy guidelines
My name is Kyle Graddy. I'm 9 years old and I have a peanut allergy. I traveled to Washington last week to help myself and other kids with food allergies to have a safer experience at school.
I represented the state of Alabama in the Kids' Congress on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.
There were 80 kids and 73 families from 24 different states participating in the Kids' Congress.
Kids with food allergies are just like any other kids, they just can't eat some foods because it could make them very sick. More...
10/12/09
How we're winning the war on breast cancer
Fortunately, far fewer women have to put up with such blunt solutions these days. Although more than 190,000 people will get a breast cancer diagnosis this year, many of them will go on to live wonderfully cancer-free lives because of enormous improvements in how we detect, treat, even prevent this disease. Here's how we're actually winning the war on breast cancer.
We know more than ever
Once identified only by how far the disease had advanced such as stage 0 or stage IV scientists now know that breast cancer is actually many diseases and that each tumor has a unique genetic fingerprint. There are luminal A and B, HER2 type, and triple negative, among others. That means physicians can more effectively target treatment with therapies that have the best chance of working. More...
10/12/09
To fight flu, arm your immune system
My symptoms were apparently the same as for regular flu: coughs, sneezes, high temperature, sore throat and headache. she says. But when her boyfriend took her to the doctor, her diagnosis was a little little bit of a shock. I had the swine flu!
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped counting the number of reported H1N1 virus incidents in this country, the American Medical Association says many of its members are starting to see more cases of the illness, along with early bouts of seasonal flu and colds. It's just that time of year when a lot of nasty bugs are out there. So the question is, what's the best way to protect yourself?
Health experts will tell you the most effective way to fight the flu, including the H1N1 virus, is to get vaccinated, which causes your own body to make antibodies that target specific illnesses. After immunization, it takes up to 10 days for the vaccines to take effect. But there are other ways to boost your immune system to ward off being sick during the winter. More...
10/09/09
Man with breast cancer testifies that he blames Marine base
Michael Partain, who was diagnosed two years ago at the age of 39, told the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs that his parents were stationed at the base in North Carolina when he was born.
At least 40 former U.S. Marines or sons of Marines who lived at Camp Lejeune have been diagnosed with the cancer that strikes fewer than 2,000 men a year, compared with about 200,000 women.
The committee hearing was focused on exposure by military personnel to hazardous materials in the United States, Japan and Iraq, including toxic smoke from burn pits in Iraq and contaminated water. More...
10/09/09
Doc makes more cash selling clothes on eBay
Lickteig runs a clothing store on eBay, where she's a "Gold PowerSeller," ranking among the top 1½ percent of merchants on the online marketplace.
The 35-year-old family practitioner says she earned $120,000 last year on eBay, more than she did practicing medicine.
"It's just kind of this thrill," she said. "It think it's the thrill of having built up this business and just done it myself. I don't have to get an MBA. I don't have to have a storefront."
As health care reform threatens to shake up the business of medicine, recruiting firms promote alternatives for doctors at pharmaceutical, biotechnology, insurance and investment banking firms. But eBay?
Lickteig was juggling medicine with mothering her two boys when she became pregnant with twin girls. Once Natalie and Melanie arrived, Lickteig had to take time out from her practice.
10/09/09
Elizabeth Taylor says heart surgery went 'perfectly'
The message on her Twitter page comes two days after she announced she was having heart surgery at an undisclosed hospital to repair a leaky valve.
Any prayers you happen to have lying around I would dearly appreciate, she said Tuesday.
In a message Thursday, the Oscar winner thanked fans.
"Dear Friends, My heart procedure went off perfectly," she posted. "Thank you for your prayers and good wishes. Know they all helped."
The 77-year-old did not go into further detail about her heart condition or the medical procedure.
Taylor was briefly hospitalized this summer for scheduled testing and checked out sore, but intact, she said in an online message posted in July.
10/09/09
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/09/h1n1.vaccine.skepticism/index.html
"I wrestled with it," she said. "I think the side of caution in this case is just waiting until we have more information."
Peterson is one of many parents who are discussing -- whether in real life or on Twitter -- their skepticism of the vaccine. The vaccine is being distributed as an intranasal spray this week, and will arrive next week in injection form, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earlier this week.
The CDC and other public health authorities say the new vaccine is safe, and are encouraging everyone to get it, especially those in high risk groups. But experts acknowledge that many people struggle with the decision. More...
10/08/09
Nurse accused of reusing equipment
Fort Lauderdale Police are investigating to determine whether any crimes were committed after an anonymous caller reported seeing the nurse use the same saline bag and a portion of tubing more than once, during adult cardiac chemical stress tests.
The hospital, Broward General Medical Center, said that a review of the nurse was conducted when administering intravenous fluids during the stress tests and that she was suspended pending the outcome of a full investigation. The nurse subsequently resigned, according to the hospital.
Police have identified the nurse as Qui Lan of Fort Lauderdale. CNN was unable to reach her for comment. More...
10/08/09
Men, convertible drivers at higher risk
A study of more than 5,000 people in the United States aged 20 to 69 found that males were three times as likely to have noise-related hearing loss as women. The research was recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery in San Diego, California.
Occupational and recreational noise exposure, as well as service in the armed forces, are likely explanations for why men are at greater risk, said Dr. Hamid Djalilian of the University of California, Irvine, Medical Center, who collaborated on the research.
While the study did not focus on specific root causes, anecdotally Djalilian sees patients whose hearing problems most likely stem from music at concerts or night clubs, or outdoor activities with "powered instrumentation" such as chain saws and motorcycles. More...
10/08/09
H1N1 questions answered
Marti, among the first to get vaccinated against the novel H1N1 influenza virus this week, said he would tell his friends and classmates that "the swine flu vaccine is good, and protects me from getting the swine flu."
New York has received a shipment of 68,000 doses of the FluMist variety vaccine. This form was made available before the injectable kind because it was ready first, said Thomas Skinner, spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As states across the country receive and distribute the vaccine, questions still linger about who should get it and why. Here are some guidelines: More...
10/08/09
How to achieve planned patienthood
Imagine that feeling when you burn your mouth on hot pizza. Now magnify it by about 100, he said. The lining of my nose, throat and mouth were basically just sloughing off.
To make matters worse, because he had to take drugs that suppressed his immune system, Konowitz also developed herpes sores up and down his esophagus.
He made an appointment with a gastroenterologist and had high hopes that he might find some relief from his treatments.
But something strange happened at that doctor's appointment.
My wife and I talked to the doctor for about 15 minutes, and then he just kind of got up and left the room. The appointment was over, Konowitz remembered. The doctor had given the Konowitzes no treatment plan, no directions, no suggestions, no nothing. My wife and I looked at each other and said, What was that all about? We didn't know anything more than when we went in.
10/07/09
Elizabeth Taylor will have heart procedure
The 77-year-old Oscar winner did not go into further detail about her heart condition or the medical procedure.
She was briefly hospitalized this summer for scheduled testing, she said at the time.
She checked out sore, but intact, the actress said in an online message posted July 17.
Her publicist had denied tabloid rumors that her hospitalization was brought on by her grief over the sudden death of her close friend Michael Jackson in June. More...
10/07/09
Worked to death
There have been 24 suicides and 13 attempted suicides among France Telecom's 100,000 employees since the beginning of 2008.
Labor unions blame restructuring and poor working conditions for creating a climate of stress.
Last week a 51-year old father of two jumped to his death from a bridge. He was reported to have left a letter blaming his death on the "atmosphere" at work, according to media reports.
The deputy chief executive of France Telecom Monday resigned in the wake of the staff suicides. More...
10/07/09
H1N1 questions answered
Marti, among the first to get vaccinated against the novel H1N1 influenza virus this week, said he would tell his friends and classmates that "the swine flu vaccine is good, and protects me from getting the swine flu."
New York has received a shipment of 68,000 doses of the FluMist variety vaccine. This form was made available before the injectable kind because it was ready first, said Thomas Skinner, spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As that states across the country receive and distribute the vaccine, questions still linger about who should get it and why. Here are some guidelines: More...
10/07/09
Chemistry Nobel honors research
Inside all animals, plants and bacteria are DNA molecules that contain the blueprint for life. Ribosomes are an organism's protein factories. They use the information in the DNA to make the tens of thousands of proteins that enable the organism to function properly.
These proteins include hormones, enzymes and hemoglobin, which transports oxygen.
From a medicinal standpoint, the ribosome is important because it is what antibiotics target.
In a bacterial strain, antibiotics bind to the ribosomes, preventing them from making the proteins the bacteria need to survive.
Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath shared the $1.4 million prize for mapping the position of the thousands and thousands of atoms that make up ribosomes. Their three-dimensional models showed how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome. More...
10/06/09
Internet addiction linked to ADHD
Although an Internet addiction is not an official diagnosis, signs of a potential problem include using the Internet so much for game playing or other purposes that it interferes with everyday life and decision-making ability. (The diagnosis is being considered for the 2012 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the "bible" of mental ailments published by the American Psychiatric Association).
Past research suggests that 1.4 percent to 17.9 percent of adolescents are addicted to the Internet, with percentages higher in Eastern nations than in Western nations, according to the study published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
The Internet as therapy
In the survey of 2,293 seventh-grade students in Taiwan, 10.8 percent developed an Internet addiction, which was determined by a high score on an Internet addiction scale. Definitions vary, but an Internet addiction usually includes symptoms such as spending a lot of time on the Internet (especially more time than intended), an inability to cut back on usage, a preoccupation with online activities, and symptoms of withdrawal such as anxiety, boredom, or irritability after a few days of not going online. More...
10/06/09
Frist supports Snowes health care trigger plan
Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist joined John Roberts on CNNs American Morning Tuesday to talk about health care reform and his new book, A Heart to Serve.
Dr. Frist, who is a heart and lung transplant surgeon, says he strongly supports the bipartisan efforts of the Senate Finance Committee and Olympia Snowes trigger plan. Below is an edited transcript of the interview. More...
10/06/09
First doses of H1N1 flu vaccine arrive
"I think the world has watched history unfold," Dr. Judy Monroe, Indiana's state health commissioner, told reporters at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis.
Earlier Monday, the hospital received a shipment of 52 boxes -- each containing 100 pre-filled sprayers.
"This first 5,200 doses that came to Marion County is really just the tip of the iceberg," Monroe said.
Health Director Virginia Caine said the shipment will be split among the county's hospitals.
A similar scene unfolded at LeBonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee, where three children have died from H1N1, sometimes referred to as swine flu.
Jennilyn Utkov, a spokeswoman for LeBonheur, said the hospital received about 100 doses. By noon, the supply had been depleted. More...
10/06/09
Lettuce and eggs top risky food list
Leafy greens -- including lettuce and spinach -- top the list of the 10 riskiest foods, according to a study from a nutrition advocacy group released Tuesday.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest listed the following foods, in descending order, as the most risky in terms of illness: leafy greens, eggs, tuna, oysters, potatoes, cheese, ice cream, tomatoes, sprouts and berries.
The scientists rated these foods, all of them regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, by the number of illnesses associated with them since 1990.
Over the last 20 years, leafy greens caused 363 outbreaks, resulting in 13,568 reported illnesses, the center said. That compared to berries, No. 10 on the list, which were associated with 25 outbreaks totaling 3,397 reported illnesses. More...
10/05/09
3 Americans win medicine Nobel
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak will share the $1.4 million prize for research on structures at the end of chromosomes called telomeres and on an enzyme that forms them, called telomerase.
It is the 100th year the prize will be awarded.
Szostak told CNN he got the news Monday in "that classic early morning phone call from Stockholm."
The Nobels keep their selection process top secret.
Szostak described it as "surprising and exciting" -- perhaps particularly for him, because he has not worked on the subject for the last 20 years. "I've been working on other things," he said. "It started off as a collaboration with me and Liz [Blackburn] -- Carol was a student of hers."
The work began as "a long-standing puzzle that we were interested in solving," he said. He added, "It was only over later years that it emerged, through the work of many people, that this was probably important for aging and cancer." More...
10/05/09
Phillips' incest claim draws attention
Her interviews in the past few weeks brought a spotlight to an uncomfortable topic.
Incest, a common but highly stigmatized form of sexual abuse, often leaves the victim ashamed, isolated and unable to tell others what's happening, because the perpetrator is someone related to him or her, mental health experts said.
"For any survivor of sexual trauma, it's challenging, and it takes a lot of courage to come forward," said Jennifer Wilson, director of the National Sexual Assault hot line. "With incest survivors, it's particularly difficult, because not only is there social stigma pressuring them to stay quiet, but also there's pressure that's within the family to stay quiet." More...
10/05/09
More cases of autism in U.S. kids
"This is a significant issue that needs immediate attention," Dr. Ileana Arias, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. "A concerted effort and substantial national response is warranted."
The study used data from the federal government's 2007 national survey of children's health. The survey of parents was conducted by the Health Resources and Services Administration, and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The results are based on a national telephone survey of more than 78,000 parents of children ages 3 to 17 More...
10/05/09
Food appetizing for cancer patients
Cooking is Nasser's passion, but she left the kitchen and the cooking to others for six months in 2006 when she, like her mother before her, learned she had breast cancer. Numerous rounds of chemotherapy left her spent. "I didn't have the energy to go shopping, bring in the food, prepare the food. I needed to rest, to sleep," she recalls.
Nasser's experience isn't unique. According to the American Cancer Society, more than a million Americans will undergo cancer treatment this year. For cancer patients, nutrition is especially important, but many find that they are too tired to cook, or the food tastes bad, or they are too nauseated to eat, or they have painful mouth sores -- or all of the above.
To coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, the American Cancer Society has released a cookbook called "What to Eat During Cancer Treatment." More...
10/02/09
Democrat stands ground after 'die quickly' health care remark
In fact, Grayson, a Democrat who represents a central Florida swing district that includes Orlando, made another floor speech in which he apologized to the dead and their families for not acting sooner on health care reform. He then defended both speeches on CNN's "The Situation Room."
"What I mean is they have got no plan," Grayson told Wolf Blitzer. "It's been 24 hours since I said that. Where is the Republican plan? We're all waiting to see something that will take care of the pre-existing conditions, to take care of the 40 million Americans who have no coverage at all.
"That's what I meant when I said that the Republican plan is don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly." More...
10/02/09
Senate committee completes health care debate
The Finance Committee was the last congressional panel to consider a health care reform bill. It finished its work at 2:18 a.m. and plans to vote next week, after the bill's final language has been made public and the Congressional Budget Office has provided final cost figures.
Unlike several health care reform proposals championed by House Democrats, the version that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee does not contain the public option -- it would not create a government program to provide health insurance to all Americans.
President Obama hailed the committee's work as "the culmination of tireless efforts" by it and four other committees and members of Congress on health care reform. More...
10/02/09
Judge orders $12M fund
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge William E. Anderson agreed to create the fund.
Claims must be submitted to a claims administrator by October 31, said Trustee Roy V. Creasy of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia, Lynchburg Division.
PCA's salmonella-tainted peanut butter and peanut paste were linked to hundreds of illnesses and at least nine deaths, starting last year, federal authorities said.
PCA's products were used in the manufacturing of other companies' food products nationwide, including cakes, candies, crackers, cookies and ice cream. Hundreds of the products were recalled. More...
10/02/09
Babies benefit from treating pregnancy-related diabetes
As many as 14 percent of pregnant women in the U.S., or about 200,000 women annually, develop gestational diabetes. This pregnancy-related diabetes can cause the fetus to grow too rapidly, and the excess weight can make delivery difficult and lead to complications. What's more, gestational diabetes increases the risk of fetal death and preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening rise in blood pressure in the mother.
However, the benefits of treating gestational diabetes are somewhat controversial; although most obstetricians screen and treat pregnant women for blood-sugar abnormalities, the 2008 guidelines of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has said there is not enough strong evidence for or against screening and treating gestational diabetes. More...
10/01/09
Mass Vaccinations
Amid the ensuing media bonanza, local health officials immediately announced a "full and urgent" investigation into Morton's death and ordered a batch of the vaccine to be withheld as a precaution. Less than a day later, a preliminary post-mortem examination found that the vaccine was unlikely to have killed Morton, blaming instead a "serious underlying medical condition." Still, as many Western nations are about to begin massive inoculation programs against the H1N1 influenza, Morton's death underlines the cruel reality behind any vaccination campaign: there's always the risk that a small number of vaccine recipients will suffer an adverse reaction — and that it sometimes can be deadly. More...
10/01/09
Undocumented patients
His wife, 45, lost her eyesight to diabetes. She also has high blood pressure. And her kidneys are failing.
For years, he has taken her to a dialysis clinic attached to a public hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility that gave her free care plans to close Saturday.
They are illegal immigrants with no health insurance and, they say they have nowhere to go for his wife's vast medical needs. The closing clinic offered to help return them to Mexico.
The Atlanta clinic is the latest known case of a medical institution that's offering to send illegal immigrants who can't afford treatment back to their native countries -- a practice that critics liken to patient dumping.
Returning to the country of origin is completely voluntary, said Matt Gove, a spokesman for Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital. "We can't make anybody do anything," he said. "To patients who've expressed a need or desire to go to their home country, if we can help them, then we try." More...
10/01/09
Love, pleasure, duty
It turns out that woman have sex for all of these reasons and more, and that their choices are not arbitrary; there may be evolutionary explanations at work.
Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss, both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, decided that the topic of "why women have sex" deserved a book of its own. They've woven scientific research together with a slew of women's voices in their new collaborative work, "Why Women Have Sex," published September 29 by Times Books.
"We do bring in men occasionally by way of contrast, but we wanted to focus exclusively on women so that the complexity of women's sexual psychology was not given the short shrift, so to speak," said Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist. More...
10/01/09
What to know about getting H1N1
There are two types of the vaccine available: the flu shot, an inactivated vaccine containing fragments of killed influenza virus, and a nasal spray, which is made using a weakened live flu virus. The nasal spray will most likely be the first to be widely distributed, however certain groups, including pregnant women, young children and people with compromised immune systems, cannot receive the nasal spray.
So far officials of the National Institutes of Health say that in clinical trials they've seen no serious side effects and that study subjects who have been immunized have generated a good response.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the vaccine for certain high-priority groups because they are more likely to have serious complications if they develop swine flu. These groups include: pregnant women; caregivers and household contacts of children younger than 6 months; everyone between the ages of 6 months and 24 years; and people ages 25 to 64 with existing health problems. More...
09/30/09
When high school football turns deadly
We love our football in this country, don't we? Whether it's watching the pee-wees or the pros, there's nothing like taking in a game on a crisp fall afternoon.
You see your breath as you stand and cheer the pop of the pads or the last-minute touchdown. I love this game so much, I cried when I knew I wasn't big enough or fast enough to play anymore.
Many of us share that same passion. And we should share in the grief when a 15-year-old boy dies because of a football practice. We have to learn from the death of Max Gilpin so something like this never happens again -- because it could happen to any of our kids.
It was a hot, humid day in August 2008 in Louisville, Kentucky. Max and his Pleasure Ridge Park High School teammates were wrapping up the second of two practices that day. They finished with a grueling round of "gassers," or sprints. More...
09/30/09
Parents clueless when it comes to kids'
But there's a problem: A new study suggests that most parents don't know how to read the charts and may think a child's weight is perfectly fine, when, in fact, the child is obese or overweight compared to peers.
More than 12.5 million children and adolescents are overweight, and these numbers are on the rise, according to the U.S. surgeon general. If most parents don't realize that their child is overweight, the new study, which appears in the October 4 issue of the journal Pediatrics, has implications in the war against childhood obesity. Health.com: 25 Diet-busting foods you should never eat
In an Internet survey of 1,000 parents, 79 percent said they had seen a growth chart before, and the majority of these parents believed they understood the information. In fact, about one-third of parents said they used a growth chart at home. More...
09/30/09
Undocumented patients wary
His wife, 45, lost her eyesight to diabetes. She also has high blood pressure. And her kidneys are failing.
For years, he has taken her to a dialysis clinic attached to a public hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility that gave her free care plans to close Saturday.
They are illegal immigrants with no health insurance and, they say they have nowhere to go for his wife's vast medical needs. The closing clinic offered to help return them to Mexico.
The Atlanta clinic is the latest known case of a medical institution that's offering to send illegal immigrants who can't afford treatment back to their native countries -- a practice that critics liken to patient dumping.
Returning to the country of origin is completely voluntary, said Matt Gove, a spokesman for Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital. "We can't make anybody do anything," he said. "To patients who've expressed a need or desire to go to their home country, if we can help them, then we try." More...
09/30/09
Why women have sex
It turns out that woman have sex for all of these reasons and more, and that their choices are not arbitrary; there may be evolutionary explanations at work.
Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss, both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, decided that the topic of "why women have sex" deserved a book of its own. They've woven scientific research together with a slew of women's voices in their new collaborative work, "Why Women Have Sex," published September 29 by Times Books.
"We do bring in men occasionally by way of contrast, but we wanted to focus exclusively on women so that the complexity of women's sexual psychology was not given the short shrift, so to speak," said Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist. More...
