01/28/10
More blood pressure worry: It's linked to dementia
If the cardiologist's warnings don't scare you, consider this: Controlling blood pressure just might be the best protection yet known against dementia.
In a flurry of new research, scientists scanned people's brains to show hypertension fuels a kind of scarring linked to later development of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Those scars can start building up in middle age, decades before memory problems will appear.
The evidence is strong enough that the National Institutes of Health soon will begin enrolling thousands of hypertension sufferers in a major study to see if aggressive treatment — pushing blood pressure lower than currently recommended — better protects not just their hearts but their brains. More...
01/28/10
Increased patient cost-sharing may hurt elderly
Higher Medicare copays, sometimes just a few dollars more, led to fewer doctors visits and to more and longer hospital stays, a large new study reveals.
With health care costs skyrocketing, many public and private insurers have required patients to pay more out-of-pocket when they seek care. The new study confirms what many policymakers had feared: cost-shifting moves can backfire.
"Patients may defer needed care and may wind up with a serious health event that might put them in the hospital. That's not good for the patients, not good for society, not good for anybody," said Dr. Tim Carey, who heads the University of North Carolina's Sheps Center for Health Services Research. More...
01/28/10
All clear? Head injuries get attention from states
At least a half-dozen states are considering measures that would toughen restrictions on young athletes returning to play after head injuries, inspired by individual cases and the attention the issue has received in the NFL.
Washington state led the way last year, passing what is considered the nation's strongest return-to-play statute. Athletes under 18 who show concussion symptoms can't take the field again without a licensed health care provider's written approval. Several other states, including California and Pennsylvania, have similar bills pending.
Elsewhere, the Maine legislature passed a law last year that creates a working group on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of concussions in young athletes. In New Jersey, there's no state law to regulate how head injuries should be handled for athletes, but the legislature has allowed a commission to look into brain injury research.
"There's no doubt that the majority of the people believed it was time and that it was extremely important to do something like this," said Mike Colbrese, executive director of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. "The mantra for the movement has been, 'When in doubt, sit them out.'"
These state-level efforts come as a congressional committee prepares to hold a forum in Houston on Monday looking at how high schools and colleges deal with concussions. The same House panel has held hearings on head injuries in the NFL, and the NCAA recently endorsed the idea of requiring athletes to be cleared by medical personnel before returning to competition if they show concussion symptoms. More...
01/27/10
More melamine-tainted milk products found in China
Melamine-tainted dairy products were pulled from convenience store shelves in southern China more than a year after hundreds of thousands of children had been sickened in a massive milk safety scandal, a government spokeswoman said Monday.
The announcement calls into question the effectiveness of a crackdown launched by Chinese officials to improve product safety after a number of scandals, including the contamination of baby formula in 2008 and the recent discovery of the toxic metal cadmium in cheap jewelry.
Frozen milk products and cartons of milk dating from early 2009 were taken off the shelves after health inspectors tested them and found melamine, said Ling Hu, a Guizhou provincial government spokeswoman.
She said the provincial health bureau was checking to see why the products were not pulled from the shelves earlier. Calls to the Guizhou health bureau ran unanswered Monday. More...
01/27/10
More blood pressure worry: It's linked to dementia
If the cardiologist's warnings don't scare you, consider this: Controlling blood pressure just might be the best protection yet known against dementia.
In a flurry of new research, scientists scanned people's brains to show hypertension fuels a kind of scarring linked to later development of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Those scars can start building up in middle age, decades before memory problems will appear.
The evidence is strong enough that the National Institutes of Health soon will begin enrolling thousands of hypertension sufferers in a major study to see if aggressive treatment — pushing blood pressure lower than currently recommended — better protects not just their hearts but their brains. More...
01/27/10
Hard lessons, humility for big-city doctors in Haiti
Dr. Roberto Feliz and Dr. Hiba Georges were quickly jolted from the most modern of medical care in Boston, Massachusetts, to the most rudimentary of care when they flew to Haiti last week to work at a hospital housed in two tents run by the University of Miami.
The doctors, who worked at the Boston Medical Center, quickly learned that when you have no technology -- not even the simplest blood test -- you have to make medical decisions in an entirely different way.
The first death they witnessed taught them a valuable lesson.
The patient was a boy who needed his leg amputated or else he would die of either an infection or rhabdomyolysis, a kidney disease that follows injuries where muscles are crushed. More...
01/26/10
Haiti medical situation shameful
Four years ago, the devastating Hurricane Katrina affected millions in the United States. The initial medical response was ill-equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism was fierce.
