Decline in Adult Smoking Stalls, Alarming Experts
TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Although the hazards of smoking are well known, 20 percent of Americans still light up, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
The number of adult smokers dropped between 2000 and 2005, but the decline has leveled out, according to a new report from the U...
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Heart Health Rises With Education in Rich Nations
TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- A higher level of education is associated with reduced risk of heart disease and stroke for people who live in rich countries, but not for those in low- and middle-income nations, finds a new study.
Highly educated men in high-income countries had the...
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Chemicals in Rugs, Cookware May Be Linked to Raised Cholesterol in Teens
MONDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Common chemicals found in everything from non-stick cookware to grease-resistant food packaging appear to be associated with increases in cholesterol levels in adolescents, a new study suggests.
People are exposed to these chemicals -- known as perfluor...
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Low-Carb Diets Heavy on Meat May Raise Health Risks
MONDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- A low-carbohydrate diet that derives fats and proteins from vegetable sources rather than meats is probably healthier, new research finds.
Comparing the two types of diets over two decades, researchers found that the low-carb,...
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Winter Sports Tourists at Higher Risk of Heart Attack
SUNDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Skiers and other winter sports tourists who visit the Alps are at increased risk for heart attack due to low temperatures, high altitude and inadequate conditioning for intense physical exertion, finds a new study.
The risk is greatest during the first...
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No Surprise: Walking, Cycling Linked to Healthier Weights
SATURDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- A new study confirms what seems obvious: people who live in communities where walking and cycling are common are less likely to be overweight or obese.
The researchers analyzed statistics about walking and cycling in 14 countries, and also studied dat...
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Health Tip: Heart Arrhythmia May Have Symptoms
(HealthDay News) -- When the heart beats irregularly, it's called arrhythmia.
In many cases, when the heart beats too fast, too slow or irregularly, there are no obvious warning signs, the University of Virginia Health System says.
But you should contact your doctor without delay...
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Proximity Affects Influence of Online 'Health Buddies'
THURSDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to online social networking, people are more likely to change habits that might affect their health when encouraged to do so by cyber conversations with friends they already know well and with whom they are in close contact, new research suggest...
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Response Team Reduces Rate of Cardiac Arrests: Hospital
THURSDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Having a rapid response team manage hospital patients whose condition is rapidly deteriorating sharply reduced the rate of cardiac arrests at a U.S. hospital, a new study found.
Researchers looked at a rapid response team, known as the eTeam, created...
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Diet Pill Meridia Ups Heart Attack Risk: Study
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- A new study is linking the popular weight loss drug Meridia to an increased risk of non-fatal heart attacks and stroke, although taking the drug did not seem to up the risk of death in patients with a history of heart problems.
The finding is stirri...
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Double-Dose Plavix Benefits Certain Patients, Study Finds
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- More isn't necessarily better when prescribing the two drugs commonly used to treat patients who are in danger of having a heart attack, Plavix (clopidogrel) and aspirin, a new study suggests.
Two reports on the data find that high doses of Plavix ar...
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Lower Blood Pressure May Help Sicker Kidney Patients
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Aggressive treatment to lower high blood pressure may help preserve kidney function and prevent the need for dialysis in some black patients with chronic kidney disease.
That's the finding of a study published Sept. 2 in the New England Journal of...
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Overactive Blood Platelets May Play Role in Lupus
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Overactive blood platelets could trigger inflammation in those with lupus, but the anti-clotting drug Plavix might ease the painful symptoms of this autoimmune disease, a new study suggests.
Platelets, which are the colorless, disc-shaped blood cells...
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'DASH Diet' Shown to Lower Heart Attack Risk Almost 20%
TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in saturated fats can significantly lower the risk of heart attack for people with mildly elevated blood pressure, Johns Hopkins University researchers say.
The diet they examined -- called the DASH...
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Active Lifestyle May Help Counter Obesity Genes
TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise can reduce a person's genetic predisposition to obesity by 40 percent, finds a new English study.
Researchers looked at 20,430 people in Norwich and focused on genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity. Most people had inherited 1...
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In Triathletes, Heart Adapts for Efficiency, Scans Show
TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- The hearts of triathletes adapt to the rigors of training and competition by becoming more efficient, which suggests that combining endurance and resistance training may be the best way to achieve optimal heart health, researchers say.
German researche...
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Review Finds No Statin-Cancer Link
TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- There's no evidence that popular cholesterol-lowering statins cause cancer, says a review that challenges earlier research raising concerns that the drugs may be associated with an increase in cancer and cancer-related deaths.
The findings should reass...
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Clues to Heart Attack, Stroke Risk From Fat-Filled Artery
MONDAY, Aug. 30 (HealthDay News) -- A number of factors put patients with abnormal fatty deposits in an artery at high risk for heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death, a new study shows.
Patients in various stages of this condition -- atherothrombosis -- are at increased risk for h...
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Multiple Sclerosis Changes With the Seasons
MONDAY, Aug. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Multiple sclerosis may be more active in the spring and summer months, new research shows.
In a study using MRI scans to detect brain lesions tied to MS, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that new lesions occurred two to thre...
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Stent Implantation Linked to Blood Clot Risk in Black Patients
MONDAY, Aug. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Black patients are at increased risk of developing life-threatening blood clots after receiving a drug-coated stent to prop open narrowed arteries, U.S. researchers have found.
The new study included more than 7,200 patients w...
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Low-Dose Omega-3 Fatty Acids Don't Protect Heart Patients
SUNDAY, Aug. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Most heart patients who take low-dose omega-3 fatty acid supplements don't appear to gain any additional protection against further cardiac trouble, new Dutch research cautions.
In fact, neither low doses of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaeno...
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Breast-Feeding May Lower Women's Risk for Type 2 Diabetes
FRIDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that mothers who don't breast-feed their children are at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life compared to those who do breast-feed.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body's cells gradually lose their sensitivity to in...
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Kids + Sports = Risk for Concussion
FRIDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Your child takes a hard hit during a football game. Or a nasty fall caused by a failed cheerleading stunt.
The youngster gets right back up but stumbles around a bit and seems to be only dimly aware of his or her surroundings. A worried teammate tries t...
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Older Diabetes Patients Still Sexually Active, Study Finds
FRIDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Most older adults with diabetes are sexually active but the disease does cause some problems with intimacy, a new study found.
U.S. researchers surveyed 1,993 people, aged 57 to 85, and found that nearly 70 percent of partnered men with diabetes and 62...
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When It Comes to the Head, No Hit Is Normal
FRIDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Tommy Mallon was hard-charging through his final high school lacrosse game in San Diego, running full-tilt downfield in pursuit of a ball.
Mallon, then 18, didn't see the opponent who was also digging after the ball. The two teenagers collided hard, an...
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Record Heat Requires Exercise Precautions
THURSDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Autumn may be waiting in the wings, but the continuing summer heat and humidity means that you need to be careful when exercising outdoors.
"It's great to get outside and exercise before the cold weather sets in, but this year's record heat makes it...
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Widely Used Plastics Chemical Linked to Testosterone Boost
THURSDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to the plastics chemical bisphenol A (BPA) can affect men's testosterone levels, a new study has found.
BPA is used in a large number of consumer products, including food and drink containers. A number of countries have moved to ban the use o...
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In Some Patients, Hypertension Meds Raise Blood Pressure
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Popular prescription medications taken to control hypertension may actually boost blood pressure in a "statistically significant" percentage of patients, researchers report.
The warning stems from a new study appearing in the online edition of the
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Study Suggests Statins Could Help Some With Normal Cholesterol
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Cholesterol-lowering statins could go a long way toward protecting against heart disease among patients who are deemed to have an "intermediate risk" for cardiovascular trouble, a new study suggests.
The finding specifically applies to those men and...
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Health Tip: Diabetics Should Eat on Schedule
(HealthDay News) -- If you've got diabetes, staying on a regular eating schedule will help you maintain better glucose control.
The American Diabetes Association suggests how to maintain a consistent food schedule:
Schedule meal plans at your normal eating times.
Ma...
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Heart Risks the Same With 2 Diabetes Drugs: Study
TUESDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that the risk of heart attacks or death after taking the glucose-lowering diabetes drugs Avandia and Actos are about the same.
This is a direct contradiction to numerous other studies that found that the risk was elevated for Avandia...
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Migraine With Aura Linked to Small Rise in Heart, Stroke Risks
TUESDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- People who suffer migraines with aura are at increased risk of dying from heart disease and stroke, but the individual risk for a migraine sufferer is low, two new studies show.
Auras -- temporary visual or sensory disturbances that occur before or dur...
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Pump Placed in Aorta Doesn't Improve Angioplasty Outcomes: Study
TUESDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who chose to have a special pump placed in their heart's aorta before undergoing procedures to open blocked arteries didn't have improved outcomes, new research shows.
The British study included patients undergoing percutaneous coronary interv...
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Slowed Reflexes in Aging Could Be Due to Brain Changes
TUESDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Breakdowns in brain connections may be the reason why your physical response times slow as you age, a new study has found.
The decline occurs in an area of the brain called the corpus callosum, which helps regulate "cross-talk" between the two sides of...
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Survival Rates Better for Certain Heart Transplant Patients
TUESDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who have a heart transplant to correct the most common type of genetic heart disease -- hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- have better long-term survival rates than those who have transplants for other heart diseases, a new study finds.
In patient...
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Initial Savings May Hide True Cost of Prostate Cancer Care
MONDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- The initial treatment given to prostate cancer patients has a major impact on short- and long-term costs of care, a new study has found.
For example, while some may opt for an initial treatment that is less expensive in the short-term, the long-term cos...
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Prior Fractures Could Raise Older Women's Odds for Osteoporosis
MONDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Older women who suffered bone fractures earlier in life may be at higher risk for osteoporosis today, a new study suggests.
When these women develop osteoporosis, their loss in health-related quality of life becomes similar to...
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Adding Fish Oil to Low-Fat/High-Carb Diet May Improve Cholesterol
FRIDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) -- For people with the metabolic syndrome -- a cluster of risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, high levels of blood fats or triglycerides and high blood sugar -- adding a little fish oil to a diet low in saturated fats and high in complex carbohydrat...
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Green, Leafy Vegetables Linked to Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk
FRIDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) -- A new analysis of existing research suggests that eating more green, leafy vegetables can significantly reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but more study is needed.
An estimated 6.4 percent of people in the world have diabetes, and the rates...
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Binge Drinking, Hypertension a Deadly Combo
THURSDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- If you have high blood pressure, binge drinking may greatly increase your risk of dying from a stroke or heart attack, South Korean researchers report.
Their study found that for men whose blood pressure was at least 168/100, the risk of dying from ca...
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Health Tip: Make Time for Healthy Meals
(HealthDay News) -- Dinnertime is often rushed, and it may seem that there's little time to prepare a healthy meal for the family.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests how to prepare healthy meals, despite a hectic schedule:
Try to plan and cook upcoming meals when y...
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Kidneys From Dead Patients as Durable as Ones From Those Deemed Brain-Dead
THURSDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A new British study finds that transplanted kidneys from patients whose hearts have stopped beating perform just as well as those from patients who are brain-dead but still alive.
Surgeons have been concerned that kidneys from patients whose hearts ha...
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Testing of Brothers May Boost Family's Prostate Cancer Rates
THURSDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Men who have a brother with prostate cancer are more likely than other men to be diagnosed with the disease, but the reason may have more to do with greater surveillance than genetics, a new study suggests.
Swedish researchers analyzed data from 22,51...
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Health Tip: Who Is at Greater Risk for Osteoporosis?
(HealthDay News) -- Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease that causes bones to become thin, brittle and fragile. People who have it are at greater risk of fracturing their wrists, hips, spine and other bones.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers this list of risk factor...
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Heart Failure Hospitalizations Lowest in Mountain States
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 18 (HealthDay News) -- The Mountain states region of the United States had the lowest average rate of potentially avoidable hospitalization for heart failure in 2006, according to a U.S. government report released Wednesday.
The rate in this region, which includes Montana...
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Many With Chronic Pain Get Inadequate Relief, Study Finds
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Many black patients and women with chronic pain receive inadequate treatment for their pain while being treated by a primary care doctor, a U.S. study has found.
Researchers looked at nearly 200 patients with chronic pain and found that black patient...
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Reminders Spur Hospital Staff to Remove Patient Catheters
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Systems that remind hospital staff when to remove catheters from patients can reduce the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 52 percent, a new study has found.
Catheter-associated urinary tract infection...
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Antibiotic Sponges Don't Benefit Heart Surgery Patients: Study
TUESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A surgically implanted antibiotic-infused sponge doesn't lower the rate of sternal wound infections in patients who've had heart surgery, a new U.S. study has found.
The sternum (breastbone) is cut open during heart surgery....
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Deaths From Heart Attack Rise With Delays in Care
TUESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Deaths from a severe type of heart attack rise by about 10 percent for every hour of delay between the time the patient calls for an ambulance and the time that patient is treated in the hospital, a new European study finds.
Researchers in Denmark anal...
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Less Invasive Biopsies Gain Favor
TUESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Less invasive biopsies done with the help of imaging to guide the needle now make up the majority of biopsies being done, a new study finds.
In fact, the use of these minimally invasive biopsies increased from 59 percent to 67 percent of all biopsies b...
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Positive Brain Changes Seen After Body-Mind Meditation
TUESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Positive brain changes take hold after just 11 hours of practicing a form of meditation, the results of a new study suggest.
The study included 45 University of Oregon students who were randomly selected to be in either a stu...
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When Doctors Admit Mistakes, Fewer Malpractice Suits Result, Study Says
TUESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- When doctors make mistakes, admitting the error, saying "I'm sorry" and offering compensation may go a long way toward preventing malpractice lawsuits, new research shows.
In 2001, University of Michigan Health System launched a program encouraging he...
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Hostile, Competitive Types May Be Harming Their Hearts
MONDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Hostile people, especially those who are manipulative and aggressive, may be paying a price in terms of heart health, a new study finds.
These types of people showed a thickening in the walls of their neck arteries tied to a 40 percent higher risk of h...
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Inhaling Ultra-Fine Particles May Raise Firefighters' Heart Risks
MONDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Firefighters may face a heightened risk for heart disease as a result of breathing in extremely fine particles that infiltrate the smallest air passages and lodge in their lungs, new research indicates.
The findings suggest that better use of protective...
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Red Meat May Boost Women's Heart Disease Risk
MONDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women who eat a lot of red meat may be increasing their risk of developing heart disease, Harvard researchers report.
Substituting fish, poultry, low-fat dairy and nuts for red meat can significantly reduce that risk, however, the study authors suggest....
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Small Amounts of Dark Chocolate May Guard Against Heart Failure
MONDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a small amount of high-quality dark chocolate one to three times a month may help stave off heart failure in women, a new Harvard study suggests.
But if you ingest too much "good" chocolate, that protective effect goes away, according to the rese...
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Weight-Loss Surgery May Cut Type 2 Diabetes Medication Use
MONDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Bariatric weight-loss surgery in obese people with type 2 diabetes can have an unexpected, yet positive side effect -- nearly 3 out of 4 patients in one study were able to stop taking their insulin and other diabetes medications within six months of surgery.
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FDA Approves Emergency Contraceptive
FRIDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the ella (ulipristal acetate) emergency contraceptive pill, which prevents pregnancy if taken within five days of unprotected intercourse or contraceptive failure.
The prescription-only drug, whic...
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Tough Childhoods May Contribute to Adult Heart Disease
SATURDAY, Aug. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Adults who experienced abuse, poverty, or social isolation in childhood are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease as a result of heightened "reactivity," warns an expert from the University of Pittsburgh.
"Many diseases first diagnosed in mid-l...
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A Good Doctor's Visit Starts With a Little Homework
FRIDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Whether buying a toothbrush or a new car, it's become routine for shoppers to research before buying so they know all the options and can strike the best possible bargain.
Far less often, though, do people apply those tactics to one of their most import...
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Deep Brain Stimulation Studied for Alzheimer's
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- In an extremely small, early trial, deep brain stimulation appeared to improve memory slightly in several patients with mild Alzheimer's disease.
The authors caution that the findings are very preliminary and that "no clear clinical benefit can be cl...
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Generics As Good As Costly Blood Pressure Meds, Study Finds
FRIDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Costly, brand-name blood pressure-lowering drugs are no better at preventing cardiovascular disease than older, generic diuretics, reveals long-term data from a large study.
It included more than 33,000 patients with high blood pressure who were randoml...
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Docs Shying Away From Drug That May Prevent Prostate Cancer
THURSDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Even though a major study found that the drug finasteride could reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 25 percent, it is still not being widely prescribed for that purpose, Veterans Administration researchers report.
Under the name Proscar, finasteride...
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Health Tip: Controlling Urinary Incontinence
(HealthDay News) -- Urinary incontinence is the inability to control the urge to urinate. It tends to become more of a problem as people age.
The womenshealth.gov Web site suggests these potential methods for controlling urinary incontinence:
Performing exercises to strength...
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Monitoring of Kidney Health Urged for Injection Drug Users
THURSDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Injection drug users, particularly those with HIV, need to be carefully monitored for poor kidney function and considered for medical treatments when appropriate, researchers report.
In a new study, U.S. scientists analyzed the presence of proteinuria...
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Women Experience More Chronic Pain Than Men, Research Finds
THURSDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Chronic pain occurs more often, is more intense and lasts longer in women than in men, a pain expert reports.
Women are also more likely to experience multiple painful conditions at the same time, which can lead to greater mental stress and increased...
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Brain Research May Help Predict Anxiety, Depression in Young
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Brain regions that may play a role in the development of childhood anxiety have been pinpointed by U.S. researchers.
The findings could lead to new methods of early detection and treatment for at-risk children, according to study leader Ned. H. Kalin...
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Lithium of No Benefit in ALS, Study Finds
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- A new study appears to dash hopes that the psychiatric drug lithium can benefit patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The investigation involving 171 people with ALS was stopped early, in November 2009, because of high dropout rates from...
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Menstrual Cramps May Alter Women's Brains
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Menstrual cramps are often dismissed as a mere nuisance, but new research suggests the monthly misery may be altering women's brains.
Researchers in Taiwan used a type of brain scan known as optimized voxel-based morphometry to analyze the anatomy of...
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Cholesterol Levels Fluctuate With Menstrual Cycle
TUESDAY, Aug. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Women's cholesterol levels vary throughout their menstrual cycle as their levels of estrogen rise and fall, a new study reveals.
This means that to get a clear picture of a woman's cholesterol levels, doctors may need to take readings over several mont...
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Colder Weather Boosts Heart Attack Risk
TUESDAY, Aug. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Just a small drop in the outdoor temperature can translate into a heightened risk for heart attack in the following month, new British research indicates.
Based on an analysis of temperature records and more than 84,000 hospital admissions for heart at...
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Health Tip: Eat Lots of Fiber
(HealthDay News) -- Eating a high-fiber diet can help control constipation and maintain a healthy body weight.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine mentions these foods that are high in fiber:
Uncooked carrots, lettuce, broccoli, sweet potatoes and cooked asparagus.
<...
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No Significant Esophageal Cancer Risk From Osteoporosis Drug: Study
TUESDAY, Aug. 10 (HealthDay News) -- People who take oral bisphosphonate drugs to prevent or treat osteoporosis are not at a significantly increased risk for esophageal or stomach cancer, according to an analysis of more than 80,000 patients in the United Kingdom.
The use of oral bisphosp...
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Study Offers Support for Surgery After Compression Fracture
TUESDAY, Aug. 10 (HealthDay News) -- After studies last year found that a type of surgery called vertebroplasty was no better than a sham procedure in treating painful compression fractures, a new study now suggests the therapy can, in fact, ease some patients' pain.
In this (typically) o...
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'Biomarkers' Could Spot Alzheimer's Disease Early, Studies Suggest
MONDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- The presence of three proteins in cerebrospinal fluid may spot Alzheimer's disease long before symptoms start and might also signal how fast the disease is progressing.
The findings, appearing in the August issue of the Archives of Neurology, su...
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Food Labels Lead to Healthy Food Choices
MONDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- People who read food labels have healthier diets than those who don't pay attention to such information, a new study shows.
Researchers analyzed data from the 2005-06 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and found that 61.6 percent of r...
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Many Stroke Patients Stop Taking Meds, Study Shows
MONDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Many stroke patients stop taking their medications while many heart failure patients are never prescribed recommended medications in the first place, new research shows.
In one report, researchers found that 25 percent of stroke patients stopped taking o...
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Specific Type of Blood Clot Filter Linked to Complications
MONDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Two types of filter devices used to prevent blood clots from reaching the lungs may break and some fragments could travel to the lungs and cause potentially life-threatening complications, a new study suggests.