09/29/09
Avoid Skinny Overeaters
If you're looking to lose weight, here's a simple tip: don't dine with the skinny dude who stuffs his face. According to a study that will appear in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and the consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should steer clear of eating with heavier people who order large portions, it's the beanpoles with the big appetites you really need to avoid. "They're big trouble," says Gavan Fitzsimons, a marketing professor at Duke's Fuqua School of Business and one of the study's co-authors. More...
09/29/09
Knowing cholesterol numbers
Although her overall cholesterol number lingered in the low to mid-200s, she figured her medication would keep it under control.
But she figured wrong, and heart disease slowly started clogging her arteries.
Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, says that over the years, it's become clear to most American women that heart disease is nothing to ignore. It's the leading cause of death of women in the United States, says Nabel, a prominent advocate for women's heart health.
But Nabel says many women still don't know all the risk factors for heart disease, especially when it comes to cholesterol.
"For middle-aged women, 40 to 60, high cholesterol is the single most important risk factor for heart disease and heart attacks," she said. The Heart Truth: How to lower your risk for heart disease More...
09/29/09
Bad economy may be good for your health
Although it seems hard to believe, a new analysis of the Great Depression -- the mother of all economic bad times -- suggests that mortality dropped and life expectancy increased during that period.
Researchers estimate that around that time, a year with a 5 percent drop in the gross domestic product was associated with a 1.9-year gain in life expectancy, while a 5 percent rise in the GDP lowered life expectancy by about one to two months.
And it's not just the Great Depression, says José A. Tapia Granados, M.D., of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Past research has shown similar results -- at least a drop in mortality -- in periods of U.S. economic recession during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as in recessions in other countries, Tapia says. Health.com: How exercise may boost your mood More...
09/29/09
Plan your ideal walking workout
Begin by walking 10 to 15 minutes on flat ground or on a treadmill at a purposeful pace, or complete 2,000 steps (use a pedometer to monitor your walking progress). "You want to cover a mile in about 20 minutes. That's not a window-shopping pace," says Mark Fenton, a former competitive racewalker and the host of the PBS series "America's Walking."RealSimple.com: The 20-minute workout
Walking tips:
• Maintain an upright but comfortable posture, with your neck, upper back, and shoulders relaxed, suggests fitness-walking expert Sara Donovan, author of "Mall Walking Madness: Everything You Need to Know to Lose Weight and Have Fun at the Same Time."
• Minimize the sway in your lower back; don't jut your rear out. Instead, maintain a slight, natural arch in your back.
• Gently pull in your abdominal muscles. This helps strengthen your abs while reducing lower-back pain. More...
09/28/09
Male breast cancer patients blame water at Marine base
The sick men are Marines, or sons of Marines. All 20 of them were based at or lived at Camp Lejeune, the U.S. Marine Corps' training base in North Carolina, between the 1960s and the 1980s.
They all have had breast cancer, a disease that strikes fewer than 2,000 men in the United States a year, compared with about 200,000 women. Each has had part of his chest removed as part of his treatment, along with chemotherapy, radiation or both.
And they blame their time at Camp Lejeune, where government records show drinking water was contaminated with high levels of toxic chemicals for three decades, for their illnesses.
"We come from all walks of life," said Mike Partain, the son and grandson of Marines, who was born on the base 40 years ago. "And some of us have college degrees, some of us have blue-collar jobs. We are all over the country. And what is our commonality? Our commonality is that we all at some point in our lives drank the water at Camp Lejeune. Go figure." More...
09/28/09
Obama resumes health care push, vows
Speaking before the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual dinner on Saturday night, Obama prescribed the same contentious policy pill he's embraced since taking office: health care reform and his intention to "get it done this year."
"We must bring about a better health care system in this country not in ten years, not in five years, not in one year, this year," he said.
Taking on the voices that say the administration is moving too fast on health care and needs to slow down, he cited examples of people who need urgent health care, and said such people can't be asked to wait.
"We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, we've been waiting since the days of Harry Truman. We've been waiting since Johnson and Nixon and Clinton. We cannot wait any longer." More...
09/28/09
How to solve 9 sleep problems
fter a stressful breakup two years ago, Meredith Crowell, 40, a single real estate property manager and yoga instructor from Boulder, Colorado, would wake up in the middle of the night filled with sadness and anxiety. But even after she felt better emotionally, the sleep troubles continued. Although she typically falls asleep easily around 10:30 p.m., she is wide awake three or four hours later. She falls back into a fitful sleep, then gets up around 6 a.m. to begin her day. "I never wake feeling well rested, because it feels like I don't get more than about four hours of truly deep sleep," she says. To no avail, Meredith has tried myriad remedies -- warm baths, hot milk, a glass of wine before bed, no food before bed, relaxation techniques, and prescription and homeopathic medicines. She took a prescription medication, but that didn't give her more than four hours of sleep. She even tried taking the medication when she woke in the middle of the night, but that left her too groggy in the morning. More...
09/28/09
Knowing cholesterol numbers
Although her overall cholesterol number lingered in the low to mid-200s, she figured her medication would keep it under control.
But she figured wrong, and heart disease slowly started clogging her arteries.
Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, says that over the years, it's become clear to most American women that heart disease is nothing to ignore. It's the leading cause of death of women in the United States, says Nabel, a prominent advocate for women's heart health.
But Nabel says many women still don't know all the risk factors for heart disease, especially when it comes to cholesterol.
"For middle-aged women, 40 to 60, high cholesterol is the single most important risk factor for heart disease and heart attacks," she said.
Peiffer didn't think much about her cholesterol until nine years ago, when, at age 39, she began to feel ill during a water aerobics class. More...
09/25/09
More than enough H1N1 vaccine
She said that at least 6 million doses of the vaccine will be available in the United States during the first week of October.
"The notion that because target groups are supposed to get it first, that there won't be enough, that we're leaving people behind, needs to be corrected," Sebelius said at a White House briefing.
There "will be plenty of vaccine for everyone who wants it," she said. She said 250 million doses have been purchased, and "that will be plenty."
Most of the initial doses available in October will be FluMist nasal spray. It is approved only for healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 49. Pregnant women are not allowed to get this type of vaccine because it contains a live virus. More...
09/25/09
Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg hospitalized
Ginsburg, 76, felt faint, light-headed and fatigued about 4:50 p.m., around an hour after receiving a treatment for iron deficiency, the court said in a statement.
She was monitored by an in-house physician, who performed blood tests and found her to be in stable health.
Her symptoms improved, though she was taken to the Washington Hospital Center as a precaution at about 7:45 p.m., according to the court statement.
Ginsburg had surgery in February for pancreatic cancer. She termed the removal of her cancer "successful" and was back on the bench 18 days later when the high court resumed oral arguments.
Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Clinton, has been on the Supreme Court since 1993. She was the second woman appointed to the court. More...
09/25/09
Some doubt hand washing stops H1N1
When she arrived at the front of the room, the principal, all 5 feet and 100 pounds of her, used every bit of her strength to hoist the giant jug onto the lectern.
"Welcome back to school," she said. "Swine flu stops here."
The principal explained that between each and every class, the teachers would supervise the children while they sanitized their hands. In addition, students would be washing and sanitizing their hands at other times, such as before lunch and snack.
My eldest daughter confirmed that they really were cleaning their hands at least every 45 minutes, but exactly eight days later, the e-mails started to arrive: a case of suspected H1N1 flu in the seventh grade, another in kindergarten, and then another and another. At one point at my daughters' school, they were sending home a dozen students a day sick with symptoms of H1N1 flu. More...
09/25/09
Alcohol may protect the brain
In the study of 38,000 patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries who were admitted to U.S. hospitals between 2000 and 2005, 38 percent had alcohol in their blood. Such patients had a lower risk of dying of their injuries than those who hadn't been drinking.
"This study really brings up more questions than it answers," says coauthor Ali Salim, M.D., the program director of the General Surgery Residency Educational Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles. "It's a bad thing to say alcohol is good, especially since it's responsible for so many of these injuries. But our study suggests there may be some survival advantage for people with elevated [blood alcohol] levels." Health.com: 15 ways to boost your memory in your 30s, 40s, and 50s More...
09/24/09
Southern deluge may help fall allergy sufferers
How do you enjoy the season without the side effects?
"Find out what is causing your allergy symptoms," says Angel Waldron, a spokeswoman with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). "Get with your doctor and have an allergy management plan." Health.com: Asthma action plan: What it is and why you need it
That management plan may include limiting your outdoor activities to times when the pollen count isn't at its peak, says Rebecca Piltch, MD, an allergy and asthma specialist in San Rafael, California. (It's usually highest between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m.)
When you come back inside, change your shoes and clothes, says Neil Kao, MD, of the Allergic Disease and Asthma Center, in Greenville, South Carolina. More...
09/24/09
Fertility clinic to couple
Time was moving slowly. It was getting late and the call from the fertility clinic should have come by lunchtime.
"We were waiting and waiting and the call seemed like it would never come," Savage said.
Finally, around 4 p.m., Carolyn's husband, Sean, got the call at work.
"The doctor told me in one sentence, 'Carolyn is pregnant, but we transferred the wrong embryos,'" he said. "I didn't even know that could physically happen. It was a total shock, totally beyond the realm of possibility."
In a tragic mix-up, the Savages say the fertility clinic where Carolyn underwent in vitro fertilization implanted another couple's embryos into Carolyn's uterus.
In essence, she had become an unwitting surrogate for another family. More...
09/24/09
Combo vaccine reduces risk of HIV infection
In what is being called the world's largest HIV vaccine trial ever -- involving more than 16,000 participants in Thailand -- researchers found that people who received a series of inoculations of a prime vaccine and booster vaccine were 31 percent less likely to get HIV, compared with those on a placebo.
"Before this study, it was thought vaccine for HIV is not possible," Colonel Jerome Kim, who is the HIV vaccines product manager for the U.S. Army, told CNN.
HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus, which is the virus that causes AIDS -- acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Kim emphasized that the level of effectiveness of the latest vaccine was modest, but given the failures of previous HIV vaccine trials, "yesterday we would have thought an HIV vaccine wasn't possible." More...
09/24/09
Some doubt hand washing stops H1N1
When she arrived at the front of the room, the principal, all 5 feet and 100 pounds of her, used every bit of her strength to hoist the giant jug onto the lectern.
"Welcome back to school," she said. "Swine flu stops here."
The principal explained that between each and every class, the teachers would supervise the children while they sanitized their hands. In addition, students would be washing and sanitizing their hands at other times, such as before lunch and snack.
My eldest daughter confirmed that they really were cleaning their hands at least every 45 minutes, but exactly eight days later, the e-mails started to arrive: a case of suspected H1N1 flu in the seventh grade, another in kindergarten, and then another and another. At one point at my daughters' school, they were sending home a dozen students a day sick with symptoms of H1N1 flu. More...
09/23/09
Assisted suicide laws
The issuing of the policy is a direct result of a high-profile case brought by British multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, who had sued to find out what would happen to her husband under the law if he helped her to end her life.
Purdy's case reached the Law Lords, Britain's highest court, and in July they ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to spell out the criteria under which he would prosecute someone who helps another person commit suicide. Watch Purdy react to the ruling »
The policy issued Wednesday is an interim one, subject to a 12-week public comment period, DPP Keir Starmer said. He said he would consider public opinion and issue a final policy in the spring. More...
09/23/09
Smoking bans
The ban on smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, has been one of the greatest public health debates of the early 21st century. Now, two large studies suggest that communities that pass laws to curb secondhand smoke get a big payoff -- a drop in heart attacks.
Overall, American, Canadian, and European cities that have implemented smoking bans had an average of 17 percent fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities who had not taken such measures.
Then, each year after implementing smoking bans (at least for the first three years, the longest period studied), smoke-free communities have an average 26 percent decline in heart attacks, compared with those areas that still allow smokers to light up in public places. More...
09/23/09
Students and H1N1 mingle on campus
College students said they're reminded nearly daily about flu prevention by e-mail updates, posters and ubiquitous hand sanitizer dispensers around campus. Yet, despite the pervasive prevention messages, many students said they're not too worried. Those who have been sick said it was no different than the seasonal flu.
"Students are going about their business as normal," said Dr. James Turner, the executive director of the department of student health at the University of Virginia. "They're asking, 'What's the big deal?' Some of them are aggravated. Those that are sick report feeling miserable. They recover uneventfully and go on. There's more anxiety among parents and staff trying to respond on campus to various needs." More...
09/23/09
You got the wrong embryos
Time was moving slowly. It was getting late and the call from the fertility clinic should have come by lunchtime.
"We were waiting and waiting and the call seemed like it would never come," Savage said.
Finally, around 4 p.m., Carolyn's husband, Sean, got the call at work.
"The doctor told me in one sentence, 'Carolyn is pregnant, but we transferred the wrong embryos,'" he said. "I didn't even know that could physically happen. It was a total shock, totally beyond the realm of possibility."
In a tragic mix-up, the Savages say the fertility clinic where Carolyn underwent in vitro fertilization implanted another couple's embryos into Carolyn's uterus. More...
09/22/09
H1N1 pediatric trials bring good news
That news, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, is that the vaccine for H1N1 reacts in children just like those for seasonal flu strains.
Preliminary data show that children 10 to 17 seem to be protected from H1N1 with one 15-microgram dose of the vaccine, but younger children, ages 6 months to 9 years, may have to have two doses depending on their health history, he said.
Final recommendations for the younger age group will be made in October, he said.
The trials found that 76 percent of children ages 10 through 17 had a robust immune response to one dose. Among 3-years-olds to 9-year-olds, that percentage dropped to 36 percent, and for those ages 6 months to 35 months, it fell to 25 percent. More...
09/22/09
45,000 American deaths
What all three of these people have in common is that they experienced symptoms, but didn't seek care because they were uninsured and they worried about the hospital expense, according to their families. All three died.
Research released this week in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that 45,000 deaths per year in the United States are associated with the lack of health insurance. If a person is uninsured, "it means you're at mortal risk," said one of the authors, Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. More...
09/22/09
Cold? Flu? H1N1?
"I heard people might die from it," Smith said. "So I think it's a good idea to help people, by being involved."
Lewis and Smith, both from Baltimore, Maryland, were among the first Americans to receive H1N1 flu shots.
As part of a trial of 2,400 people, they gave blood samples and kept diaries of their symptoms, all in an effort to get an H1N1 vaccine ready for the fall.
Now that the results from this and other trials are in, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the FDA has approved applications from four manufacturers to make H1N1 flu vaccine, which should be ready for high-risk patients by October 15. She said there will be enough vaccine available for everyone eventually. More...
09/22/09
Big drop in heart attacks
The ban on smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, has been one of the greatest public health debates of the early 21st century. Now, two large studies suggest that communities that pass laws to curb secondhand smoke get a big payoff -- a drop in heart attacks.
Overall, American, Canadian, and European cities that have implemented smoking bans had an average of 17 percent fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities who had not taken such measures.
Then, each year after implementing smoking bans (at least for the first three years, the longest period studied), smoke-free communities have an average 26 percent decline in heart attacks, compared with those areas that still allow smokers to light up in public places. More...
09/17/09
Calif. lawmaker plans hearings on soda-obesity link
Sen. Alex Padilla, who led a campaign requiring big restaurant chains to disclose calories in meals, said on Thursday he planned to hold hearings in November on the link between soda consumption and obesity...
09/17/09
CDC: 1 in 3 teen girls got cervical cancer vaccine
A new government report shows one in three teenage girls have rolled up their sleeves for a relatively new vaccine against cervical cancer, but vaccination rates vary dramatically between states...
09/17/09
Seniors largely spared of swine flu
Seniors who for years have made flu shots a fall ritual are being sent to the end of the line for the swine flu vaccine. And the reason — their age group seems to have a bit of immunity — appears to have warded off most potential grumbling...
09/16/09
Liquid specs a bold vision
In the developing world millions of people struggle to operate machinery, read from a blackboard, or just see the world around them, because they don't have access to the eye glasses they need.
But a pair of glasses developed by Joshua Silver, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, offers an affordable solution.
The glasses can be adjusted to the right strength by the wearer, without the need for them to visit an optometrist.
A major reason for that is a chronic shortage of optometrists -- in Ghana, for example, there is just one for every eight million people. That makes it incredibly difficult for ordinary people to visit an optometrist, without which it's impossible for them to get glasses.
But Silver thinks he may have come up with a solution to the problem. His self-refraction glasses mean people can correct their vision without needing an optometrist (see Fact Box).
"Take a Sub-Saharan country where there is one optometrist for every million people; those people will never see an optometrist, so how will they get eyewear?," he told CNN. More...
09/16/09
Understand and protect against bacteria
Germs live everywhere. You can find germs in the air, on food, plants and animals, in the soil, in the water, and on just about every other surface — including your own body.
Most germs won't harm you. Your immune system protects you against a multitude of infectious agents. However, some germs are formidable adversaries because they're constantly mutating to breach your immune system's defenses. Knowing more about how germs work can increase your chances of avoiding infection. More...
09/16/09
Sniff + sneezing = no love
"If you can't breathe, and your nose is running, and your eyes are itchy, and you're sneezing, and you feel awful and you feel tired, you don't feel very sexy," said Dr. Michael S. Benninger, chairman of the Head and Neck Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and a lead author of a recent study.
In the study published in the latest edition of Allergy and Asthma Proceedings, 83 percent of people with allergic rhinitis reported that their condition affected sexual activities.
When a person with allergic rhinitis breathes in an allergen such as pollen or dust, he or she can get symptoms such as itching, swelling and sniffling.
"When we look at how people interpret the disability of allergies, they show people who can't go to a park or can't appreciate their kid's ball games," Benninger said. But sexual activities also affect quality of life, he said. More...
09/16/09
How to prevent a medical bill disaster
"Typically, it was a relatively brief illness that led to bankruptcy," says study co-author Dr. David U. Himmelstein, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Here's how to protect yourself.
While you're well ...
Never let your policy lapse. It's tempting to forgo insurance premium payments if you're jobless. But "not having insurance is as risky as not wearing your seat belt," warns Atlanta, Georgia financial planner Mary Claire Allvine, co-author of The 7 Most Important Money Decisions You'll Ever Make. "It takes only one accident or illness to financially ruin you." Health.com: How to stay insured if you're fired
Thankfully, the federal government will, in most cases, pay 65 percent of your COBRA bill for nine months if you're laid off this year. Go to the United States Department of Labor Web site for details. More...
09/15/09
H1N1 flu vaccine to be ready by early October
"We think the first doses of some of the vaccine forms should be available in about three weeks," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Previously, the CDC had been predicting the vaccine would not be available before middle or late October.
Frieden said that the vaccines appear to confer protection from the virus eight to 10 days after they are administered.
The news about the vaccine against H1N1, also called swine flu, comes a week after researchers concluded that a single injection would suffice to protect against the virus. More...
09/15/09
Cell phone-cancer link inconclusive
The science is still out, but evidence so far indicates people should limit how much we use a cell phone, BlackBerry or iPhone due to a possible cancer risk, a Senate subcommittee heard Monday.
While no solid connection between mobile communications devices and human cancer has been established, studies indicating the likelihood of such a link call for a precautionary approach, medical experts testified at the hearing chaired by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Recommendations included using such devices less, keeping them away from the body, and limiting their use by children.
"Children have a configuration of their skull that does allow penetration of cell-phone radiation," noted Dr. John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health. More...
09/15/09
Kids' health
"It was an agitated frenzy until they would pass out," Genevieve Skory recalled. The weary parents broke up fights between their bickering children. The next morning, the house would be chaotic again. "I don't think it's good for kids to stay up until they fall asleep -- that's three hours later than they needed to go to sleep," she said.
Setting bedtimes can improve sleep quality and quantity for infants and toddlers, according to a growing body of research. Not getting enough sleep affects children's behavior, memory, attention, and emotional well-being, experts said.
Tired of the chaos in the house, the Skorys started to enforce bedtime every night at 9. About an hour before bedtime, she restricts her children's use of TV and computers and instructs them to prepare for bedtime.
"Everyone is happier in the morning when there's a bedtime," Skory said. Research suggests there are additional benefits for children who have bedtimes. More...
09/15/09
Sniff + sneezing = no love
"If you can't breathe, and your nose is running, and your eyes are itchy, and you're sneezing, and you feel awful and you feel tired, you don't feel very sexy," said Dr. Michael S. Benninger, chairman of the Head and Neck Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and a lead author of a recent study.
In the study published in the latest edition of Allergy and Asthma Proceedings, 83 percent of people with allergic rhinitis reported that their condition affected sexual activities.
When a person with allergic rhinitis breathes in an allergen such as pollen or dust, he or she can get symptoms such as itching, swelling and sniffling.
"When we look at how people interpret the disability of allergies, they show people who can't go to a park or can't appreciate their kid's ball games," Benninger said. But sexual activities also affect quality of life, he said. More...
09/14/09
Yemeni girl, 12, dies in painful childbirth
A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died during a painful childbirth that also killed her baby, a children's rights group said Monday.
Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.
"Although the cause of her death was lack of medical care, the real case was the lack of education in Yemen and the fact that child marriages keep happening," said Seyaj President Ahmed al-Qureshi.
