02/17/10
More children have chronic diseases; study cites obesity
The rate of chronic disease among children has doubled in the past two decades: More than half of children ages 8 to 14 have had a long-term health problem at some point, such as obesity, asthma, a learning disability or other ailment, a study shows...
02/17/10
Aspirin may help prevent return of breast cancer
Breast cancer survivors who took aspirin after completing treatment were half as likely to die or have their tumors spread around the body compared with survivors who didn't take aspirin, a long-running study of 4,164 nurses showed...
02/17/10
MRIs, other scans have tripled in recent years
New government statistics show the rate of high-tech diagnostic imaging has dramatically increased since the mid-1990s...
02/15/10
Running debate: Bare or in shoes?
Terry Chiplin didn't need a Harvard study to tell him what he's known for years.
"Barefoot running, for me, is a lot less painful than wearing running shoes," said the 55-year-old Brit, who competed in high school in thin-soled leather shoes and would run shoeless whenever he could.
After taking a break in early adulthood from the sport, Chiplin returned to it by buying a fancy pair of running shoes.
"I'd come home with blisters, my feet killing me," he said. "So one day, I just said to myself, 'Who cares what anybody thinks? I'm putting sole to earth.' "
Chiplin now teaches running and outdoor fitness in Estes Park, Colorado, and does it shoeless as often as possible.
He's among many runners on blogs and list-servs who've been debating new studies about the most efficient running form. Should you go barefoot ? Land heel-first or on the balls of your feet? Are those fancy shoes hurting more than helping you? More...
02/15/10
What your heart and brain are doing
Poets, novelists and songwriters have described it in countless turns of phrase, but at the level of biology, love is all about chemicals.
Although the physiology of romantic love has not been extensively studied, scientists can trace the symptoms of deep attraction to their logical sources.
"Part of the whole attraction process is strongly linked to physiological arousal as a whole," said Timothy Loving (his real name), assistant professor of human ecology at the University of Texas, Austin. "Typically, that's going to start with things like increased heart rate, sweatiness and so on,"
When you catch sight of your beloved and your heart starts racing, that's because of an adrenaline rush, said Dr. Reginald Ho, a cardiac electrophysiologist and associate professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More...
02/15/10
Skier spreads cheese on leg to heal injury
Some turn to prayer. Others turn to state-of-the-art medicine. Lindsey Vonn turned to the power of fromage.
The Olympic favorite has been wrapping her injured shin in an Austrian cheese -- topfen -- to reduce inflammation.
One former Olympic trainer wasn't surprised.
"It's not bizarre at all," said Ralph Reiff, certified athletic trainer and director of Sports Medicine and Sports Performance for St. Vincent Hospital of Indianapolis, Indiana. "It's just what athletes at that level do."
While using the cheese may not be scientifically proven to soothe an injury, what matters more is what's in the athlete's mind, Reiff said. More...
02/05/10
FDA concerned dissolvable tobacco appeals to kids
The Food and Drug Administration is saying in letters to two tobacco companies that flavored, dissolvable tobacco products — that the agency compares with candy and says contain a lot of nicotine — could be particularly appealing to kids and young adults.
The FDA's Center for Tobacco Products wrote to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Camel cigarettes, and the smaller Star Scientific Inc. on Monday voicing concern over smokeless products that are consumed like breath mints but made from finely milled tobacco.
"CTP is concerned that children and adolescents may find dissolvable tobacco products particularly appealing, given the brightly colored packaging, candy-like appearance and easily concealable size of many of these products," Dr. Lawrence Deyton, director of the Center for Tobacco Products, told the companies.
Deyton said regulators are worried the products' nicotine content and rapid dissolution could cause nicotine dependence and addiction and be especially dangerous to children and young adults.
He asked the two best known makers of dissolvable tobacco products to provide their research and marketing information on how people under age 26 perceive and use the products. More...
02/05/10
Concussions extra dangerous to teen brains
Max Conradt was used to defensive linemen hurtling their 300-pound frames at him week after week. He was a high school quarterback, the team leader who took his licks and got back up.
That is, until the wrenching hit that changed everything.
"It was a vicious hit," said Ralph Conradt, Max's father. "A really bad hit."
Afterward, the 17-year-old got up slowly, staggered for a few seconds, and continued to play. When the game ended, he limped toward the sideline.
"He looked at me and said 'My chin hurts,' " said Joy Conradt, Max's stepmother. "I started to respond and he collapsed. I was absolutely nauseatedly sick with fear."