Vena cava filters are placed in the vena ca...
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Wider Waist May Raise Death Risk Later in Life
MONDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Among middle-aged and older adults, having a large waist can significantly raise the risk for dying prematurely, new research indicates.
The association appears to apply to both men and women, the study authors noted. What's more, having a normal weight...
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Could Lifestyle Changes Cut Dementia Rates?
FRIDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- It may be possible to lower the incidence of dementia by reducing rates of diabetes and depression, boosting education, and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, according to a new study.
The exact cause of dementia hasn't been pinpointed, but seve...
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Depression Linked to Slow Healing of Diabetic Foot Ulcers
FRIDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- The healing of diabetes-related foot ulcers is affected by patients' coping styles and their levels of depression, new research shows.
The study included 93 diabetic patients with foot ulcers who were monitored for 24 weeks. The size of each patient's ul...
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Foot Doctors Can Help Diabetics Avoid Amputation: Study
FRIDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Being treated by a podiatrist helps diabetes patients reduce their risk of amputation, research shows.
Podiatrists, also called podiatric physicians, are medical specialists of the foot, ankle and lower leg.
"More than half of all amputations in...
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Statins, Painkillers May Upset PSA Test Results
FRIDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Some of the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States may skew results of prostate cancer screening tests, possibly causing errors in diagnoses, a new study finds.
A prostate cancer diagnosis is typically based on an elevated PSA (prostate-speci...
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Extra Vitamin D May Improve Heart Health in Black Teens
THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Black teens can gain a measure of protection from heart disease by taking daily vitamin D supplementation at levels that are five times the current recommendations, new research suggests.
Specifically, high amounts of vitamin D at doses of 2,000 Intern...
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Health Tip: What May Trigger Angina Pain?
(HealthDay News) -- Angina is the term for chest pain that occurs when a portion of the heart isn't getting enough oxygenated blood.
The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute says the following triggers may be behind angina pain:
Coronary heart disease.
A blood cl...
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Pre-Dialysis Procedure Often Delayed in Poorer Communities
THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Kidney disease patients in poor communities are less likely than patients in wealthier areas to receive optimal care before they start dialysis, a U.S. study has found.
Researchers analyzed data from 28,135 patients treated at 1,127 dialysis centers in...
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Using Multiple Tobacco Products Ups Hazards: CDC
THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- People who smoke cigarettes and also use other forms of tobacco have higher levels of nicotine addiction, find it more difficult to quit using tobacco, and are at greatly increased risk for tobacco-related health problems such as cancer, heart disease and stro...
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Epilepsy Drugs Don't Raise Suicide Risk, Study Shows
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 4 (HealthDay News) -- In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required epilepsy medications to bear a warning label about an increased risk of suicidal behaviors. The move came after an agency review of 199 studies that found patients taking the drugs showed about twice th...
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Genome Studies Point to Cholesterol-Regulating Genes
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified almost 100 genes in the human genome that may regulate cholesterol levels and the risk of coronary artery disease, according to a new study.
Reporting in the Aug. 5 issue of Nature, the authors suggest that studying...
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Poll Shows Rise in 'Cyberchondriacs'
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 4 (HealthDay News) -- The debate about health care reform may be one reason why the number of "cyberchondriacs" in the United States increased from 154 million last year to 175 million this year, a new survey suggests.
The term "cyberchondriacs" refers to people who use t...
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Poorest People at Highest Heart Disease Risk: U.S. Data
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Socioeconomic status plays a more important role than race or ethnicity in cardiovascular disease risk disparities in the United States, a new study has found.
Researchers analyzed data from 12,154 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Exa...
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Patient's Pulmonary Valve May Substitute for Donor Aortic Valve
TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Heart patients who need a new aortic valve are more likely to survive and have a better quality of life if a valve from their own pulmonary artery is used, instead of an aortic valve from a dead donor, new research has found.
The aortic valve connects t...
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Patients With Hepatitis B May Face Greater Risk of Blood Cancer
TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) -- People with hepatitis B infection have about twice the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, finds a new study.
Previous research has established that hepatitis C infection is linked with increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but only small s...
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Signs of Autism May Show in Early Infancy
TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Signs of autism may show up in babies as young as 1 month old, a new study shows.
But the tip-offs are not the usual red flags, such as a lack of eye contact or smiling, the researchers noted.
Instead, they found babies who needed neonatal inten...
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Vitamin B May Not Guard Against Second Stroke, Heart Attack
TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Stroke patients who take vitamin B supplements to lower their homocysteine levels may not be protected from second strokes or heart attacks, a new study finds.
Earlier studies found an association between homocysteine, an amino acid, in the blood, and...
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Weight Gain Eroding Americans' Quality of Life
TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) -- As Americans' average weight keeps rising, their quality of life is falling, according to new research.
The nationwide study found that the number of healthy days per year that Americans lose due to obesity has more than doubled over the past two decade...
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Expectation May Affect Placebo Response in Parkinson's Patients
MONDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The expectation of receiving an active drug increases the likelihood of a strong brain chemical response when Parkinson's disease patients are given a placebo, finds a Canadian study.
The study included 35 people with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease...
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Heart Health Can Help Predict Brain Health: Study
MONDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News) -- What's good for the heart is probably also good for the brain, suggests new research.
People with the highest cardiac output for their body size (cardiac index), meaning those with the greatest blood flow from their heart, tended to have more brain volu...
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Low Carb-, Low-Fat Diets Tied for Long-Term Weight Loss
MONDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News) -- If you're overweight, should you cut carbs or fat?
A new two-year study suggests that it may not matter in the long run: When combined with extensive guidance about eating and exercise, people lost about the same amount of weight whether they were on an...
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Meat Compounds May Boost Bladder Cancer Risk
WEDNESDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- Certain compounds used in meat processing may increase the risk of bladder cancer, a new study from the National Institutes of Health and the AARP shows.
U.S. researchers analyzed data from about 300,000 men and women, aged 50 to 71, from eight state...
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Vision Abnormality Seen in Close Relatives of Autism Patients
MONDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News) -- In another sign that autism is at least partly inherited, a new study reveals that close relatives of people with the disorder share something in common: their eyes are much more likely than those of other people to function abnormally.
"There are brain...
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Athletes Need to Protect Against Heat Stroke: Expert
SATURDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- Heat cramps, heat exhaustion and potentially fatal heat stroke are risks when exercising or playing sports during the summer, but they can be prevented by taking a few simple precautions, advises a Medical College of Georgia expert.
Heat illness occur...
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Health Tip: Signs You May Have Sleep Apnea
(HealthDay News) -- Sleep apnea, most often characterized by loud snoring, occurs when breathing pauses briefly or becomes shallow during sleep. This often results in poor sleep and can make a person very tired during the day.
The U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute says common...
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More Women to Get Health Insurance Under Affordable Care Act
FRIDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- The new Affordable Care Act is likely to help 30 million women obtain better health insurance or coverage if they don't already have any, a new report shows.
Under the new provisions, which are already taking effect, 15 million uninsured women will gain...
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Why Cancer Screening Campaigns Can Backfire
FRIDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- Health campaigns that highlight the problem of low screening rates for prostate cancer to promote such screenings seem to have an unintended effect: They discourage men from undergoing a prostate exam, a new German study suggests.
The finding, reported...
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Calcium Supplements Linked to Boost in Heart Attack Risk
THURSDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Although millions of people take calcium supplements to boost bone health and ward off osteoporosis, New Zealand researchers say the supplements have little effect on bone strength and contribute to a small increase in the risk for heart attack among older p...
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Doctors, Patients Rarely on Same Page
THURSDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors and patients are often out of sync with each other when it comes to what patients believe about their illnesses, including to what extent the patient is to blame and what's the best way to manage the problem, new research shows.
The underlying...
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Experts Support FDA Panel's Backing of New Blood Thinner
THURSDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Following a federal health panel's endorsement of the new blood thinner Brilinta Wednesday, cardiologists say the drug could be a welcome addition to treatments for heart patients.
In a 7-to-1 vote, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Cardiovascul...
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Health Tip: Is Your Blood Sugar High?
(HealthDay News) -- Hyperglycemia, the medical term for high blood sugar, is a prime cause of complications among people with diabetes.
You may have high blood sugar and not even know it. The American Diabetes Association offers this list of common symptoms:
Blood or urine t...
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New Data Supports Link Between Diabetes Drugs, Fractures
THURSDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- New research finds that two widely prescribed diabetes drugs may raise the risk of broken bones in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes.
There was also a fracture risk seen among men who had been prescribed either Avandia or Actos plus a loop diu...
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Higher Education Level May Help Brain Cope With Dementia
WEDNESDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- People with higher levels of education are better able to cope with dementia-related brain changes, which may explain why better-educated folks have a lower risk of developing dementia, researchers say.
Previous research has shown that each additiona...
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Implantable Sensor Measures Blood Sugar Levels
WEDNESDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- A new implantable blood sugar sensor might one day eliminate the need for the multiple daily finger sticks that people with diabetes must currently endure to check their blood sugar levels.
The new device was tested for more than a year in pigs, and...
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Sleep Disorder May Help Predict Parkinson's Decades Earlier
WEDNESDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- A certain type of sleep disorder may be an early warning of Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders, new research confirms.
Patients with REM sleep behavior disorder, a condition in which people violently act out their dreams during the...
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Complications From Weight-Loss Surgery 'Relatively Low'
TUESDAY, July 27 (HealthDay News) -- Weight-loss surgery, also known as bariatric surgery, in the state of Michigan has a relatively low rate of serious complications, a new study suggests.
The lowest rates of complications are associated with surgeons and hos...
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Rush Victims of Deadliest Heart Attacks to Specialty Centers: Study
TUESDAY, July 27 (HealthDay News) -- New research may shed some light on the ongoing public health debate regarding how to minimize the death rate from the most serious kinds of heart attacks, while also limiting health care costs.
One option under consideration is increasing the number o...
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To Help Keep Weight Off, Turn to the Web
TUESDAY, July 27 (HealthDay News) -- Worried about whether the weight you just lost will stay lost? Seeking out the right Web site might help, a new study suggests.
People who shed pounds and then consistently logged on to a specially designed Internet site for weight maintenance were b...
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Childhood Cancer May Be Linked to Later Heart Problems
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Children who survive cancer may be at increased risk for long-term heart problems, new research suggests.
Dutch researchers looked at 601 childhood cancer survivors who were followed for an average of 15.4 years and found that...
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Combination Drug Approved for High Blood Pressure
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Tribenzor, a three-in-one drug to treat high blood pressure, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Tribenzor combines amlodipine, marketed by Pfizer as Norvasc, olmesartan medoxomil, marketed by Daiichi Sankyo as Benicar, and a thi...
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Link Between Depression, Cholesterol May Differ by Gender
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Gender-specific regulation of cholesterol levels may help prevent depression in the elderly, suggests a new study.
French researchers followed a large group of men and women aged 65 and older for seven years. They found that depression in women was asso...
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Longer Time Frame for Clot-Busting Drug May Help Beat Stroke
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Extending the time window to treat stroke patients with the clot-dissolving drug tPA from 3 hours to up to 4.5 hours after the onset of stroke doesn't result in any significant delays in treatment and appears to be a safe option for saving lives, new research s...
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Most Men With Low-Risk Prostate Cancer Treated Aggressively, Study Shows
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Too many men with low-risk prostate cancers, those whose level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is normal or below normal, still receive aggressive treatment, a new study shows.
Recent evidence has shown that among older men with low-risk prostate can...
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Not All Epilepsy Drugs Raise Suicide Risk: Study
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) --Since 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has required that all epilepsy drugs bear a warning label about an increased risk of suicidal behaviors, but German doctors report that only certain medications may increase the risk of self-harm.
However...
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Stroke Prevention Treatment Varies Widely Across U.S.
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors across the United States differ greatly in how they choose to open up clogged neck arteries to help prevent stroke, a new study shows.
Carotid artery disease occurs when plaque fills up major arteries supplying blood to the brain, greatly raisin...
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Study Explores Links Between Obesity and Chronic Pain
MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Obesity and chronic pain are both linked with family history and mood disorders, a new study suggests.
Previous research has shown that overweight people are at greater risk for chronic pain, mainly due to excessive weight placed on the joints. The most...
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Generic Lovenox Approved for Deep Vein Thrombosis
FRIDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- The first generic version of enoxaparin sodium injection (brand name: Lovenox), a blood-thinning drug designed to prevent deep vein thrombosis, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The condition, abbreviated as DVT, can cause pote...
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Can Ozone Cause Heart Attacks?
THURSDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) -- A new animal study offers the first direct bit of evidence that ozone, a major component of smog, may trigger the death of heart cells.
In small early tests with rats, U.S. researchers found that exposure to ground-level ozone over several weeks boost...
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Some on Statins May Not Need Boost in 'Good' Cholesterol
THURSDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) -- People with extremely low levels of "bad" cholesterol as a result of taking statins don't seem to benefit from increased levels of "good" cholesterol, a new study suggests.
The conventional wisdom has been that to reduce the risk of heart attack and...
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Procedure Rejuvenates Aging Arteries in Pigs
WEDNESDAY, July 21 (HealthDay News) -- A two-step procedure that uses nanoparticles to first scrub plaque out of arteries and then inserts stem cells to promote healing of those arteries may one day help individuals with atherosclerosis, new research suggests.
"One of the problems of remo...
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Brain Injury May Raise Soldier's Epilepsy Risk
TUESDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- A wartime brain injury may increase a soldier's risk of epilepsy even years later, a new study finds.
"Not only do combat veterans with a penetrating traumatic brain injury have high rates of epilepsy, but the development of epilepsy can occur decades...
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Health Tip: Reduce Your Sugar Consumption
(HealthDay News) -- Sugar added to foods makes them taste sweeter, but a healthy diet can sour from too much of it.
The American Academy of Family Physicians suggests how you can limit added sugar:
Cut back on candy, desserts, baked goodies and other sweet treats.
S...
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Study Suggests Painters Face Increased Risk of Bladder Cancer
TUESDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Professional painters may face an increased risk for bladder cancer and that risk seems to rise with the number of years they work, a new study suggests.
Researchers analyzed nearly 3,000 cases of bladder cancer in professional painters that were repor...
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Cholesterol Screening Rates Too Low in Young U.S. Adults: CDC
MONDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- Only about half of young adults in the United States undergo cholesterol screening, even though up to one-quarter of them have elevated levels of "bad" cholesterol, a new study has found.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers analy...
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Could PCBs Help Boost Blood Pressure?
MONDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- People in an Alabama city who had higher levels of the chemicals known as PCBs in their bodies were much more likely to have high blood pressure, a recent study found, but it's not clear if the PCBs actually caused their hypertension.
If a direct connec...
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Study Suggests Higher Cancer Rate Among IVF Babies
MONDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- Children conceived using in vitro fertilization have a higher risk of developing cancer than do children who were conceived naturally, new research shows.
While the study found the risk of cancer was increased by 42 percent for Swedish youngsters concei...
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Traffic Pollution Linked to Risk Factor for Sudden Cardiac Death
SATURDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to high levels of traffic air pollution among people with heart or lung disease is associated with reduced heart rate variability (HRV), a risk factor for sudden cardiac death, finds a new study.
The study included 30 Atlanta-area residents w...
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Health Tip: What May Cause an Aneurysm
(HealthDay News) -- Aneurysm is the medical term for a bulging area of an artery that's stretched out like a balloon. It occurs when the artery wall becomes weak or damaged.
The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute lists these possible causes of an aneurysm:
Being...
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U.S. Health Reform Starts to Take Hold
FRIDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Seniors whose drug costs push them into Medicare's "donut hole" and parents whose children are uninsurable due to pre-existing health conditions are among the first Americans to see tangible effects of the nation's historic health reform law.
The public...
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Women at Greater Risk From Serious Angina Than Men: Study
FRIDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women with the most serious type of angina are three times as likely as men with the same condition to develop severe coronary artery disease (CAD), researchers have found.
In the study, Canadian researchers analyzed the medical records of 23,771 patien...
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Dementia May Differ in Those With and Without Diabetes
THURSDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- Vascular disease, which affects blood flow in brain vessels, appears to be a common cause of dementia in some people with diabetes, new study findings suggest.
That's in contrast to dementia in people without diabetes, which the researchers say is mor...
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Diabetics Urged to Confer With Their Doctor About Avandia Use
THURSDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- One day after a U.S. advisory panel recommended that the controversial diabetes drug Avandia stay on the market -- albeit with added restrictions -- several medical organizations are urging patients not to change their medications before consulting a health-c...
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No-Shame Programs May Appeal to Obese
THURSDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- Obese people prefer lifestyle change programs to help them shed excess pounds, rather than strategies that focus only on weight loss, a new study finds.
Australian researchers conducted a telephone survey of 142 obese people and asked their opinions a...
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Stroke Risk May Rise First Hour After Drinking
THURSDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- For an hour after drinking even a small amount of alcohol, the risk of stroke increases, a small, preliminary study suggests.
But even though your risk may rise over that short time, the researchers noted that moderate drinking over the long-term migh...
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Avandia Raises Heart Risk, FDA Panel Finds
WEDNESDAY, July 14 (HealthDay News) -- A U.S. government advisory panel weighing the fate of the diabetes drug Avandia has voted that the medication does raise users' odds for heart attack more than other medications of its kind but does not increase the risk of death.
A decision on wheth...
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Health Tip: Take Steps Toward a Healthier Lifestyle
(HealthDay News) -- Everyone wants to live a healthier lifestyle, but where do you begin?
The American Diabetes Association says you can't do everything at once. It suggests taking these small steps toward a healthier you:
Make just one change at a time, and only when you're...
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Sleep Plays Important Role in Chronic Disease: Report
WEDNESDAY, July 14 (HealthDay News) -- Too much or too little sleep may increase your risk of developing chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, research shows.
"Seven to eight hours of sleep each night appears to be the ideal amount t...
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Alzheimer's May Increase Seizure Risk
TUESDAY, July 13 (HealthDay News) -- People with Alzheimer's disease appear to be at increased risk for seizures, researchers have found.
In the study, researchers analyzed data from almost 15,000 Alzheimer's disease patients in the United Kingdom, aged 50 and older, and compared the data...
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Alzheimer's Research Spotlights Protein 'Tangles' in Brain
TUESDAY, July 13 (HealthDay News) -- Several new studies to be presented Tuesday at a major Alzheimer's conference describe progress in a series of immune-based therapies that target the tau protein, one of the two major proteins implicated in Alzheimer's disease.
As a focus of research,...
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Avandia Heart Risks Buried by Drug Company: Report
TUESDAY, July 13 (HealthDay News) -- The pharmacy company that makes Avandia knew more than a decade ago that the blockbuster diabetes drug caused an increased risk of heart problems but covered up the information, according to a report published Tuesday in The New York Times.
In a...
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Emotions May Be Blunted in Alzheimer's Patients
TUESDAY, July 13 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with Alzheimer's disease often can seem withdrawn and apathetic, symptoms frequently attributed to memory problems or difficulty finding the right words.
But patients with the progressive brain disorder may also have a reduced ability to experi...
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Gene Linked to Obesity May Also Raise Dementia Risk
TUESDAY, July 13 (HealthDay News) -- A variant of the obesity-related gene FTO may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, finds a new Swedish study.
Previous research has shown that the FTO gene affects body mass index (BMI), levels of leptin (a hormone involved in appetit...
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Health Tip: Preventing Osteoporosis
(HealthDay News) -- Osteoporosis is a disease in which the bones become thin, frail and brittle, and may break easily. Women and older people are more prone to developing osteoporosis, although it can affect people of any age or gender.
The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculo...
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Could Having a Bigger Head Help Slow Alzheimer's?
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new study suggests that Alzheimer's disease develops slower in people with bigger heads, perhaps because their larger brains have more cognitive power in reserve.
It's not certain that head size, brain size and the rate of worsening Alzheimer's are l...
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Heart Attack Care Is Getting Better, Report Finds
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who have a heart attack and undergo procedures to open blocked arteries are getting proven treatments in U.S. hospitals faster and more safely than ever before, according to the results of a large-scale study.
Data on more than 131,000 heart at...
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History of Pregnancy-Linked Diabetes Helps Predict Its Return
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- Women who had gestational diabetes in their first and second pregnancies are at greatly increased risk for the condition in future pregnancies, a new study finds.
Gestational diabetes can lead to early delivery, cesarean section and type 2 diabetes in t...
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Lifestyle Interventions Needed to Stay Heart-Healthy
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- There's no lack of scientific evidence proving that staying in shape and eating right are critical to a long and healthy life, but the fact that over 8 million Americans have histories of heart attack, stroke or heart failure suggests that too few are taking t...