Born into an impoverished family in Hodeidah, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and married off to a 24-year-old man last year, al-Qureshi said.
Child brides are commonplace in Yemen, especially in the Red Sea Coast where tribal customs hold sway. Hodeidah is the fourth largest city in Yemen and an important port.
More than half of all young Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18 -- many times to older men, some with more than one wife, a study by Sanaa University found. More...
09/14/09
Enforcing bedtimes improves kids' health
"It was an agitated frenzy until they would pass out," Genevieve Skory recalled. The weary parents broke up fights between their bickering children. The next morning, the house would be chaotic again. "I don't think it's good for kids to stay up until they fall asleep -- that's three hours later than they needed to go to sleep," she said.
Setting bedtimes can improve sleep quality and quantity for infants and toddlers, according to a growing body of research. Not getting enough sleep affects children's behavior, memory, attention, and emotional well-being, experts said.
Tired of the chaos in the house, the Skorys started to enforce bedtime every night at 9. About an hour before bedtime, she restricts her children's use of TV and computers and instructs them to prepare for bedtime.
"Everyone is happier in the morning when there's a bedtime," Skory said. Research suggests there are additional benefits for children who have bedtimes. More...
09/14/09
Profile of ovarian cancer
"I had no idea I had it," says Hathcock. "I just thought my gallbladder was having problems."
Since that surgery in 2003, Hathcock has undergone numerous treatments, including more surgery and various rounds of chemotherapy. She's made it beyond the five-year mark and is still going strong. "To be honest," she says," I didn't think I would be here -- but here I am, and that's good."
Earlier this month, Hathcock was asked to be a guest at a luncheon to raise awareness about ovarian cancer hosted by the first lady of Delaware, Carla Markell. The gathering was part of the Super Luncheon campaign, sponsored by the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and held throughout September, which is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. The campaign's goal is to raise funds for research into early detection methods, as well as to find a cure. More...
09/11/09
Brain scans 'provide clue to leadership'
Pierre Balthazard, an associate professor at the Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, also says he can use neuroscientific techniques to help people improve the skills that play a part in leadership.
Balthazard uses electroencephalography (EEG) to produce a "brain map" of his subjects. By attaching electrodes to their heads, he says he can measure electrical activity generated by neurons in their brain.
Much of his work has focused on calibrating the EEG data with standard psychometric tests, and now Balthazard says that just by looking at someone's brain map he can predict their capacity for certain traits linked to leadership. More...
09/11/09
Disease fears in West Africa
Parts of Dakar, Senegal, are under a meter of water. Rain has been falling for days and the rainy season is expected to last until December.
Philippe Conraud, Oxfam's regional humanitarian co-coordinator in Dakar, told CNN that those living in the city's densely populated suburbs have been worst affected by the flooding and are most at risk from diseases such as cholera and malaria.
"The most worrying thing for us is that people are leaving their houses and moving into schools and empty buildings, which brings sanitation problems," he said. More...
09/11/09
For long-separated families
Jaycee Dugard is reuniting with her close relatives for the first time in 18 years, after having been found on August 27. Dugard was 11 years old when she was abducted in 1991 from a bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, California. She allegedly was kept in a series of backyard sheds by a convicted sex offender and gave birth to two children in captivity.
A bail review hearing is scheduled for Monday in El Dorado County Superior Court in Placerville, California, for Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who face charges related to Dugard's kidnapping.
In Illinois, Shannon Wilfong is charged with child abduction, allegedly having forced 6-year-old Richard K. Wilfong Chekevdia to live in seclusion and be hidden, at times in crawl spaces and the attic, for nearly two years, according to court documents. In concealing the boy, Wilfong violated the terms of a court order that granted joint custody of the child to Michael Chekevdia, the documents said. The boy is staying with his father's family under child welfare supervision, according to CNN affiliate WSIL. More...
09/11/09
Fasting carries risk of overeating
"You just kind of have to be mindful of, OK, if I weren't fasting and starving, what kind of meal would I have? And then kind of limit yourself based on that," said Khandker, technology systems director for a hedge fund in New York.
Around the world, many observant Muslims like Khandker who've been fasting all day during Ramadan are thinking about the feast they'll have on Eid al Fitr, the holiday that ends the holy month, next weekend. Khandker describes this day as the Muslim equivalent of Christmas, complete with gift exchanges for children and a lot of food -- everyone can "pig out for the whole day."
Food experts agree that the fast, during which observant Muslims refrain from eating during the day, can actually cause people to overeat. Some people actually take in more calories in one evening meal than they normally would over the course of a normal day during Ramadan, said Joe Regenstein, professor of food science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. More...
09/10/09
Joe Wilson shouts to Obama during speech: 'You lie'
After the speech, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson issued a statement apologizing for his outburst.
"This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill," the statement said. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."
Wilson also called the White House to apologize and spoke with Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who accepted the apology on the president's behalf, according to a senior administration official.
"We can disagree without being disagreeable," Emanuel said to Wilson, according to the official. "That was the point of the president's speech." More...
09/10/09
Swine flu worries? Relax
Worried about the H1N1 flu, aka swine flu? You're not alone. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released September 2 found that the number of Americans concerned about being infected by this particular strain has more than doubled since May, from 17 percent to 39 percent.
Yet the same polling also revealed that almost 60 percent of people say they're confident that the government can prevent a nationwide epidemic. And that's the note of calm and reason I want to strike for you.
The symptoms of those who contract the latest strain of H1N1 can range from mild to severe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet most people make a full recovery without needing medical treatment. My 9-year-old daughter recently came down with this highly publicized strain and endured a miserable five-day recovery, but that's the point -- it was a recovery, not a death sentence as so many people think.
More...
09/10/09
How to bargain hunt for health care
The Omaha, Nebraska, couple went to Alegent Health's Web site and found the My Cost function, entered their insurance information and learned the hospital charges would be around $2,500, Bridget Bear said.
When Bridget Bear gave birth to their son, Lawson, on April 2 at Lakeside Hospital -- a healthy 8-pound, 8-ounce baby -- the couple were ready for the bill, she said.
Alegent is one of a growing number of hospitals, Web sites, even states, helping patients comparison shop on the Internet before undergoing a medical procedure or test.
Hospitals say they're responding to a growing demand from patients who are paying for more of their health care out of pocket, thanks to rising deductibles and the advent of high deductible, consumer-driven plans like the Bears have.
In the early 2000s, Bellin Health System in Green Bay, Wisconsin, began receiving more calls from patients wanting to know what a particular procedure would cost, said Jeff Hampton, director of revenue cycle management. More...
09/10/09
Helpful ways to boost your memory
Can't find your keys ... again? Whether your momentary memory loss is linked to doing too many things at once or just a bad case of menopausal brain fog, you don't have to put up with it.
In fact, experts say you can instantly boost your chances of remembering where you put your keys--and everything else you keep forgetting--if you start treating your brain right (no matter your age). Our simple lifestyle changes will help you stay sharp as the years go by. More...
09/09/09
Obama's speech a health care 'game changer'?
At stake for the president: getting Democratic factions on board with his plan and convincing Americans of the need for health care reform.
"They will know the plan provides safety, security and stability to the millions of people that have health insurance each and every day, but watching their premiums skyrocket and double," spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday on CNN's "American Morning."
"Secondly, for those who don't have health insurance, but need affordable coverage, he will lay out a plan for how people can get that, as well. He'll talk about the cost on government and why we can't afford to wait longer. We have to act now." More...
09/09/09
Secrets of women with healthy hearts
Truth is, starting at the age of 35, heart disease is the leading killer of women. About 35,000 women younger than 50 die of heart attacks annually -- but only 20 percent of women believe they're at risk for heart disease.
"We really need to bust the myth that this is just a disease of men and older women," says Dr. Nieca Goldberg, medical director of the New York University Women's Heart Program. Sixty-four percent of women die suddenly with their first heart attack without any warning signs at all, and almost all had at least one risk factor that could have been addressed.
"That's why it's critical to figure out your risks and do prevention early on," Dr. Goldberg says. And that's what the women below did. We asked Dr. Goldberg to assess how well their strategies worked -- and to help us all learn how to lower our own risks. More...
09/09/09
Feds update H1N1 antivirals guidelines
"In the new guidance, we add an option," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Instead of preventive use of antivirals, providers might want to consider watchful waiting."
Under watchful waiting, a clinician would wait to see whether someone who came into contact with an infected person went on to develop flu symptoms -- like fever or respiratory problems -- before prescribing the drugs, she said.
But the list of people with flu symptoms who should be given antivirals remains unchanged from the disease agency's recommendations in May, she said. It includes people with chronic conditions, the very young, the very old and pregnant women.
"Timing is important," she said. "Beginning treatment within 48 hours of symptoms can really help with the outcomes. People can do better with the illness." More...
09/09/09
Helpful ways to boost your memory
In fact, experts say you can instantly boost your chances of remembering where you put your keys--and everything else you keep forgetting--if you start treating your brain right (no matter your age). Our simple lifestyle changes will help you stay sharp as the years go by.
The 30s
Floss every day: What do loving licorice and hating the idea of flossing have in common? Both can contribute to plaque on your teeth, which is surprisingly bad for your brain. "The plaque between teeth can cause an immune reaction that attacks arteries, which then can't deliver vital nutrients to brain cells," says Dr. Michael Roizen, co-author of "YOU--The Owner's Manual: An Insider's Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger." Solution? Floss every day. Can't remember? Keep the floss where you store your morning makeup. More...
09/08/09
Doctors slash vaccines due to rising costs
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Parents who bring their kids to Dr. G. Andrew McIntosh for the chicken pox vaccine are out of luck.
The family physician, who has a solo practice in Uniontown, Ohio, doesn't offer that shot because he can't afford it. Most insurers won't sufficiently cover the cost.
"It doesn't do me any good. I am losing money on [them]," he said. The chicken pox vaccine runs about $115, but insurers only cover between $68 to $83 of that.
McIntosh has also cut back on a handful of other critical childhood vaccines for the same reason -- including the measles, mumps and rubella, known as the MMR vaccine. More...
09/08/09
What your doctor doesn't have time to tell you
dward T. Creagan, a professor of medical oncology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in Rochester, Minnesota
Turn down the grill. When meat is charred at a high temperature, amino acids in the meat break down and form carcinogens. "Lower the flame or move the rack up higher," says Creagan. Cooking may take longer, but you'll avoid the risks.
Adopt a furry friend. Spending time with an animal produces endorphins (which can enhance immunity) and the hormone oxytocin (which fosters a sense of well-being) and decreases the stress hormone cortisol, says Creagan.
Have a European lunch. You know how Italians linger over meals? It may not be their intention, but that leisurely repast keeps them out of the sun during the peak times for sun damage, which can lead to skin cancer. At the very least, try to limit outdoor activities when the sun's rays are the strongest. More...
09/08/09
Age-related vision loss
Concerned that he was beginning to lose his sight, Budacz went to his ophthalmologist, Dr. Sharon Solomon with the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. He was found to have the beginnings macular degeneration, an eye condition that occurs when the central portion of the retina -- called the macula -- begins to deteriorate.
Until recently, people with age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of severe vision loss in Americans older than 60, had few treatment options. But now, thanks to new research and advancing technology, there are more vision-saving choices.
Early signs of macular degeneration-related vision loss include shadowy areas or fuzzy distortion in a person's central vision. More...
09/08/09
Human fat yields multipurpose stem cells
Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that the millions of fat cells removed during liposuction can be easily and quickly turned into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, more easily than the skin cells that researchers used when the first iPS cells were created in 2007.
These iPS cells, like stem cells derived from embryos, can be turned into many different kinds of cells, and researchers believe they eventually could be used to regenerate tissue for organs and repair damage.
Embryonic stem cells are controversial because the embryos are destroyed when the stem cells are removed for research. The iPS cells, which have many of the same basic properties, do not raise the same ethical questions as embryonic stem cells because they come from skin or now fat cells that have been reprogrammed to go back in time, so to speak, and have the ability to turn into any other kind of cell in the body. More...
09/04/09
U.S. Conservatives Attack UNESCO's
Any attempt to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies and slow the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV around the world has to be a good thing, right? That's what the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) thought. But now it finds itself under fire from American conservatives for proposing a new set of guidelines on sex education in schools as a means of helping young people avoid potentially dangerous sexual activity. More...
09/04/09
Should you 'friend' your doctor
Fast-forward nearly 30 years: Jordan recently took a trip from his home in Georgia to New York to watch his daughter play in a high school basketball tournament. When he arrived at the hotel, he realized he'd left all his medications at home.
"Being a diabetic and a heart patient, I can't afford not to have my medications," Jordan said. "This happened on a Wednesday night, and I called my doctor's office first thing Thursday morning, and they were closed. Then I kept calling Friday, but I couldn't get a hold of anyone, and of course they were closed on the weekend. I never got my prescriptions, and when I got back home, I had some tests done, and my numbers were all bad."
Frustrated with closed offices, unreturned phone messages and other aspects of the sometimes-slow pace of doctor-patient communication, Jordan came up with a solution: He now sends his doctor messages on Facebook. He says that communicating with his cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. William Cooper, on the social networking site has been easy and efficient. More...
09/04/09
Teen who cries blood gets help from experts
Inman's mother, Tammy Mynatt, says she immediately rushed him to the emergency room, but by the time they arrived, the bleeding had stopped. Doctors couldn't see what the family was trying to explain. They returned home completely perplexed. When the bloody tears returned a few days later while Inman was on a camping trip, he was rushed back to the hospital.
Mynatt hoped that once doctors finally witnessed the phenomenon, there would be answers. But that wasn't the case. "The people at the hospital said they had never seen anything like it," Mynatt recalls. She says her son underwent an MRI, a CT scan and an ultrasound, but none of the tests had abnormal results. "'We don't know how to stop it,'" Mynatt remembers being told by doctors. "It just has to run its course." More...
09/04/09
Allergy injectors are 'liberating
My epinephrine auto-injector (which I replace when it expires, of course), is almost always within arm's reach, or in the same room. This shot of adrenaline, commonly sold under the name EpiPen, would theoretically save my life if my throat closed up in an allergic reaction. I've had several close calls with nuts and seafood since childhood, with symptoms ranging from a tingling tongue to a burgeoning lump in my throat.
The EpiPen has both the dependable and nagging qualities of a protective older sibling. It promises to be there when I need it, but also has to follow me around to make sure I'm OK.
The injector reverses an allergic reaction, at least temporarily, by delivering epinephrine, a hormone involved in the body's natural "fight or flight" response, to block the release of histamine, a protein involved in reactions. There is also a product called Twinject that delivers two doses of epinephrine in one shot. More...
09/03/09
Baby's protruding heart tucked inside body
A.K. Bisoi, cardiothoracic surgeon at New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, told CNN that his 13-member team did not stop the child's heartbeat as they performed the 3½-hour operation.
The dangling organ has been successfully placed in a space surgically created between the chest and the abdomen, he said.
"The baby is stable. He may not require any other surgery," Bisoi said.
Nonetheless, the doctors will keep him under observation and will not comment on when he can be discharged.
Bisoi explained that surgeons had to displace organs including the lungs and the liver as they created a space for the heart.
"We will have to keep a watch on how those organs respond," he said. More...
09/03/09
Parents' deployment puts kids at high risk for problems
The study, published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, surveyed military spouses of deployed Army soldiers with school-age children, aged 5 to 12. The questionnaire appraised the strain on the family of dealing with a parent deployed to the war zone.
Results found that stress levels were high for children and spouses of deployed troops but also that support networks from military to religious helped mitigate the problems.
The number of children found to be high-risk is more than 2½ times the national level and higher than historical military samples.
The authors surveyed 101 families in what they said was the first such evaluation since September 11, 2001, and the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Overall, there are more than 2 million U.S. military children, many of whom have parents who have deployed multiple times -- deployments that, for the first time since the Vietnam War, can occur as little as 12 months after returning from a previous deployment. More...
09/03/09
Tongue can drive and help see
Aside from everyday functions of chewing, swallowing, talking and tasting, the tongue has new uses such as steering wheelchairs and helping blind people see. Also in Spain last month, doctors transplanted a tongue as part of a face transplant surgery.
"The tongue is considered very much like the trunk of an elephant or the tentacle of the octopus. It's the same kind of structure with how many shapes, configurations the trunk or tentacle can assume," said E. Fiona Bailey, an assistant professor of physiology at The University of Arizona in Tucson. "Researchers realize there is a lot of potential there."
Transplanting tongues
A team of surgeons in Spain last month performed a face transplant, which is considered the first to include the tongue and jaws.
A 43-year-old man who lost his jaws and tongue after a cancer battle 11 years ago received a transplant for the bottom third of his face, according to the Hospital La Fe in Valencia, Spain. Dr. Pedro Cavadas, the surgical team leader, said the objective was for the patient to recover feeling in his face and also to swallow, talk, feel and taste with his tongue again. More...
09/03/09
Your doctor on Facebook?
Fast-forward nearly 30 years: Jordan recently took a trip from his home in Georgia to New York to watch his daughter play in a high school basketball tournament. When he arrived at the hotel, he realized he'd left all his medications at home.
"Being a diabetic and a heart patient, I can't afford not to have my medications," Jordan said. "This happened on a Wednesday night, and I called my doctor's office first thing Thursday morning, and they were closed. Then I kept calling Friday, but I couldn't get a hold of anyone, and of course they were closed on the weekend. I never got my prescriptions, and when I got back home, I had some tests done, and my numbers were all bad."
Frustrated with closed offices, unreturned phone messages and other aspects of the sometimes-slow pace of doctor-patient communication, Jordan came up with a solution: He now sends his doctor messages on Facebook. He says that communicating with his cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. William Cooper, on the social networking site has been easy and efficient. More...
09/02/09
Donor says he got thousands for his kidney
Four years ago, a young, cash-starved Israeli answered an ad in a newspaper for a kidney donor.
"I decided I wanted to make a positive change in my life and do something different," Nick Rosen told CNN. "So I saw an ad in the paper and it said, 'Kidney Donor Wanted.' And called the ad in the paper, and they asked me my blood type."
Ultimately, Rosen flew to New York and underwent surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center to remove one of his two healthy kidneys.
"Let's say I donated a kidney and received compensation," he said.
Rosen's story is one of several that have come to light in recent weeks as part of a worldwide CNN investigation into what appears to be a widespread black market in human organs currently under scrutiny by authorities in the United States and Israel. More...
09/02/09
Pioneering op gives female circumcision victims hope
The health dangers involved in this procedure, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), are increasingly well-known and have lead to international efforts to ban the practice.
FGM is also the topic of the forthcoming film "Desert Flower," the true story of Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie.
The film, released later this month, tells the story of Dirie and her struggle with her own circumcision at the age of five. A former Bond Girl, Dirie has become a leading voice campaigning against FGM.
As traumatic as the physical consequences may be, victims say severe psychological and sexual problems also often develop from FGM that deserve attention too. More...
09/02/09
What happens to extra embryos after IVF?
Cinnamond, now 49, and her husband are grateful for their healthy children and the medical science that helped create them. Yet she's haunted by the three embryos that were left over.
Like many women struggling with infertility, Cinnamond was delighted when a laboratory took sperm and egg and provided five chances for a second child after Kaitlin's birth. In many ways, infertility is a numbers game -- more embryos created means more tries for success. She was asked in the beginning about the matter of surplus embryos, but how could she think about those she might not want when her thoughts were consumed by the children she longed for?
When the time came to decide about the extras, she says, "I thought I was going to be calm and casual." And she was, until the first bill arrived to keep the embryos frozen. "I was petrified," she says. "There was no practical reason to keep them. I just wasn't ready to make the decision not to keep them." She paid the $600, hoping that her thoughts would crystallize as time passed. This year, she's paying the bill again. More...
09/02/09
Advice to parents on H1N1
Now, over the past eight years, I have grown accustomed to being engaged in these sort of discussions where I am asked about everything the "media" have reported over the past few months, and asked to defend things point by point. It can be a challenging task.
This time, however, the topic was H1N1, or swine flu.
I spent the weekend thinking about what I was being told, and realized there was a larger point here.
People were scared, more than I had seen in a long time. And, health care professionals were blaming the media -- accusing them of being alarmist.
So, I decided to get away from the studio, away from the talking heads discussing mortality rates, and away from the hypothetical discussions about what might or might not happen. I wanted to see for myself what was happening in emergency rooms right now.
I was most curious about pediatric ERs, because young people seem to be most affected by this, and selfishly, I was curious about my own three girls and how I should react if they become ill this fall. Watch Dr. Gupta give more tips to parents »
In short, I wanted to create a parents' guide to dealing with the swine flu that is based on the best science and my interviews with experts all over the country. In Depth: H1N1 flu More...
09/01/09
Company wellness programs improve health
Employee wellness programs just may be the cure for companies struggling to keep up with rapidly rising health care costs.
And proponents say that in addition to saving companies money, the programs are an effective way to help employees live healthier lives.
Jeff and Linda Pond of Virginia even suggest that Linda's company wellness program may have saved Jeff's life.
Two years ago, Pond received a letter informing him that his annual blood test results indicated he might have prostate cancer. The letter advised him to consult his physician.