The response to Haiti has been the same. The point no one seems to remember is this: Medical response to these situations cannot be delayed. Immediate access to emergency equipment is also crucial. More...
01/26/10
Why portion control matters
Among all the ways to change your diet for the better, portion control sounds like the one thought up by a pocket-protector-wearing nutrition nerd patrolling the school cafeteria. To be portion-preoccupied means to be tyrannized by food scales and little tape measures: Is this chicken breast bigger than a pack of cards? Portion policing runs against the ideal of a relaxed, balanced, real-world diet in which healthy food choices bring satisfaction without too much worry about quantity. More...
01/26/10
Canada's Olympic-sized plan to fight H1N1
Maddy Schaffrick has a lot on her mind for a 15-year-old. Along with schoolwork and friends, she's also got a good shot at making the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team.
Ranked among the world's Top 10 female snowboarders, Schaffrick's unique talents include riding up the steep walls of snow-covered "halfpipes" and vaulting herself off the edge and high into the air. Being airborne with a board under your feet, she says, "feels like nothing can touch you."
But a deadly H1N1 flu pandemic has added a new kind of hurdle for Schaffrick and other Olympic hopefuls, as athletes and authorities hope for the best while preparing for the worst.
"If I do get the flu, it could really affect my asthma and then affect my performance and I wouldn't want that to happen." More...
01/22/10
Unsung heroes work hard to cut hospital-acquired infections
For years, Alfonso Torress-Cook followed the rules in his quest to eliminate hospital-acquired infections. Patients at his hospital received large doses of antibiotics and were scrubbed down with alcohol-based soaps, as he and his colleagues aimed to kill every bacterium possible. Search and destroy was the mantra.
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. More...
01/22/10
The surprising reason why being overweight isn't healthy
It's shocking, but it's true: Being a woman who's more than 20 pounds overweight may actually hike your risk of getting poor medical treatment. In fact, weighing too much can have surprising -- and devastating -- health repercussions beyond the usual diabetes and heart-health concerns you've heard about for years.
Recent studies have found, if you are an overweight woman you: More...
01/22/10
Haiti's survival stories no shock to experts
The fact that survivors have been unearthed more than a week after being entombed without food or water in quake-stricken Haiti is no surprise and simply underscores the body's resilience in the face of adversity, emergency medicine experts told CNN Wednesday.
"You can go 10, 12, 13 days without really having a problem," said Dr. Eric Weinstein, an emergency physician in Summerville, South Carolina, who is on the Disaster Preparedness and Response Committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians. "Particularly if you're healthy to begin with."
Weinstein's comments came hours after a 5-year-old boy, Monley, was pulled alive from rubble nearly eight days after the 7.0-magnitude quake had leveled much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. More than 121 people have been pulled alive from the rubble, the United Nations said Wednesday. More...
01/22/10
Crush injuries can be deceptively dangerous
The injuries don't appear life-threatening. They could be wounded legs and arms, caused by being pinned under falling debris from the earthquake.
But for some in Haiti, who are pulled out alive from the rubble, another medical emergency awaits them. Days later these crush injuries can cause kidney failure then death, experts say.
Kidney failure has been identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the most urgent public health concerns in Haiti following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake.
"If head injuries are the hallmark of the war in Afghanistan, the Haiti earthquake will be known for crush injuries," said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent reporting from Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. More...
01/19/10
Johnson & Johnson issues massive recall of Tylenol
Johnson & Johnson issued a massive recall Friday of over-the-counter drugs including Tylenol, Motrin and St. Joseph's aspirin because of a moldy smell that has made people sick.
It was the second such recall in less than a month because of the smell, which regulators said was first reported to McNeil in 2008. Federal regulators criticized the company, saying it didn't respond to the complaints quickly enough, wasn't thorough in how it handled the problem and didn't inform the Food and Drug Administration quickly.
The recall includes some batches of regular and extra-strength Tylenol, children's Tylenol, eight-hour Tylenol, Tylenol arthritis, Tylenol PM, children's Motrin, Motrin IB, Benadryl Rolaids, Simply Sleep, and St. Joseph's aspirin. More...
01/19/10
FDA debates tougher cancer warning on tanning beds
Just as millions head to tanning beds to prepare for spring break, the Food and Drug Administration will be debating how to toughen warnings that those sunlamps pose a cancer risk.
Yes, sunburns are particularly dangerous. But there's increasing scientific consensus that there's no such thing as a safe tan, either.
This is a message that Katie Donnar, 18, dismissed until a year ago when, preparing for the Miss Indiana pageant, she discovered a growth on her leg — an early-stage melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. More...