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New Guidelines Urge Use of MRI Over CT Scan in Stroke Patients
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- Diffusion MRI scans are better at diagnosing ischemic stroke than CT scans, according to a new guideline released by the American Academy of Neurology.
An ischemic stroke -- the most common type of stroke -- is caused by a lac...
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Sleep Apnea Could Raise Heart Risks for Older Men
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- The snoring and breathing disturbances of sleep apnea may be more than just a nuisance, with a new study linking the condition to higher risks for heart failure and heart disease in middle-aged and older men.
However, the study found no correlation betw...
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Vitamins D, E Might Help Maintain Brain Health
MONDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- Three new studies suggest that vitamins D and E might help keep our minds sharper, aid in warding off dementia, and even offer some protection against Parkinson's disease, although much more research is needed to confirm the findings.
In one trial, Bri...
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Exercise, Vitamin D Seem to Cut Alzheimer's Risk: Researchers
SUNDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Physical activity and adequate levels of vitamin D appear to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia, according to two large, long-term studies scheduled to be presented Sunday at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Hawaii.
...
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Cumulative Radiation Doses Seen in Cardiac Imaging
FRIDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- Cardiac imaging procedures, the use of which has exploded in the United States in recent years, are exposing patients to potentially cumulative doses of radiation, according to the largest analysis of its kind.
But experts really don't know whether the...
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Health Tip: Taming Irritable Bowels
(HealthDay News) -- If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), you know how discomforting it can be. Sometimes it's so disabling that you're unable to work, go to social events, or even travel short distances.
The disorder, which interferes with the normal functions of the large...
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Benefits of Implantable Defibrillators May Differ by Gender
THURSDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) -- Women with implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) appear less likely than men to suffer sudden cardiac death, according to researchers who reviewed the findings of five studies that followed 7,229 heart failure patients, including about 1,600 women.
<...
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Health Tip: Managing Dietary Fat
(HealthDay News) -- Some fats are an essential part of a balanced diet, but there are "good" fats and "bad" fats.
The American Academy of Family Physicians suggests how to manage your consumption of fat:
Avoid fast foods that contain unhealthy trans fats.
Don't eat...
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Heart Beat Could Provide Marker for Kidney Health: Study
THURSDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) -- A person's heart beat may offer insight into their future kidney health, a new study suggests.
A high resting heart rate and low beat-to-beat heart rate variability were noted in study patients with an increased risk for kidney disease, according to a...
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Brain Changes in MS May Spur Depression
WEDNESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- Brain atrophy may be a major reason why the lifetime risk of depression in multiple sclerosis patients is as high as 50 percent, new research suggests.
This atrophy, marked by a shrinkage of brain mass, occurs in the hippocampus, a part of the brain i...
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Doctor-Patient E-Mails Are a Healthy Addition, Research Shows
WEDNESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with diabetes or hypertension or both who communicated with their doctors via e-mail got better care and better health outcomes, new California research contends.
The improvements as a result of the e-mail exchanges included such measures as...
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Monitoring Blood Pressure at Home May Help Keep It Low
WEDNESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- With proper training, people with high blood pressure may be able to control it more effectively on their own at home than through conventional methods, British researchers contend.
Through telemonitoring of their blood pressure and adjusting their me...
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Understanding Back Pain May Improve Management, Study Suggests
WEDNESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- The attitudes, beliefs and health literacy of people with chronic low back pain influence how they manage their pain, Australian researchers report.
Health literacy is the ability to find, understand and use health information. Low levels of health li...
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Anxiety Disorders, Heart Disease a Bad Combination: Study
TUESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Anxiety disorders may increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure and death in people with heart disease, a new Dutch study suggests.
The research included over 1,000 people with stable coronary heart disease who...
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Changes in Fat Cells May Pave Way for Type 2 Diabetes
TUESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Cellular changes in fat tissue play a major role in the development of type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.
University of Cincinnati researchers found that these changes in fat cells -- not the immune system, as previously thought -- are linked to the "h...
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Glucosamine Ineffective for Lower Back Pain Linked to Arthritis
TUESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- The popular supplement glucosamine offers little or no relief for sufferers of chronic lower back pain caused by osteoarthritis, a new study finds.
The Norwegian trial seems to be another knock against glucosamine, with other recent studies showing simi...
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Tight Blood Pressure Control Doesn't Help All Diabetics: Study
TUESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Lower may not be better when it concerns blood pressure levels in type 2 diabetics who also have heart disease.
New research finds that patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease did not have fewer strokes or heart attacks, and actually were mor...
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Drugs Like Viagra Linked to Higher Rates of STDs
MONDAY, July 5 (HealthDay News) -- Middle-aged and older men who take erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra are more likely to have sexually transmitted diseases, a new study of more than 1.4 million men finds.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Southe...
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Complications Shorten Stroke Patients' Lives
THURSDAY, July 1 (HealthDay News) -- Complications from stroke, such as pneumonia or a secondary stroke, can shorten the lives of patients by an average of two years, researchers report.
"Previous studies have already shown that post-stroke complications increase mortality as well as disa...
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Drug May Shrink Fibroids, Preserve Fertility
THURSDAY, July 1 (HealthDay News) -- Preliminary research suggests that a new drug treatment shrinks uterine fibroids and helps women with the non-cancerous tumors retain their fertility.
Uterine fibroids, which cause abdominal pain and heavy menstrual bleeding, are a leading cause of hys...
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Fetal Genes May Be Linked to Certain Heart Disease in Adults
WEDNESDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- Research on both mice and frozen human heart tissue has turned up evidence that a key enzyme involved in fetal heart development may also help trigger the onset of a serious heart disease in adulthood.
The disease -- called cardiac hypertrophy -- is...
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New Clues to Herniated Disc Pain
WEDNESDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- An immune cell known to cause inflammation in autoimmune disorders may play a role in back pain associated with herniated discs, says a new study.
This finding adds to growing evidence that an immune response is a major factor in spinal disc disease...
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Parkinson's Transplant Mystery Solved, Researchers Say
WEDNESDAY, June 30 -- Researchers believe they know why Parkinson's disease patients who received fetal cell transplants in the 1990s developed uncontrolled, involuntary movements, and they think they can prevent the troublesome side effect.
The findings could potentially make the transpl...
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Testosterone Gel Could Raise Heart Risks in Frail, Older Men
WEDNESDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- Older men in poor health who use testosterone gel to boost their mobility may raise their odds of high blood pressure or heart attack, new research suggests.
The problems observed were concerning enough to cause the researchers to put an early stop t...
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Clues to Preventing Return of Liver Cancer
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- Antiviral therapy may halt or slow recurrence of liver cancer in patients with chronic hepatitis B and extend their lives, finds a new study.
Previous research has shown that antiviral therapy reduces the incidence of liver cancer in such patients....
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Community-Based Diabetes Prevention Program Promising: Study
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- A community-based diabetes prevention program helps people lose weight and lower blood sugar as effectively as individual counseling from health professionals, finds a new study.
Participants in the Healthy Living Partnerships to Prevent Diabetes study...
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Fewer Dying From Type 1 Diabetes
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- The overall death rate from type 1 diabetes is decreasing in the United States, but blacks are more likely to die from the condition than whites, a new study shows.
The finding came from an analysis of data from the Allegheny County Type 1 Diabetes Reg...
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Insulin Pump with Blood Sugar Sensor May Improve on Injections
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- Type 1 diabetics who used an insulin pump and a sensor that continuously monitored their blood sugar levels had better control over their illness than people taking insulin injections, a large clinical trial finds.
Researchers divided 485 people aged...
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Latest Study on Diabetes Drug Avandia Finds No Heart Risks
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- In direct contrast to research reported on Monday, a new study concludes there is no increased risk of heart attack, stroke or death by taking the diabetes drug Avandia.
This latest finding even suggests that rosiglitazone (Avandia) might be associated...
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Taking Public Transit Might Help You Stay Slim
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- When cities create or improve light rail public transit systems, citizens' waistlines may benefit, a new study shows.
By getting people out of their cars and having them walk to and from transit stations, calories get burned, the researchers noted....
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Tight Blood Sugar Control in Older Diabetics May Not Reduce Heart Risk
TUESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- Intensive control of blood glucose levels does not reduce the odds of cardiovascular disease for those with long-term type 2 diabetes who are at risk of heart problems, a new study confirms, but it may have some other benefits.
Strict control of bl...
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Diabetes Drug Avandia Ups Heart Risk, Reviews Conclude
MONDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- According to data pooled from several large clinical trials, the diabetes drug Avandia does raise the odds of having a heart attack, bolstering the argument that the drug's risks might outweigh its benefits in people with type 2 diabetes.
Avandia did...
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Gender-Specific Formula for Women's Peak Heart Rate 'More Accurate'
MONDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- A new gender-specific formula for a woman's peak heart rate better predicts the risk of heart-related death, a new study finds.
A simple formula -- 220 minus age -- has long been used to calculate peak heart rates for women and men during exercise. But...
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Statins May Lower Rates of Prostate Cancer Recurrence
MONDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- A new study suggests that men who take the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins are a third less likely to suffer from recurrences of prostate cancer.
But don't demand that your doctor prescribe a statin -- drugs such as Crestor, Lipitor and Zoc...
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Statins May Not Be as Helpful for Those Without Heart Disease
MONDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- Despite being used widely to lower cholesterol levels, statins don't appear to reduce the chances of death in people at risk of developing cardiovascular disease, British scientists have found.
Statins are used widely to treat and prevent cardiovascula...
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Artificial Pancreas Continues to Show Promise
SUNDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that artificial pancreas technology can help diabetics gain greater blood sugar control overnight, even when they have eaten a big meal or had wine for dinner.
The promise of this emerging technology is to free diabetics from the n...
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More Genes Implicated in Type 2 Diabetes
SUNDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have located 12 new genes that seem to be linked with a predisposition for type 2 diabetes, bringing the total number of genetic locations implicated in the condition to 38.
At this point, the findings don't mean much for patients or doctors...
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No Omega-3 Heart Benefit Seen in Women With Type 1 Diabetes
SATURDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- Boosting consumption of omega-3 fatty acids doesn't seem to lower the risk of heart disease in women with type 1 diabetes, according to a new study.
Omega-3 fatty acids, found primarily in fish, help prevent the buildup of cholesterol in the arteries,...
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Vitamins May Not Curb High Blood Pressure in Pregnant Diabetics
SATURDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- Taking vitamin C and E supplements will not lower the risk of the blood pressure disorder known as preeclampsia in pregnant women with type 1 diabetes, a new study finds.
Women with diabetes are at high risk for preeclampsia (a sudden increase in the...
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Health Tip: Recognize Symptoms of Hypotension
(HealthDay News) -- Hypotension is the medical term for low blood pressure, which means vital organs including the heart and brain may not get enough blood.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine says symptoms of low blood pressure may include:
Blurred eyesight.
Feel...
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How Brain Organizes Info Doesn't Depend on Sight
FRIDAY, June 25 (HealthDay News) -- Blind and sighted people use the same brain area when thinking about manipulating tools, new research shows.
The finding offers further evidence that the brain has a fairly defined organization but is still able to adapt to unusual conditions, such as b...
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Outdated Meds Pose Problems If Kept or Tossed
FRIDAY, June 25 (HealthDay News) -- It's a common find in medicine cabinets and bathroom drawers: a prescription vial containing years-old medication or an over-the-counter cold remedy that's embarrassingly past its sell-by date.
But unless they're spring-cleaning, many people don't bothe...
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U.S. Report Finds Too Few Clinics Target Diabetes, Obesity
THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- Too few local health clinics in the United States offer diabetes screening or obesity prevention programs, according to a nationwide study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The clinics, which tend to serve poor clients, need to...
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Brain Stimulation Seems to Boost Language Skills in Alzheimer's Patients
THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- People with Alzheimer's who are losing their language skills may see some improvement by using a technique called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), early research by an Italian team suggests.
The noninvasive procedure delivers a ser...
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Diabetes May Double Risk of Heart Attack, Stroke
THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- Diabetes appears to double the risk of dying from a heart attack, stroke or other heart condition, a new study finds.
The researchers implicate diabetes in one of every 10 deaths from cardiovascular disease, or about 325,000 deaths a year in industria...
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Drug Helps Tackle Type 2 Diabetes in New Way, Study Says
THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- A new drug, the first in its class, gives added blood sugar control to people with type 2 diabetes who are already taking the glucose-lowering medication metformin.
The new agent, dapagliflozin, which also helped patients lose weight, is novel in that...
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Most Americans Get Too Much Salt
THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- Ninety percent of Americans are eating more salt than they should, a new government report reveals.
In fact, salt is so pervasive in the food supply it's difficult for most people to consume less. Too much salt can increase your blood pressure, which...
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Research Sheds Light on Increased Blood Clot Risk
THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- In an effort to uncover why some people's blood platelets clump faster than others, a genetic analysis has turned up a specific grouping of overactive genes that seems to control the process.
On the plus side, platelets are critical for fending off in...
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Abuse May Raise Risk of Heart Attack, Stroke in Migraine Sufferers
WEDNESDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- Adults who suffer migraines and were victims of childhood abuse or neglect face an increased risk for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, a new study suggests.
The multi-center, cross-sectional study included more than 1,300 migraine patients...
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Health Tip: Is it a Concussion?
(HealthDay News) -- A concussion is a brain injury that's generally caused by a strong blow to the head.
The American Academy of Family Physicians says symptoms of a concussion may include:
Headache.
Changes in vision.
Feeling dizzy.
Difficulty wit...
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Mouse Study Sheds Light on Diabetes-Heart Disease Link
WEDNESDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- A potential link between diabetes and a heightened risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death has been spotted by researchers studying mice.
In the new study, published in the June 24 issue of the journal Neuron, the investigators found th...
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Study Shows Courage Sparks Certain Parts of Brain
WEDNESDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have uncovered new details about brain mechanisms associated with courage.
Israeli researchers used functional MRI to scan brain activity in volunteers as they decided whether to move either a toy bear or a live corn snake closer or farthe...
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Tests Help Predict Which Parkinson's Patients Are Likely to Fall
WEDNESDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- Tests that can predict the risk a Parkinson's patient has of falling are outlined in a new study.
"Falls are a major problem for people with Parkinson's disease and can lead to injuries and reduced mobility, which can result in increasing weakness, l...
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Treatment Helped Soldiers With Migraine, Insomnia: Study
WEDNESDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- Treatment helped improve sleep quality for U.S. soldiers who suffered from migraine headaches after returning from the war in Iraq, a new study found.
Migraine is known to affect about 19 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq, and is suspected in a...
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Gaining Weight Later in Life Ups Diabetes Risk
TUESDAY, June 22 (HealthDay News) -- Gaining weight when you're over age 50, especially around the waist, significantly increases your risk of type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.
Compared to people whose weight remained stable after age 50, people who gained the most weight after 50 (...
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More Evidence That B Vitamins Alone Won't Counter Heart Risks
TUESDAY, June 22 (HealthDay News) -- A new study by British researchers provides the most conclusive evidence to date that taking vitamins to reduce levels of the blood protein known as homocysteine doesn't lower the risk of heart problems.
Homocysteine has been a buzzword among heart dis...
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Age, Race May Affect Type 2 Diabetes Screening Results
MONDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Despite its endorsement last year by the American Diabetes Association as an effective way to diagnose type 2 diabetes, new research out of Singapore suggests that the hemoglobin A1c blood test may not accurately identify the disease among elderly Asians....
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Many Diabetics Unaware of Hot Weather Hazards
MONDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Although diabetes raises the chances of developing heat illness, many people with the condition don't know how to reduce their risk, a new Mayo Clinic survey reveals.
"People with diabetes have an impaired ability to sweat, which predisposes them to he...
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Plastics Chemical BPA Tied to Ovarian Cysts
MONDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- There may be more troubling news about the ubiquitous plastics chemical bisphenol A (BPA): Women with polycystic ovary syndrome have higher levels of the chemical in their bloodstream, a study finds.
The ovaries of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (...
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Higher Testosterone Tied to Heart Trouble in Older Men
SUNDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) -- Among older men, having a high testosterone level is associated with a raised risk of heart disease or a heart attack, new research suggests.
The finding, from a new U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded study, concerns men over the age of 65 and is...
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Bump in Head Injury Numbers Linked to Summer Play
SATURDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- Summer activity-related head injuries appear to be on the rise, warns the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), and bicycling, water sports and baseball/softball are the main culprits.
The cautionary note comes from an analysis of head...
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Most Heart Patients Skimp on Exercise After Rehab
FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- Only about one-third of cardiac patients were doing regular heart-healthy exercises a year after a heart attack, bypass surgery or angioplasty, researchers have found.
The Case Western Reserve University research team followed 248 patients after they co...
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Obesity Not Always a Sentence for Heart Disease
SATURDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- For a small number of obese people, those extra pounds do not condemn them to heart disease or diabetes, Dutch researchers report.
For those few without other risk factors such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, being obese doesn't raise thei...
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Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome in Studies
SATURDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- A pair of new studies has uncovered evidence that low levels of vitamin D could lead to poor blood sugar control among diabetics and increase the risk of developing metabolic syndrome among seniors.
Both findings are slated to be presented Saturday at...
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'Watchful Waiting' Often Best Strategy for Slow-Moving Prostate Cancer
FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with prostate cancer that has a low risk of progression, active surveillance, also known as "watchful waiting," may be a suitable treatment option, according to a large-scale study from Sweden.
The issue of how (or whether) to treat localiz...
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FDA Panel Weighs OK of 'Female Viagra'
FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Friday was considering whether to approve a drug dubbed the "female Viagra" for premenopausal women with a diminished sex drive.
Called flibanserin, the drug is related to the antidepressant family a...
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Moderate Coffee, Tea Drinking Lowers Heart Disease Risk
FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- Drinking coffee or tea in moderation reduces the risk of developing heart disease, and both high and moderate tea drinking reduces the risk of dying from the condition, according to a large-scale study from Dutch researchers.
The study, led by physici...
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Ninety Percent of Stroke Risk Due to 10 Risk Factors
FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- A large international study has found that 10 risk factors account for 90 percent of all the risk of stroke, with high blood pressure playing the most potent role.
Of that list, five risk factors usually related to lifestyle -- high blood pressure, smok...
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Patients Could Use More Help Quitting Smoking
FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- Many U.S. health professionals fail to offer programs, plans or prescriptions to help patients quit smoking, finds a new study.
Researchers surveyed different types of health care providers -- primary care and emergency physicians, psychiatrists, nurses...
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Celebrex Appears Easier on Stomach for Arthritis Patients
THURSDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who take the painkiller celecoxib for arthritis pain and inflammation are less likely to suffer gastrointestinal damage than those who take diclofenac plus omeprazole, a new study finds.
Celecoxib (Celebrex) is a cox-2 selective non-steroidal...
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Jevtana Approved for Advanced Prostate Cancer
THURSDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- The chemotherapy drug Jevtana (cabazitaxel) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat advanced prostate cancer that worsens despite use of a standard drug therapy, docetaxel.
In some cases of prostate cancer, the male hormone...
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Prognosis Good for Most Children With Epilepsy: Study
THURSDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Children with new-onset epilepsy of unknown origin have a much higher rate of remission than those with symptomatic epilepsy, caused by underlying brain damage or disease.
That's the finding of a new study by researchers in The Netherlands who evaluat...
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Air Pollution Tied to Breathing Problems in Sleep
WEDNESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- A new study has found a link between air pollution and breathing-related disruptions during sleep.
Conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham & Women's Hospital, the authors say this the first attempt to document a link between...
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Low Testosterone in Older Men Less Common Than Thought
WEDNESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- In describing a set of concrete symptoms for "male menopause" for the first time, British researchers have also determined that only about 2 percent of men aged 40 to 80 suffer from the condition, far less than previously thought.
Male menopause, al...
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Parents Ill-Informed About Kids' Concussion Risks
WEDNESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Although parents support strict policies on concussions in school sports, the majority are unaware if their school has such a policy -- and most report widespread pressure to return young athletes to sports before they have fully healed.
These findin...
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Scientists Tease Out Links Between Diabetes, Cancer
WEDNESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- People with diabetes may have something else to be concerned about -- an increased risk of cancer, according to a new consensus report produced by experts recruited jointly by the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association.
Diabet...
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Brain Circuitry May Develop Through Adulthood
TUESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- The brain's wiring isn't fixed in early life, and circuits in the adult brain are continually modified by experience, suggests a new study involving mice.
U.S. researchers found that neurons responsible for receiving input from an adult mouse's whisker...