Pond is now six weeks out of surgery to treat early stage prostate cancer and says things are "back to normal," thanks to Linda's employee wellness program at Quest Diagnostics, which provided the free blood tests that initially detected signs of cancer.
09/01/09
Tennis injuries, anyone?
"I've had elbow injuries, shoulder problems, sprained ankles, stiff wrists, pretty much everything has hurt at one time or another," he confesses. "And sometimes I still feel it." In fact, he packs three different braces -- two for his feet and one for his arm -- along with his other gear when he plays, just in case.
A lot of people may wonder if Bugg is an obsessed, racket-wielding masochist. Sports medicine specialists say no. They say Bugg is like plenty of other tennis players: He just loves the game. Unfortunately, tennis goes hand-in-hand with injury.
According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 78,000 tennis-related injuries are treated in hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, ambulatory surgery centers and hospital emergency rooms every year. Although some of these injuries are accidental, many are the result of poor form, poor conditioning, poor equipment or poor flexibility. More...
09/01/09
Healthy meals for after exercise
No matter what time of day you exercise, the key is to follow up with meals that combine protein, which helps your muscles recover, and carbohydrates, which replenish energy stores. For best results, eat within 30 to 60 minutes after exercise, when muscles are most receptive. During this window, an increase in enzyme activity makes the body more efficient at storing glucose for energy and building protein in fatigued muscles.
Homemade sports recovery drink
This combination of banana, milk, and yogurt makes for a fresh and satisfying sports recovery drink. Dairy products like milk and yogurt work double duty, providing both protein and carbohydrates. Bananas are packed with potassium and magnesium-- powerful electrolytes for healthy muscle function. Have this smoothie for breakfast following a morning workout, or a small afternoon meal when you get in from the gym. CookingLight.com: Fitness friendly snacks More...
09/01/09
Students isolated by the flu
University of Kansas freshman Arielle Spiridigliozzi said she thought her symptoms were signs of allergies, or maybe even a sinus infection.
It couldn't be H1N1, she thought.
But it was.
"I mean, I'd never, ever guessed that coming into freshman year I would get the friggin' swine flu," Spiridigliozzi said.
Now she accessorizes her royal blue T-shirt with a mask.
A stuffy nose, body aches, fever and coughing make up the litany of symptoms, Spiridigliozzi, 18, and her roommate, Kaitlyn Perry, 18, said they have suffered.
For more than a day, the girls have been stuck in their suite, on what they call "lockdown." Watch more about life on "lockdown" More...
08/31/09
Victims of repeated abuse
By the time authorities discovered Jaycee Lee Dugard, she was a 29-year-old mother of two who had spent more than half of her life in sheds. One of the alleged abductors, Phillip Garrido, is the father of her two daughters, according to police.
Garrido and his wife, Nancy, face 29 felony counts, including kidnapping for sexual purposes, forcible rape and forcible lewd acts on a child. They pleaded not guilty Friday. The maximum penalty for each defendant, if convicted, is life imprisonment.
Dugard, who disappeared from South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1991, faces a challenging road to recovery. Dr. Kerry Landry, a child psychiatrist in Durham, North Carolina, said that repeated abuse causes complex trauma.
"They can really feel like they have no control and there is no escape," Landry said. More...
08/31/09
NOLA mental health system still in crisis
For days, Crockett lay in darkness and a tangle of sweaty hospital bed sheets, one among hundreds of desperate patients trapped inside Charity Hospital in 2005, while outside, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath battered the city.
Crockett had been admitted to Charity's inpatient mental health unit after having a psychotic episode. She had struggled for years with bipolar disorder, an illness that causes her to volley between euphoria and profound depression.
She said she barely remembers Katrina.
"Most of the time, I was in a fog, but I do remember some things," Crockett said. "Where my room was, I could see thousands of people wandering, and I could see the waters rise." More...
08/31/09
Tennis injuries, anyone?
"I've had elbow injuries, shoulder problems, sprained ankles, stiff wrists, pretty much everything has hurt at one time or another," he confesses. "And sometimes I still feel it." In fact, he packs three different braces -- two for his feet and one for his arm -- along with his other gear when he plays, just in case.
A lot of people may wonder if Bugg is an obsessed, racket-wielding masochist. Sports medicine specialists say no. They say Bugg is like plenty of other tennis players: He just loves the game. Unfortunately, tennis goes hand-in-hand with injury.
According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 78,000 tennis-related injuries are treated in hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, ambulatory surgery centers and hospital emergency rooms every year. Although some of these injuries are accidental, many are the result of poor form, poor conditioning, poor equipment or poor flexibility. More...
08/31/09
Therapy online: Good as face to face?
Computer-based therapy has come a long way since ELIZA, a 1960s computer program designed to emulate (and parody) a therapist. Today, with the Internet, people can use the instant message format to communicate with real therapists.
A new study in The Lancet suggests that real-time chat therapy with a psychotherapist is successful in helping people with depression.
Participants were randomly assigned to either receive online cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to usual physician care -- which may include antidepressant medication -- or to continue their usual care and be placed on a waiting list. The intervention consisted of up to 10 55-minute sessions, five of which were expected to be completed by the four-month follow-up.
Of the 113 people who did online therapy, 38 percent recovered from depression after four months, compared with 24 percent of people in the control group. The benefits were maintained at eight months, with 42 percent of the online therapy group and 26 percent of the control group having recovered. More...
08/28/09
7 un-fun health milestones and how to get through them
ou watch as if in slow motion as your child crashes his scooter or falls from the jungle gym, your worst fears realized as he screams and clutches his arm or leg. If the bone is actually protruding, don't move him; call 911. Otherwise, call your doctor or head to the ER, says Meridith Sonnett, M.D., director of pediatric emergency medicine at the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.
The Ouch Factor "Breaking a bone hurts right away and usually a lot," Sonnett says, so expect your child to reprise the Home Alone scream -- over and over. Younger kids may hate holding still for the x-ray, not to mention it could be uncomfortable depending on how they need to be positioned. And, of course, being immobilized for weeks or months in a tight, itchy cast is awful. Fortunately, if the doc does need to manipulate the bone extensively -- a horribly painful procedure -- your child will be sedated. More...
08/28/09
How to get Kennedy-esque health care on your budget
The team ultimately chose an aggressive -- and risky -- course of chemotherapy. Thirty-six years later, Teddy Jr. is alive and cancer-free.
When the senator's daughter, Kara Kennedy, was told she had lung cancer in 2002, her father deployed a similar strategy, Clymer says. Doctors said Kara's tumor was inoperable and the 42-year-old mother of two young children might have less than a year to live. But Sen. Edward Kennedy refused to accept that prognosis, and instead consulted with other experts and found a surgeon willing to operate.
Seven years later, Kara Kennedy is also alive and cancer-free.
If you're thinking only Kennedy clout and Kennedy money can get that kind of care, think again. While you may not be able to summon medical experts from around the country to your kitchen table with the snap of your fingers, experts in patient empowerment say more and more people are carving out their own Kennedy-style health care. More...
08/28/09
Protests to focus on doctor who performed 60,000 abortions
"I feel safer on an airplane than I do in my clinic," Carhart said, sitting at his desk in his windowless office in Bellevue, Nebraska.
"You try to think about every way an attack could happen. You try to do all you can to prevent it, but obviously Dr. [George] Tiller thought he was safe in church."
It's been nearly three months since Tiller, one of the world's most well-known doctors performing abortions, was shot in the head at point-blank range on May 31 as services began at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas.
Anti-abortion groups, led by Operation Rescue, plan to launch protests outside Carhart's clinic this weekend in Bellevue, just south of Omaha. They will be the first major anti-abortion protests since the Tiller killing. More...
08/28/09
Breaking up is hard to do, especially with your cigarette
With that, she crushed her final smoldering cigarette and tossed out the remaining pack of Camels. After a 10-year relationship, Bishop broke up with her cigarettes.
Even with nicotine gums, patches, prescription drugs, cessation classes, many struggle with quitting -- even the leader of the free world. CNNhealth asked iReport contributors what advice they would give to the president about quitting tobacco.
In a news conference this summer, President Obama said he was "95 percent cured" of his smoking habit. "As a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it," the president said. "Have I fallen off the wagon? Yes." More...
08/27/09
Teens' stories echo findings of survey into drug use
"I was shivering and I was seeing things, and my mom was playing a video game and it was just 10 times louder than it was.
"I could feel the monsters in the video game coming towards me... and I got so scared at one point that I threw up," the 17-year-old said from the Virginia drug treatment center where he lives.
He had taken LSD at age 9, and his appetite for drugs had just begun.
He and millions of youngsters in the United States have an easy time finding drugs, according to a survey The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse released Wednesday.
Forty percent of teens -- about 10 million -- say they can get marijuana within a day while about 25 percent -- 5.7 million teens -- say they can find marijuana within an hour, the survey says.
A lot more teens -- 37 percent more since 2007 -- also said that pot was easier to buy than cigarettes or beer. More...
08/27/09
Brazil faces fresh HIV/AIDS fight
The journey is long, she told CNN, but it's a small price to pay for the government-provided drugs that have helped keep her out of the hospital for the past 11 years.
Sonia is just one of the many Brazilians who have benefited from the country's novel approach to fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Brazil jolted the global health community in 1996 when it began guaranteeing free anti-retroviral treatment to HIV/AIDS patients.
For Sonia, government-funded treatment comes in the form of 20 pills. Taken daily, the anti-retroviral medicine has helped keep her HIV at bay.
Coupled with government-supported prevention efforts and aggressive public awareness campaigns, the so-called Brazilian response has been hailed as a model for developing countries. More...
08/27/09
Kennedy fought aggressive cancer
When cancer invades the brain, the prognosis is usually grim. Despite his treatment at highly regarded medical centers, Edward "Ted" Kennedy, who served as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts for nearly 47 years, died just over a year after his surgery.
Kennedy suffered a seizure May 17, 2008, while walking his dogs at his home in Hyannis Port. Three days later, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said a brain biopsy revealed a tumor, known as a malignant glioma, in the left parietal lobe.
Malignant gliomas are the second-most common cause of death from cancer for people 15 to 44 years old, according to a 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The causes of glioma tumors are mysterious. Many patients do not have genetic risk factors, and any connections with lifestyle are not clear, said Dr. Larry Junck, head of the Neuro-Oncology Program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Junck was not involved in the senator's treatment. More...
08/27/09
'Littlest refusenik' on Kennedy
She was called "the littlest refusenik," one of the many Soviet Jews denied permission to leave the Soviet Union because her father had been exposed to government secrets.
But the case of Jessica Katz was special because she was a baby born with a nutritional deficiency that stopped her from growing. She was a tiny baby dying in a Moscow hospital, getting weaker by the day.
It was U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy who, her parents say, eventually saved her life.
Jessica was born in Moscow in 1977 with malabsorption syndrome, which prevented her from digesting food or milk properly. All she needed was baby formula, but it wasn't available in the Soviet Union. More...
08/26/09
When parents should butt into kid's battles
Should you butt in? Not until you've done some serious reconnaissance work.
"Make sure your child is legitimately spending time working," not playing with the dog or daydreaming, says Jan Busey, an elementary-school teacher for nine years in Asheville, North Carolina. If that's not the case, make an appointment with the teacher.
How to handle it: Come prepared. Before the meeting, keep track of your child's progress.
"Set goals for your child to complete an assignment, then assess at the end of that time," says Busey. "And write down specific challenges. The more you can show that you've tried to deal with the issue at home, the more receptive a teacher will be to your concerns." More...
08/26/09
Abuse at New York juvenile centers
Staff at the institutions have consistently used "a high degree of force in nearly every type of situation," according to the report, released Monday by acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King. The report resulted from an investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division in December 2007.
The inquiry centered on the Louis Gossett Jr. and Lansing residential centers -- both outside Ithaca, New York -- as well as the Tryon Residential Center and the Tryon Girls Residential Center in Johnstown, New York.
The New York Civil Liberties Union estimates that about 240 youths ages 10 to 18 are cited in the investigation and have been subject to multiple instances of physical abuse and emotional trauma. More...
08/26/09
Drop that BlackBerry! Multitasking may be harmful
A new study suggests that people who often do multiple tasks in a variety of media -- texting, instant messaging, online video watching, word processing, Web surfing, and more -- do worse on tests in which they need to switch attention from one task to another than people who rarely multitask in this way.
Specifically, heavy multitaskers are more easily distracted by irrelevant information than those who aren't constantly in a multimedia frenzy, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
One reason may be because the multitaskers tend to retain the distracting information in their short-term memory, which affects their ability to focus, compared with people who don't check their e-mail while talking on the phone and sneaking in some online shopping. Health.com: The best memory boosters for women More...
08/26/09
How to avoid gaining the Freshman 15
But the phenomenon, say experts, is probably a misnomer. According to a 2008 study in the journal Eating Behaviors, female college students who gain weight during their first year actually gain an average of 7 pounds. That extra flab, however, usually comes with a decrease in muscle mass and physical activity, a boost in alcohol consumption, and a wholesale change in eating habits from healthy foods to those high in sugar and fat. One study found that 71 percent of freshmen and seniors failed to meet federal dietary recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake. More...
08/25/09
Why primary care doctors are fed up
Health policy experts agree that any reform in our health care system must include a well-educated, caring primary care doctor who is able to manage the health of his or her patients with an eye to using resources optimally to keep costs down.
That's a tall order and it seems that few policy makers realize the value of primary care physicians.
People are making a huge assumption in this reform effort that as we extend coverage to millions who don't have health insurance, there will be doctors there to actually provide the health care. Fewer and fewer medical students are choosing primary care and many primary care doctors are leaving the field.
Let me share with you why we are losing so many primary care doctors. What follows are a few examples I experience each week. More...
08/25/09
Swine flu could cause up to 90,000 U.S. deaths
The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu virus, could infect between 30 percent and 50 percent of the American population during the fall and winter and lead to as many as 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported.
The report says 30,000 to 90,000 deaths are projected as part of a "plausible scenario" involving large outbreaks at schools, inadequate antiviral supplies and the virus peaking before vaccinations have time to be effective.
Up to 40,000 U.S. deaths are linked to seasonal flu each year, with most of the fatalities occurring among people over 65. With seasonal flu and H1N1, this fall is expected to bring more influenza deaths and place "enormous stress" on intensive care units nationwide, which normally operate near capacity, the report says. More...
08/25/09
Heart group urges daily limit on added sugar
For the first time, the group has issued guidelines that say most women should consume no more then 6 teaspoons (about 100 calories or 25 grams) of added sugar daily, and most men no more than 9 teaspoons (about 150 calories or 37.5 grams).
But here's the tricky part: Added sugar not only includes the white table sugar you might spoon into a cup of coffee or a bowl of cereal, but also sugar added to food and drinks before you even purchase them. Added sugar is commonly found in soft drinks, candy, cakes, and cookies (though it lurks in many types of food, including some yogurts and even granola.) Health.com: Why getting rid of belly fat may lower type 2 diabetes risk. More...
08/25/09
Freaky news about your brain
Lost? You're not walking straight
Have you ever been lost in the woods and felt as if you were going in circles? New research in the journal Current Biology suggests that, in fact, people do tend to walk in circles if they do not have a reference point such as the sun.
In one experiment, participants were taken to the Sahara Desert and given the direction of camp, then left to wander for four hours. In a second scenario, participants were dropped in a forest in Germany, also given a direction, and walked for four hours.
It turns out that, even though people thought they were going straight, they were actually going in circles when the sun was not visible. However, they did much better at this task when the sun was out. More...
08/24/09
Divided Democrats put Obama in health care bind
The conservative Blue Dog Democrats don't want a bill with a government-sponsored, public health plan, and liberal Democrats have said they won't pass legislation without one.
Despite strong majorities in both chambers of Congress, Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement on the legislation. And the administration has acknowledged that it will be difficult to pass a bill with bipartisan support.
"The White House needs to take more of a role in trying to broker a deal between the Blue Dogs and party liberals -- in bringing them together and trying to figure some compromise," said Stu Rothenberg, a political analyst and editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. More...
08/24/09
Why Racial Profiling Persists in Medical Research
While the rest of the country wrangled over the behavior of police officers in the wake of the Henry Louis Gates arrest last month, some scientists were pulling out their hair over racial profiling of a different kind: that perpetrated by medical researchers. Experts within the research community say a small but stubborn streak of racial profiling has long persisted in the medical literature, borne out in studies that attribute health disparities between blacks and whites not to socioeconomics or access to health care alone but also to genetic differences between the races — a concept that implies that a biological category of race exists. More...
08/24/09
For the body conscious, 'cankles'
Why would someone be so self-conscious about a certain part of her body? "I have cankles -- that's all I can say," she laments. "They are huge and they are horrible. ... And I will never wear a skirt or dress again."
Cankles? What are cankles? We've heard about saddle bags, muffin tops and love handles, but it seems that some women and men of the 21st century are now focused on the chubby joints of their lower extremities.
Far from being a medical term, "cankles" is slang for the part of the leg where the ankle meets the calf when there is no definition or indentation. In most cases, cankles are just large ankles -- what used to be called "big bones." But in society's quest for all things thin and shapely, big-boned ankles have taken on a name -- and a life -- of their own. More...
08/24/09
Teen's uncommon recovery
Hayes was used to watching Sanchez get knocked to the ground during games and then get back up, but that game in 2004 was different: After getting knocked down, Sanchez, then 15, could not move.
"I knew it was serious, but it didn't really sink in until I saw the X-rays for myself," said Hayes, who lived with his family in Sharpsburg, Georgia, at the time.
Sanchez's C5 vertebra (in his neck) was fractured.
"I knew the chances of him recovering were basically zero. But I hoped and prayed 24-7," Hayes said. "We are a very faith-based family and believe that you trust the people that are there for you, and things are going to be OK. God will see you through it." More...
08/21/09
Obama team flip-flops are showing
In order to diagnose what ails President Obama's push for health care reform, we need less heated rhetoric and more "Cool Hand Luke."
In a memorable line from the 1967 film, a prison warden surmises: "What we've got here is ... failure to communicate."
You can have the most popular cause, the best intentions, and the strongest ideas. But if you can't share with the rest of us exactly what you want to do and don't want to do, your agenda will wind up in intensive care.
In the latest sign of trouble, Democratic leaders in Congress are now working on a legislative strategy to get the most controversial parts of health care reform through both the House and Senate without Republican votes. More...
08/21/09
Kids roll up sleeves for H1N1 clinical trial
But this week they're doing something most of their classmates will never do. The Stein brothers will be testing the new vaccine to prevent swine flu.
Because the younger population, from 6 months to 24 years, is at high risk of developing complications from the H1N1 virus, the National Institutes of Health is conducting a clinical trial specifically to make sure the vaccine is safe for children. Vaccine developers hope to get the doses out by mid-October, before the flu season really shifts into high gear.
Although both boys dislike needles, they are willing to make the sacrifice. "One boy that I knew at our school died from a type of the flu," said Andrew, frowning. "So I wanted to prevent that as much as I could." More...
08/21/09
Cancer survivor provides free health care
"Having kidney cancer was one of the best things that ever happened to me ... because I can truly empathize with patients," said Coleman, 54.
That compassion inspired Coleman to open a free clinic in her Florida community to help other uninsured people in need of medical care.
In July 2003, Coleman, a nurse practitioner, learned she had a malignant tumor growing on her right kidney. But as a contract worker for several doctors, she did not receive health insurance. Coleman's treatment totaled about $35,000, and she was forced to take out a mortgage on her house to help pay for it.
"I [fell] through the crack ... and I [had] a great job and a good education," said Coleman, a mother of six. More...
08/21/09
Heat deaths put pressure on football tradition
For generations, the rite of twice-daily summer football practice endured. In August, players would report as early as 7 a.m., work hard for a few hours, eat to get ready for more football, and then drill again in the afternoon. The athletes, often wearing 15 pounds of gear, would run plays, crushing and tackling each other under the scorching heat.
But in recent years, the ritual of two-a-days has come under scrutiny as heatstroke deaths have increased. On Monday, a high school coach from Louisville, Kentucky, will go to trial on charges of reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the heat-exhaustion-related death of one of his players.
As medical understanding of the risks of heat exertion has advanced, more teams have instituted water breaks. And new technology allows for better tracking of young athletes' body temperature. More...
08/20/09
False rumors influencing health care debate
"That's not true," the Florida Democrat responded. "When someone sends you something on the Internet that sounds crazy, how about just checking it a little bit?"
The CNN Truth Squad, which fact-checks political claims, has debunked the bank-access rumor as false. Yet that claim, and others that have been disproved, keep coming up in the national debate on health care reform, inflaming an already emotional issue.
Heated protests have disrupted town hall meetings nationwide, with people shouting at legislators and venting anger at President Obama.
While the anger is genuine, some of it is based on misunderstandings of the actual proposals, said Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy expert at Emory University. More...
08/20/09
Obama administration urges employer flexibility
Among other things, businesses were asked to keep employees out of the office if they exhibit flulike symptoms and to establish alternative work arrangements for employees considered vulnerable to complications from the virus.
They also were asked to prepare contingency plans -- including telecommuting and staggered shifts -- to ensure that operations can continue in the event a workplace is hit hard this fall or winter by the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu.