01/19/10
Democrats' plans at stake with Massachusetts vote
Massachusetts goes to the polls Tuesday for a special election to fill Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat, which could determine the fate of the national Democratic agenda, including health care plans.
Losing the seat would strip Democrats of their 60-seat majority in the U.S. Senate and give Republicans enough votes to block the comprehensive health care overhaul bill that President Obama is championing.
No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts since 1972, but pre-election polls are cause for concern for the Democrats.
An American Research Group survey taken Friday through Sunday had Republican state Sen. Scott Brown ahead of Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley by 52 percent to 45 percent. The survey's sampling error was 4 percentage points. More...
01/19/10
Inside a makeshift hospital
The screams of wounded Haitians are nearly constant here at a makeshift hospital in the United Nations compound near the airport in Port-au-Prince. Most of the time the screams sound like dull moans. Every so often it's a sudden shriek. But all of them sound agonizing.
We've seen about 250 patients lying here on green cots under tents. Many of them are children. A little boy wearing a tag with the name Sean has been at our side off and on throughout the seven hours we've been in the region. We have a lot of high-tech gear with us, and he seems to like watching us work. Sean looks about 7, and he's on his own tonight. From what we've been told he was orphaned before the earthquake, but he doesn't speak English, so I can't ask him about his parents. His legs are scraped and his head is banged up a bit, but he appears to be one of the more stable patients. More...
01/18/10
Gene mappers untangling common cold mysteries
A cure for the common cold has eluded scientists since the dawn of mankind.
Common colds -- also known as human rhinovirus -- affect billions of people worldwide every year and have more than 100 different, but related, strains. Each of these strains can cause a variety of symptoms in sufferers.
Doctors say that variety is what makes the common cold so hard to understand and so hard to treat.
Last year, researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that they had taken the first step in finding a cure for rhinovirus by mapping each strain's entire genome.
Now, those same scientists have found some interesting things about all those different strains. More...
01/18/10
Where bodies go after natural disasters
Four days after Haiti's massive earthquake, efforts are under way to bury the dead as thousands of bodies crumpled in the streets of Port-au-Prince lay exposed to the sun or draped in sheets and cardboard.
Throughout the city, people covered their noses from the stench and some resorted to face masks. CNN correspondents in Haiti reported efforts to remove the bodies, including the creation of a mass grave. It's still unclear how many people have been killed in Tuesday's earthquake; the prime minister suggested there could be several hundreds of thousands. More...
01/18/10
In Haiti, mental aftershocks could be far-reaching
As Haitians struggle to recover from the devastation of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, mental health experts caution that the most severe psychological effects won't take form until individuals' situations stabilize.
Feelings of confusion, fear, agitation, grief and anger that surround a large-scale traumatic event such as the Haiti earthquake give way to more pronounced psychological disorders once people's basic human needs are taken care of, experts say. More...
01/18/10
Inside a makeshift hospital: Shrieks, sadness
The screams of wounded Haitians are nearly constant here at a makeshift hospital in the United Nations compound near the airport in Port-au-Prince. Most of the time the screams sound like dull moans. Every so often it's a sudden shriek. But all of them sound agonizing.
We've seen about 250 patients lying here on green cots under tents. Many of them are children. A little boy wearing a tag with the name Sean has been at our side off and on throughout the seven hours we've been in the region. We have a lot of high-tech gear with us, and he seems to like watching us work. Sean looks about 7, and he's on his own tonight. From what we've been told he was orphaned before the earthquake, but he doesn't speak English, so I can't ask him about his parents. His legs are scraped and his head is banged up a bit, but he appears to be one of the more stable patients.
Hospital workers say as best they can tell, Sean's last name is Gonasyom. The boy told the workers he lived with his grandparents when the quake happened. No one knew anything more about them.
Most of the victims here are resting. A few will peer up to look for a doctor or at me. One little girl could only stare up at me with one one wide eye open because her other eye was so badly bruised. More...
01/14/10
Belgian doctors give injured woman a new windpipe
For more than a quarter of a century, Linda De Croock lived with constant pain from a car accident that smashed her windpipe.
Today, she has a new one after surgeons implanted the windpipe from a dead man into her arm, where it grew new tissue before being transplanted into her throat. The way doctors trained her body to accept donor tissue could yield new methods of growing or nurturing organs within patients, experts say.
The technique sounds like science fiction, but De Croock says it has transformed her life. She no longer takes anti-rejection drugs.
"Life before my transplant was becoming less livable all the time, with continual pain and jabbing and pricking in my throat and windpipe," the 54-year-old Belgian told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Doctors at Belgium's University Hospital Leuven implanted the donor windpipe in De Croock's arm as a first step in getting her body to accept the organ and to restart its blood supply. More...