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Calcium, Vitamin D Supplements OK for Arteries
TUESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- Moderate doses of calcium and vitamin D supplements don't raise women's coronary artery calcium (CAC) levels, a new study finds.
Deposits of calcium in blood vessels have been linked to blood vessel blockages and increased risk of heart attack and stro...
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Docs Should Assess Lung Clot Risk Before Ordering Scan
TUESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- CT angiography might not be necessary in many patients suspected of having a blood clot in the lung (pulmonary embolism), and a risk analysis can identify those most likely to require the procedure, a new study suggests.
Pulmonary embolism (PE) occurs...
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Key Blood Sugar Test Seems to Differ By Race
TUESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- The hemoglobin A1C test is supposed to give doctors a sense of diabetics' long-term blood sugar levels, but new research suggests the test may have different results depending on race, even if daily blood sugar levels are the same.
What's more, those d...
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Mediterranean Diet Linked to Better Cardiac Function
TUESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a Mediterranean-style diet might improve an important measure of heart function, a new study of twins shows.
The research was conducted with twins to try to eliminate the possible effect of genetics as much as possible, explained Dr. Jun Dai, an...
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'Good' HDL Cholesterol Now Tied to Lower Cancer Risk
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Higher blood levels of HDL cholesterol, the "good" kind that protects against heart disease, are also strongly associated with a lower risk of cancer, a new review of studies suggests.
"For about a 10-point increase of HDL, there is a reduced risk of ca...
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'Normal' Blood Pressure in Male Teens a Warning Sign
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News)-- Teen boys with normal blood pressure levels are three to four times more likely to develop high blood pressure in early adulthood than their female counterparts, a new study shows.
Researchers came to this conclusion after studying the blood pressure of...
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Brown Rice Bests White for Diabetes Prevention
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Substituting brown rice or another whole grain for white rice can help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.
Five or more servings of white rice a week increased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 17 percent, according to the study, w...
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Drug That Stops Bleeding Could Save Lives
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- A drug commonly used to prevent excess bleeding in surgeries could keep thousands of people from bleeding to death after trauma, a new study suggests.
The drug, tranexamic acid (TXA) is cheap, widely available around the world and easily administered,...
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Genetics, Insecticides Might Contribute to Parkinson's
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- A combination of genetic mutations and exposure to insecticides may increase a man's risk of Parkinson's disease, new research shows.
The study included 207 Parkinson's disease patients and a control group of 482 healthy people. The French team of resea...
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Harmless Brain Abnormalities in Kids Pose Disclosure Dilemmas
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Unexpected but benign anomalies are often detected in children who undergo "routine" brain MRIs, and guidelines need to be developed to help pediatricians handle these findings, a new study suggests.
"Doctors need to figure out what, if anything, they w...
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Health Tip: Packing Prescriptions for Travel
(HealthDay News) -- If you're planning to pack prescription drugs when traveling by air, there are steps you can take to avoid trouble taking them on board.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control offers this advice:
Put your prescription medications in your carry-on bag, rathe...
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New Clues to Preventing Memory Loss From MS
MONDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Being mentally active may help reduce memory and learning problems that often occur in people with multiple sclerosis, a new study suggests.
It included 44 people, about age 45, who'd had MS for an average of 11 years. Even if they had higher levels of...
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Experimental Liver Transplant Approach Shows Early Promise
SUNDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- A new approach to liver transplantation is making headway in preliminary work with rats, researchers say.
Their work at the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH-CEM) could ultimately point the way toward engineering...
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Popular Blood Pressure Drugs Tied to Slight Rise in Cancer Risk
SUNDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Use of a popular class of drugs for high blood pressure and heart failure is associated with a slight boost in cancer risk, a new review of data finds.
The drugs are known as angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) and include medicines such as telmisartan...
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After Vasectomy, Single Test Might Give All-Clear
FRIDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- A single semen test three months after a man's vasectomy may be enough for him to get the all-clear, a new study finds.
Researchers analyzed semen samples from a group of men three months after they had a vasectomy and found that 51 percent of the sampl...
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Depression Could Play a Role in Added Belly Fat
FRIDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- New research provides more evidence of a link between depression and extra pounds around the waist, although it's not exactly clear how they're connected.
The study raises the possibility that depression causes people to put on extra pounds around the b...
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Health Tip: Coping With Stress
(HealthDay News) -- Who isn't stressed these days? Whether it's your job, family, finances, social life, or illness, no one is immune.
Learning to manage the stress in your life can help you live healthier and happier; enjoy your job, family and friends more; and focus your energies on th...
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Least Healthy More Apt to Think Genes Explain Disease Risk
FRIDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- A new survey shows that the recent deluge of scientific discoveries of links between specific genes and many chronic diseases might be providing the least healthy people with something they don't need: an excuse for their medical woes.
"We wanted to kn...
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Common Cancer Drug Tied to Kidney Damage
THURSDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- The widely used cancer drug bevacizumab (Avastin) is associated with a more than fourfold increased risk of severe urinary protein loss, a new review finds.
This major loss of protein from the kidney into the urine can lead to significant kidney damag...
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Depression Can Make Pain Worse
THURSDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Being depressed can make real physical pain feel worse, British researchers have found.
Noting that pain and depression often occur at the same time, the current observation blends two competing schools of thought, in which some believe that pain is "...
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Exercise Helps Reduce Falls in Young and Old
THURSDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Regular exercise reduces the risk of falls in both young and old, a new study shows.
Falls are a major hazard in the United States, with about 19,000 people dying from them each year and an estimated 8 million seeking treatment in emergency rooms annu...
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First Oral MS Drug Gets FDA Panel's Blessing
THURSDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- An expert advisory panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday recommended that the agency approve an oral drug, Gilenia, as a first-line treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS).
Gilenia appears to be both safe and effective, the panel c...
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Not Smoking After Bone Surgery May Speed Healing
THURSDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Smokers recover better from surgery to repair a broken bone if they quit smoking, according to Swedish researchers.
The new study included daily smokers who underwent emergency surgery for an acute fracture and were offered a smoking cessation program...
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Quitting Smoking Before Pregnancy Could Save Babies' Lives
THURSDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Women who quit smoking before they get pregnant may save their babies' lives, says a new study of more than 3 million births.
Looking at the data, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that smoking during pregnancy...
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Epilepsy Drug Linked to Serious Birth Defects
WEDNESDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) -- The offspring of women who took the epilepsy drug valproic acid during the first trimester of pregnancy are much more likely to have serious births defects affecting the brain, heart and limbs, a new study finds.
Babies whose mothers took valproic aci...
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Fewer Heart Attacks After England Goes Smoke-Free
WEDNESDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) -- In the year after smoke-free legislation was introduced in England, there were 1,200 fewer emergency heart attack hospital admissions -- a 2.4 percent decrease, a new study shows.
The smoke-free law, enacted on July 1, 2007, prohibits smoking in all p...
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Health Plan Reports Major Drop in Heart Attacks
WEDNESDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) -- In the war against heart disease, here's some good news from the front lines: A large study reports a 24 percent decline in heart attacks and a significant reduction in deaths since 1999 in one northern California population.
The most impressive findi...
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Some Brain Cells Seem to Multitask
WEDNESDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) -- Certain types of "multitasking" brain cells (neurons) can correctly identify a wide variety of objects, ranging from cars to cats, a new study finds.
A team at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory monitored activity in the prefrontal cortex...
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Warfarin Safe During Heart Device Surgery: Study
WEDNESDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) -- It's safe to continue giving the blood thinner warfarin to patients undergoing surgery to implant a heart pacemaker or defibrillator, according to a new study.
The research included 459 patients placed on warfarin therapy to reduce their risk of blood...
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Brain Scans Show How Meditation Calms Pain
TUESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- People who routinely practice meditation may be better able to deal with pain because their brains are less focused on anticipating pain, a new British study suggests.
The finding is a potential boon to the estimated 40 percent of people who are unable...
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Common Pain Relievers Raise Heart Risk for Healthy Folks
TUESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- Healthy people who take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve minor aches and pains may raise their risk of dying from heart-related problems, a Danish study finds.
The American Heart Association and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration alrea...
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Female Caregivers Face a Heavier Toll: Study
TUESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- A new Canadian review finds that adult daughters suffer more than adult sons from poor relationships with ailing and aging parents who need their care.
"Adult daughters place greater emphasis on their relationships with their parents, and when those rel...
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Shortness Boosts Heart Disease, Death Risk
TUESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- Short people have a significantly increased risk of developing heart disease, a new analysis shows.
Over the years, there has been conflicting evidence on whether shortness was associated with heart disease. However, this is the first systematic review...
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40-Year-Old Gout Drug Shows Promise Against Angina
MONDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- A new British study suggests that a standard treatment for gout, already in use for four decades, could be an effective and less expensive alternative to conventional drugs targeting chronic stable angina.
Following work with 65 heart disease patients be...
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After a Stroke, Light Exercise Gets Hands, Arms Working Again
MONDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Low-intensity exercise can reduce depression and improve recovery after a stroke, a new study shows.
The finding stems from Canadian research involving 103 people who'd had a stroke and were receiving standard follow-up care in a hospital. About half wer...
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Experts Revise Guidelines for Determining Brain Death
MONDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Determining brain death is a complex process that requires dozens of tests to make sure doctors come to the correct conclusion.
With that goal in mind, the American Academy of Neurology has issued new guidelines -- an update of guidelines first written 1...
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Secondhand Smoke a Mental Health Hazard?
MONDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Long linked to physical ailments such as asthma, heart disease and lung cancer, secondhand smoke may now be tied to an increase in mental woes, new research suggests.
Prolonged exposure to another's noxious tobacco fumes could up the odds for psychologic...
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Targeted Therapy Shows Promise Against Deadly Brain Cancer
SATURDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- A preliminary study has found that a targeted treatment for medulloblastoma -- the most common malignant brain cancer in children -- may one day be able to treat drug-resistant forms of the disease.
"Less than 5 percent of patients currently survive me...
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Glucose 'Tattoo' Could Track Blood Sugar Levels for Diabetics
FRIDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- In the future, people with diabetes may be able to monitor their blood sugar levels using a glucose "tattoo."
This new type of continuous glucose monitor relies on fluorescent nanoparticle ink injected under the skin to detect blood sugar levels with a w...
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Low-Dose HRT Patch May Lessen Stroke Risk
FRIDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Getting low-dose hormone replacement therapy through a skin patch may reduce a woman's risk for stroke, but high-dose patches could actually raise the risk, a new study suggests.
Many women take hormone therapy to treat menopausal symptoms, but some stu...
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Wii Games Can Get Seniors Moving
FRIDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Certain kinds of video games -- like Nintendo's Wii Sports -- may help overweight seniors become more physically active and burn calories, new research suggests.
Although not an improvement on real-life gaming and sports activity, the study team found th...
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1 in 4 Patients Undergoes Revolving-Door Hospitalizations
THURSDAY, June 3 (HealthDay News) -- About one-quarter of all U.S. hospital patients are readmitted over a two-year period for the same conditions that led to their original hospitalization, a new study finds.
These revolving-door figures came from the federal Agency for Healthcare Resear...
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More Than Quarter of Stroke Patients Reach ER Within 'Golden Hour'
THURSDAY, June 3 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report that only about a quarter of people who have strokes caused by blocked arteries arrive at a hospital within one hour of the attack -- the "golden hour" where treatment with a powerful clot-dissolving drug is expected to work best.
T...
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Black Men at Greater Risk of Aggressive Prostate Tumors: Study
WEDNESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Black men are already known to be at higher risk of developing prostate cancer than white men, but now a new study reports that they also appear to be more likely to develop aggressive forms of the disease.
Researchers analyzed biopsies from 131 men -...
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Clean House Linked to Better Fitness
WEDNESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- People with tidy homes are more likely to be physically active than those with messy dwellings, new findings suggest.
Indiana University researchers assessed the physical activity levels of 998 residents of St. Louis, aged 49 to 65, who were participa...
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Drug Combo Staves Off Type 2 Diabetes
WEDNESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- In people with pre-diabetes, a low-dose combination of two diabetes drugs -- metformin and Avandia (rosiglitazone) -- appeared to reduce the progression to type 2 diabetes, new research shows.
The study found that the risk of developing type 2 diabete...
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Health Tip: Caring for a Pacemaker
(HealthDay News) -- While today's pacemakers are built to withstand the daily grind of modern life, they still require care.
The American Heart Association offers these suggestions:
Don't apply pressure over the part of the chest where the pacemaker is implanted.
W...
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Health Tip: Recovering From Back Surgery
(HealthDay News) -- If your doctor has recommended surgery as a solution to chronic back pain, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons offers these suggestions to aid in your recovery:
If your incision continues to drain, place a bandage over it. If it's clean and dry, you don'...
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New Tests for Prostate Cancer Might Bring More Certainty
WEDNESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Two new tests promise to cut down on the number of biopsies now taken from men suspected of having prostate cancer, researchers report.
The tests -- still in the early stages of development -- might also offer better clues about which cancers require...
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Prolia Approved for Post-Menopausal Women With Osteoporosis
WEDNESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- The injected drug Prolia (denosumab) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat post-menopausal women at high risk of bone fracture due to osteoporosis.
Prolia is administered approximately once every six months to increase bo...
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Size of Prostate Tumor Linked to Patients' Weight
WEDNESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Tumor size among prostate cancer patients appears to be linked to patient weight, with heavier men having larger tumors, a new study reveals.
The finding stems from work involving more than 3,300 prostate cancer patients with an average age of 60 who...
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Being Young and Sedentary Raises Hypertension Risk Later
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Low levels of physical activity and fitness significantly increase the risk of developing high blood pressure, a 20-year study of young adults shows.
The study, released online June 1 in advance of publication in the July print issue of the journal H...
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Dog Sniffs Out Prostate Cancer in Small Study
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that dogs can sniff out signs of prostate cancer in human urine, adding to the ongoing debate over the disease-detecting powers of man's best friend.
Some scientists have questioned similar reports of dogs with such diagnostic po...
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Dual Therapy Best for Preventing Bleeding After Heart Procedures
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- The risk of bleeding in patients undergoing procedures such as balloon angioplasty and stent implants to open blocked arteries can be lowered best through the combined use of vessel-closing devices and a blood thinner, researchers say.
Bleeding is a com...
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Health Tip: Treating Kidney Stones
(HealthDay News) -- Kidney stones are usually small crystallized masses that pass through the ureters -- the tubes that allow urine to empty into the bladder. They can lead to significant lower back pain and painful urination.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine says possible treatment...
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Matching Heart Donors by Race Unnecessary?
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- A constellation of factors -- including flaws in the health care system, insurance and education levels and biological differences between the races -- may explain why blacks often do worse than whites after undergoing heart transplants, a new study suggests.
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Mom's Extra Pregnancy Pounds May Raise Child's Heart Risks
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Children of women who gain too much weight during pregnancy tend to be more overweight and develop more risk factors for heart disease, new research indicates.
The results of the study, which the researchers claim is the most detailed one of its kind, a...
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Shorter Hospital Stays May Hinder Heart Failure Patients
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Americans hospitalized for heart failure are being discharged faster, but the incidence of out-of-hospital deaths and readmissions has increased, a new study finds.
While in-hospital death rates have decreased, "the results are very mixed, and overall y...
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Surviving Cardiac Arrest Depends on Your Location
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- A person's chances of surviving a cardiac arrest depend largely on the neighborhood in which they collapse, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that people who suffer from cardiac arrest in some neighborhoods of Fulton County in Georgia -- which is...
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Tracking PSA Test Results Over Time Gives Clues to Cancer
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors could do a better job of assessing the severity of prostate cancer by analyzing changes in prostate-specific antigen(PSA) blood tests over time, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Innsbruck, Austria, report that the rate of increase in PSA,...
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TV Food Ads Promote Bad Diets
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- If you let TV ads determine what you eat, you'll end up with huge amounts of fat and sugar but precious few vegetables and fruits in your diet.
That's the finding of a new study that analyzes what would happen if a person were to eat 2,000 calories of f...
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Value of Monitoring Low-Risk Prostate Cancer Assessed
TUESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- New research is offering more insight into the value of closely monitoring patients who appear to have low-risk forms of prostate cancer instead of immediately treating them.
There's been a debate in recent years over whether doctors are treating prosta...
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Dangers Lurk in Impotence Drugs Sold on Web
MONDAY, May 31 (HealthDay News) -- Internet-based companies market them, men continue to buy them and experts continue to warn of the dangers of counterfeit drugs for erectile dysfunction.
A new study, conducted in South Korea and slated for presentation Monday at the American Urological...
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Prostate Cancer Vaccine Shows Few Side Effects
MONDAY, May 31 (HealthDay News)-- The newly approved therapeutic prostate cancer vaccine, Provenge, is safe and has few side effects, a new study finds.
In April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine for use in men with advanced prostate cancer who had failed hormone...
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Sexual, Urinary Health Boosted in Exercisers, Nonsmokers
MONDAY, May 31 (HealthDay News) -- For people who need more reasons to start exercising and steer clear of smoking, new research finds that moving around and rejecting cigarettes can improve urinary health in women and sexual health in men.
In one study, researchers surveyed more than 2,0...
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Club Drug 'Special K' Could Leave Users Incontinent
SUNDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term abuse of the recreational drug ketamine, often called "Special K" by the young partygoers who use it, is now linked to a heightened risk for pelvic pain and urinary incontinence.
The finding is based on a 2009 survey conducted by a team of res...
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Frequent Urination at Night Linked to Raised Death Risk
SUNDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- People who wake up frequently during the night to urinate are at an increased risk of death even after accounting for chronic conditions that are known to cause the problem, two new studies show.
The findings, scheduled to be presented Sunday at the Amer...
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Radiation for Prostate Cancer May Boost Fracture Risk
SUNDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- A new study suggests that prostate cancer patients who undergo three-dimensional external-beam radiation therapy may be at increased risk of breaking their hips, but they can take action to strengthen their bones after treatment.
Doctors already know tha...
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Vitamins Fail to Protect Men Against Bladder Cancer
SUNDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that vitamins may do nothing to protect men against bladder cancer and might even raise the risk of another type of cancer.
In one study examining vitamin use, researchers analyzed more than 10,000 questionnaires that men filled out...
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Dive Safely -- Or Risk Spinal Cord Damage
SATURDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- About 6,000 Americans under the age of 14 are hospitalized each year because of a diving injury, and 20 percent of diving accidents result in a severe spinal cord injury, researchers say.
To encourage diver safety, University of Michigan (U-M) research...
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Bursts of Vigorous Activity Appear to Be a 'Stress-Buffer'
FRIDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- Short bouts of exercise can go a long way to reduce the impact stress has on cell aging, new research reveals.
Vigorous physical activity amounting to as little as 14 minutes daily, three day per week would suffice for the protective effect to kick in, a...
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Caring for Diabetic Pets Helps Humans Get Healthier
FRIDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- Daniela Trnka had been living with type 1 diabetes for almost 20 years when she noticed telltale signs of the disease in her Siberian Husky, Cooper. He was thirsty, urinating often and at times, lethargic.
So she took out her blood sugar test kit, opened...
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Health Tip: When Your Blood Clots Excessively
(HealthDay News) -- Your blood must clot to prevent deadly blood loss. But when blood has a tendency to clot too much, it results in a dangerous condition called hypercoagulation.
The American Academy of Family Physicians says risk factors for hypercoagulation may include:
S...
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Potential New Source of Stem Cells for Heart Repair
FRIDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- Stem cells from the amniotic sac that surrounds a fetus may someday be used to repair damage caused by a heart attack, Japanese researchers report.
The work, so far only conducted in animals, raises the possibility of a non-controversial source of stem c...
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Ultrasound Helps Spot Stroke Risk in Symptomless Patients
FRIDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) Researchers say ultrasound can successfully spot patients at risk of having either a stroke or a "mini-stroke" due to a narrowing of the carotid artery - the main vessel in the neck that brings blood to the brain.
The finding could help doctors more easily...
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Experts Advise At-Risk Diabetics to Begin Daily Aspirin Later
THURSDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Three major medical groups have pushed upwards the recommended age at which diabetics should start taking low-dose aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke.
According to a joint statement by the American Heart Association, the American Diabete...
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Fit People Release More Fat-Burning Molecules During Exercise
THURSDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- A new study provides tantalizing clues about how exercise helps ward off heart disease and other ills: Fit people have more fat-burning molecules in their blood than less fit people after exercise.
And the very fittest are even more efficient, on a bi...
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Health Tip: Coping With Sciatica Pain
(HealthDay News) -- Sciatica, caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve, leads to pain that may radiate down the lower back, hip, thigh and leg.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons suggests these remedies that may help ease sciatica pain:
Allow yourself plenty of time...