Whenever possible, employees should be cross-trained to cover essential functions when co-workers become sick, the administration said.
The business guidelines were unveiled in a joint announcement from the secretaries of commerce, health and human services, and homeland security.
"We already face much economic uncertainty. A flu outbreak is a very scary prospect," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said. More...
08/20/09
Sweat may give off stress signals, study says
A new study published in the online journal PLoS One reveals changes in brain activity when people are exposed to sweat from others who have been in a stressful situation. Researchers found that people may become more alert to potential threats when inhaling this "stress" sweat.
"The results suggest that we can detect others' stress just by breathing in their sweat," said Lilianne Mujica-Parodi, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Stony Brook University in New York and lead author of the study, in an e-mail.
Researchers took sweat samples from 144 people who had put themselves in the somewhat stressful situation of tandem skydiving for the first time. Each participant was strapped to an expert skydiver, and each pair jumped from 13,000 feet. Control samples were taken from people who had run on a treadmill. More...
08/20/09
Herbs, vitamins that can hurt you
A few years ago, her alternative practitioner of choice was a self-described "intuitive healer" in New York, where she lives. The healer put Grant on a regimen of herbs, supplements and vitamins to help her lose weight.
A few weeks later, Grant, a geriatric care manager, was closing up an apartment for an elderly client who'd died when she started feeling strange sensations in her toes.
"They were tingling like crazy," Grant said. "I thought it was the carpet in the apartment, because it was old and dirty, and I'd taken my shoes off."
When the tingling in her toes spread to her feet, Grant knew that it was more than just the dingy carpet. When it spread to her legs, she knew that she was really in trouble.
"Both legs went numb up to my knees," she remembers. More...
08/19/09
10 ways to be a better thinker
What if I choose the wrong one? Beads of nervous sweat gather on my forehead; Ikea is not a fun place to have a mild panic attack.
Although I take my consumer choices seriously, I have always had a knack for making the wrong ones. I was the guy with the outmoded TV and the ill-fitting jeans; I ordered badly at restaurants.
This recurring problem is what first led me to investigate the talents and the limitations of the human brain. Could I teach myself to make better choices? And what about the other things the brain is responsible for -- creativity, willpower, deduction? Could I make my brain do more than it was already doing? Real Simple: How to worry less More...
08/19/09
Would 'public' health care insurance progam help you?
CNN's Elizabeth Cohen looks at what the "public option" health care plan would mean for people. More...
08/19/09
Chemo in closet: Doctor finds way to treat Nevada's cancer patients
Drip by drip, Aguilar, 28, watches as chemo enters her body to fight advanced-stage ovarian cancer. She is here because her insurance company wouldn't pay for her chemotherapy or her surgeries.
"I thought, 'Why am I getting insurance if it's not going to pay for the most important thing?' " she says, recalling the day she learned her insurance wouldn't cover treatment.
Getting chemo in an old storage space isn't the most ideal situation, but it's her only choice. Watch chemo in a closet »
Earlier this year, state budget cuts in Nevada resulted in the slashing of the outpatient cancer center at the University Medical Center's oncology clinic, forcing patients to find treatment on their own. More...
08/19/09
HPV shot found safe, but some experts question its benefits
Now, a new study says that Gardasil is safe and no riskier than other vaccines, although there is a small chance of fainting or developing a blood clot after getting the shots, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Still, many adolescent health specialists and epidemiologists continue to question the benefit of vaccinating all girls against HPV, a sexually transmitted disease that causes genital warts and some cases of cervical cancer.
A related study in the same journal looks at how the vaccine was marketed.
Sheila M. Rothman, Ph.D., and David J. Rothman, Ph.D., both of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, say the vaccine manufacturer, Merck & Co., may have swayed the debate by providing educational grants, ready-made slides, and other materials to professional medical associations such as the Society for Gynecologic Oncology and the American College Health Association. More...
08/18/09
The Real Doctor Behind House
Like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes in scrubs, the title character of House can solve just about any medical mystery. That's not altogether unrealistic, says Dr. Lisa Sanders, the show's technical adviser. Sanders, an internist and the author of Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis, talked to TIME about House's flesh-and-blood counterparts, how we can teach more doctors to be like them and how patients can help. More...
08/18/09
Mozart may have died of strep throat
Theories abound. It's known that his entire body was so swollen he couldn't turn over in bed; some say jealous rivals poisoned him, while others suggest scarlet fever, tuberculosis, or lethal trichinosis from undercooked pork.
Now, new evidence points to an altogether different conclusion: Mozart may have died from kidney damage caused by a strep infection, possibly strep throat. Health.com: Can't stop coughing? 8 causes of chronic cough
Dr. Richard H.C. Zegers of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues analyzed data from Vienna's death registry. Researchers had not previously analyzed the daily death registry -- begun in handwritten script in 1607 and maintained until 1920 -- for clues to Mozart's death. More...
08/18/09
90 percent of U.S. bills carry traces of cocaine
In the course of its average 20 months in circulation, U.S. currency gets whisked into ATMs, clutched, touched and traded perhaps thousands of times at coffee shops, convenience stores and newsstands. And every touch to every bill brings specks of dirt, food, germs or even drug residue.
Research presented this weekend reinforced previous findings that 90 percent of paper money circulating in U.S. cities contains traces of cocaine.
"When I was a young kid, my mom told me the dirtiest thing in the world is money," said the researcher, Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. "Mom is always right."
Scientists say the amount of cocaine found on bills is not enough to cause health risks. More...
08/18/09
Ultra-tiny 'bees' target tumors
They're called "nanobees," and they're not insects -- they're tiny particles designed to destroy cancer cells by delivering a synthesized version of toxin called melittin that is found in bees.
"Melittin, which would otherwise result in substantial destruction of your red blood cells and other normal tissues if it were delivered intravenously alone, is completely safe when it's on a nanoparticle," said Dr. Samuel Wickline, director of the Siteman Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Nanobees are one of the latest examples of how nanotechnology may change the way diseases are treated.
Nanotechnology encompasses a wide array of innovations that make use of structures that are 100 nanometers or smaller. That means they generally cannot be seen under a regular microscope, but are larger than individual atoms. For example, a nanobee is less than 10 times diameter of a red blood cell, Wickline said. More...
08/17/09
Obama on Friday took his push for a health care overhaul
However, an influential Democratic representative said the House would only pass a health care bill in January or later, signaling continuing rifts within Obama's party on his domestic priority for 2009.
"We're taking some time to make sure it's done right," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania. "I don't know that we'll get something done before January, and even then we may not get it done. We're going to do it right when it's finally done."
Obama told a largely supportive Montana audience at his second of three town hall meetings this week that fixing the health care system requires improving health insurance practices and reducing the costs of treatment. He sought questions from skeptics of his proposed health care overhaul, seeking to confront some misconceptions fueled by opponents Democrats say are undermining the debate.
One man who identified himself as a proud National Rifle Association supporter and believer in the Constitution asked how the government would pay to expand health insurance coverage to 46 million uninsured people. More...
08/17/09
Shoes' toning claims draw experts' doubts
In a growing trend, "toning shoes" are being sold with claims that wearers can tighten and shape their lower-body muscles just by walking in the shoes. And ads have suggested that they make the gym obsolete.
But these oddly shaped shoes have their share of medical skeptics who say there have not been legitimate, independent studies proving the benefits of these types of shoes over traditional pairs.
Although the designs vary, the shoes generally have pods or curves in the bottom that create instability. That imbalance, shoemakers say, causes about 11 to 41 percent increased muscle activity in the legs, glutes and calves. More...
08/17/09
Skateboarder's death underscores insect allergy risks
Kessler's death is a reminder that stings can be deadly for those with an allergy to certain insects, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology said Friday.
At least 40 people in the United States die each year as the result of insect stings, the academy said. As many as 5 percent of Americans are at risk for a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction from insect stings, according to the organization.
In a typical week in the emergency room, doctors at Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta, Georgia, see about six or fewer cases of people with allergic reactions to insects, said Dr. James P. Capes, director of the emergency department. More...
08/17/09
Elusive search for cellulite cure continues
"I'm in my mid-40s," she admits. "And no matter how well you try to take care of yourself and what your weight is, what I've noticed is your body changes. And I have some cellulite, predominantly on my thighs."
Cellulite: the word women fear and men rarely notice. More than 90 percent of women develop some type of cellulite in their lifetime, while few men ever experience "cottage cheese" thighs.
Doctors believe that's because estrogen plays a big role in cellulite formation: It appears that excess estrogen causes a weakening of connective tissue, which allows fat to bulge up under the skin, creating cellulite. More...
08/14/09
Tough questions, frustrations continue in town halls
Rep. Steve Rothman, D-New Jersey, said at a meeting in Secaucus that the aim of health care reform is not to make America's system mimic Great Britain's or Canada's.
"I, for one, don't want a system like Great Britain's. I don't want a system like Canada's. I don't want national health care, and I don't want socialized medicine," he said.
Rothman said that any health care bill coming out of Congress has to "fix what needs to be fixed" but not "destroy what's good about the existing private health insurance system."
Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, at a town hall meeting Thursday in Muskogee, said he predicts much of the responsibility in controlling health care costs will fall upon patients. More...
08/14/09
'Death panel' fears are false
The heated national debate on health care reform has taken an unusual turn, with many eyes focused on a minor provision regarding end-of-life care embedded in the House bill.
The measure provides coverage for Medicare beneficiaries who elect to meet with their medical team once every five years to discuss options for treatment if they become seriously ill. It's called end-of-life care or advance care planning.
Some opponents of the House bill have expended great energy and resources in recent weeks to convince seniors that this provision will somehow result in government-sponsored euthanasia.
We have seen the volatile response to these allegations at town hall meetings across the country. More...
08/14/09
Britons pour love on 'evil' healthcare system
Tens of thousands of people have joined a Twitter group expressing pride in the UK's National Health Service (NHS), which offers free taxpayer-funded medical care to all British residents, while leading politicians have spoken out in support.
Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin earlier this week condemned Obama's plans to introduce a public heath insurance scheme as an "evil" move that would result in "death panels" deciding who would live or die.
Her criticism has been echoed by fellow Republicans in direct attacks on Britain's NHS. In an article, Former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich said British healthcare was run by "Orwellian" bureaucrats who put a price tag on life. More...
08/14/09
Some obsessions, compulsions not part of OCD
Afraid that he had injured a person, he would drive back to each pothole again and again to check, and he lost a lot of time in the process.
"I knew that my behaviors made no sense. I knew that my thoughts that were triggering these behaviors made no sense, and yet I felt so helpless to do anything about it," he said.
Bell, a news anchor with KCBS Radio in San Francisco, California, now knows that his condition has a name: obsessive-compulsive disorder. He frequently speaks out about it and has written a memoir called "Rewind, Replay, Repeat."
Psychologists are debating where OCD belongs in relation to other psychiatric disorders, and whether certain symptoms are actually part of other conditions. The condition affects as many as 4 million Americans, according to the International OCD Foundation, for which Bell is a spokesman. More...
08/13/09
Mumbai shuts schools, cinemas over H1N1 scare
Schools, colleges and cinema halls in India's commercial capital of Mumbai have been ordered to shut over a mounting H1N1 scare, officials said Wednesday.
All educational institutions, including private coaching centers, have been asked to stay closed for a week from Thursday, said Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state.
Theaters will remain shut for three days, she said.
The order came in the wake of a similar move for the district of Pune, also in Maharashtra, which has been worst-hit by the pandemic.
Up through Tuesday, India had reported nine deaths from the virus.
Federal health officials reported that 1,078 people of 5,000 tested so far have been found positive for H1N1. More...
08/13/09
Weight lifting benefits breast cancer survivors
However, she may be changing her tune, thanks to a new study in the August 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. It turns out that breast cancer survivors with lymphedema who engage in a progressive, supervised weight-lifting program fare better than their counterparts who do not lift weights.
Lymphedema occurs in as many as 70 percent of women who have breast cancer surgery. Sometimes lymph nodes in the armpit are removed for cancer testing, which can cause the clear fluid (lymph) that circulates in the body to build up in the affected limb. As a result, women must wear a compression sleeve and glove during waking hours. More...
08/13/09
Heart transplant patients push physical limits
And he'll do it with another man's heart pumping in his chest.
"I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't consider me a success story and a survivor," Garlett said.
His medical issues began in 1989 when he received his first Hodgkin's disease diagnosis as a high school senior. In 1995, during his third battle with the cancer, doctors ceased his chemotherapy treatment when they discovered it had weakened his heart.
Two years later, Garlett learned he had secondary leukemia as a result of chemotherapy to treat the Hodgkin's, and three more years of chemotherapy ensued.
And after five years on the waiting list, he received a new heart in 2006.
Now, the 37-year-old savors his body's capabilities. More...
08/13/09
Should your daughter get Gardasil
Even though every federal health authority says her girls, ages 11 and 12, should get Gardasil, the vaccine that helps protect against cervical cancer and genital warts caused by the human papillomavirus, Darrow instructed the pediatrician not to give it to them.
"Up until now my children have had every vaccine doctors have recommended," says Darrow, a graphic designer in St. Petersburg, Florida. "But most friends, like me, fear the safety of something new."
Even though Gardasil is on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine schedule for 11- and 12-year-old girls, and is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, many parents interviewed by CNN say they're not getting it right now for their daughters out of concern for side effects. More...
08/12/09
Sudden death syndrome: Football's silent killer
The incident comes almost two years after fellow Spaniard, Sevilla's Antonio Puerta, collapsed in the first half of his team's 4-1 victory against Spanish league rivals Getafe and died three days later aged just 22.
There was also the shocking death of midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe, who suffered a cardiac arrest on live television while playing for Cameroon.
In Scotland, Motherwell fans still mourn the passing of club captain Phil O'Donnell who died on his way to hospital after suffering a seizure in a game against Dundee United in 2007.
These footballers all suffered from Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) -- an umbrella term for a range of heart conditions that cause cardiac arrest in young people. More...
08/12/09
What to do if you're allergic to your pet
Suddenly that oh-so-simple decision becomes a much tougher call. For some, the psychological misery of giving up a pet may outweigh the everyday misery of allergy symptoms.
That was true for John Ceballos, 43, who kept his cat, Suki, after an allergist told him the cat had to go.
"The first thing he said during my consultation was, 'You must get rid of your cat. You are severely allergic to cat dander.'"
Dander is one of the most stubborn and common allergens. Cats, dogs and other furry or feathered pets produce dander, which consists of microscopic, dandruff-like flakes of skin and proteins from saliva and urine that can trigger allergies and aggravate asthma. More...
08/12/09
Stem cells may offer promise for damaged hearts
The major focus of stem cell research in cardiology is promoting regeneration of the heart or preventing scar formation, said Jeffrey Karp, who runs a stem cell biology lab at Harvard University.
One study reporting successful results in humans involves harvesting patients' own stem cells, purifying them, and injecting them directly into the heart muscle. The stem cells have a surface marker called CD34, which means they are capable of growing new blood vessels.
The study, sponsored by Baxter Inc., is the largest adult stem cell study for heart disease in the U.S., said Dr. Douglas Losordo, cardiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, who is leading the trial. The researchers will present their one-year findings from Phase II of the trial in September, Losordo said. More...
08/12/09
More happiness may come with age, studies say
At age 87, he's found that as people get older, they tend to "mellow out" when it comes to arguments. Nowadays, devoting time each day to swimming and reading, Rose feels happier than he did in his 40s.
"As you get older, if you're wise, you avoid all stress," said Rose, who is retired and lives with his wife in Palm Beach, Florida.
Rose's experiences reflect findings presented over the weekend at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Toronto, Canada. Researchers suggested that, generally, people in their 80s and 90s are happier than younger people.
"Older people are better able to recognize what will bother them, and better able to negotiate their environment," said Susan Turk Charles, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine. More...
08/11/09
Aspirin fights heart attacks
"The pain was like a truck sitting on my chest," said Van Doorn, 63, a fleet support manager at Boeing. The doctor -- a fellow passenger -- treated Van Doorn from the medical kit, including giving him aspirin and telling him to chew it.
Within 90 minutes, the aircraft made an emergency landing at Great Falls, Montana, and Van Doorn was raced to the hospital. "They rushed me into the cardio lab, and that's when I passed out," he said.
In layman's terms, Van Doorn's heart essentially stopped six times at various points during the emergency, said Dr. Anthony Galeo, who performed an angioplasty procedure on Van Doorn at Benefis Health System hospital. More...
08/11/09
Health care will run into spending bills after recess
Senators are getting an earful on the subject from constituents. House members, who began their recess a week earlier, also got a head start on hearing from residents in their districts, facing sometimes contentious comments.
But when Congress returns, members will be hard-pressed to continue negotiations and get something done fast.
At the same time, the Senate must pass spending bills before money runs out at the end of the fiscal year: the end of September. The House passed its spending measures before leaving town.
"I think they're going to have a very full plate," said Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report. "And we know they're going to start with health care, but they're going to have to do appropriations, climate change. ... You can bet there will be a lot of other things are left to be done."
Rothenberg warns that If the economy takes another dip, there will be some pressure for more action in terms of a second stimulus or changes in tax policy. More...
08/11/09
Co-op dishes out health care to restaurant workers
The Restaurant Worker's Health Care Cooperative, currently servicing 15 restaurants in lower Manhattan, provides free health care to all restaurant employees, from bus boys to bartenders. Every month the owner or manager of each restaurant contributes money into a common fund based on its number of employees. In return, their workers can go see Dr. Dave with any kind of health issue they may have.
Dr. Dave, a graduate of Columbia Medical School, has been treating uninsured people for more than a decade. He decided to start the co-op after noticing a trend among patients working in the restaurant industry.
"Over the past ten years, I've seen many patients that work in restaurants, and there were always two things in common: They had no real access to any kind of medical care, and they also waited a long time to come see a doctor," Ores says. "I decided to form this co-op in order to get them early, basic health care." More...
08/11/09
Student diet 101: Don't eat mold
"How the caveman worked, he'd check stuff out -- the look and smell of it," said Jeff Nelken, a food safety expert, about suspicious foods. "You have a sense of smell and taste, a radar system that tells you that the food is not fresh."
A survey of more than 4,000 college students published in 2008 in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that "young adults, particularly white men, engage in risky eating behaviors" by consuming undercooked animal products, which carry risks of illness.
College students aren't generally known for healthy eating. Busy schedules and tight budgets -- and sometimes a lack of knowledge about food -- can result in not-the-greatest choices. Outside the dining halls, the college student diet may rely heavily on ramen noodles, beer, cereal and leftovers. Today, a few food experts offer advice on ways to balance health and frugality, since many students are new to the kitchen and crunched for cash. More...
08/10/09
Budget cuts threaten young girl's life-sustaining care
A steady stream of nurses, caregivers and therapists visit 12-year-old Jessica at home around the clock. Jessica suffers from a rare and fatal disease called Niemann Pick Type C. A cholesterol imbalance destroys healthy cells in the liver, spleen and brain.
Although Jessica led a relatively normal life before the illness worsened, her mother always knew the disease would eventually take over.
"Jessica was playful, happy and loves people. My heart was always a flutter because you never knew how many moments you'd get," Lisa Leoni says.
In Jessica's case, a grand mal seizure suffered Memorial Day weekend 2005 brought a world of hurt to the Leonis.
At the height of her symptoms, Jessica suffered up to 60 seizures a day. The disease, also known as NPC, has stolen her ability to walk, talk, eat or even breathe on her own. An oxygen machine pumps air into her lungs around the clock. More...
08/10/09
Health care protests 'clearly being orchestrated,'
Speaking to CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said: "We have these screaming groups on either side. That isn't helpful. Let's be honest about this. Town meetings are not bean bag. I've had hundreds of them, and sometimes folks get upset. And that's part of America, part of our process.
"But this is clearly being orchestrated, and these folks have instructions. They come down from a Texas lobbyist in Washington."
Durbin said that when "there's a group of people honestly sitting in the middle trying to ask the important questions and get the right answers, and instead someone takes the microphone and screams and shouts to the point where the meeting comes to an end, that isn't dialogue, that isn't the democratic process. More...
08/10/09
Foster kids face loss of health coverage at age 18
Jourdane Hamilton, an 18-year-old from Rockville, Maryland, has been in the foster care system for the past two years. He says he cannot afford to lose his coverage, especially because he plays football.
"Football is very physical. In every single play you have to make sure you're protecting yourself because the game is ruthless and there is a high possibility of getting hurt," said Hamilton. "If I didn't have health care coverage I don't think I would be able to put myself in high-risk situations."
But Hamilton is in luck. He is able to train for college football because he participates in the FutureBound Independent Living Program (FILP), founded in 1995 by The National Center for Children and Families (NCCF) in Maryland, which ensures that he keeps his health insurance coverage until he is 21. More...
08/10/09
'Skinny jeans' class aims to aid your zip
A retail specialist with a commercial real estate firm in Bethesda, Maryland, Ordona knows image is part of success. That's why she has been diligent about hitting the gym four to five times a week. But even with all her crunches and lifting, she sometimes experienced denim frustration.