01/14/10
How are dog people and cat people different?
Do you rejoice at the sound of barking but cower at a meow? Or do you look at a cat and feel an instant sibling-style connection?
With the proliferation of Web sites cultivating photos and videos of animals doing cute things, it's easier than ever to get your daily fix of the pet variety you have, or wish you had. Ever wonder what your preference for cats or dogs says about you?
A team of researchers led by psychologist Sam Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin wanted to find out. They posted a questionnaire online as part of a larger study about personality called the Gosling-Potter Internet Personality Project. More...
01/14/10
Haiti earthquake could trigger possible medical 'perfect storm'
The devastation caused by Tuesday's earthquake could decimate what fragile medical care exists and spawn a "perfect storm" in a country already struggling to fight rare tropical and infectious diseases, health experts said.
On Tuesday, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake ripped apart buildings, shearing huge slabs of concrete off structures in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. About 3 million people -- one-third of Haiti's population -- were affected by the quake, the Red Cross estimated.
The disaster cut power, electricity and other utilities. This could leave people without clean drinking water and at greater risk of malnutrition and disease. The potential new mass of displaced persons could create crowded, unsanitary conditions that facilitate the spread of contagious respiratory infections, said Dr. Peter Hotez, head of the department of microbiology at George Washington University. More...
01/13/10
Tuberculosis patient flies despite being on banned list
A person infected with an active case of tuberculosis flew aboard a commercial passenger jet last week, despite the person's presence on a "do-not-board" list maintained by federal health authorities, officials said Tuesday.
The patient, who has not been identified publicly, flew Saturday aboard US Airways Flight 401 from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to San Francisco, California, airline spokesman Morgan Durrant told CNN.
An investigation involving US Airways, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is under way, he said.
The CDC gives the do-not-board list to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), which notifies TSA. It in turn notifies the individual airlines, according to a U.S. government official who asked not to be identified. More...
01/13/10
How are dog people and cat people different?
Do you rejoice at the sound of barking but cower at a meow? Or do you look at a cat and feel an instant sibling-style connection?
With the proliferation of Web sites cultivating photos and videos of animals doing cute things, it's easier than ever to get your daily fix of the pet variety you have, or wish you had. Ever wonder what your preference for cats or dogs says about you?
A team of researchers led by psychologist Sam Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin wanted to find out. They posted a questionnaire online as part of a larger study about personality called the Gosling-Potter Internet Personality Project. More...
01/13/10
'Big' concerns surround new reality show
The Cole family has a message for the detractors of their new TLC reality show: You're just making us more determined.
"I would tell them to keep saying what they are saying because it's not going to affect anything that we are doing," said 14-year-old Shayne Cole. "Basically all they are doing is giving us more publicity, so more power to them."
The Coles are the stars of "One Big Happy Family," which documents their struggle to slim down and live a healthier lifestyle.
The morbidly obese African-American family of four from North Carolina had a total combined weight of 1,377 pounds when the show began. The family's matriarch Tameka weighed in at 380 lbs., her 41-year-old husband Norris tipped the scales at 340 lbs., 16-year-old daughter Amber was 348 lbs. and Shayne was 308 lbs. More...
01/13/10
Too much TV may mean earlier death
Watching too much television can make you feel a bit brain-dead. According to a new study, it might also take years off your life.
The more time you spend watching TV, the greater your risk of dying at an earlier age -- especially from heart disease, researchers found.
The study followed 8,800 adults with no history of heart disease for more than six years. Compared to those who watched less than two hours of TV per day, people who watched four hours or more were 80 percent more likely to die from heart disease and 46 percent more likely to die from any cause. All told, 284 people died during the study.
Each additional hour spent in front of the TV increased the risk of dying from heart disease by 18 percent and the overall risk of death by 11 percent, according to the study, which was published Monday on the Web site of Circulation, an American Heart Association journal. (The study will appear in the Jan. 26 print edition.) More...
01/11/10
Revealing Facebook posts promote cancer awareness
Facebook took a colorful turn this week, when its female users began posting cryptic status updates.
"Beige," "sexy black and gold," "crimson red," "turquoise," "nude with a lot of padding," read some.
The color scheme has left male users scratching their heads and asking "Huh?"
So, what is behind the trend? It's all part of an effort to raise awareness for breast cancer by asking women to post the color of the bra they're wearing.
Female Facebookers started catching on this week as a message made its rounds through the inboxes of the social media network.