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Laser Used to Blast Away Cells Causing Irregular Heartbeat
THURSDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- A new approach to treating irregular heartbeats appears to have demonstrated success in halting abnormal electrical pulses in both patients and pigs, new research indicates.
In essence, the new intervention -- known as "visually guided laser-balloon ca...
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Too Many Stroke Patients Go Without Statins
THURSDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Despite an increased likelihood that American stroke patients will be prescribed potentially life-saving statin medications when released from the hospital, more than 16 percent are still being discharged without such prescriptions in hand, a large new study r...
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Toothbrushing May Stave Off Heart Woes
THURSDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Here's another reason to brush your teeth regularly: People who don't perform this essential of oral hygiene seem to have a greater risk of heart disease compared to their more diligent peers.
"We were surprised to find a relationship between toothbru...
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Brain Cells May Serve as Clot-Busters
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report that they've discovered how tiny blood vessels remove blood clots from the brain in mice -- a finding that could help scientists gain a better understanding of how to treat people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease and stroke.
Remo...
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Brain Injuries May Lead to Sleep Woes
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- Brain injuries can disrupt the body's production of the hormone melatonin, potentially leading to sleep problems, a new study suggests.
"We've known that people often have problems with sleep after a brain injury, but we haven't known much about the e...
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Gene Mutation Linked to Congenital Heart Disease
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- A team of cardiologists and geneticists have identified a genetic mutation that appears to strongly raise the risk for congenital heart disease, the most common major birth defect.
Congenital heart disease (CHD), is the "Wild West" of genetics, rarely...
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Healthier Fats Replacing Trans Fats, Study Finds
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- Fears that removing harmful trans fats from foods would open the door for manufacturers and restaurants to add other harmful fats to foods seem to be unfounded, a new study finds.
A team from Harvard School of Public Health analyzed 83 reformulated pr...
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Many Supplements Said to Contain Toxins, Make False Health Claims
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- A Congressional investigation of dietary herbal supplements has found trace amounts of lead, mercury and other heavy metals in nearly all products tested, plus myriad illegal health claims made by supplement manufacturers, The New York Times reported W...
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Progress Made Against Once-Fatal Heart Defect
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) - A congenital heart defect that was typically fatal three decades ago is no longer so deadly, thanks to new technologies and surgical techniques that allow babies to survive well into adulthood, researchers report.
A study in the May 27 issue of the ...
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Rare Cases of Liver Damage Tied to Weight-Loss Drug
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- Responding to reports of rare but sometimes severe cases of liver damage, U.S. health officials on Wednesday announced revised labels for a widely used weight-loss drug.
The drug, orlistat, is available by prescription under the trade name Xenical and...
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Surgery, Stenting Fare Equally Well in Preventing Stroke
WEDNESDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- The latest major trial pitting invasive surgery against less invasive stenting to help prevent stroke shows that each is a safe, effective option.
Researchers report in the May 26 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that the s...
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Moderate Drinking May Protect Brain From Alzheimer's
TUESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- Moderate drinking may help protect against the onset of Alzheimer's disease among otherwise healthy people, a new Spanish study suggests.
Women who don't smoke appear to gain the most benefit from alcohol consumption, according to the research team, fro...
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Report Finds Control of High Blood Pressure Improving
TUESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- While the number of Americans with high blood pressure has not declined in recent years, researchers report that the good news is that more people with the condition have it under control.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a major ris...
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Children With Epilepsy Feel on Par With Healthy Siblings
MONDAY, May 24 (HealthDay News) --Children with epilepsy view their quality of life as being as good as that of their healthy siblings, a new study reveals.
The finding suggests that despite the numerous challenges they face in the form of seizures, cognitive and learning disadvantages, s...
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Fewer Sugary Drinks, Less High Blood Pressure
MONDAY, May 24 (HealthDay News) - Even a small reduction per day in sweetened soft drink intake could improve your blood pressure, researchers report.
In an 18-month study, researchers found a measurable reduction in blood pressure -- 1.8 points in systolic pres...
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Frequent Doctor Visits Help Diabetics Control Blood Pressure
MONDAY, May 24 (HealthDay News) -- Frequent doctor visits may help diabetics get their high blood pressure back to normal faster, a new study says.
Current guidelines suggest that patients with high blood pressure return for doctor visits within a month, but patients often wait longer.<...
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Heart Drugs Safe for Lungs, Study Finds
MONDAY, May 24 (HealthDay News) -- Medical tradition says that the beta blockers used to treat heart disease shouldn't be given to people who also have severe lung disease, but a new Dutch study suggests the tradition is wrong.
A study of more than 2,200 people with chronic obstructive pu...
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Parents Want Electronic Access to Their Childrens Docs: Survey
SATURDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) Half of all American parents polled say they would like to be able to communicate with their child's physician via the Internet, a new survey reveals.
Yet fewer than 15 percent of those said they are currently able to do so to make appointments for vacci...
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Common Diabetes Drug Linked to Vitamin B-12 Deficiency
FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- Diabetics who take the drug metformin over the long term should get their vitamin B-12 levels checked regularly to see if they are developing a vitamin deficiency, a new report suggests.
Metformin, also known by several brand names including Glucophage,...
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Creativity, Schizophrenia Share Similarities in the Brain
FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- What do creative people and people diagnosed with schizophrenia have in common? According to new research out of Sweden, both share similar dopamine systems in the brain.
Dopamine, along with serotonin, is a key neurotransmitter - chemicals that are vita...
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Health Reform Should Provide Insurance to Many Young Adults
FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- Most of the 13.7 million younger Americans who currently lack health insurance could gain coverage under the health reform package signed into law by President Barack Obama in March, a new report from The Commonwealth Fund says.
Starting in September, m...
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Online Program Helps Patients Self-Monitor Blood Pressure
FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- An online blood-pressure monitoring program made a major difference in health management for patients with uncontrolled hypertension, new research has found.
The researchers studied more than 350 patients, aged 18 to 85, who had uncontrolled high blood...
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Scientists Spot Real 'Smoking Gun' in Prostate Cancer
FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- The primary cause of prostate cancer could be the fusion of two genes and the subsequent abnormal prostate cell growth that results when receptors for the hormone androgen get blocked, a new study reveals.
The implication is that standard efforts to trea...
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Talk With Doctor Helps Heart Attack Patients Resume Sex
FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- People who don't have a frank talk about sex with their doctor after they have had a heart attack are less likely to resume sexual activity, new research finds.
The study of 1,184 men and 576 women treated for heart attacks found that the men were 30 per...
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Big Decline in Heart Attacks If All States Had Smoking Bans
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- If all states banned smoking in restaurants, offices and other public spaces nationwide, the number of Americans suffering from heart attacks would drop by more than 18,000 within the first year, researchers report.
"Comprehensive smoking bans have bee...
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Health Tip: Factors that Increase Risk of Ovarian Cancer
(HealthDay News) -- About 3 percent of cancer cases that affect women are ovarian cancer, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes.
The organization says the following factors increase a woman's risk of cancer of the ovary:
Being 40 or older.
...
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Heart Disease Among Childhood Cancer Survivors Tied to Gene Mutations
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that survivors of childhood cancer with certain genetic variations are more likely than other survivors to develop heart disease.
Researchers say the findings could help them personalize treatment for certain children with cancer to...
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Medical Devices Driving Up Heart Care Costs
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- Costs for patients with chronic heart failure and coronary artery disease are going up because more physicians are turning to pricey, surgically implanted devices such as medically coated stents and cardioverter-defibrillators, a new report finds.
Rese...
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More Steps a Day Lead to Better Health
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- Walk a little, and your body will thank you. Walk a lot, and it will really thank you.
That's the message of a new study that links taking more steps in a day to a lower risk of an extremely common condition known as metabolic syndrome, which can lead...
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Statin Use Tied to Eye, Kidney, Liver Troubles
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- People taking cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may be at heightened risk for liver dysfunction, acute kidney failure and cataracts, British researchers report.
Statins, which include the blockbuster drugs Lipitor, Pravachol, Crestor and Zocor,...
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Stroke Incidence Down, But Not for Blacks
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of the most common form of stroke has decreased significantly among whites but has increased slightly among blacks, according to a new regional survey designed to be representative of the United States as a whole.
Data from the Greater Ci...
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When Heart Patients Discharge Themselves, Hospital Bills Increase
THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- Hospital patients receiving treatment for heart disease who decide to discharge themselves before their doctors deem them ready end up costing hospitals more if and when they are readmitted.
The finding, set to be reported this week during the Internat...
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Alzheimer's Costs Could Explode by Mid-Century
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- The number of Americans age 65 and older with Alzheimer's disease will more than double in the next 40 years, and the cumulative costs of caring for them between now and 2050 will exceed $20 trillion, a new report from the Alzheimer's Association finds....
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Confiding Eases Older Men's Stress Over Sexual Problems
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- A new study of older people found that it's a good idea for men to confide to friends about their sexual problems -- it reduced their stress and unhappiness -- but the same was not necessarily true for women.
Researchers at Oregon State University loo...
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Female Incontinence Surgeries Look Equally Effective
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- Two common surgical procedures for female stress incontinence appear to be equally effective, a new study reveals, but each option carries its own side effects.
Known as mid-urethral slings, the techniques are often used to address stress incontinence...
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IVF, Fertility Drugs Might Boost Autism Risk
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- Children whose mothers took fertility drugs were almost twice as likely to have autism as other children, new research finds. Being conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) or born prematurely also seemed to up the risk of autism, according to another study....
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Less Invasive Fix for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Works
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a less invasive procedure called endovascular repair appears as good as conventional surgery, Dutch researchers report.
In previous studies, endovascular repair has been shown to have fewer complications...
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New Hope for Early Detection of Autism
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers hope that a simple brain scan performed in infants and toddlers can presage the development of autism, leading to early detection and early intervention.
The test involved using functional MRI to measure brain responses to spoken words in...
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Study Challenges Notion That Moderate Drinking Protects the Heart
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- A major French study links moderate drinking to a lower risk for cardiovascular disease, but challenges the notion that moderate drinking gets the credit.
Instead, the researchers say, people who drink moderately tend to have a higher social status, e...
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Viagra Linked to Hearing Loss
WEDNESDAY, May 19 (HealthDay News) -- The erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, and possibly other similar medications, may prompt long-term hearing loss among users, a new study suggests.
In the May 18 issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, researchers from...
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Major Depression Often Follows Brain Injury
TUESDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) -- People who are hospitalized for a traumatic brain injury face an almost eight-fold higher risk of also suffering major depression.
That's the finding of a team led by Charles H. Bombardier, professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washi...
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Heart Attack Guidelines Close Racial Gaps in Hospital Care
MONDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Hospitals using guidelines from the American Heart Association have been able to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities when caring for heart attack patients, a new study finds.
Called Get With The Guidelines, the program shows that disparities in care...
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Sprix Approved for Moderate-to-Severe Pain
MONDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Roxro Pharma's Sprix (ketorolac tromethamine) nasal spray has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the short-term treatment of moderate to moderately severe pain, the manufacturer said Monday in a news release.
The nasal spray conta...
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Technique Might Boost Women's Fertility
MONDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have found a way to awaken dormant ovarian follicles, possibly making more eggs available for reproduction during a woman's lifespan.
In mice, the technique resulted in live pups. In humans, the technique was successful in producing mature e...
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As End of Life Nears, What to Do With Implanted Defibrillators?
FRIDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Until now no guidelines existed for one of the more difficult questions in medicine -- what to do with a heart-assisting device, such as an implanted defibrillator, in a patient's final days of life?
An implanted defibrillator delivers a potentially lif...
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Early Treatment With Clot-Busting Drug Best After Stroke
THURSDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who get the clot-busting drug alteplase (tPA) within 4.5 hours of having a stroke fare better than patients who are given the drug later, Scottish doctors report.
It has been known that treating a stroke earlier is better than later, but this...
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Health Tip: Why Do Some Diabetics Have Nerve Damage?
(HealthDay News) -- Neuropathy, or damage to the nerves, is a common complication among people with diabetes.
The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse says here are possible causes of diabetic neuropathy:
Having been diabetic for a long time, having high blood sugar,...
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The Best Diet? That Depends on You
THURSDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) -- You know you need to lose weight. And you know you're ready, whcih is more than half the battle. But you still have to pick from a seemingly endless array of weight-loss plans.
How to decide?
Experts who counsel overweight patients say there ar...
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Too Many Wouldn't Call 911 If Stroke Hit
THURSDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) -- Most people aren't familiar with the symptoms of a stroke and most who are wouldn't do the right thing and call 911 if a stroke occurred, a new survey finds.
"If you know the stroke symptoms and don't know how to react once you see them, that doesn't d...
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Treating Common Irregular Heartbeat Might Also Ward Off Alzheimer's
THURSDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) -- By treating the common irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation in a certain way, doctors might also help prevent Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, new research finds.
In atrial fibrillation, the upper chambers of the heart beat...
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Bone Drugs Not Linked to Rare Fractures
WEDNESDAY, May 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds no association between the use of a popular class of osteoporosis medications known as bisphosphonates and an unusual type of thigh bone fracture.
Bisphosphonates include blockbuster drugs such as alendronate (Fosamax), risedronate (...
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Impotence Drugs May Aid Brain Tumor Treatment
WEDNESDAY, May 12 (HealthDay News) -- A drug already approved for the treatment of erectile dysfunction may actually help boost the effectiveness of treatments for brain tumors tied to both lung and breast cancer, research shows.
The finding stems from an animal study that indicated that...
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New Implanted Defibrillator May Be Simpler, Safer
WEDNESDAY, May 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new, wireless defibrillator that is easier to implant and maintain could make life better for people who rely on them to prevent sudden cardiac death, researchers report.
A defibrillator delivers an electric shock to restart a heart that has stopped...
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New Alzheimer's Risk Genes Identified
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have pinpointed two genes that are linked to Alzheimer's disease and could become targets for new treatments for the neurodegenerative condition.
Genetic variants appear to play an important part in the development of Alzheimer's since having...
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Once-A-Year Vitamin D Megadose Ups Fracture Risk: Study
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- A large once-a-year dose of vitamin D, while convenient, doesn't offer the same protection against falls and fractures in older women that smaller, more frequent doses may, a new study has found.
What's more, the research suggests that when older women t...
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Overtime Boosts Heart Attack Risk
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- People who put in long hours at work increase their risk of dying from heart disease and heart attack, Finnish researchers report.
In fact, people who work three or more hours of overtime a day have a 60 percent increased risk of heart-related problems...
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Prevention Gets Credit for Fewer Heart Deaths
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Improved treatment, coupled with more effective preventive measures, may be having a positive impact on the death rate from coronary heart disease.
Death rate data from the United States and Canada both indicate a drop in cardiovascular deaths. Accordin...
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Strenuous Exercise May Stop Cellular Death
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Strenuous exercise appears to stop the body's cells from killing themselves as they're programmed to do, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that cells of people who had just run a marathon didn't engage in what is called apoptosis -- the natural d...
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Women Often Miss Signs of Stroke
TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- A new online survey of U.S. women finds only about one in four women aged 25 to 75 can name more than two primary symptoms of stroke.
This is important because researchers say it takes longer for women than men to seek medical care at the hospital afte...
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6 to 8 Hours of Shut-Eye Is Optimal for Health
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- People who sleep less than six hours a night are 12 percent more likely to die prematurely than those who get the recommended six to eight hours of slumber, a new study has found.
The team of British and Italian researchers also found that sleeping too m...
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Air Pollution Raises Risk of Heart Disease, Death
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- There's growing proof that air pollution is associated with heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death, says an updated American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement released Monday.
Of the different types of air pollution, the evidence is str...
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Bran Intake Helps Those With Diabetes
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- Women with diabetes who ate a diet rich in bran-containing foods had a significantly lower death rate in a long-term study, researchers report.
"Many studies before have found some protective effect in the general population,"...
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COPD Flare-Up May Raise Risk of Heart Attack, Stroke
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- Worsening of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) leads to increased risk for heart attack and ischemic stroke, a new study finds.
British researchers looked at 25,857 COPD patients and identified 524 heart attacks in 426 patients and 633 ischemi...
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Eating Nuts May Help Cholesterol Levels
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- An analysis of studies has produced what its authors describe as a precise description of the beneficial effects of nut consumption on cholesterol and other heart-related fats.
It provides "the best evidence yet that eating nuts reduces LDL cholesterol a...
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Fluctuating Blood Pressure Ups Stroke Risk
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- People who have fluctuating blood pressure in addition to high blood pressure are at increased risk for cerebrovascular disease, new research shows.
Cerebrovascular disease, which includes stroke and other disorders that affect...
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Kidney Removal May Be Ill-Advised for Some Elderly
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- Removing a kidney does not seem to extend the life of elderly people with kidney cancer that has not spread, a new study finds.
Instead, it suggests, people with such cancer should undergo more conservative treatments that preserve the non-cancerous part...
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Parkinson's Drugs Tied to Compulsive Behaviors
MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- Medicines used to treat Parkinson's disease may increase the risk of impulse control disorders, such as problem gambling, compulsive shopping and binge eating, researchers warn.
In a new study that included 3,090 patients being treated for Parkinson's at...
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Does Mom Need Help to Stop Smoking?
SUNDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- If your mother is a smoker, you might consider giving her a Mother's Day gift that could help her kick the habit and live a longer, healthier life, suggests the American Lung Association.
Freedom From Smoking Online is a self-paced program that's availabl...
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Ingredient in Dark Chocolate Could Guard Against Stroke
SUNDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Something in dark chocolate seems to help protect the heart, and now researchers say they have identified the molecular mechanism by which a compound found in cocoa can guard against the damage of a stroke.
The compound, a flavanol called epicatechin, tri...
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High-Stress Jobs Tax Women's Hearts, Too
SATURDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- A high-pressure job can boost the risk of heart disease among middle-aged women, a study of Danish nurses finds.
Previous studies have mainly looked at high-pressure jobs and men, but for this study the researchers studied 12,116 women who took part in...
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Depression After Heart Attack Tied to Brain Changes
FRIDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Persistent depression after a heart attack is associated with changes in the brain, a new study has found.
But more research is needed to determine whether depression causes these changes or vice versa, said the German study authors.
Depression is...
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Diabetes Test Results May Be Deceptive in Black Children
FRIDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Black children with type 1 diabetes score higher than whites with similar blood glucose levels on a critical test, potentially leading their physicians to give them the wrong treatment, a new study says.
The test "can be deceptive in African-American chil...
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Health Tip: Spot the Signs of Deep Venous Thrombosis
WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- Deep venous thrombosis is characterized by formation of a blood clot inside a vein that's deep within the body.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine offers this list of deep venous thrombosis symptoms:
Redness appearing on one leg.
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Obesity Behind Rise of 'Phantom' Brain Tumors in Children
FRIDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- At the age of 5, Lauren Ashley began complaining that "her eyes hurt."
An ophthalmologist who examined her suspected a brain tumor because of swelling of the optic nerve, which sends information from the retina to the brain.
"Looking back, we wer...
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Genes Tie Blood Fat to Heart Disease
THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have long debated the role triglyceride levels might play in heart disease, and finally they have genetic evidence linking high concentrations of the blood fat to an increased risk of heart trouble.
Until now, cholesterol levels were the key...
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Genetic Research Sheds Light on Chronic Pain
THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Chronic pain, which often occurs without an apparent cause, may be the result of accidental reprogramming of more than 2,000 genes in the peripheral nervous system, new research suggests.
The finding may someday lead to new drugs that treat pain by corr...
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Hepatitis Infections Behind U.S. Rise in Liver Cancer
THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- A type of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, is increasing in the United States, and health officials attribute much of the rise to untreated hepatitis infections.
Chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C are responsible for 78 percent of hepatocellular...
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One Sleepless Night Ups Insulin Resistance
THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Adding to the many reasons why people should get adequate sleep, researchers now say that just one sleepless night can cause insulin resistance, a component of type 2 diabetes.
The study included nine healthy people whose insulin sensitivity was measure...
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Pig Pancreas Cells Help Type 1 Diabetics
THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Pancreatic cells from pigs that have been encapsulated have been successfully transplanted into humans without triggering an immune system attack on the new cells.
What's more, scientists report, the transplanted pig pancreas cells quickly begin to prod...
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Study Disputes Link Between Milk and Kidney Cancer
THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- If you were worried about drinking milk because of a reported link with a type of kidney cancer, you can relax. A new study suggests no such association exists.
"The data in this study provide no concrete evidence of a need to alter milk drinking in any...
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Anemia Drugs Hold Dangers for Kidney Patients
WEDNESDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- The powerful drugs used to fight anemia caused by kidney failure increase the risk for cardiovascular problems such as heart attack, a major study has found.