Unhappy with her former gym, Ordona decided to join a national health club chain in her neighborhood. Much to her surprise, she found a class called Skinny Jeans Workout, specifically designed to get rid of those annoying little bulges and bumps. "It's different than your typical workout class," she says. "It's not high-impact cardio, but you're sweating the whole time because you're working every muscle group." More...
08/07/09
Researchers identify cells that sa 'scratch me'
Got an itch to scratch? Scientists have pinpointed a key group of cells that sends itch-alerts to the brain. When researchers at Washington University in St. Louis knocked out those cells in mice, it alleviated their itchiness without affecting their ability to sense pain — work that opens a possible new target for creating better itch relievers.
Don't underestimate that need. The kind of itch caused by bug bites or allergies typically goes away with a little scratching or some antihistamines. But some people can scratch themselves raw without relieving serious, daily itching triggered by a variety of conditions, such as certain cancers, chronic kidney failure, and even use of certain narcotic pain relievers. More...
08/07/09
White House advises Dems on health care protests
Top White House officials counseled Democratic senators Thursday on coping with disruptions at public events on health care this summer, officials said, and promised the party and allies would respond with twice the force if any individual lawmaker is criticized in television advertising.
These officials also told skittish senators that fresh polling suggests an emphasis on issues such as barring insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions is a political winner, able to increase support among independents, women, seniors and rural voters. More...
08/07/09
Gov't reassures schools on staying open with flu
The government said Friday that schools should only close this fall if large numbers of students have swine flu, and could allow their sick kids to return 24 hours after a fever is gone.
The decision on closing rests with local school officials, but they have been looking to the federal government for advice about the new flu strain that has caused a global epidemic.
The advice on sick kids returning is a change from previous recommendations that people with swine flu stay home for a week.
As the virus spread to students last spring, more than 700 schools in half the states temporarily closed their doors. The new flu is expected to hit schools again this fall. But the Obama administration is hoping to minimize closings and disruptions they cause for families.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano offered the advice on school closings, while the guidance on students returning came from Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More...
08/07/09
Sanitizer, tissues to school supply lists
Poyer, also the mother of two young children, thinks about swine flu, also known as influenza A H1N1, every day, both at school and at home. She knows that some schools nationwide have had to close because the disease was widespread, and she has mixed feelings about the school closures.
"I hate to close schools, because it interrupts learning, but we leave it up to health professionals," said Poyer, who lives in Deansboro, New York.
Federal health officials, releasing guidelines Friday, suggested that closure of schools this fall be rare. "There are measures we can take to protect the students, protect the staff, and to allow learning to continue," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More...
08/06/09
Programs to change gays to straights
In addition, the 138-page report -- covering 87 peer-reviewed studies -- said that such efforts may cause harm.
"Contrary to claims of sexual orientation change advocates and practitioners, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation," said Judith M. Glassgold, chairwoman of the task force that presented the report at the group's annual meeting in Toronto, Canada. The Washington-based association represents more than 150,000 members.
"At most, certain studies suggested that some individuals learned how to ignore or not act on their homosexual attractions. Yet, these studies did not indicate for whom this was possible, how long it lasted or its long-term mental health effects. Also, this result was much less likely to be true for people who started out only attracted to people of the same sex." More...
08/06/09
Blood procedure allows kidney transplants
The process, called plasmapheresis, can make it easier for underserved African-American patients to receive organs for transplant. Of the 80,000 people on the kidney transplant list, 36 percent are African-Americans but only 15 percent of living donor kidneys go to African-Americans. That discrepancy is caused, in large part, by a lack of suitable matching organs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says. As a rule, people are genetically more similar to others who share their ethnicity or race than to people of other races.
Although minorities typically donate in proportion to their percentage of the population, they have greater needs for transplants because of diseases that are more prevalent in some ethnic or racial groups. African-Americans, Asian and Pacific Islanders and Latinos, for example, are three times more likely than Caucasians to have kidney disease, the health department says. More...
08/06/09
Cooling is catching
Gallagher ran to tell the pilot; someone called 911 from a cell phone; another passenger started CPR. Paramedics appeared and then Gallagher made a crucial decision: Even though protocol called for Dietrich to be taken to the nearest hospital, three miles away, she insisted he go twice as far, to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and its Center for Resuscitation Science.
By the time Dietrich hit the emergency room, he had a weak pulse. At most hospitals, standard treatment is to sit tight and hope for the best. But at UPenn, doctors hooked Dietrich to an intravenous line of chilled saline solution, dropping his body temperature to a cool 91 degrees. More...
08/06/09
Nurses offer tips for surviving a hospital stay
In many ways, a hospital is like that foreign land, and the guides that know the terrain are the nurses.
As many as 98,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year as a result of medical errors, according to an Institute of Medicine report. Some 99,000 people die each year from infections acquired in the hospital, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vigilance is key, says Cindy Sellers O'Brien, president of the mid-Maryland chapter of the Emergency Nurses Association. "The patients that do better are the ones that take an active role in their health care. They have the better outcomes [because] they take more ownership."
The American Hospital Association agrees that patients play a crucial role. "While we are striving for perfection in the way we deliver care, we know we fall short of that mark -- but patients can help us get better," says Nancy Foster, AHA's vice president for quality and patient safety policy. "They can -- and should -- ask questions when something does not seem quite right." More...
08/05/09
Facial surgery may offer migraine cure
"Other migraine treatments either temporarily prevent the symptoms or they may reduce the symptoms after the migraine headaches start," says Bahman Guyuron, M.D., a professor and the chair of the department of plastic surgery at the University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University. "What we are offering is essentially a cure."
In a study published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Guyuron and colleagues looked for people who had migraines that started in a specific region on the front, side, or back of the head. The researchers injected Botox into these trigger points to temporarily paralyze the muscle; if the injections helped relieve the migraines, the patients were randomly divided into two surgical groups. More...
08/05/09
Global swine flu deaths top 1,100
As of July 31, the total number of victims killed by the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, stood at 1,154 -- an increase of 338 since WHO's previous update on July 27.
The virus has spread around the world with unprecedented speed, spreading as widely in six weeks as common influenza viruses spread in the six months, according to WHO.
WHO data showed the total number of laboratory confirmed cases at 162,380, but the number could be higher since individual cases no longer have to be tested or reported.
The total number of countries and territories reporting at least one case of infection now stands at 168, with new cases reported in Azerbaijan, Gabon, Grenada, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Monaco, Nauru, Swaziland and Suriname. More...
08/05/09
Health insurance carries a painful cost
"I loved the business because it rewarded you for your effort. ... I liked the fact that selling insurance was helping people avoid financial loss," the California man says.
He sold insurance in the rural San Diego County town of Ramona for 35 years and retired eight years ago. Since then, he has grown increasingly angry at the business he represented.
And the industry he gave so much to is about to ruin him financially.
"Over the years of my career, I saw the coverage get more expensive, but you got less," says Hernandez.
In 2007, Hernandez, 65, and his wife Janet, 62, spent more than $15,000 on insurance premiums. Add a little more than $8,200 for co-payments and medicine, and Hernandez says they paid about $24, 000 in medical costs that year. More...
08/05/09
Olympic speed winners getting taller, heavier
To move fast, athletes such as Phelps need the right balance of vertical and horizontal -- that is, a lot of height and weight, but not too much weight to hold them back. Researchers at Duke University have found that winning Olympic athletes today are mostly taller and heavier than their predecessors, and that this pattern has been consistent for 100 years.
The fastest male swimmers are 4.5 inches taller than their 1900 counterparts, and the fastest male runners 6.4 inches taller, the study said. The average human today is about 1.9 inches taller than the average human 100 years ago, according to the study.
That goes along with the idea that, generally, bigger animals can move faster than smaller animals. More....
08/04/09
Blood donors on tap on world's largest floating hospital
The 50-year-old nurse and grandmother from the UK resigned from her position in a hospital to volunteer aboard a ship that provides free medical treatment to some of the world's poorest people.
Like any of the 450 volunteer crew members currently aboard the Africa Mercy, Herbert can be called on at any time of the day to give blood, as the ship has no facilities for storing blood products.
Instead the ship operates a system where there are usually 30 donors for each blood type.
Herbert says she recently helped a young woman who needed an amputation.
"This young woman required a below-the-knee amputation, but was very weak so I was called in to give her blood as our blood groups matched," she told CNN. More...
08/04/09
Face masks seem to protect against flu
Now, the largest study to date on the subject suggests they do. When sick people and their families wear surgical face masks and wash their hands within the first 36 hours of symptoms, healthy family members are indeed less likely to get seasonal flu, researchers say. They think the results may apply to H1N1 as well.
So far, 94,512 people around the world have been infected with swine flu, and there have been 429 deaths in 122 countries.
"Many people believe that coughs and colds are so infectious that there is really no stopping them, however hard we try," says Benjamin Cowling, Ph.D., the lead author of the study published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine. "Our results suggest that is not the case, and, in fact, transmission can be effectively stopped with just some simple precautions." More...
08/04/09
Researchers say they found malaria's origin
Wolfe leads expeditions into the mysterious world of viruses and pathogens.
"They are everywhere," said Wolfe, a microbiologist who speaks of his targets -- infectious organisms -- with the giddy lilt of a teenager on a first date. "We have the potential to explore a completely new biological world and go out and really find new things all the time."
One bug has been Wolfe's singular obsession for more than a decade, arguably the biggest menace to humans: malaria.
"If you think about HIV virus as a singular hurricane event, malaria is like the hurricane that's been hitting for thousands of years -- constantly," said Wolfe, who heads a research institute called the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative.
Although scientists have amassed volumes of knowledge about this nimble and changeable parasite, none of that knowledge has reaped a malaria vaccine or a sustainable ability to fight it. More...
08/04/09
Cholesterol levels tied to increased risk for dementia
Researchers tracked nearly 10,000 people for four decades, starting when the participants were between 40 and 45. After controlling for weight, hypertension and diabetes, researchers discovered a significant link between borderline-high cholesterol and dementia, according to the study.
While previous studies have linked heart and brain health, researchers said this study is the first to examine the association between borderline cholesterol levels and dementia.
And while dementia does not typically strike until later in life, "it's a disease of a lifetime," says Rachel Whitmer, research scientist at Kaiser Permanente and senior author of the study. "We need to think about it like we do for cardiovascular disease."
The study found that participants who had high cholesterol, or a value of 240 or more, had a 66 percent greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease later in life. People with borderline-high cholesterol, between 200 and 239, had a 25 percent spike in risk. More...
08/03/09
Dodd says he has prostate cancer
"I'm very confident that we're going to come out of this well," the senator from Connecticut said in a news conference in Hartford with his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd.
Dodd, 65, said he was diagnosed in June after an annual physical and had decided Thursday night to undergo surgery after the Senate adjourns for its recess next week.
"I'm running for re-election," he said, referring to next year. "Now I'll be a little leaner, and a little meaner, but I'm running."
The five-term Democratic senator said he kept the diagnosis quiet until recently, not even telling some members of his family -- including his sister, who died earlier this month from lung cancer, and his good friend Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is fighting brain cancer.
Kennedy, a fellow Democrat from Massachusetts, told him, "I can beat mine, you can beat yours," Dodd said.
Dodd, is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. He also is the second-ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and has played a major role in the recent debate on health care while Kennedy, the committee's chairman, has been absent because of his cancer.
Dodd's wife said she and the couple's two daughters will be ready to "patch" Dodd up after the surgery to "get you out there again."
According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer ranks behind only skin cancer as the most common type of cancer found in American men. More...
08/03/09
Are you at risk for postpartum mood disorder?
When Holly Betten, 28, came home from the hospital after a rough delivery, she had one day to adjust to her new life as a mom before her husband went back to working 12-hour days as a computer-software architect.
Her son, Henry, became severely jaundiced, wouldn't breastfeed, and almost landed back in the hospital for losing too much weight. "All I could think was, 'What did I get myself into? I should never have become a mom,'" recalls Betten, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. "I felt totally overwhelmed and inadequate -- I couldn't even feed my child." Then Henry developed colic and began to wail all the time. Not surprisingly, so did Betten: "I'd be happy one minute, then crying hysterically the next. I just wanted to leave the baby in his room and walk away."
Her husband worried that Betten was becoming depressed, but she insisted that she could soldier on. "I just attributed it to stress and exhaustion, and refused to ask for help," Betten recalls. And she knew that "the baby blues" could make you feel sad, moody, or irritable. In fact, the condition, triggered by hormone shifts, can affect as many as 50 to 80 percent of new moms More...
08/03/09
Redheads' extra pain may cause fear of dentists
"I knew this time something was wrong. I could feel my lips," said the Syracuse, New York, resident, who told her dentist the drugs weren't working.
Her doctor kept assuring her she had given her a proper dose and said: "I'm almost done."
"I was hurting so bad, I was hitting myself in the stomach," said Anderson, a redhead. "I almost wanted to hit her."
Studies have indicated that redheads may be more sensitive to pain and may need more anesthetics to numb them.
New research published in this month's Journal of American Dental Association found that painful experiences at the dentist might cause more anxiety for men and women with red hair, who were twice as likely to avoid dental care than people with dark hair. More...
08/03/09
'Ask Medicare' seeks to cut red tape for caregivers
Mickens didn't like the way her mother was treated, so she moved Delphine to a second facility. That one didn't work out either. Mickens eventually concluded that the only way Delphine was going to receive acceptable care was to move her mother in with her.
Moving Delphine into her house wasn't so easy: She needed medical equipment including a wheelchair, medication and round-the-clock care. "She can't walk," Mickens says. "So we bathe her, we feed her, we do everything for her." Because Mickens works two jobs, she also needed someone to provide in-home care.
Because Delphine is in her 80s, Medicare covers a lot of the costs -- but Mickens didn't know where to start; the logistics were overwhelming.
Medicare personnel helped her get some of the medical supplies she needed and also recommend a new Web site called Ask Medicare. Designed to give easy access to people taking care of elderly relatives, Ask Medicare provides information and links to services that are important to caregivers. More...
07/31/09
Health bill could handicap small businesses
Before I was elected to Congress, I ran a small plastics packaging business in Cincinnati, Ohio, providing products and services, creating jobs and meeting payroll.
Thanks to the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which shields employers who offer benefits to their employees from being pummeled by laws that vary from state to state, I was also able to offer health care and pension benefits to my employees.
As every small-business owner knows, this can be quite a balancing act, but I count it as one of the most rewarding times of my life -- a time that led to my service in Congress.
Whenever I cast a major vote in the House, I find myself thinking back to those days and how the policies we are debating will affect small businesses like mine. After all, I first decided to run for elective office because government -- at all levels -- was too often an impediment to my firm's success. More...
07/31/09
Malawi halts nursing brain drain
In the past, workers in the tiny southeast African nation of just 13 million inhabitants have been lured abroad by the promise of higher wages and better working conditions.
But, the country best-known as the homeland of Madonna's adopted children now has another claim to fame: It has succeeding in halting -- at least for now -- its crippling brain drain of nurses.
Malawi's solution? To expand educational opportunities for nurses at all levels and keep them out of poverty by paying modestly more money.
Countries don't come much poorer than Malawi, but its healthcare system worked well back in the 1970s and early 1980s.
When the former British colony gained independence in 1964, president Hastings Banda, himself a physician, maintained a high level of training for nurses that included teaching all classes in English. More...
07/31/09
How can I safely control my pregnancy weight gain?
This is a very good question, and the guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy were recently updated by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. While adequate weight gain during pregnancy is important for proper development of your baby, we now know that gaining too much weight is not good, as it can cause problems such as gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, increased risk of Caesarean section and infection, and more difficulty during labor.
In addition, many women do not lose all their baby weight, which increases the risk of obesity and obesity-related complications such as heart disease and diabetes. There is also research suggesting that children born to women who gain too much weight during pregnancy are much more likely to be obese.
If you started your pregnancy overweight (body mass index between 25 and 29; go here to calculate your BMI), you should gain about 15 to 25 pounds during your pregnancy. If you started the pregnancy obese (BMI of 30 or greater), the latest recommendations suggest that you need to gain only about 15 pounds during your pregnancy. More...
07/30/09
Weight-loss surgery safe
"The overall conclusion that we reached is that bariatric-surgery safety is actually quite good," said Dr. Bruce Wolfe, a professor of surgery at the Oregon Health and Science University.
In the past, bariatric procedures have been associated with death rates of 2 to 3 percent and complication rates of up to 24 percent. However, the obesity epidemic is fueling a rise in such surgeries, prompting concerns about their safety. In 2005, 171,000 people underwent bariatric surgery, more than 10 times the number that had the procedure in 1994.
To assess the safety of such operations, Wolfe and his colleagues looked at 4,776 patients in the first month after having a bariatric procedure. They found that 4.3 percent of patients had a serious problem, such as a blood clot or needing another operation, and 0.3 percent, or 15 patients, died within a month after surgery -- a complication rate similar to other types of surgery. More...
07/30/09
One week to a slimmer you: Focus on the little things
unday: Shoot it, and shed pounds.
Studies show that recording meals may help you lose up to 5 percent of your weight, says Robert A. Carels, Ph.D., an associate professor in the psychology department at Bowling Green State University.
Start today: Snap before and after photos of each meal with your camera phone. Keeping a visual food diary is a more accurate way to see what and how much you're eating, United Kingdom researchers say. Afterward, download the pics so you'll have a record.
Monday: Pop a vitamin to kill hunger.
Taking a daily multivitamin may make you less hungry, two studies in the British Journal of Nutrition suggest; people who take one tend to weigh less and have lower BMIs.
Start today: Pop a multi with at least 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance for vitamins included in the studies: chromium, copper, folic acid, iodine, manganese, molybdenum, niacin, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamin, vitamins B6 and B12, and zinc. Health.com: 20 little ways to drop the pounds and keep them off More...
07/30/09
Juices, tea and energy drinks erode teeth
Research shows that other drinks thought to be better --fruit juices, teas and energy drinks-- can also have harmful effects on teeth, turning the pearly whites to shrinking, spotted yellows marred with pockmarks.
Dentists say sipping fluorescent-colored sports drinks, carbonated beverages and citric fruit juices bathe the teeth in harmful acids. The constant exposure strips the hard, protective layer of the tooth called the enamel and could dissolve the entire tooth.
"We all became aware of the sugar on your teeth. What most of us don't know is the acid," said Dr. Mohamed Bassiouny, a restorative dentistry professor at Temple University. "Cavities form when bacteria in the mouth mixes with sugar, leading to decay. Erosion occurs when chemicals strip the mineral off the teeth. More...
07/30/09
Does your child need ADHD drugs?
"I told my parents I just forgot to take them, but really I wasn't taking them on purpose," says Sydney, who's now 15 and about to start 10th grade at a private school in Olney, Maryland. "I just didn't like how they made me feel. They made me shy and less talkative. I wasn't myself."
Sydney says she felt so much better off the medication that she confessed her medication vacation to her parents and asked if she could stop taking the drugs -- drugs she'd been on since third grade -- permanently. After consulting her doctor, her parents agreed, and while Sydney's concentration suffered a bit and her grades did slip a little, she and her parents are happy with the results.
"She's doing great," says Sydney's mother, Julie Kirk. "We've had to work on her study skills, but there's no way she'd go back to taking the drugs." More...
07/29/09
H1N1 virus more severely affects pregnant women
The authors of the study suggest that pregnant women infected with the virus, commonly known as swine flu, take antiviral drugs to protect themselves and their fetuses.
"If they feel sick, they need to call their health care provider and their health care provider needs to prescribe antivirals promptly," said Dr. Denise J. Jamieson, lead author of the study and a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some doctors are reluctant to prescribe the drugs to pregnant women because they are concerned about their possible effect on the fetus, but Jamieson urged them to put aside those concerns.
"We know, in this situation, the benefits very likely outweigh the risks, because pregnant women could get pretty darn sick with influenza," the obstetrician-gynecologist told CNN. More...
07/29/09
Better diabetes control pays off over decades
She tests her blood sugar six times a day (sometimes more) and uses an insulin pump to administer the hormone all day long, which keeps her blood sugar as close to normal as possible.
Now, research shows that this fairly new approach to controlling type 1 diabetes -- as opposed to the one or two daily insulin injections that had been advised for decades -- pays off. People who aim for -- and achieve -- such intensive glucose control are much less likely to lose their vision, have kidney failure, develop heart disease, or need an amputation than those who don't, according to a study published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine. What's more, the research shows that people with type 1 diabetes, including Regazzi, fare much better nowadays than they did 25 years ago. More...
07/29/09
Divorce takes health toll
"People who lose a marriage take such damage to their health," said Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois.
Waite and co-author Mary Elizabeth Hughes, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, found that divorced or widowed people have 20 percent more chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They also have 23 percent more mobility limitations, such as trouble climbing stairs or walking a block.
Their article, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, examined the marital history and health indicators for 8,652 middle-aged people in research funded by the National Institute on Aging. The authors found differences between the overall health of those who remain married and those who divorce. More...
07/29/09
One week to a slimmer you
Sunday: Shoot it, and shed pounds.
Studies show that recording meals may help you lose up to 5 percent of your weight, says Robert A. Carels, Ph.D., an associate professor in the psychology department at Bowling Green State University.