"We are playing a game for Breast Cancer Awareness," one form of the message read. "Write the color of your bra as your status -- just the color, nothing else!! Copy this and pass it on to all girls -- NO MEN!! This will be fun to see how it spreads." More...
01/11/10
Soda fountains contained fecal bacteria, study found
It fizzes. It quenches. And it could also contain fecal bacteria.
Nearly half of the 90 beverages from soda fountain machines in one area in Virginia tested positive for coliform bacteria -- which could indicate possible fecal contamination, according to a study published in the January issue of International Journal of Food Microbiology.
Researchers also detected antibiotic-resistant microbes and E.coli in the soda samples.
"Certainly we come in contact with bacteria all the time," Renee Godard, lead author of the study and professor of biology and environmental studies at Hollins University, a private liberal arts college in Roanoke, Virginia. "It's simply that some bacteria may potentially cause some disease or gastrointestinal distress. One thing we hesitate with is that people get afraid of bacteria. Many of them are benign or helpful, but certainly, I don't want E.coli in my beverage." More...
01/11/10
Families struggle after cuts for disabled
While many children her age are learning to print their letters, Karson Brewster is struggling to master a baby's belly crawl.
The curly-haired 4-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses is as small as a toddler, and she cannot speak or sit up by herself. Karson suffers from a rare chromosomal defect called distal 18q-, which can cause mental retardation and developmental delays.
She often suffers complications from the disease, and she visits one of her 22 doctors two to three times a week.
Without the help of family and financial aid from the state of Maryland to cover medical expenses, Karson's mother, Michelle, said her family probably would be homeless. More...
01/11/10
Preparing Rover for Junior's arrival
When Lydia Newscomb bought her Rottweiler, Reggie, five years ago, she knew she eventually wanted to have a baby. "I thought he'd protect the family," she says.
But when she gave birth to her daughter, Tyrene, two years later, Reggie wasn't very happy about it. "He would snap at her, growl when I held her," she says. "So we had to give him to a friend. It was tough."
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, approximately 800,000 people are treated for dog bites every year, most of them children. And many of these incidents occur in the home. The Humane Society of the United States says hundreds of pets end up at the pound every year because parents are faced with a dilemma: Get rid of an angry, jealous animal or the new baby. It's obvious who wins. But both organizations say there are steps you can take to help the family pet acclimate to a little one. More...
01/08/10
How to help the homeless in the cold
The weather has turned dangerously cold in much of the country, putting homeless people at high risk of injury or even death. If you encounter someone and want to help, what should you do?
The specific answer depends on the circumstances, but those who work with the homeless every day agree you generally should leave social services to the professionals.
"Most communities have some kind of crisis hot line, or the local United Way will have a 211 line," said Brian O'Malley, executive director of the Homeless Services Coalition of Greater Kansas City, in Missouri. In some cities, including New York, the hot line number is 311.
Your hot line call will prompt a local homeless services agency to dispatch outreach workers to help the person in need, said O'Malley and his counterparts in New York and Charlotte, North Carolina. More...
01/08/10
Caffeine Poisoning Calls Pour In
Convenience stores are packed with products to give consumers a quick boost of caffeine.
The stimulant comes in all forms -- from drinks to pills to sprays -- and is available at almost all locations.
But local health officials told KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City that having too much caffeine can be so serious that it requires a call to a poison-control line or a trip to the emergency room, especially for people younger than the age of 19.
"A typical call is a teen or college student trying to cram for an exam, and they've taken too many tablets to stay awake," said Oklahoma City Poison Control Center manager Lee McGoodwin. More...
01/08/10
Taco Bell: Making a run for weight loss?
The company that brought us the taco-craving Chihuahua, Fourth Meal and double-decker tacos suggests that it can now help fight fat.
In an ad campaign much like Subway's Jared Fogle spots, Taco Bell has introduced its own weight-loss character.
Christine Dougherty, 27, ate items from Taco Bell's lower-calorie "Fresco menu" five to eight times a week and dropped 54 pounds, according to the company.
While welcoming the fast-food chain's lower-calorie options, some nutritional experts say the Taco Bell ads could be misleading. More...
01/08/10
Nutritional drink, imaging show promise for Alzheimer's
Doctors are already good at diagnosing Alzheimer's disease in a patient with obvious symptoms, which include memory loss, vision problems and confusion. But the cutting-edge research is looking for the brain mechanisms of the condition at its earliest stages, maximizing the potential for intervention.
Two studies published this week that may help pave the way for better treatments for people with Alzheimer's, which affects as many as 5.3 million Americans, according to the Alzheimer's Association. One is a drink that you may one day be able to pick up at the pharmacy; the other is a detection method. More...