A meta-analysis of 27 trials, which included more than 10,000 people who were given the drugs,...
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Health Tip: Understanding Epilepsy
(HealthDay News) -- Having epilepsy leads to seizures that affect a person's physical and metal health. It's caused by brief, strong surges of electricity that affect all or part of the brain.
The Epilepsy Foundation says epilepsy can be caused by factors including:
A health...
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If Your Spouse Gets Alzheimer's, You Might, Too
WEDNESDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults whose spouse has Alzheimer's or another form dementia face an increased risk of dementia themselves, a new study finds.
It included 2,442 people (1,221 married couples), aged 65 and older, in Utah who were dementia-free at the start of the...
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Risks Rise for Other Surgeries After Stent Implants
WEDNESDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- People who've had a stent implanted to keep a coronary artery open face an increased risk for heart complications and death if they have non-cardiac surgery in subsequent weeks, a new Scottish study has found.
"We looked at the risks connected to four...
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As FDA Eyes Prostate Cancer Drugs, Experts Urge Caution
TUESDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Monday it was investigating possible links between widely used hormonal prostate cancer drugs and an slight rise in risk for diabetes and heart disease, thousands of men who rely on these drugs to extend thei...
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Hospitals Falling Short on Heart Patients' Follow-Up Care
TUESDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- A quick follow-up visit by a medical professional to a heart failure patient discharged from the hospital reduces the chance that the patient will wind up back in the hospital, but that preventive measure is more often ignored than observed, a new study finds.
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Many Unaware of Local Stroke Centers
TUESDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- Stroke is a leading cause of death in the United States, yet a new survey of 1,000 Americans finds that nearly 60 percent don't known if their local hospitals offer specialized treatment for stroke.
Despite awareness efforts, "the public seems less aware...
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Pneumonia Shot Won't Help Lower Men's Heart Risks
TUESDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- Being vaccinated against pneumonia doesn't reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke in men older than 45, a new study finds.
The research included more than 84,000 men, ages 45 to 69, who enrolled in the California Men's Health Study between January 20...
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Surgery for Treatable Dementia Might Also Help in Alzheimer's
TUESDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- Some people with Alzheimer's disease may be helped by a brain shunt normally used to treat another, less common neurological condition, new research suggests.
The other condition, normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), occurs when excess cerebrospinal flui...
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'Healthy' Pre-Diabetics Still Face Heart Disease Threat
MONDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- People who are at high risk of developing diabetes and high blood pressure but don't have symptoms yet may still be at higher risk for heart disease, a new study reports.
"Diabetes and hypertension have reached epidemic status, not only in the U.S., but a...
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FDA Reviews Side Effects From Prostate Cancer Therapy
MONDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- A widely used class of prostate cancer drugs called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists increases the risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke and sudden death in men, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration review has found.
Based on initial finding...
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Prostate Cancer Test a Flop in Study
MONDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- A technique that urologists had hoped would make it possible to distinguish men with prostate cancer who need treatment from those who would only need watchful waiting didn't work well, researchers report.
The technique, called PSA kinetics, measures chan...
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Radiation Risks Nearly Double for Younger CT Scan Patients
MONDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- Radiation risks associated with abdominal and pelvic CT scans are twice as high for younger patients as older patients, a new study finds.
"Estimating the risks associated with ionizing radiation is complex," study author Dr. James Koonce, of the Medical...
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Americans Still Split Over New Health Reform Law
FRIDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- One month after President Barack Obama signed the historic health-reform bill into law, Americans remain divided on the measure, with many people still unsure how it will affect them, a new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll finds.
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Genome Scan Gives Man Insight Into Future Health Risks
FRIDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- Stephen Quake, a Stanford University professor of bioengineering, now has a very good sense of his own genetic destiny.
Quake's DNA was the focus of the first completely mapped genome of a healthy person aimed at predicting future health risks. The sc...
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Voice Analysis May Allow Early Detection of Parkinson's
FRIDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- A new voice analysis technique can identify changes in speech associated with the early stages of Parkinson's disease, a new study has found.
"This is a noninvasive, reliable and accurate technique that only requires the patient to read out a few simpl...
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Why Spouses of Dialysis Patients Get Kidney Disease Too
FRIDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- A shared home environment and similar health habits may help explain why spouses of kidney dialysis patients are at increased risk for developing kidney disease, according to a new study.
"We were surprised to find that the r...
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Adding Surgery to Meds May Improve Life With Parkinson's
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- Parkinson's disease patients do better if they undergo deep brain stimulation surgery in addition to treatment with medication, new research suggests.
One year after having the procedure, patients who underwent the surgery reported better quality of...
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Cancer Risk After Kidney Transplant Unaffected by Type of Drug Treatment
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- The type of drug treatment used to prevent organ rejection in kidney transplant patients doesn't affect cancer risk, a new study finds.
Kidney transplant patients are at increased risk for cancer, likely because of patients' long-term use of immunosu...
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Health Tip: Use Warfarin Safely
(HealthDay News) -- Warfarin is a drug that thins the blood to help prevent clots. But it can increase the risk of bleeding, even while you perform daily activities.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine suggests you practice these precautions while taking warfarin:
Follow y...
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Low Testosterone Raises Heart Death Rates in Impotent Men
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- Among men with erectile dysfunction, those who also have low testosterone levels face a higher than normal risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a new study has found.
In a second study, the same team of researchers also found a link between ob...
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New Finding Could Mark Shift in Alzheimer's Research
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- New research could change the way scientists view the causes -- and potential prevention and treatment -- of Alzheimer's disease.
A study published online this month in the Annals of Neurology suggests that "floating" clumps of amyloid beta (a...
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Prostate Cancer Vaccine Gains FDA Approval
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday granted approval to Provenge, a therapeutic vaccine aimed at preventing the spread of prostate cancer in men with an advanced form of the disease.
The new approval is limited to "the treatment of asy...
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Provenge Approved for Advanced Prostate Cancer
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- Provenge (sipuleucel-T), a therapy designed to boost the immune system's ability to combat prostate cancer, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The therapy is produced by obtaining the person's own immune cells, exposing them...
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Sunlight May Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis Risk
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- When and where people are born may affect their odds of developing multiple sclerosis, according to researchers who found that children born in the early summer months in the Southern Hemisphere are more likely to develop multiple sclerosis than those born i...
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Watch Your Cholesterol, Your Blood Pressure ... and This Enzyme?
THURSDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- An enzyme linked to inflammation boosts the risk of heart disease as much as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, a new study suggests.
Researchers think that by targeting the enzyme, which is known as lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2, th...
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New Clues Shed Light on Sperm Function, Male Fertility
WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- Two proteins in a family of proteins called PLA2s play a vital role in sperm function and fertility in mice, say two teams of researchers.
The findings could improve understanding of male infertility and lead to new types of male birth control and t...
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Scientists Discover Substance That Causes Pain
WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- The human body produces a substance similar to capsaicin -- which makes chili peppers hot -- at sites of pain, and blocking production of this substance can ease pain, a new study shows.
The findings may lead to the development of non-addictive pai...
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Tight Blood Sugar Control May Not Harm Diabetics
WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- The Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) study was abruptly halted in 2008 when researchers noticed an increase in deaths in the group of type 2 diabetics who were being intensively treated to bring their blood sugar levels down to nea...
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Twins Study Points to Environmental Cause for MS
WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- Genetics can't seem to explain why one twin would have multiple sclerosis while an identical twin doesn't, a new study finds.
That leaves scientists still stumped as to what causes multiple sclerosis (MS), although it's clearer than ever that enviro...
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Calcium Scan Improves Heart Risk Prediction
TUESDAY, April 27 (HealthDay News) -- Adding a computed tomography test to measure calcium in coronary arteries improves predictions of future heart disease, a new study finds, but no one knows yet whether it's worth the cost and risk due to radiation exposure.
"This kind of evidence give...
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High-Dose Vitamin B Risky for Diabetics With Kidney Disease
TUESDAY, April 27 (HealthDay News) -- High-dose vitamin B therapy is dangerous for diabetics with kidney disease, and patients on this regimen should stop immediately, says a new study.
When the researchers began the study, they believed it would show that high-dose vitamin B therapy (fol...
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Mediterranean Diet Helps Protect Aging Brain
TUESDAY, April 27 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a Mediterranean diet may help keep your brain healthy as you age, findings from an ongoing study show.
"This diet emphasizes vegetables, fruits, fish, olive oil, lower meat consumption, and moderate wine and non-refined grain intake," study aut...
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Prostate Cancer Vaccine May Get FDA Approval
TUESDAY, April 27 (HealthDay News) -- The anticipated approval this week of a therapeutic prostate cancer vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could be a milestone against the disease and cancer in general, experts say.
The vaccine, called Provenge, appears to extend survival...
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Scalpels in Hand, Robots Take to the ER
TUESDAY, April 27 (HealthDay News) -- People facing surgery often imagine themselves under the care of a trained surgeon wielding a scalpel with a steady hand and a cool disposition.
But that picture is changing.
The surgeon will still be there, but the steady hand might very well...
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Antidepressants May Improve Heart Health
MONDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- A widely used type of antidepressant may help protect cardiovascular health by slowing the clumping of blood platelets, thus reducing the risk of hardening of the arteries and blood clots that can cause heart attack and stroke, U.S. researchers say.
Th...
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Arteries Age Twice as Fast in Smokers
MONDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- It's well-known that smoking is bad for the heart and other parts of the body, and researchers now have chronicled in detail one reason why -- because continual smoking causes progressive stiffening of the arteries.
In fact, smokers' arteries stiffen...
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Brown Rice Tied to Better Heart Health in Study
MONDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- Two kinds of rice -- brown and half-milled rice -- may reduce the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure by interfering with a protein linked to those conditions, research suggests.
In a new study, researchers report that the findings could ind...
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Four Unhealthy Behaviors Linked to Premature Death
MONDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- A combination of four unhealthy behaviors -- smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet and substantial alcohol consumption -- greatly increases the risk of premature death, a new study has found.
The study, published in the April 26 issue of Archives of...
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Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Have Heart Risk Factors
MONDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly half of all American adults have either high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, each a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular problems, a new government survey finds.
The latest...
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Smoking May Be in Your Genes
SUNDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- For some people, quitting smoking could be especially difficult because their dependence may be explained in part by genetics, three new studies suggest.
One of the reports, part of a trio of findings published online April 25 in Nature Genetics
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Noncardiac Chest Pain May Warrant More Management: Study
SATURDAY, April 24 (HealthDay News) -- People discharged from the hospital with noncardiac (not heart-related) chest pain may require more aggressive cardiovascular risk management than they typically receive, a new study has found.
Noncardiac chest pain can be caused by a number of probl...
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Health Tip: Help Prevent Atherosclerosis
(HealthDay News) -- Atherosclerosis occurs when blood vessels harden after cholesterol, calcium and fat build up inside them. The condition decreases blood flow and increases the risk of stroke and heart disease.
The University of Virginia Health System says you can take these steps to he...
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How, When Child Develops Autism May Determine Outcomes
FRIDAY, April 23 (HealthDay News) -- Children with autism whose social and communications skills regress around age 3 tend to have more severe autism than children who show signs of the neurodevelopmental disorder at younger ages, new research finds.
Autism spectrum disorders are marked b...
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Injection Helps Treat Hard-to-Control Type 2 Diabetes
FRIDAY, April 23 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with type 2 diabetes who can't control their blood glucose levels with the drug metformin alone do better after adding injections of the drug liraglutide compared to oral doses of another drug called sitagliptin, researchers report.
In the stu...
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Magnetic Fields Concentrate Drug Delivery
FRIDAY, April 23 (HealthDay News) -- Magnetic fields can be used to direct drug-loaded nanoparticles to metal stents in injured blood vessels, where they then release drugs that help prevent blood vessel blockages, U.S. researchers report.
In humans, stents -- small metal mesh tubes -- ar...
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FDA to Broaden Disclosure on Advisers' Conflicts of Interest
WEDNESDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday proposed new guidelines to help give the public more information on the experts the agency places on its all-important advisory committees, which help approve drugs and devices.
The FDA has in the p...
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Gene-Targeted Therapy Might Help Prevent Paralysis
WEDNESDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- A study in rats is raising new hope for a treatment that might help spare people with injured spines from the paralysis that often follows such trauma.
Researchers found that by immediately giving injured rats a drug that acts on a specific gene, th...
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Managing Type 1 Diabetes Can Stress Teens
WEDNESDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- Teens with type 1 diabetes may need help as they begin taking more responsibility for monitoring their blood glucose levels and administering insulin, a new study suggests.
Researchers monitored 147 diabetic teens for six months. Overall, conflict l...
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Voluntary Ethics Code Set for Medical Organizations
WEDNESDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- A new voluntary ethics code for how medical organizations should interact with private companies was released Wednesday by the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS).
"Physicians and patients count on medical societies to be authoritative, in...
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Added Sugars in Diet Threaten Heart Health
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- The added sugars in prepared and processed foods are threatening Americans' cardiovascular health, lowering levels of protective HDL cholesterol, raising levels of potentially dangerous triglcerides and possibly making people fatter, a new study finds.
<...
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Experts Urge FDA to Lower Salt in American Diet
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should take steps to lower the amount of salt in the American diet over the next decade, an expert panel advised Tuesday.
In a report from the Institute of Medicine, an independent agency created by Congress to re...
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Many Don't Take Blood Thinner After Getting Stents
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- One of six people who have stents implanted to keep an artery open ignore their doctor's orders to start taking the blood thinner Plavix immediately, and that ignorance nearly doubles their risk for a heart attack or death, new research finds.
The stu...
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Meat Lovers Face Greater Risk of Bladder Cancer
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Eating meat frequently, especially when it's well-done or cooked at high temperatures, can boost the risk of bladder cancer, a new study suggests.
"It's well-known that meat cooked at high temperatures generates heterocyclic amines that can cause canc...
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Olive Oil May Be Key to Mediterranean Diet's Benefits
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- The heart-healthy effects of the famous "Mediterranean diet" may have something to do with components of virgin olive oil that repress genes that promote inflammation, a new study reports.
"These findings strengthen the relationship between inflammati...
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Recordings of Pre-Surgery Meetings Ease Anxieties
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Giving people slated for heart surgery recordings of their pre-surgery consultations not only increased their knowledge about the procedure and their health but reduced their anxiety and depression as well, a new study has found.
Researchers at the Ro...
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Tailored Therapy May Help More Stop Smoking
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that a set length of time for using the nicotine patch may not work for all smokers trying to kick the habit.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have already discovered that some people -- about thre...
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Weather Might Influence Prostate Cancer
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- A new study links dry, cold weather to higher rates of prostate cancer.
While the findings don't confirm a direct link, researchers suspect that weather may affect pollution and, in turn, boost prostate cancer rates.
"We found that colder weat...
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Weight Gain, Smoking May Make Prostate Cancer More Deadly
TUESDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Men treated for prostate cancer who smoke or put on excess pounds raise their odds of disease recurrence and of dying from the illness, two new studies show.
The findings were presented Tuesday at the American Association for Cancer Research's annua...
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Kids Could Overdose From Nicotine-Laced 'Candy'
MONDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- In 2009, tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds launched Camel Orbs, dissolvable nicotine pellets flavored with cinnamon or mint that are intended for use by smokers who find themselves in smoke-free surroundings.
But researchers writing in the April 19 online ed...
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New Test May Predict Prostate Cancer's Aggressiveness
MONDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- An updated version of the standard prostate cancer test can help improve predictions about which men might not require immediate treatment, researchers report.
The basic test measures blood levels of prostate-specific androgen (PSA), a protein produced...
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Secondhand Smoke Boosts Sinusitis Risk
MONDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to secondhand smoke appears to substantially raise the risk for chronic sinusitis, a new Canadian study has found.
In fact, it might explain 40 percent of the cases of the condition, said study author Dr. C. Martin Tammemagi, a researcher at B...
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Abnormal Heart Rhythm Linked to Alzheimer's
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- People with atrial fibrillation, a form of abnormal heart rhythm, are more likely than others to develop dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, a new study finds.
The presence of atrial fibrillation also predicted higher death rates in dementia patie...
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Cholesterol Drugs May Slow MS
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may slow the progression of multiple sclerosis, according to a new study.
It included 81 patients with early-stage MS randomly selected to take either 80 milligrams a day of Lipitor (atorvastatin) or a placebo. After 1...
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Device Avoids Open-Heart Surgery When Artificial Valve Fails
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- If an artificial heart valve derived from a cow or pig fails to work properly, researchers say implanting a mechanical valve inside the artificial valve could be an option for high-risk patients.
"Once expanded and opened, the new valve opens and funct...
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Morphine May Protect Brains of People With HIV
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- The painkiller morphine may help protect against HIV-associated dementia, says a new study.
Georgetown University Medical Center researchers found that morphine protected rat neurons from HIV toxicity, a discovery that could lead to the development of...
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Obesity Epidemic May Cut Life Spans of Young Adults
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- Because Americans are getting heavier at an earlier age and failing to lose the extra pounds for longer, researchers now believe that chronic illness and life expectancy will be worse than previously estimated.
The study authors report that one in fiv...
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Public Defibrillators Save Lives
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- Placing automatic external defibrillators in public places across the United States and Canada could save the lives of 474 people who otherwise would die of cardiac arrest each year, researchers report.
Previous studies have found similar lifesaving r...
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Robot-Aided Therapy Can Help Patients Years After Stroke
FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- Robotic aids can help stroke patients make small but significant improvements in their ability to move their limbs, and gain a better outlook on life, new research finds.
The study, by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and published online April...
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B-vitamins Help Protect Against Stroke, Heart Disease
THURSDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- People who eat a diet high in B-vitamins are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, say Japanese researchers.
They analyzed dietary questionnaires completed by more than 23,000 men and almost 36,000 women who were part of the Japan Collabora...
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Do Statins Lower Male Sex Drive?
THURSDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- An Italian study of men being treated for erectile dysfunction finds an association between the use of cholesterol-lowering statins and abnormally low levels of the male hormone testosterone.
The study "sends a signal worthy of observation," said Dr....
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Health Tip: It Hurts When I Urinate
(HealthDay News) -- Painful urination is a common sign of an infection of the urinary tract. But you don't have to have an infection to experience painful urination, which should be evaluated by a doctor without delay.
The American Academy of Family Physicians suggests these possible caus...
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Missing DNA Linked to Wide Range of Epilepsy Disorders
THURSDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- People who are missing large chunks of DNA on chromosome 16 have a greatly increased risk for developing epilepsy, researchers say.
"We found that the presence of this genetic variant is one of the strongest risk factors for all forms of epilepsy, po...
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Most People Unaware They've Had a Minor Stroke
THURSDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Many people who have either a minor stroke or so-called mini-stroke aren't aware of it or don't seek medical treatment for more than 24 hours afterwards, finds a new study.
British researchers analyzed data from 1,000 patients, average age 73, who ha...
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Protein May Help Control Weight
THURSDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Even on a high-fat diet, mice that lack a protein involved in the response to low levels of oxygen stay lean and healthy, says a new study.
The protein, called FIH, could offer a new target for drugs to help control weight, according to the Universit...
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Artificial Pancreas for Type 1 Diabetes Moves Closer to Reality
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- The first human trials of the latest design of an artificial pancreas for people with type 1 diabetes found the device worked without causing low blood sugar (hypoglycemia).
Ideally, this type of automated device would finally free people with type...
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Depression and Smoking Go Hand in Hand in U.S.
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- The link between depression and smoking, long observed by health-care experts, is real and strong, a new government report shows.
People aged 20 and older with depression are twice as likely as others to be cigarette smokers, the researchers from th...
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Gene Mutation Ups Risk of Sudden Death in People with Epilepsy
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- A mutation in a gene called Kv1.1 appears to be associated with irregular heart beat and sudden death in people with epilepsy, a new study finds.
People with epilepsy who are otherwise healthy are 10 times more likely than normal to die suddenly and...
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Hormone Therapy May Fight Resistant Prostate Cancer
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Preliminary research suggests that a new hormone treatment could be a weapon for doctors in the battle against a form of prostate cancer that's resistant to surgical removal of the testicles.
Only two of the three phases of research required for ne...
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Play Creatively as a Kid, Be a Healthier Adult
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Children who engage in creative and active play may grow up to be healthier adults, suggests a British study.
The finding comes from a study that involved 505 young adults who provided information about their health and their childhood play experien...
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Prostate Cancer Patients at Higher Risk of Blood Clots
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Men with prostate cancer are at greater risk for developing blood clots, especially if they're undergoing hormone therapy, new research shows.
"Our findings indicate that it is important to consider thromboembolic [blood-clotting] side effects when...