Start today: Snap before and after photos of each meal with your camera phone. Keeping a visual food diary is a more accurate way to see what and how much you're eating, United Kingdom researchers say. Afterward, download the pics so you'll have a record.
Monday: Pop a vitamin to kill hunger.
Taking a daily multivitamin may make you less hungry, two studies in the British Journal of Nutrition suggest; people who take one tend to weigh less and have lower BMIs. More...
07/27/09
Better diabetes control pays off over decades
She tests her blood sugar six times a day (sometimes more) and uses an insulin pump to administer the hormone all day long, which keeps her blood sugar as close to normal as possible.
Now, research shows that this fairly new approach to controlling type 1 diabetes -- as opposed to the one or two daily insulin injections that had been advised for decades -- pays off. People who aim for -- and achieve -- such intensive glucose control are much less likely to lose their vision, have kidney failure, develop heart disease, or need an amputation than those who don't, according to a study published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine. What's more, the research shows that people with type 1 diabetes, including Regazzi, fare much better nowadays than they did 25 years ago. More...
07/27/09
Antidepressants, not sleep drugs
The disorder can increase the risk for depression and suicidal thoughts, lower work productivity and even raise blood pressure, studies have shown.
About 40 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders that prevent them from getting good rest. Singer Michael Jackson struggled with insomnia, a nutritionist who worked for him told CNN. Sources close to Jackson told CNN that during a world tour in the mid-'90s, the pop star traveled with an anesthesiologist who would "take him down" at night, then "bring him back up."
Stress or traumatic events can trigger the sleeping disorder. Insomnia drugs help the patient sleep, but they do not treat the underlying cause, which could be a result of another illness, life changes or shifting work schedules. And patients who seek relief for insomnia may not receive the most effective prescription. More...
07/27/09
At Camp Twitch and Shout
"I remember eating lunch at school all by myself and the mean kids would parade around me and mock my noises. My teacher made me get up in front of the class and apologize to everybody for the noises I was making," Cohen recalls.
More than 20 years later, Cohen is a camp director, celebrating the first year of Camp Twitch and Shout, a place for youngsters, who like Cohen, have Tourette syndrome.
"Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder which causes people to make noises and tics that they can't control," Cohen says.
Fifty campers, between the ages of 7 and 18, came from all over the country to spend a week in Winder, Georgia, about 45 miles east of Atlanta. They have plenty to do, from swimming and fishing to music and arts and crafts. Most have been teased or harassed in school, and the camp is a place just to have fun. More...
07/27/09
Armstrong on doping
"Look, I've done this a long time, and I've been at the highest level now since 1992 until 2009," the superstar cyclist told CNN's Sanjay Gupta shortly after taking third in the Tour de France, the sport's most prestigious event. "I've been tested more than anybody else.
"If I can take four years off and come back at the age of 38 with more controls than anyone else on planet Earth and get third place in the hardest sporting event in the world, I think we've answered the question."
Over the years, Armstrong has repeatedly denied allegations that he uses performance-enhancing substances. There's never been solid evidence to back up the accusations, and he said he had been given at least 50 surprise tests during the Tour. More...
07/23/09
FDA and health experts warn against use of e-cigarettes
Known as "e-cigarettes," the devices are battery-operated and contain cartridges filled with nicotine and other chemicals, spiced with flavors such as chocolate, cola or bubble gum.
While manufacturers tout e-cigarettes as a "healthy way" to smoke, federal health officials say the devices turn nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user.
"The FDA is concerned about the safety of these products and how they are marketed to the public," said Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA.
CNN contacted Florida-based Smoking Everywhere, one of the largest manufacturers of e-cigarettes, after the FDA announcement, and a spokeswoman said the company had no comment. More...
07/23/09
Radical rest: Creative ways to (finally!) relax
Not that you really need another thing to worry about, but being unable to unwind can be dangerous, says stress expert Elissa Epel, PhD, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco.
"Chronic stress is like having your engine in overdrive all the time," Epel says. "It can damage DNA. Relaxation is crucial for overall health and longevity."
So how do you get real rest before sliding your feet back under the desk in a week or two?
One good way to start is to shut down the laptop, turn off your BlackBerry, and silence your cell phone, says Martin Batty, PhD, a relaxation researcher at the University of Nottingham, England. More...
07/23/09
Women over 30 have newer birth control options
The good news is that there are more safe, effective contraception options than ever for women who may be done having children or who are 30-plus.
Which one is best for you? We've ruled out the least-popular (diaphragm, female condom, NuvaRing) and higher- risk (the patch) methods, and assembled the likely candidates here.
The combo pill
Who can try it: Almost all women. Sur prised? Truth is, a growing body of research debunks some myths surrounding this 99 percent-effective form of contraception -- like the notion that it brings on menopause or ups the risk for some cancers. A recent meta-analysis in the The New England Journal of Medicine reveals that many women can safely take the pill -- which serves up low doses of estrogen and progestin three weeks a month to suppress egg release -- right into menopause. More...
07/23/09
Doctor-patient talk could cut costs, ethicists say
"Both of them could have ended up dying in a hospital having run up bills of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Kellerman, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Emory University. "Neither of them wanted that, and I fought like hell to keep that from happening."
As politicians on Capitol Hill debate reforming the health care system, doctors and ethicists say there could easily be tremendous cost savings if doctors and family members had more conversations about end-of-life issues.
A March 2009 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggested that more than $76 million per year could be saved if half of the people who die from cancer annually had end-of-life conversations with their doctors. In the authors' sample, patients who reported having those talks had 36 percent lower health care costs in the final week of life. Read about life expectancy and health care reform More...
07/22/09
Efforts to delay health care reform
Republicans "who openly announce their intentions to block this reform" would "rather score political points" than confront the ailing health care system, Obama said in a Rose Garden statement.
Republicans responded that Democratic proposals so far would fail to deliver what they promise and eventually lead to a government takeover of health care.
Delaying action now "is so we can be smart about the action we have to take," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. Watch Steele respond to Obama's remarks »
Amid the sharpened debate, a leading House Democrat said Tuesday the chamber may not vote on a bill before Obama's deadline of August 7, when Congress goes on recess. Obama and his chief spokesman indicated the deadline was more a target for progress, rather than a make-or-break moment. More...
07/22/09
Teen Dies After Drinking Poppy Pod Tea
Bohan and his older brother drank poppy pod tea around midnight, Huntley said. The two then went to a house on Hanover Avenue and 43rd Street to visit friends and fell asleep there around 4 a.m.
A couple of hours later, Bohans' older brother woke up and discovered that his brother wasn’t breathing. He called 911. Paramedics pronounced Bohan dead at the scene.
Police wanted to remind the public that ingesting poppy tea, either from the seeds or pods, can be fatal.
On Feb. 22, Alex McGuiggan, 20, died in his home from a morphine overdose. The coroner's office later determined that he had ingested fatal quantities of opium from poppy tea that had been brewed at his home. More...
07/22/09
Group of 22 U.S. students quarantined in China
The students are participating in an annual culture and language learning trip to China through the University of Maryland's Confucius Institute.
When the group arrived in China on July 14, one of the students was found to have a fever before getting off the plane, and was immediately taken to a hospital, according to Alan Cheung, executive director of the Confucius Institute.
The rest of the students were taken to a hotel, where they were isolated. The next day, several more students came down with fevers and also were hospitalized, Cheung said.
Since May, China has been checking people arriving from countries where cases of H1N1 -- also known as swine flue -- have been reported. Anyone with a fever or exhibiting flu-like symptoms has been placed in quarantine, usually in a hospital, while anyone whose seat on a plane was close to a person with such symptoms has been sequestered in hotel rooms, the U.S. State Department has said. More...
07/22/09
Doctor journeys to Ghana for triple negative
Newman, a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer at the University of Michigan, collaborates with doctors in Kumasi, Ghana, in hopes of discovering the origins of an aggressive and difficult to treat form of breast cancer that disproportionately affects black women. It is called triple negative breast cancer or TNBC.
"The women that are most likely to be afflicted with the triple negative breast cancers are younger aged women, women in the pre-menopausal age range, and women with African ancestry," says Newman.
According to the American Cancer Society, 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States in 2009. Triple negative breast cancer represents approximately 15 percent of breast cancer cases in the United States. More...
07/21/09
Using dentists as dope dealers
But within a couple years, he lost it all. He got hooked on pain medication after some dental work. His fix was codeine, Vicodin and OxyContin -- all prescription medications -- to help him get through the day. At one point, he even had a tooth removed unnecessarily so he could get a prescription for pain medicines.
"At the height, I was taking probably 20, 25 a day," he says. "It got to the point where I lost the wife, the house, and I was living in a bad part of L.A. in my truck. And I went from taking a couple of codeine all the way to taking OxyContin."
Morrison didn't buy his drugs on a street corner or get them from a dope dealer. He got them mostly from dentists he had never met. He says he'd scroll through the phone book calling dentist after dentist until one would prescribe him pain medication. More...
07/21/09
Doctors seek causes of prostate cancer
Although scientists have long suspected a genetic component, the link was never explored in depth before Dunston and Ahaghotu decided started their study.
In 1997, Dunston, Ph.D., the founding director of Howard University's National Human Genome Center, and Ahaghotu, a urologist, began the African-American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study to study the family genes of black men with prostate cancer. By following the different generations, and tracking their health and genetic makeup, the scientists hoped to better understand why prostate cancer is so deadly in this population and whether the disease is primarily inherited or caused by environmental or lifestyle factors. More...
07/21/09
Stressed-out parents plus pollution
"The new study raises some questions about why stress-plus-pollution leads to worse problems than either alone," says Harold J. Farber, M.D., an associate professor of the pediatric pulmonary section at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children Hospital, in Houston, and the author of "Control Your Child's Asthma." "Why is it that this combination is somewhat more toxic than either alone?"
In the United States, about 22 million people -- including 6 million children -- have asthma. City-dwelling children have about a 22 to 45 percent higher risk of developing asthma than their peers living elsewhere.
In the new study, a research team led by Rob S. McConnell, M.D., a professor of preventive medicine at the Keck Institute of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, tracked 2,497 children from the region. The children were ages 5 to 9 and had no history of asthma or wheezing. More...
07/21/09
From miserable man to Ultraman
I can still remember it, vivid as yesterday. It was the eve of my 40th birthday, and I walked upstairs to take a shower. And I was winded. I mean very winded. As I was trying to catch my breath, I took off my shirt, looked in the mirror and tried to convince myself that I was still that fit guy I had always thought I was.
Somehow, I had been able to skate by on this delusion for all too many years. But the denial had finally caught up to me. I saw my true reflection, and I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I was in the worst shape of my life. I was fat, unhappy and fed up.
It's the typical story. First it's the career. Then comes marriage, followed by kids. Your time is no longer your own, and you resign yourself to "maturity," "filling out" or whatever euphemism for middle age that soothes that idea that you are simply overweight, unfit and unhealthy.
I'm here to say that it doesn't have to be that way. I don't care how busy you are. I don't care how old you are, how many kids you have or how little time you think you have. The power rests within yourself to enact any change in your life you desire. And I can say this because I have seen it happen in myself and countless others.
After that fateful day of clarity, I made a decision to change my life. Not a vague, wishy-washy notion that I should "get in shape," maybe "eat better" or possibly "go on a diet," but rather a specific long-term plan to enhance my wellness in a way that would not only stick, but fit within the parameters of my busy life as a full-time lawyer, husband and father of four small children. More...
07/20/09
Airlines stop swine flu victims flying
British Airways said there had been a "very small number of cases" where people who had checked in with symptoms of H1N1 had been advised not to travel after having medical checks.
Virgin Atlantic also said victims would not be allowed to board one of its planes without a fit-to-fly certificate from their doctor or a hospital, though there had been no cases yet.
The World Health Organization declared the virus a global pandemic June 11. More than 120 countries have reported cases of human infection. About 98,000 cases have been documented worldwide, with 440 deaths, according to the WHO. More...
07/20/09
Scalp burns painful, need urgent care
Jackson blamed that incident for his addiction to pain medication, which was "initially prescribed to cede excruciating pain that I was suffering after recent reconstructive surgery on my scalp," he said in 1993 in a video statement.
Whether through fire, scaling liquid, electricity or other source, burns are extraordinarily painful, said Dr. Peter Grossman, of the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles, California, who did not treat Jackson.
Anyone whose head gets burned should go to a hospital immediately, Grossman said, especially because burns are "progressive and dynamic."
"If your hair catches on fire and you put it out and everything looks okay, you have to realize that the burn injury may change over the next 24 to 72 More...
07/20/09
Why your feet hurt
Feels like: A sharp pain in your heel (or heels) that's at its worst when you get out of bed.
What causes it: Inflammation of the plantar fascia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot from the heel to the toes. People with all arch types high, medium, or low -- can be prone to this type of irritation, says Carly Robbins, a podiatric surgeon in Columbus, Ohio. Wearing shoes with very flat or very high heels can worsen the problem. "If a shoe doesn't support the arch, the fascia will be stretched, and that can cause inflammation," says Robbins. And if your Achilles tendon often feels tight, it can exacerbate the issue.
Treatment strategies
Wear structured shoes. Look for pairs that support the arches and enclose the heels. Avoid going barefoot or wearing ballet flats or flip-flops. More...
07/20/09
Doctors seek causes of prostate cancer
Although scientists have long suspected a genetic component, the link was never explored in depth before Dunston and Ahaghotu decided started their study.
In 1997, Dunston, Ph.D., the founding director of Howard University's National Human Genome Center, and Ahaghotu, a urologist, began the African-American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study to study the family genes of black men with prostate cancer. By following the different generations, and tracking their health and genetic makeup, the scientists hoped to better understand why prostate cancer is so deadly in this population and whether the disease is primarily inherited or caused by environmental or lifestyle factors. More...
07/17/09
How space exploration has impacted our health
In these cash-strapped times, you might well wonder why governments around the world continue to pour millions of dollars in to their respective space programs.
But one of the very important by-products of space exploration has been the adaptation and invention of medical equipment and technologies which are making individual lives better and in many cases saving them.
Most people are familiar with temper foam -- perhaps the most famous of NASA's many medical spinoffs -- which started life protecting astronauts' posteriors in the 1960s and is now used in a host of products from mattresses to athletic shoes. More...
07/17/09
FDA scrutinizing safety of asthma
The drug, made by Genentech and co-marketed by Novartis, was approved in 2003. The study, which started in 2004 and is slated to end in 2012, was mandated by the agency as part of its post-approval process.
The data "suggest a disproportionate increase in ischemic heart disease, arrhythmias ... cardiac failure" and other conditions "in patients treated with Xolair compared to the control group of patients not given the drug," the agency said.
Xolair is approved for use by adults and adolescents (12 and older) with moderate to severe persistent asthma who react to a perennial airborne allergen and whose symptoms are not well controlled with inhaled corticosteroids. More...
07/17/09
When doctors can't say 'no'
When Jackson asked Dr. Deepak Chopra for a narcotic, Chopra said he told Jackson absolutely no. "I said to him, 'Michael, you're going to die one day from this,'" Chopra told CNN in a recent interview.
But apparently other doctors had a very hard time saying "no" to Michael Jackson.
During a world tour in the mid'90s, sources close to Jackson told CNN that the pop star suffered from insomnia and traveled with an anesthesiologist who would "take him down" at night and then "bring him back up." According to a report on a 2004 Santa Barbara police investigation, security guards in Jackson's inner circle said he traveled the country getting prescriptions from doctors. More...
07/17/09
For Gen Y women with cancer risk
"They call this 'Viagra triangle,'" Lindsay Avner says, to peals of laughter.
On this night, these twentysomethings aren't thinking about flirting, though. They are thinking about issues most women their age don't: life insurance and freezing their eggs.
Tonight Avner is talking to two sisters from Dallas, Texas, Emily and Meredith Grossfield, about their imminent genetic testing to see whether they have the BRCA gene mutations that will predispose them to developing breast and ovarian cancer.
Avner, 26, knows what they're going through. She tested positive for the gene three years ago. More...
07/16/09
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/16/spain.twins.mother.dead/index.html
Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth in December 2006 in Barcelona, after receiving in vitro fertilization treatment in California. At the time of the birth, she was believed to have been the world's oldest new mother.
Bousada died Saturday at her home in the southern Spanish town of El Puerto de Santa Maria, said the family member, who identified herself as the wife of Jose Luis Bousada, whom she said was a nephew of the deceased.
"She has died. I was at the wake in Cadiz," said the woman, who declined on the phone to give her name. CNN reached her at the phone book-listed residence of Jose Luis Bousada in Cadiz, the nearby city where Bousada spent most of her life.
The death was widely reported in Spain. More...
07/16/09
Keep your mind and body in top condition
What aging can bring: Forgetfulness, decline in mental agility, risk of Alzheimer's disease.
What the research shows: "Doing things that hit both the left and right sides of the brain, like word puzzles plus mazes and visuals, has been proven to build brainpower," says Gary Small, M.D., director of the University of California at Los Angeles Center on Aging. Swedish researchers believe there's also a connection between physical activity and cognitive decline. Their study found that subjects who exercised at least 20 minutes two or more times a week at midlife reduced their risk of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia later by 60 percent. On the nutrition front, a study at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center showed that an essential omega-3 fatty acid counteracts the brain's production of neuron damaging amyloid proteins. More...
07/16/09
When doctors can't say 'no'
When Jackson asked Dr. Deepak Chopra for a narcotic, Chopra said he told Jackson absolutely no. "I said to him, 'Michael, you're going to die one day from this,'" Chopra told CNN in a recent interview.
But apparently other doctors had a very hard time saying "no" to Michael Jackson.
During a world tour in the mid '90s, sources close to Jackson told CNN that the pop star suffered from insomnia and traveled with an anesthesiologist who would "take him down" at night and then "bring him back up." According to a report on a 2004 Santa Barbara police investigation, security guards in Jackson's inner circle said he traveled the country getting prescriptions from doctors. More...
07/16/09
Elite athletes: They're quick, competitive and nearly 40
Aging athletes don't have the agility they had in their youth. Minor injuries accumulate and become major ones. And by the time they hit their mid 30s and 40s, they're considered geriatric that's the conventional wisdom.
But recently, middle aged athletes have defied the tolls of aging, returning to competition and whizzing past their junior rivals.
"Forties is the new 30s for physiological capacity," said Scott Trappe, director of the Human Performance Lab at Ball State University. "We're going to continue to see people do well into their 40s no question."
07/15/09
Swine flu threatens Muslim Hajj season
Iran's official Fars news agency Wednesday reported that a 57-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man who had recently returned from a pilgrimage tested positive for the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu. This brings Iran's tally to three cases.
Every year about two million Muslims go on pilgrimage to Mecca -- the holiest place in Islam. As well as the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which all Muslims are required to make at least once if they can afford to, the faithful can also make a lesser pilgrimage to Mecca, known as umra, at any time of the year.
The latest cases highlights concerns that the Muslim pilgrimage will hasten the spread of swine flu.
In June, host country Saudi Arabia held a workshop where health officials recommended that pregnant women, children and elderly people with chronic illness should not attend the pilgrimage this November.
In addition, officials are recommending that visitors to the country receive a seasonal flu vaccine at least two weeks before traveling to the holy places. More...
07/15/09
Hair-pulling: 'My hands were my enemies'
"It was absolutely terrifying because I was a very bright child, and doing great in school," she said. "The doctor had no idea what it was."
Pearson continued pulling her hair throughout her teens, 20s, and early 30s. It wasn't until she was 33 that she learned her condition had a name: trichotillomania. She became inspired to start an organization, called the Trichotillomania Learning Center, to help other sufferers of the disorder.
It turns out that this condition, characterized by the urge to pull hair from one's body, affects about 2 to 4 percent of the population, according to the Trichotillomania Learning Center.
A new study published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry may hold promise for those who compulsively pull their hair. Researchers say participants who took an antioxidant called N-acetylcysteine, sold over the counter at vitamin stores, had significant improvement over patients who took placebos. More...
07/15/09
Experts dispute doctor's stem cell breakthrough claim
The Food and Drug Administration has not approved this stem cell therapy in the United States because no clinical trials to prove its effectiveness have been done. But Dr. Zannos Grekos says his company, Regenocyte Therapeutic, has successfully used adult stem cells to treat patients with heart and lung disease.
Grekos said he and his associates draw blood from a patient in Florida and then send it to a laboratory in Israel that produces what his company calls "regenocytes." The company defines regenocyte as "a stem cell that has been activated to become a target organ."
"These procedures work," he told CNN, standing inside a hospital room at the Clinica Union Medica del Norte in Santiago. "And it's substantiated by objective data that we are collecting." More...
07/15/09
Keep your mind and body in top condition
What aging can bring: Forgetfulness, decline in mental agility, risk of Alzheimer's disease.
What the research shows: "Doing things that hit both the left and right sides of the brain, like word puzzles plus mazes and visuals, has been proven to build brainpower," says Gary Small, M.D., director of the University of California at Los Angeles Center on Aging. Swedish researchers believe there's also a connection between physical activity and cognitive decline. Their study found that subjects who exercised at least 20 minutes two or more times a week at midlife reduced their risk of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia later by 60 percent. On the nutrition front, a study at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center showed that an essential omega-3 fatty acid counteracts the brain's production of neuron-damaging amyloid proteins. More...