It was a concussion -- in fact, a handful of concussions over the course of two weeks -- that his doctors believe caused Conradt to sink to the ground, blood pooling dangerously in his brain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 4 million sports and recreation-related concussions occur each year. Experts say the vast majority are suffered at the high school level, but few schools have rules governing how concussion is treated -- and few coaches are trained to identify it. More...
02/05/10
Therapy teaches that incest is never consensual
In her memoir, "High on Arrival," actress Mackenzie Phillips revealed details of her incestuous relationship with her father, which she called "consensual."
Now, she's taking that word back. She told HLN's Joy Behar this week that she would not necessarily call the relationship with musician John Phillips consensual at this time.
"As I was writing the book, I thought, this word, it kept sitting wrong with me, but I used it for lack of a better word, and since then I've been schooled by thousands of incest survivors all across the world that there really is no such thing as consensual incest due to the inherent power a parent has over a child," she said.
Realizing that incest is not the victim's fault is a difficult process that happens through therapy and can take many years. More...
02/04/10
Medical journal retracts study linking autism to vaccine
The medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday retracted a controversial 1998 paper that linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.
The study subsequently had been discredited, and last week, the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was found to have acted unethically in conducting the research.
The General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain, said that "there was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper" and that his "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible."
The panel found that Wakefield subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and MRI scans. He also paid children at his son's birthday party to have blood drawn for research purposes, an act that "showed a callous disregard" for the "distress and pain" of the children, the panel said.
After the council's findings last week, The Lancet retracted the study and released this statement. More...
02/04/10
Time to regroup on autism
You might not know it to read the news of the discredited research that had long linked vaccines to autism, but there really is good progress on the autism research front.
• A study published last year in the journal Nature identified a genetic variant that could account for up to 15 percent of autism cases. Once we can determine which proteins are associated with various risk genes, we can start to understand the mechanisms of action that may cause autism. And once we understand the mechanisms of action, we can start to develop targeted therapeutics.
• Elsewhere, researchers working with the younger siblings of children with autism are identifying biomarkers that could enable autism to be detected as early as the first few weeks of life.
• Clinical trials are under way investigating a compound that has proved effective at rescuing mice from the symptoms of Fragile X syndrome, which may be related to autism. More...
02/04/10
The government has your baby's DNA
When Annie Brown's daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.
While grateful to have the information -- Isabel received further testing and she doesn't have the disease -- the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel's genes in the first place. After all, they'd never consented to genetic testing.
It's simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it's often done without the parents' consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center. More...
02/02/10
Keep pets' choppers in tip-top shape to protect their health
When 8-month-old Astana started getting her adult teeth, her owner, Gayle Warren, didn't expect any problems. She has a number of Black Russian terriers and developing new incisors was never a big deal with her other dogs. But Astana had a condition known as "twinning," where two teeth form in the same area. It can cause discomfort, overcrowding and early tooth decay. Warren decided to take Astana to a specialist in animal dentistry to have the extra teeth removed.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, Warren is unusual. The association estimates about 80 percent of people brush their teeth every day, but far fewer pet owners do the same for their furry friends. In fact, very few even think about their pet's teeth. More...
02/02/10
Body dysmorphic disorder patients see details, not whole face
Some people check their appearance in any mirror, window or computer screen they can find, but not out of vanity. It's because they hate the way they look so much.
An obsession with one or more bodily features, normally in the face, indicates a condition called body dysmorphic disorder. This mental illness, which leads some patients to seek multiple plastic surgeries, is not uncommon; 1 to 2 percent of the population is thought to have it. But most people who have the disorder don't get a diagnosis; they just think they are ugly, said Dr. Jamie Feusner psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Some celebrities have BDD, but few have been public about it, Feusner said. He and colleagues have treated celebrities at UCLA, but cannot disclose which ones. More...
02/02/10
Tattletale pills, bottles remind you to take your meds
If you have problems remembering to take your meds -- or whether you've taken them already -- some high-tech products on the horizon may be able to help you.
Companies are using wireless technology, the same mechanism by which you use a cell phone or the Internet, to develop devices that monitor whether you took your pills as the doctor ordered, beaming information back to you, your doctor or a designated family member. In some cases, this requires swallowing a microchip about as thin as a few human hairs.
The concept may sound invasive, but it has the potential to save as much as $290 billion annually in increased medical costs. That amount is lost every year because of people not taking medications as prescribed, according to the New England Healthcare Institute. Drug adherence is only 50 percent among people with chronic illnesses in developed countries, and in developing nations it is probably lower, according to the World Health Organization. More...