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Study Explores Possibility of a Female Viagra
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- New research might be bringing science a bit closer to a female version of Viagra.
In a study that explored the underlying processes of female sexual arousal, British-based researchers say they have learned more about how new treatments might be dev...
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Treatment Eases Involuntary Laughing, Crying Tied to Alzheimer's, MS
WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Involuntary crying or laughing can be a common symptom in patients with certain neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
However, a combination of drugs could be the first effective long...
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Hormones Tied to Diabetes Might Also Influence Fertility
TUESDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- A new study in mice suggests that the hormones leptin and insulin work together in the brain to control blood sugar levels and, in a surprise to researchers, female fertility.
The findings also appear to suggest that diabetes and obesity aren't alway...
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Money Worries Delay Heart Attack Treatment
TUESDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- People who are uninsured or have concerns about the cost of medical care are more likely to postpone seeking emergency care for a heart attack, researchers have found.
For many people, these factors lead to delays in seeking care of six hours or more...
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Smoking Bans May Be Boosting Public Health
TUESDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- Since Toronto banned smoking in public places such as restaurants in 2001, there has a major slide in hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, Canadian researchers report.
The 10-year population study found 39 percent fewer a...
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Smoking May Erase Heart Benefits of Light Drinking
TUESDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) - If you indulge in moderate drinking, you've probably heard that it might reduce your risk for heart trouble, including stroke.
A new British study supports that notion, but it also finds that light drinking's benefit in lowering stroke risk does not ap...
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Antidepressants May Ease Damage From Stroke
MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new study in rodents suggests that antidepressants and mood stabilizers might help people recover from stroke.
The drugs have been linked in rodents to a growth of brand-new neurons -- a change in the nervous system that reduced the severity of the s...
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Docs Issue Guidelines for Drivers With Dementia
MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- Scores on a dementia test and input from family members are the most useful tools in determining who is no longer capable of driving when Alzheimer's or other dementia sets in, according to new guidelines from the American Academy of Neurology.
In fact...
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Finding Good Migraine Care a Headache for the Uninsured
MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- People who are uninsured or who are on Medicaid are much less likely to receive adequate care for their migraines than people who have private coverage.
In fact, more than 5.5 million Americans may be at risk of receiving inadequate care for their migr...
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Healthy Diet Could Cut Alzheimer's Disease Risk
MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a diet high in vegetables, fish, fruit, nuts and poultry, and low in red meat and butter may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, new research finds.
Researchers asked more than 2,100 New York City residents aged 65 and older about their diet...
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Simple Carbs Pose Heart Risk for Women
MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- A diet rich in carbohydrates that are quickly transformed into sugar in the blood raises the risk of heart disease for women, a new Italian study finds.
The same effect, however, is not seen in men, according to the report, published April 12 in the
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Study Questions Use of Heart Device Implants in the Very Old
MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new study questions the widespread use of implantable cardiac devices in the very old, who are more likely to die in the hospital after receiving the devices.
Patients aged 80 and older receive more than one-fifth of implantable defibrillators and pa...
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Severe Arterial Disease Found in Younger Adults
SATURDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) -- Severe peripheral vascular disease may be much more common in younger American adults and women than previously suspected, according to a new study.
The disease causes a narrowing in blood vessels that carry blood to the arms, legs, kidney and stomac...
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Shyness May Be Rooted in Brain Processing
SATURDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) -- Because their brains process the world around them in a different way, introverted or shy people respond differently to physical and emotional stimuli than other people, according to a new study.
About 20 percent of people are "highly sensitive," an...
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Health Tip: Ward Off Hypoglycemia
(HealthDay News) -- Hypoglycemia, the medical term for low blood sugar, is uncommon in older children and adults, except among those who have diabetes.
The U.S. National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse suggests how diabetics can help prevent hypoglycemia:
Always take diab...
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Hepatitis C Tied to Higher Kidney Cancer Risk
FRIDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- People infected with the hepatitis C virus are at much higher risk of developing kidney cancer, new research suggests.
A study of more than 67,000 patients enrolled in the Henry Ford Health System from 1997-2008 found that 0.6 percent of patients with h...
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If Your Doctor Prescribes an HbA1c Test
(HealthDay News) -- If you are diabetic, your doctor may prescribe an HbA1c test to measure your blood sugar control during the prior several months.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine says an abnormally high HbA1c result may signal that you're at greater risk of serious diabetes compl...
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Liver Disease May Go Undetected in Children
FRIDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors often misinterpret the results of a test used to detect chronic liver disease in children, new research finds.
The test, which looks for serum alanine aminotransferease (ALT) activity, is designed to detect liver disease or abnormalities caused...
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Mild Exercise Good for the Critically Ill
FRIDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- Critically ill patients in the intensive care unit may reduce their use of sedatives and speed their recovery by engaging in mild exercise, a new study has found.
The amount of prescription sedatives had to be slashed by half to enable patients to exerc...
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Obesity in Pregnancy Ups Risk of Heart Defect in Baby
FRIDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- Obese pregnant women are at increased risk of having a baby with a congenital heart defect, a new study finds.
On average, obesity is associated with a 15 percent increased risk of having a baby with a heart defect. But the risk rises with the level of...
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Even Mild Sleep Apnea Raises Stroke Risk in Men
THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- The nighttime breathing disorder known as obstructive sleep apnea more than doubles the risk for stroke in men who are middle age and beyond, new research has found.
U.S. researchers looked at more than 5,400 people, age 40 and older and with no histo...
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First Generic Versions of Cozaar and Hyzaar Approved
THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- The first generic versions of two drugs to treat high blood pressure, Cozaar (losartan potassium) and Hyzaar (losartan potassium and hydrochlorothiazide), have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The generic versions will carry the...
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Health Tip: Help Prevent Vascular Disease
(HealthDay News) -- Vascular disease is the broad term for conditions that affect the blood vessels, including heart attack, stroke and coronary artery disease.
The American Academy of Family Physicians suggests how you can help prevent vascular disease:
Don't smoke.
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Low-Cal Diets May Make You Gain Weight
THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- If losing weight feels like a never-ending battle, new research may explain why: Diets that restrict calories can actually make it harder to lose weight and keep it off.
Cutting calories increases production of cortisol, the stress hormone, which is...
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Scientists Grow Replacement Blood Vessels From Stem Cells
WEDNESDAY, April 7 (HealthDay News) -- Blood vessels engineered from laboratory-grown stem cells have worked well in animals, researchers say, and might someday replace the synthetic products now in use.
When needed for procedures such as bypass surgery, blood vessels now are usually take...
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Simple Memory Test May Detect Early Alzheimer's
THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- A researcher has developed a brief memory test to help doctors determine whether someone is suffering from the early memory and reasoning problems that often signal Alzheimer's disease.
In a study in the journal Alzheimer Disease and Associated Di...
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Single Genetic Factor Key to Cardiovascular System
THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- Reduced levels or lack of a certain genetic factor are associated with heart failure and aortic aneurysm, say U.S. researchers.
This factor -- known as Kruppel-like Factor 15 (KLF15) -- protects the heart and aorta's ability to maintain structural and...
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Vaccine Reverses Type 1 Diabetes in Mice
THURSDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- Canadian researchers have successfully reversed type 1 diabetes in mice using a new vaccine technology that appears to solely target the immune system cells responsible for the disease.
"The body has built-in mechanisms that try to counter disease pro...
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Kids Need Parents' Help in Managing Type 1 Diabetes
WEDNESDAY, April 7 (HealthDay News) -- Children and teens with type 1 diabetes are less likely to adhere to their treatment plan if their parents become lax about monitoring their treatment or if there is a poor mother-child relationship, new research has found.
Failure to properly manage...
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Poor More Likely to Die Following Heart Surgery
WEDNESDAY, April 7 (HealthDay News) -- Poor people are more likely to die within five to 10 years after heart surgery than more affluent people, U.S. researchers report.
They followed 15,156 white men, 6,932 white women, 678 black men and 564 black women who had heart bypass or valve surg...
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Sitting Docs Have Happier Patients
WEDNESDAY, April 7 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to doctor-patient relationships, new research suggests that patients would be happier if their doctors would just sit down and stay awhile.
And for doctors, taking a seat doesn't necessarily have to add time to their day. The research...
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Smoking May Boost MS Risk in Some
WEDNESDAY, April 7 (HealthDay News) -- Smoking appears to enhance the link between an existing risk factor and multiple sclerosis, nearly doubling the chances of getting the disabling neurologic disease, according to a new study.
The existing risk factor is having high levels of antibodie...
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Vitamins C, E Won't Cut Risk of Pregnancy-Linked Hypertension
WEDNESDAY, April 7 (HealthDay News) -- Mothers-to-be who take vitamin C and E supplements do not reduce their risk of the dangerous high blood pressure condition called preeclampsia, a new study finds.
Although other studies have suggested that these antioxidant vitamins could prevent pr...
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A Brisk Pace May Keep Stroke at Bay
TUESDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) -- Regular walking significantly reduces stroke risk in women, researchers say.
In a new study that looked at data from 39,315 U.S. female health professionals, average age 54, participating in the Women's Health Study, 473 of the women had an ischemic (...
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Complex Spinal Operations Soar Despite Drawbacks
TUESDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) -- The use of complex surgical procedures to treat back pain has exploded in the past six years, even though these operations are riskier and more expensive than simpler treatments and not necessarily more effective, a study finds.
"It was a bit of a sur...
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Gene May Boost Risk of Kidney Transplant Failure
TUESDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified a gene variant in kidney donors that's associated with increased risk that the organ will stop working (graft failure) after it's transplanted into a recipient.
The variation occurs in the CAV1 gene, which normally inhibits...
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Brain Glitch May Raise Some Girls' Odds of Depression
MONDAY, April 5 (HealthDay News) -- Young girls at high risk for depression appear to have a malfunctioning reward system in their brains, a new study suggests.
The finding comes from research that included a high-risk group of 13 girls, aged 10 to 14, who were not depressed but had mothe...
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TachoSil Sealant Patch Approved for Cardiovascular Surgery
MONDAY, April 5 (HealthDay News) -- The TachoSil sealant patch has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent bleeding from small blood vessels in certain cardiovascular surgery cases, the agency said Monday.
The product is comprised of a collagen sponge, produced f...
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Medical Misinformation Can Spread Quickly Via 'Tweets'
FRIDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) -- Medical misinformation can spread quickly on Twitter, although social networks also offer the potential for sharing vital and correct health information, a new study shows.
Researchers from Columbia University and MixedInk in New York City identified mo...
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Parkinson's Linked to Genetic Mutation
FRIDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) -- New details about how a mutation in a gene called LRRK2 may cause Parkinson's disease have been uncovered by U.S. researchers.
In experiments using genetically engineered mice, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine team found that LRRK2 regulates dopamine...
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Should Cholesterol Drugs Be Used By Those Without High Cholesterol?
FRIDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) -- When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February approved the use of the cholesterol-lowering statin drug Crestor for some people with normal cholesterol levels, cardiologist Dr. Steven E. Nissen cheered the decision.
"You have to go with t...
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Sleep Apnea Linked to Eyelid Disorder
FRIDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) -- An eye disorder called floppy eyelid syndrome is strongly associated with obstructive sleep apnea, a new study finds.
This means that when doctors diagnose one condition in a patient they should also look for the other, said the researchers at the Moor...
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Unvaccinated Boys at Risk of Mumps-Linked Testicular Problem
FRIDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) -- A new study reports a significant increase in the number of young males with a mumps-related testicle condition called mumps orchitis, which causes one or both testicles to swell and can lead to fertility problems.
The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vacci...
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Overactive Thyroid Linked to Stroke in Young Adults
THURSDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- Young adults who have an overactive thyroid face a much greater risk of stroke than people without the condition, Taiwanese researchers report.
"This is a well-controlled analysis, and patients with hyperthyroidism should receive prompt treatment to p...
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Researchers Boost Post-Heart Attack Survival in Mice
THURSDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- A kind of protein called nerve growth factor, or NGF, helped damaged heart muscles function better in mice, potentially pointing the way toward more effective treatments for people who have heart problems, researchers say.
The findings come from the f...
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Asclera Approved to Treat Varicose Veins
WEDNESDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- Polidocanol (Asclera) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat small varicose veins, the agency said in a news release.
Varicose veins are swollen or twisted blood vessels that most often form in the legs. They are more li...
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FDA Hears Views on Risks of High Tech Scanners
WEDNESDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- Fears that popular medical imaging technologies are exposing Americans to too much radiation are getting a public airing this week as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concludes two days of meetings on Wednesday that have focused on how to increase the...
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Health Tip: Signs That You Have Sciatica
(HealthDay News) -- Sciatica pain occurs when a protruding (herniated) spinal disk pushes against the sciatic nerve.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons offers this list of sciatica's most common symptoms:
Feeling that you have a bad, persistent cramp in the leg.
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New Insights Into Who's At Risk With Angioplasty
WEDNESDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- Who's most at risk when undergoing the common, artery-opening procedure known as angioplasty?
A major U.S. study may have come up with some answers -- risk factors that doctors can use to gauge the odds of death after angioplasty, also known as "per...
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Study Revives Debate on Prostate Drug
WEDNESDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- A new study to determine whether a drug prescribed to fight the problems of an enlarged prostate gland can also reduce the risk of prostate cancer promises to prolong a debate that started with an earlier study of a similar drug.<...
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TV Doctors Bring Unethical Behavior to Prime Time
WEDNESDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- In a hospital in Seattle, a doctor overly involved with a patient attempted to worsen that patient's condition so she could go higher on the list of people eligible for an organ transplant.
Fortunately, the physician was fired and, even more fortuna...
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A Little Chocolate May Do the Heart Good
TUESDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- For those who believe in the Easter bunny (or at least in what he is believed to bring), good news awaits.
Just one small square of chocolate a day might help lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk for heart disease.
After analyzing th...
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Diabetes Screening Should Start Sooner
TUESDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- Current recommendations suggest that screening for type 2 diabetes start at age 45, especially for those who are overweight, but new research shows cost-effective screening can begin between the ages of 30 and 45 for everyone.
When screening be...
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Health Tip: Drink Enough Water
(HealthDay News) -- Drinking plenty of water is important, particularly among people who exercise vigorously.
The American Council on Fitness offers these recommendations for how much to drink:
Two or three hours before you start to exercise, drink 17-to-20 ounces of water.<...
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In Pregnancy, Leg Clots More Likely on Left Side
TUESDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- When pregnant women develop a blood clot known as deep vein thrombosis, it is most likely to occur on the left side, and particularly in the left leg, Canadian researchers have found.
Dr. Wee-Shian Chan of Women's College Hospital in Toronto, and co-...
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Man's Best Friend Helps Mend Broken Hearts
TUESDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- Some recovering heart patients are getting a new "leash" on life as they gain strength by walking dogs housed at a local shelter.
The innovative program, called Cardiac Friends, is a partnership between ProHealth Care (PHC) and Humane Animal Welfare S...
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Novel Method Eyed for Normalizing Blood Sugar
TUESDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- A potential new method of normalizing blood sugar levels in diabetes has been discovered by U.S. researchers.
The Children's Hospital Boston team identified a cellular pathway that fails because of obesity. Artificial activation of this pathway normal...
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Too Much Radiation? The FDA Wants to Know
TUESDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- Fears that Americans are being exposed to too much radiation will get a public airing this week as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration holds two days of meetings on what should be done to increase the safety of increasingly popular imaging procedures....
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Blood Gives Clues to 'Executive Thinking' Problems
MONDAY, March 29 (HealthDay News) -- High blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) are associated with problems in executive thinking skills, such as planning, decision-making and self-control, says a German study.
CRP is considered an indicator of inflammation.
For the study, 447...
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Heavy Daily Drinking Linked to Worse Health
FRIDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) -- Heavy drinkers take worse care of themselves than other people, but moderate drinkers actually appear to be healthier than those who don't imbibe, researchers have found.
"The main finding here is that risky drinkers also engage in other behaviors -- s...
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MRI Beats X-Ray for Spotting Fractures in ER
FRIDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) -- X-rays often fail to detect hip and pelvic fractures, a new U.S. study says.
Duke University Medical Center researchers analyzed information on 92 emergency department patients who were given an X-ray and then an MRI to evaluate hip and pelvic pain.
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Accepting Help Improves Survival Among Diabetics
THURSDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- People with diabetes do much better, in terms of survival, if they can turn to others for support in times of need, new research suggests.
The study found that those who are more independent and feel they don't need help from others have a 33 percent...
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Many Americans Unaware They Have Chronic Kidney Disease
THURSDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- Among Americans with prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes, millions may have chronic kidney disease and not know it, new research has found.
In the study, researchers looked at a nationally representative sample of about 8,200 people included in the...
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Mexican Americans Have Low Rates of Calling for Stroke Help
THURSDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- Mexican Americans with stroke symptoms are less likely than whites to call 9-1-1 and to be taken by ambulance to hospital, a new study finds.
Researchers analyzed data from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi, Texas project on 1,134 Mexic...
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Brain's 'Moral Outrage' Center Pinpointed
WEDNESDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Your ability to judge wrongdoing and get angry at the perpetrator seems to be based in a part of the brain that regulates emotions, neuroscientists say.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report that people who suffer from dam...
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New Study Refutes Bone Drugs' Link to Fractures
WEDNESDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- New research concludes that widely used osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates do not boost women's risk for an unusual type of femur or thigh fracture -- something prior studies had suggested.
Bisphosphonates include blockbuster medications such...
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Poll Finds Americans Blame Insurers, Drug Companies for Rising Health Costs
WEDNESDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly half of Americans are "extremely" or "very worried" about rising costs for health care and health insurance, and a majority place the blame on drug and insurance company profits, a new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll finds.
The poll was con...
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Researchers Identify 2 Genes Linked to Fatty Liver Disease
WEDNESDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified two gene variants that increase the risk of both the most common chronic liver disease in the United States as well as type 2 diabetes.
People who carry the variants of a gene for apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3), which produces...
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Tiny Fish Might Help Humans Fix Damaged Hearts
WEDNESDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- An ability to regrow damaged or missing heart tissue makes the lowly zebrafish an ideal model for discovering new ways to repair human hearts, scientists say.
When a part of its heart is removed, the tiny zebrafish is a bit sluggish for a few days,...
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Being Active an Hour a Day Puts Brakes on Weight Gain
TUESDAY, March 23 (HealthDay News) -- An hour a day of moderate-intensity exercise will prevent weight gain in normal-weight women, middle age and older, according to a new study.
"'Moderate intensity' means brisk walking, casual bicycling, ballroom dancing, playing with the grandchildren...
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New Inhaled Insulin Shows Promise for Diabetes
TUESDAY, March 23 (HealthDay News) -- A new form of inhaled insulin appears to help people with diabetes who must use insulin, with fewer potential risks than an earlier form of inhaled insulin that is no longer on the market.
The new drug, Afrezza, which is awaiting approval from the U.S...
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Polyunsaturated Fats Really May Lower Heart Risk
TUESDAY, March 23 (HealthDay News) -- Replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats may reduce your risk of heart disease, new research suggests.
Harvard School of Public Health researchers reviewed eight studies with a total of 13,614 participants and found that those who replaced s...
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Weight Counseling Plus Drug Helps Women Quit Smoking
TUESDAY, March 23 (HealthDay News) -- Behavioral therapy with a focus on weight-counseling combined with the smoking-cessation medicine bupropion (Zyban) is more effective than standard counseling alone in helping women quit smoking, according to a new study.
The research, published March...
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When Heart Is in Crisis, High Blood Pressure a Good Sign
TUESDAY, March 23 (HealthDay News) -- High blood pressure -- even above the level ordinarily regarded as dangerous -- is a good indicator of long-term survival for people admitted to an intensive care unit because of chest pains that indicate a major heart problem, Swedish researchers report....
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Brain Function May Drop Quickly Before Alzheimer's
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Memory and thinking skills can deteriorate quickly in people with mild cognitive impairment, the stage before Alzheimer's disease, says a new study.
"These results show that we need to pay attention to this time before Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed,...
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House Democrats Approve Health-Care Reform Bill
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- After a year of fierce partisan debate, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives late Sunday night passed the landmark $940 billion health-care reform bill, which would extend health insurance coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, prevent insuran...
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Infertility Raises Risk of More Aggressive Prostate Cancer
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Infertility increases the risk that a man will develop the aggressive, potentially fatal form of prostate cancer, a new study suggests.
"To my knowledge, this is the first study to identify a link between male factor infertility and prostate cancer," s...
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Light Drinking Good for the Heart
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Two major studies confirm the current medical consensus that moderate drinking appears to be good for the heart but heavy drinking is bad for health in general.