07/14/09
Girl's heart heals itself 10 years after transplant
But Hannah Clark is no ordinary teenager and her normal life today could not have been possible without a unique, life-changing heart surgery.
In 1994 when she was eight-months-old, Hannah was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy -- an inflammation of the heart muscle that impairs the heart's ability to work properly.
Hannah's heart was failing and she needed a transplant. But instead of taking her own heart out, doctors added a new donated heart to her own when she was just two-years-old.
The so-called "piggyback" operation allowed the donor heart to do the work while Hannah's heart rested.
But Hannah was not in the clear yet. As with any organ transplant, Hannah's body was likely to reject her new heart and she had to take powerful immune suppression drugs. More...
07/14/09
Tennessee town still choking
Six months after the largest industrial spill in U.S. history, Hampton, her husband, Charles, and their three young children say they still do not feel comfortable going outside.
"Everything here is changed," Hampton said, her eyes glistening. "[The landscape] reminds me of what you see on the moon. It breaks my heart."
A few hours before dawn on December 22, the walls of a dam holding back billions of gallons of coal ash waste trembled and, finally, crumbled. The waste, a toxic soup containing ash left over from burning coal, which is then mixed with water, was stored at the Tennessee Valley Authority coal power plant in neighboring Kingston, Tennessee. More...
07/14/09
Pain relief can spiral into addiction
n 2005, non-medical use of painkillers contributed to more than 8,500 deaths. Overdose deaths involving prescription pain relievers increased 114 percent from 2001 to 2005, the most recent year for which nationwide data is available, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith, two celebrities whose deaths resulted from accidental overdoses, had each taken a lethal combination of prescription drugs painkillers, anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping aids. The cause of Michael Jackson's death remains under investigation, pending the result of toxicology screening.
Non-medical use of prescription drugs is most prevalent among young adults between the ages of 18 and 25, according to the Office of National More...
07/14/09
My hands were my enemies
"It was absolutely terrifying because I was a very bright child, and doing great in school," she said. "The doctor had no idea what it was."
Pearson continued pulling her hair throughout her teens, 20s, and early 30s. It wasn't until she was 33 that she learned her condition had a name: trichotillomania. She became inspired to start an organization, called the Trichotillomania Learning Center, to help other sufferers of the disorder.
It turns out that this condition, characterized by the urge to pull hair from one's body, affects about 2 to 4 percent of the population, according to the Trichotillomania Learning Center.
A new study published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry may hold promise for those who compulsively pull their hair. Researchers say participants who took an antioxidant called N-acetylcysteine, sold over the counter at vitamin stores, had significant improvement over patients who took placebos. More...
07/13/09
Can Turmeric Relieve Pain? One Doctor's Opinion
Now this sort of thing is not uncommon; I'd guess 20 to 30 percent of my patients are into some type of supplements or "nutriceuticals." But Jerry stands out. He's a conservative, older guy from that generation of men who were most definitely not 'in touch with their bodies'. He's practical, worldly wise and skeptical. He's not interested in any other remedies or practices (Monogamy in the supplement world is a true rarity, and it commands respect there too.) He has, in fact, gotten so many friends and acquaintances to use the stuff that it's sold out of the stores where he buys it.
(See TIME's photos of spiritual healing around the world)
But what got me interested in Jerry's turmeric wasn't his testimonials or even his personality it was seeing him bounce back from surgery. More...
07/13/09
Intervening against an adult's will is complicated, painful
Eight years later, Loverde is a counselor and director of program services at the Intervention Services Inc. branch outside Chicago.
When someone seems to have lost control of life, or has become a danger to himself or herself, family members or friends often try to intervene. Addictions to alcohol or drugs, or an untreated mental illness, are all reasons for concern.
Janet Jackson had reportedly tried in 2007 to stage an intervention for her brother Michael Jackson, who died of cardiac arrest June 25, two sources close to the Jackson family told CNN Wednesday.
Britney Spears' family intervened in 2008 through the courts, after a judge in her custody case cited her for "habitual, frequent, and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol." Her father, Jamie Spears, was granted temporary conservatorship over her. More...
07/13/09
For minorities, the wait for a bone marrow match can be long
But instead of getting hitched in the mountains of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, as she'd planned, Bertholin took her vows in a hospital chapel at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. That's because three weeks before her wedding, she learned she had a rare form of acute leukemia.
"I just started crying and my fiance came in and just hugged me," Bertholin recalls.
As early as February, Bertholin noticed she wasn't feeling like her usual self: She was run down, very tired. She thought it had to do with her job and preparing for her "big day." Then one day toward the end of April, Bertholin could barely make the walk from the parking lot to a drugstore. For all of her 29 years, Bertholin had been thin and in good shape; on this day she knew something was very wrong.
"I felt like my chest was constricted and I couldn't see very well," she says. "So I went into the emergency room right away." More...
07/13/09
Months after ash spill, Tennessee town still choking
Six months after the largest industrial spill in U.S. history, Hampton, her husband, Charles, and their three young children say they still do not feel comfortable going outside.
"Everything here is changed," Hampton said, her eyes glistening. "[The landscape] reminds me of what you see on the moon. It breaks my heart."
A few hours before dawn on December 22, the walls of a dam holding back billions of gallons of coal ash waste trembled and, finally, crumbled. The waste, a toxic soup containing ash left over from burning coal, which is then mixed with water, was stored at the Tennessee Valley Authority coal power plant in neighboring Kingston, Tennessee.
On that cold morning, 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge barreled through this community, covering 300 acres. More...
07/10/09
Fewer calories equals a longer life
The study confirms in primates what's long been known in other species, including mice, worms, and flies. And it's no surprise to the humans who have taken the animal research to heart and adopted calorie restriction as a means to a (hopefully) longer and healthier life.
Brian M. Delaney has been eating 20 percent fewer calories than most people of his size and stature since 1992. "The new study confirms everything we have seen," says Delaney, coauthor of "The Longevity Diet" and president of the nonprofit Calorie Restriction Society, which had 2,000 members in 2007 and thousands more on mailing lists. "It also adds some new information on brain volume changes." More...
07/10/09
UK swine flu cases third worst in the world
Lab tests show that there were 9,718 confirmed cases of the virus in the UK, a figure that's just behind Mexico, which had 10,262 cases as of Wednesday.
The U.S. currently has the highest number with 33,902 lab-confirmed cases, according to latest figures from the World Health Organization.
Across the world there have been 94,512 cases of swine flu since it was first reported in Mexico in April with 429 deaths, WHO figures show.
Fourteen patients are now thought to have died in the UK after contracting swine flu, the country's Health Protection Agency reported.
The number of deaths in the UK has risen dramatically since Tuesday when seven people were known to have died from the H1N1 virus. A week ago, the total was four. More...
07/10/09
Too-plugged-in families go cold turkey
She says the challenge will do more than just declutter your homes. "The whole purpose of it is to bring a new state of consciousness," she says. "We hope you're now inspired to go into your own closets, garages, cupboards and start to ask yourself, 'What can I live without?'"
The Haynie family -- Pam, Ron and their kids, Kristina and RJ -- are so plugged in to technology they're disconnected with one another!
The moment school's out, Ron says the kids start texting. Once home, Pam says everyone heads to separate rooms to watch TV, play video games or work on the computer -- they even text each other instead of talking!
"I might text Kristina and tell her to bring me a glass of water or to go put the clothes in the dryer or different things like that so I won't have to get off the computer," Pam says. More...
07/10/09
Tragedy inspires Georgia woman to fight childhood obesity
Bernard Green weighed 427 pounds when he died in 2004. He was 43 years old.
"He didn't have to die," said Green-Jackson. "I promised myself that I would do whatever I could to make sure another child didn't suffer like he did."
Turning her pain into action, Green-Jackson quit her job and procured $30,000 in grants to build a fitness center in a local middle school.
Today, Youth Becoming Healthy (YBH) has facilities in six middle schools and one elementary school in Albany and provides free fitness and nutrition education to about 350 students a year.
Youths work one-on-one after school with personal trainers and nutritionists who help them get on the right track. To keep young people engaged and fit, YBH offers classes such as martial arts, hip-hop dance and a walking club. Green-Jackson says her group allows the children to set their own goals. More...
07/09/09
Baucus: Lawmakers $320 billion short for health care plan
All options for raising taxes remain on the table, the Montana Democrat said, including taxing employer-provided health benefits, though that provision appears to lack significant Democratic support.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, who has been involved in negotiations on the bill, said senators are talking about raising the tax exemption on those benefits to $25,000 for a family.
Raising that exemption level is aimed at softening Democratic criticism of the proposal because it means only people with high-value health benefits -- so-called Cadillac plans -- would have to pay the new tax.
Doing so would raise $90 billion over 10 years, Conrad said, leaving negotiators $230 billion to raise through other taxes. Conrad and Baucus wouldn't specify which additional tax hikes are gaining favor among lawmakers but said everything -- from raising taxes on sugary drinks and alcohol to a surtax on the wealthy -- remains on the table. More...
07/09/09
Prepare for swine flu outbreak, Obama tells local officials
"We want to make sure we aren't promoting panic, but we are promoting vigilance and preparation," Obama said.
He spoke to the group via video link from Italy, where he is attending the G-8 meeting of industrialized nations.
Obama urged state and local officials, including school districts, to prepare for a vaccination campaign in the fall and to anticipate that schools could be largely affected.
Before Obama spoke, the nation's secretary of health and human services said some H1N1 vaccine should be available for distribution in mid-October. Kathleen Sebelius' announcement came at the opening of a "flu summit" called by the Obama administration. She spoke to a seminar of governors, top health planners and managers who have gathered to discuss preparations for a possible swine flu reappearance this fall. More...
07/09/09
Night owls may benefit from evening strength
Experts say a spectrum of natural sleeping and waking rhythms exists, ranging from extreme morning people to extreme "night owls."
A new study examines how morning people compare with night owls on a strength test and looks at what other physiological processes may contribute to their performance.
Researchers tested participants' leg muscle strength at various points in the day. They looked at nine "early birds" and nine "night owls," who were classified as such based on a questionnaire.
Surprisingly, morning people's strength tends to remain constant throughout the day, but night owls have peak performance in the evening, said researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada. More...
07/09/09
Unsung heroes work hard to cut hospital-acquired infections
Still, patients became sick with bacterial infections after checking in. Some died.
"I never saw anything change. I saw things getting worse," Torress-Cook said.
Torress-Cook eventually joined Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, in California, where as director of epidemiology and patient safety, he changed the rules and slashed the number of patients who become infected.
Torress-Cook is part of a growing movement in medicine that no longer accepts hospital-acquired infections as inevitable complications. Every year, such infections sicken 1.7 million and kill 99,000 people in the United States.
At Pacific Hospital, Torress-Cook doesn't go after all bacteria, just the dangerous ones. More...
07/08/09
Feds outline new food-safety initiatives
The FDA intends to issue new guidance over the next three months regarding steps the entire food industry can take to more quickly detect contamination sources and remove the unsafe products from stores.
A new position at the agency -- deputy commissioner for foods -- will be created for the sole purpose of overseeing food protection. The commissioner will be part of a "unified incident command system" established to address contamination outbreaks and facilitate responses at the federal, state, and local levels, officials said.
In addition, they said, food safety information will be more effectively communicated to the public through a revamped Web site: www.foodsafety.gov. More...
07/08/09
FDA wants consumers warned about pain medications
The Food and Drug Administration is requiring makers of painkillers containing propoxyphene, the ingredient in widely used Darvon and Darvocet, to add a warning box to the label highlighting the potential for overdose.
Manufacturers must also develop a medication guide for consumers emphasizing the importance of using the drug as directed and conduct a new safety study to assess what the drug does to patients when taken in higher-than-recommended doses.
The opioid, used to treat mild to moderate pain, has been on the market since 1957. More...
07/08/09
How to combat the latest supergerms
Flu bugs develop drug resistance when a virus mutates in a way that makes medications ineffective. Overusing and misusing antiviral meds can cause the problem. But mutations can also crop up spontaneously, even when the drugs aren't overprescribed, said Dr. Anne Moscona, a flu expert and an infectious-diseases physician at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
"Swine flu seems to respond to Tamiflu, but we weren't sure at first. And we're seeing more strains of other types of flu, including some bird flu, that are resistant to it. That's been sobering for lots of people in public health because Tamiflu is the drug the country has been stockpiling for a possible pandemic," she said. "The issue we're facing now is 'What do we do if the drugs we're counting on don't work?'" More...
07/08/09
Are you at risk for depression?
It turns out that the more family members you have who have been found to have major depression, anxiety disorders, or drug or alcohol dependence, the greater the chances that you will too, according to Terrie E. Moffitt, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University's Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, and colleagues, whose study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
The bottom line? The researchers recommend that doctors ask a few quick questions to determine a patient's family history of psychiatric problems. People who have a strong family history should be closely monitored if they become depressed and should be treated promptly if they meet the criteria for clinical depression because they are at risk for more serious, ongoing problems. More...
07/07/09
How to combat the latest supergerms
Flu bugs develop drug resistance when a virus mutates in a way that makes medications ineffective. Overusing and misusing antiviral meds can cause the problem. But mutations can also crop up spontaneously, even when the drugs aren't overprescribed, said Dr. Anne Moscona, a flu expert and an infectious-diseases physician at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
"Swine flu seems to respond to Tamiflu, but we weren't sure at first. And we're seeing more strains of other types of flu, including some bird flu, that are resistant to it. That's been sobering for lots of people in public health because Tamiflu is the drug the country has been stockpiling for a possible pandemic," she said. "The issue we're facing now is 'What do we do if the drugs we're counting on don't work?'" More...
07/07/09
Cutting Health-Care Costs by Putting Doctors on a Budget
What if you went to your doctor, suffering from congestive heart failure, and your doctor had been given a limited budget from your insurance company to treat you? If he were to go over cost, he would pay out of his own pocket. If he spent less than the allotment and you were satisfied with your treatment he would keep some of the change.
What if you went to your doctor, suffering from congestive heart failure, and your doctor had been given a limited budget from your insurance company to treat you? If he were to go over cost, he would pay out of his own pocket. If he spent less than the allotment and you were satisfied with your treatment he would keep some of the change. More...
07/07/09
Canada's government health care system
After suffering from crushing headaches and vision problems, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor four years ago. She was told if it wasn't removed, she could go blind or even die.
"They said to me that you had a brain tumor and it was pressing on your optic chasm and that it needed to come out immediately," Holmes said.
Holmes is Canadian, but the "they" she refers to are doctors at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, where she turned after specialists in her own government-run health care system would not see her fast enough.
"My family doctor at that time tried to get me in to see an endocrinologist and a neurologist," Holmes recalled. "It was going to be four months for one specialist and six months for the other." More...
07/07/09
Should Diprivan (propofol) be a controlled substance?
The general anesthetic Diprivan (propofol) has been making headlines as questions about Michael Jacksons death abound. A nurse who had worked for the singer told CNN that Jackson requested the drug because he had trouble sleeping, and The Associated Press reported that it had been found in his home. Diprivan is not approved as a sleep aid by the Food and Drug Administration. Read more about propofol.
It turns out that propofol, used routinely for surgeries and procedures such as colonoscopies, has been a point of concern among some anesthesiologists because of the potential for abuse by health care workers. A 2007 study published by the International Anesthesia Research Society found that about 18 percent of the 126 academic anesthesia programs in the United States had at least one reported instance of propofol abuse within the previous 10 years.
Researchers also found that six out of 16 residents (about 38 percent) who abused propofol died from it. While these are small numbers, lead author Dr. Paul Wischmeyer, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado, believes this is indicative of a larger problem. More...
07/06/09
Canada's government health care system
After suffering from crushing headaches and vision problems, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor four years ago. She was told if it wasn't removed, she could go blind or even die.
"They said to me that you had a brain tumor and it was pressing on your optic chasm and that it needed to come out immediately," Holmes said.
Holmes is Canadian, but the "they" she refers to are doctors at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, where she turned after specialists in her own government-run health care system would not see her fast enough.
"My family doctor at that time tried to get me in to see an endocrinologist and a neurologist," Holmes recalled. "It was going to be four months for one specialist and six months for the other." More...
07/06/09
Diprivan risk well-known to doctors
On Friday, The Associated Press quoted an unnamed law enforcement source saying investigators found Diprivan in Jackson's Holmby Hills home.
A nutritionist, Cherilyn Lee, said earlier in the week that Jackson pleaded for the drug despite being told of its harmful effects.
Sources close to Jackson told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta that the singer, who suffered from a sleep disorder, traveled with an anesthesiologist who would "take him down" at night and "bring him back up" during a world tour in the mid-90s.
The California State Attorney General's office has now said it is helping the Los Angeles Police Department in Jackson's death investigation. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is also looking into the role of drugs, two federal law enforcement sources said.
The drug Diprivan, known by its generic name Propofol, is administered intravenously in operating rooms as a general anesthetic, the manufacturer AstraZeneca said Friday.On Friday, The Associated Press quoted an unnamed law enforcement source saying investigators found Diprivan in Jackson's Holmby Hills home.
A nutritionist, Cherilyn Lee, said earlier in the week that Jackson pleaded for the drug despite being told of its harmful effects.
Sources close to Jackson told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta that the singer, who suffered from a sleep disorder, traveled with an anesthesiologist who would "take him down" at night and "bring him back up" during a world tour in the mid-90s.
The California State Attorney General's office has now said it is helping the Los Angeles Police Department in Jackson's death investigation. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is also looking into the role of drugs, two federal law enforcement sources said.
The drug Diprivan, known by its generic name Propofol, is administered intravenously in operating rooms as a general anesthetic, the manufacturer AstraZeneca said Friday. More...
07/06/09
How to dine out without hurting your heart
On the other hand, 77 percent rank taste as the top priority for a restaurant dinner, and 44 percent say satisfying hunger matters most, according to the responses reported in June by Mintel, a market research firm. Of 2,000 adults polled in February, 20 percent said food health is an important factor when they order dinner.
Still, nutrition experts stress that it is possible to satisfy your taste buds and hunger while making nice to your heart.
"Eating out with friends and family is a pleasure you don't have to give up when you're on a special diet," said Anne Cain, a registered dietitian and senior editor at MyRecipes.com. "You just need to arm yourself with information about heart-healthy choices and not be afraid to ask questions about the menu and make special requests."
Every person's needs are different when it comes to what he or she should eat, health experts say. More...
07/06/09
Heavy snoring can be a danger sign
"His snoring was so loud. At first I would just elbow him to wake him up," she said, "But then I became concerned. He would just (she gasps for breath). It would take his breath away."
At first Curtis Christiansen figured he was tired, a little run down from his job. He thought the snoring was just a symptom of his exhaustion. But when he started nodding off while waiting at a traffic light, he knew something was wrong.
"I became more aware of this choking and waking-up feeling," he said.
Kim Christiansen finally persuaded her husband to go to a sleep specialist. The diagnosis: obstructive sleep apnea.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than 18 million American adults have sleep apnea, and many of them don't know it. Some people think their snoring is just a side effect of a busy lifestyle. More...
07/03/09
Toxic plane air sickens flight attendant
The ailments, she says, began on April 11, 2007. Williams, then a 17-year flight attendant on American Airlines, noticed a "misty haze type of smoke" on flight No. 843 as it taxied toward a gate in Dallas, Texas.
That "fume event," as it is known, and the physical maladies she felt afterward drove Williams, 40, to file a product liability lawsuit late Tuesday in Seattle, Washington, against Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, aircraft manufacturers linked to the MD-82 aircraft she was on. Her claim: Toxins in the cabin's air made her sick and a design flaw -- the lack of filters and sensors -- left her unprotected.
They "knew or should have known that toxic nerve agents, contaminates, and dangerous fumes could bleed into the plane's ventilation system, causing serious and irreversible health effects," her attorneys said in a written statement.
Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said he was "aware of the lawsuit" but couldn't "discuss details of it at this time." More...
07/03/09
Kids with autism get joyful launch
All parents have hopes and dreams for their children. Parents of kids with serious disabilities are no different. But in their moments of wildest imagination, the parents of Vicki Martinez, Chase Ferguson and Travis Cardona could not have envisioned high school graduation -- certainly not in the dark days when they first learned their children had autism.
But last month, in a spacious high school auditorium in the Bronx, New York, Vicki, Chase and Travis marched down the aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance," resplendent in their caps and gowns, along with 15 classmates at P.S. 176X, a New York City public school with 560 students ranging in age from 3 to 21, all of whom have autism.
"When I came here, I couldn't talk. I talked gibberish," the now-voluble Vicki recalls. "I didn't do my class work; I'd go like this," and she proceeds to flap her hands -- a common symptom of autism known as stereotypy or, self-stimulation.
On graduation day, Vicki beamed from the high school stage as she collected three awards along with a special education diploma, and wowed the hundreds in the audience by singing "Besame Mucho" with the school's Latin band. More...
07/03/09