"This would not change our current guidelines, which provide an upper limit and not a lower...
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Plavix Can Help Cut Death Risk in Certain Heart Patients
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- The anti-clotting drug Plavix is of modest benefit in cutting the odds of death in patients with heart failure and heart attack who don't undergo angioplasty, a new study finds.
Angioplasty is a procedure to open blocked arteries.
Danish resear...
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Racial Disparities Persist in Hospital Stroke Care
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Many black patients may not receive the same quality of stroke care in hospitals as white and Hispanic patients do, the results of a U.S. study suggest.
In the study, the researchers analyzed data from 1,181 hospitals participating in the American Hear...
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Women's Height Loss May Indicate Spinal Fracture
MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Height loss in postmenopausal women could be a sign of a spinal fracture, says a new study that included 8,610 women over the age of 60.
"We observed a mean loss of height of 4.5 cm [1.8 inches] since early adulthood in a large population of postmenopa...
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High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring
FRIDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- New research links consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, the extremely popular sweetener that shows up in food products from ketchup to jelly, to liver damage in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
It's not clear if the sweetener directl...
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High-Dose Zocor Boosts Muscle Injury Risk: FDA
FRIDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- People taking the highest approved doses of the cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor (simvastatin) may be at increased risk for muscle injuries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned Friday.
Although muscle pain and weakness, called myopathy, i...
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With Infertility May Come Sexual Dysfunction
FRIDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- Infertile women face an increased risk for sexual dysfunction, a new study reports.
Stanford University researchers compared a group of infertile women, who averaged about 36 years old, with a group of fertile women, who averaged about 33 years old. Th...
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Implant Shows Promise for Hard-to-Treat Epilepsy
THURSDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- Deep-brain electrical stimulation reduced the frequency of epileptic seizures in people who had not responded to other treatments, a new study has found.
The electrical stimulation came from a pacemaker-like device that was implanted under the skin o...
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Low-Fat Diet Does Little to Alter Cholesterol Levels
THURSDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- The latest report from a massive trial to determine the health value of a low-fat diet comes to the unexciting conclusion that it is probably not bad for your heart.
Such an eating regimen had almost no effect on cholesterol levels, according to a re...
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Selenium Could Shield Against Diabetes
THURSDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have found evidence that older men with higher levels of selenium are less likely to suffer from dysglycemia, or improper blood-sugar metabolism.
Tasnime Akbaraly, from the University of Montpellier in France, and colleagues studied 1,162...
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Could Lowering Blood Pressure Help Stop Dementia?
WEDNESDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) -- In the ongoing struggle to find treatments -- and maybe one day even a cure -- for dementia, researchers are focusing their attention on high blood pressure, long a culprit for a variety of other ills and an ailment for which many drugs are already availabl...
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Online, Phone Tests Assess Diabetes Risk
WEDNESDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) -- About 20 percent of Americans have prediabetes and are at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes, the American Diabetes Association reports.
"Look around you. We are surrounded by [diabetes] risk," Christine T. Tobin, president of health care and...
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Rehab Program Gets Back Pain Patients Back to Work Sooner
WEDNESDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) -- People with chronic low back pain that keeps them away from work can recover an average of four months earlier if they take part in a specific type of rehabilitation program, a new study suggests.
Researchers in the Netherlands and Canada studied 13...
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Widespread Public Defibrillators May Save Lives
WEDNESDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) -- The availability of public automated external defibrillators (AEDs) increases the odds of surviving a heart attack with little neurological consequences, suggests new research.
In Japan, where AEDs are available nationwide, a study found that about...
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A New Way to Zap Away Uterine Fibroids
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- Focused ultrasound is an effective way to get rid of uterine fibroids, the noncancerous but troublesome tumors that can grow inside the uterus, new research shows.
Uterine fibroids are a common condition that can lead to a host of problems, including...
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Blood Vessels Bounce Back Once Smokers Quit
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- Blood vessel function rapidly recuperates after smokers kick the habit, leading to a reduced risk of heart disease and heart attack, new research shows.
The study included more than 1,500 people taking part in a clinical trial to help them quit smokin...
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DNA Test May Cut Hospitalizations Caused by Blood Thinner
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- A simple genetic test that helps doctors determine the best dose of the blood-thinner drug warfarin for individual patients could reduce hospitalizations by one-third during the early dose-adjustment phase, a new study has found.
The test identifies v...
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Freezing Tumors Shows Promise Against Prostate, Breast Cancer
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have succeeded in freezing away breast and prostate tumors in a small number of patients, opening a promising door to a new generation of cancer treatments.
In two separate studies to be presented Tuesday at the Society of Interventional R...
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Newer Blood Thinner Beats Plavix for Bypass Patients
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- In a trial comparing two anti-clotting drugs, patients given Brilinta before cardiac bypass surgery were less likely to die than those given Plavix, researchers found.
Both drugs prevent platelets from clumping and forming clots, but Plavix, the more...
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Prostate Cancer Radiation Side Effects May Subside With Time
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- The balance between using enough radiation to shield patients from prostate cancer's return while keeping side effects at bay may not be as tricky as once thought, new research shows.
That's because radiation-linked side effects appear to lessen with...
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Stenting May Save Legs
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- When angioplasty fails, patients with severe peripheral arterial disease may now have another option.
A drug-releasing stent placed in the blocked artery below the knee might re-establish blood flow, new research shows.
Critical limb ischemia...
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Treat Women With Heart Attack Just Like Men: Study
TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women who suffer a heart attack are more likely to survive if they receive the same invasive treatments as men do, a new study suggests.
French researchers looked at more than 3,000 patients admitted to the hospital for heart attack and found that wom...
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Arthritis Drug May Fight Diabetes, Too
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- A generic drug widely prescribed for arthritis shows promise in treating type 2 diabetes, according to U.S. researchers.
They found that salsalate -- an atypical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, chemically similar to as...
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Aspirin Alone Works Best to Prevent Clots a Year After Stenting
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- After 12 months, giving aspirin alone to patients who have had stents implanted seems just as good as giving aspirin along with the blood thinner Plavix, a new study finds.
Researchers discovered that, after an initial year receiving the dual anti-clot...
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Boosting Vitamin D Can Do a Heart Good
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that extra vitamin D could make a major difference in heart disease risk among people who have low levels of the nutrient.
Researchers from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Murray, Utah, report in two new studie...
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Erectile Dysfunction Plus Heart Disease Raises Death Risk
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- Men suffering from both cardiovascular disease and erectile dysfunction are at greater risk for heart attack, stroke, heart failure and death, a new study finds.
Moreover, treatments for cardiovascular disease had no effect on erectile dysfunction, so...
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Freezing, Medicating Away a Dangerous Irregular Heart Rhythm
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- New data presented at a major cardiology meeting Monday brought mostly good news on atrial fibrillation, the potentially dangerous abnormal heartbeat that afflicts more than 2 million Americans.
In atrial fibrillation, the two upper chambers (atria) of...
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Relief Sought for Secondary Parkinson's Symptoms
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- A new set of guidelines to treat sleepiness, constipation and sexual dysfunction in people with Parkinson's disease has been released by the American Academy of Neurology.
The main symptoms of Parkinson's disease are movement problems, but patients al...
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Women's Chromosomes May Affect Blood Pressure
MONDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have believed that testosterone and estrogen play a major role in regulating blood pressure, but a new study in mice suggests that female sex chromosomes could also be key, at least after menopause begins.
In the study, researchers genetical...
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2 Drugs Fail to Prevent Diabetes in the Overweight
SUNDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- Hopes that two available drugs could help prevent diabetes and the problems it causes in overweight people with poor sugar metabolism have been dashed by a major international study.
The trial involved two drugs prescribed for other reasons -- Diovan (...
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Hope for Inherited, Dangerously High Cholesterol
SUNDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- A new drug called mipomersen reduced low-density lipoprotein (LDL) "bad" cholesterol by nearly 25 percent when added to current therapy in people with a rare genetic condition that causes extremely high cholesterol, a new study finds.
Mipomersen is des...
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Intense Cholesterol, Blood Pressure Therapies Don't Help Type 2 Diabetics
SUNDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- Two sets of results from a large U.S. government-sponsored trial find that neither aggressive treatment of cholesterol nor of blood pressure lowers the risk of heart events in people with type 2 diabetes.
"These results could be disappointing to a lot...
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More Evidence That Swings in Blood Pressure Raise Stroke Risk
SUNDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) --Following on recent, similar research, a large five-year study points to fluctuations in blood pressure over time as a key indicator of stroke risk.
In the study, British researchers tracked the health of more than 19,000 patients taking either beta blo...
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Are Stock Market Woes Bad for the Heart?
SATURDAY, March 13 (HealthDay News) -- When the stock market declines, do heart attacks go up? That's what Duke University Medical Center researchers are wondering based on an analysis of data collected during the current U.S. economic crisis.
"During the period that the NASDAQ was decli...
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Many WTC Responders Show Signs of Heart Trouble
SATURDAY, March 13 (HealthDay News) -- Police who responded on 9/11 to the collapsing World Trade Center towers appear to be at greater risk for heart problems compared with people in the general population, a new study finds.
The report was to be presented Saturday at the American Colleg...
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Marathoners Face Greater Risk of Artery Stiffness
SATURDAY, March 13 (HealthDay News) -- If regular exercise such as jogging is good for the heart, then turbo-charged workouts like training for marathons must be even better, right?
Not so fast, according to new research by Greek doctors who found that marathon runners have increased sti...
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Psoriasis Tied to Raised Heart Risk
SATURDAY, March 13 (HealthDay News) -- The common skin ailment psoriasis may boost the risk for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular woes, probably through a shared inflammatory response, a new Danish study found.
"There is mounting evidence for psoriasis as a risk factor for car...
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Adding Garlic Might Cut Cancer Risk
FRIDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new type of urine test shows that eating plenty of garlic may lower levels of a cancer-causing process within the body.
This process, called nitrosation, converts some substances found in foods or contaminated water into cancer-causing compounds. Nit...
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Health Tip: Symptoms of Ketoacidosis
(HealthDay News) -- Ketoacidosis occurs when diabetic people develop dangerously high levels of ketones, which are produced when stored fat is burned for energy.
Ketoacidosis, a sign that diabetes is uncontrolled, requires immediate medical attention.
The American Diabetes Associa...
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Pelvic Artery Stent Approved
FRIDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- Boston Scientific's Express LD Iliac Stent has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat iliac artery disease, the company said in a news release.
A stent is a hollow tube that props open a blood vessel that's been blocked by a bu...
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Plavix Less Effective in Some Patients
FRIDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- The anti-clotting drug Plavix must now carry a "black box" warning on its label, alerting patients and doctors that some people don't metabolize the medication properly, U.S. health officials said Friday.
Patients with a certain genetic variation can't...
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Start Metformin Early for Best Results
FRIDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- If diabetics start the drug metformin early -- within three months of diagnosis -- it appears the drug will remain effective longer, a new study finds.
"This study suggests that to gain full benefit from metformin, patients should start taking it as s...
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U.S. Minorities Especially Vulnerable to Kidney Failure
FRIDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- Poor, minority adults with moderate to severe chronic kidney disease are far more likely to progress to kidney failure than are whites with the disease, a new U.S. study has found.
The finding came from an analysis of data on 15,353 adults who had non-...
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Body's Response to Foods' Smell, Taste Could Be Diabetes Risk Factor
THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- A mutation that affects how the body responds when a person smells or tastes food may play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes in some people, U.S. researchers report.
"Our study showed there is a novel genetic mutation through which some ty...
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Long-Term Use of Osteoporosis Drugs Linked to Fractures
THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term use of oral drugs prescribed to keep osteoporosis at bay may be associated with unusual fractures of the thigh bone, two new studies suggest.
The research is not the first to link the drugs, known as bisphosphonates, with unusual fractures....
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Obesity, Drinking a Double Threat to the Liver
THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- Obesity plus daily drinking boosts the risk of liver disease in men and women, researchers report in two new studies.
In one study, scientists at the University of Oxford examined the medical records of 1.2 million middle-aged British women. They fo...
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Variable Blood Pressure a New Stroke Risk Factor?
THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- Challenging established medical wisdom about blood pressure and stroke, new British research suggests that extremely variable blood pressure, and not just high blood pressure, can greatly increase a person's risk of stroke.
"Some people have very sta...
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Doctors Turning to Cardiac Catheterization Too Quickly
WEDNESDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- If you walk into an emergency room complaining of chest pains, the odds are high that you will end up having cardiac catheterization, where a thin wire is snaked into your heart to determine whether a blood vessel is totally or partially blocked.
Bu...
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Gene Mutations Identified for Charcot-Marie-Tooth Syndrome
WEDNESDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- By analyzing the genome of a colleague who has Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, U.S. scientists have identified gene mutations associated with the neurological disorder, which affects the function of nerves in the limbs, hands and feet.
The study, publ...
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High Natural Estrogen Might Raise Women's Stroke Risk
WEDNESDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- Higher levels of naturally occurring estrogen are tied to a rising risk of stroke in postmenopausal women who aren't on hormone therapy, a new study finds.
U.S. researchers analyzed medical histories and blood samples from more than 9,700 generally...
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Longtime Smokers May Find Protection From Parkinson's
WEDNESDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- In an effort to understand the relationship between tobacco smoke and Parkinson's disease, researchers have found that smoking for many years may reduce risk for the disease but smoking a large number of cigarettes a day does not seem to reduce risk.
<...
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Scientists Find Key to Hormone-Resistant Prostate Tumors
WEDNESDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- Though hormone therapy has proven useful in treating late-stage prostate cancer, it often results in the development of fatal secondary tumors that are resistant to such therapy.
Now, however, researchers working with mice believe they have uncovere...
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Alzheimer's 'Epidemic' Hitting Minorities Hardest
TUESDAY, March 9 (HealthDay News) -- Over 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease, and blacks and Hispanics are at highest risk of developing the disease, a new report finds.
The report, 2010 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, from the Alzheimer's Association, f...
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Botox Approved for Spasticity in Stroke Victims
TUESDAY, March 9 (HealthDay News) -- Botox (onabotulinumtoxin A) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat spasms (spasticity) in the flexor muscles of the elbow, wrist and fingers in adults who have had a stroke, the agency said Tuesday in a news release.
Spasti...
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Doctor's Specialty Often Steers Prostate Cancer Care
TUESDAY, March 9 (HealthDay News) -- The kind of treatment received by a prostate cancer patient often depends on the type of specialist providing the patient's care, new research shows.
U.S. researchers analyzed data on more than 85,000 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and older who were d...
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Kidney Donors Go On to Lead Long, Healthy Lives
TUESDAY, March 9 (HealthDay News) -- Giving a kidney carries few health risks, with donors living just as long or sometimes even longer than those who don't donate, the largest study to date of donors has found.
Using data on more than 80,000 U.S. residents who donated a kidney between 1...
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Blacks, Hispanics With Heart Failure Less Likely to Use Hospice
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) --
Blacks and Hispanics with advanced heart failure are much less likely to turn to hospice care than whites, even though blacks in particular are more likely to develop the condition, a new report finds.
Heart failure, in which the heart weakens and can'...
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Bleeding Alert Sounded for Stroke Drugs
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- People treated with the clot-dissolving drug tPA for a stroke caused by a blocked brain artery are significantly more likely to have excess bleeding if they have been taking the anti-clotting drug Coumadin, even though a test shows no great danger of bleeding,...
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Diet, Exercise Can Improve Thinking
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- A good diet and regular exercise may help the mind function better, a new study suggests.
"It looks like exercise and diet improve the range of cognitive function," said Patrick Smith, an intern in clinical neuropsychology and a member of a Duke Univers...
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Sleepless Nights Plague America
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News)-- Americans of all races toss and turn in bed each night, and sleeplessness is affecting their jobs, social lives and even their sexual habits, the latest poll on U.S. sleep habits finds.
"Everybody is sleeping less; we do live in a nation of sleepy peo...
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Stroke Risk Runs in the Family
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- If your mother or father had a stroke by the time they were 65, your chances of also having a stroke by that age are increased fourfold, U.S. researchers report.
There are many risk factors for stroke, such as high blood pressure, obesity and smoking....
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Study Looks At Cost-Effectiveness of ECG in Hyperactive Kids
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- Electrocardiogram screening to check for heart problems in hyperactive children before prescribing stimulant medications may help identify those at risk, but is only borderline cost-effective compared to the current practice of taking a patient history and doin...
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Sunlight May Help Protect Men From Kidney Cancer
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- Men with jobs that expose them to high levels of sunlight are less likely to develop kidney cancer than those with little or no sunlight exposure at work, says a new study.
Previous research suggests that vitamin D, which is obtained from sun exposure a...
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Teamwork Unlikely to Improve Cholesterol Levels
MONDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with high cholesterol, joint physician-pharmacist care to help them manage their lipid levels doesn't have a significant impact, a new study finds.
Canadian researchers looked at partnerships where doctors were responsible for prescribing c...
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Gene Variant May Help Some Overcome Adversity
SUNDAY, March 7 (HealthDay News) -- The study of a link between misery and death has helped researchers identify a gene variant fostering resilience in the face of adversity.
The U.S. research team focused on a gene called IL6, which is known to cause inflammation in the body and contrib...
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Health Tip: Symptoms That May Indicate a Urinary Tract Infection
(HealthDay News) -- The urinary tract includes the kidneys, bladder, urethra and ureters -- parts of the body that create, store and remove urine. A bacterial infection of the urinary tract is common.
The National Women's Health Information Center says a urinary tract infection (UTI) may...
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Increasing Soda Consumption Fuels Rise in Diabetes, Heart Disease
FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) --Increasing consumption of sugary soft drinks contributed to 130,000 new cases of diabetes, 14,000 new cases of heart disease and 50,000 more life-years burdened with heart disease in the last decade, a new U.S. study finds.
"The finding suggests that any...
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More Info Needed on Problems With Insulin Pumps
FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- The makers of insulin pumps used to treat diabetes should try to supply more information to U.S. officials when filing reports about potential problems with the devices, an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
Makers of m...
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New Prostate Cancer Guidelines Aim to Empower the Patient
FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- New American Cancer Society guidelines on prostate cancer screening mean that many men will be faced with a cascade of decisions, with a growing responsibility for those decisions falling on their shoulders.
The guidelines, issued Wednesday, de-emphasiz...
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Processed Meat May Harm the Heart
FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- Conventional wisdom has dictated that fat from red meat is a risk factor for heart disease, but a new analysis from Harvard researchers finds it's eating processed meat -- not unprocessed red meat -- that increases the risk for heart disease and even diabetes.<...
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Air Travel Could Raise Risk for Heartbeat Irregularities
THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Air travel could raise the risk for experiencing heartbeat irregularities among older individuals with a history of heart disease, a new study suggests.
The finding stems from an assessment of a small group of people -- some of whom had a history of h...
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Years of Exposure to Traffic Pollution Raises Blood Pressure
THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term exposure to the air pollution particles caused by traffic has been linked to an increase in blood pressure, U.S. researchers say.
In the new report, researchers analyzed data from 939 participants in the Normative Aging Study, who were asses...
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Chocolate May Make Some Strokes Less Likely
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- In news that's sure to delight chocolate lovers, a Harvard study finds that a couple of squares of dark chocolate a day might reduce the risk of a hemorrhagic stroke, by 52 percent.
Unfortunately for chocolate fans, though, the same research also fou...
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Health Tip: Why You May Need an MRI
(HealthDay News) -- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses a strong magnetic field and computerized technology to compose detailed pictures of the organs and other soft tissue inside the body.
The Radiological Society of North America says an MRI can be used to help diagnose:
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New Drugs, Approaches Offer Hope Against Prostate Cancer
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists are making headway in finding ways to treat and detect stubborn forms of prostate cancer.
The new hope comes from three studies being presented this week at the annual Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco.
"Genitourinar...
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New Prostate Cancer Screening Guidelines Unveiled
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time in almost a decade, the American Cancer Society has revamped its recommendations for prostate cancer screening.
In new guidelines released Wednesday, annual screening is now recommended for men whose prostate-specific antigen, or...
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Newer Blood Test Predicts Diabetes, Heart Disease
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- The newer hemoglobin A1C test predicts diabetes as well as the traditional fasting blood sugar test, but it beats that old standard in predicting a patient's future risk of heart disease and stroke, new research shows.
After adjusting for common card...
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Oldest Epilepsy Drug Best for Children
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- A landmark comparison of three drugs widely used against the most common form of childhood epilepsy finds the oldest to be the most effective.
The study of 453 children at 32 U.S. medical centers found that ethosuximide (Zarontin), one of the oldest...
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Potassium-Rich Foods Do a Heart Good
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- Eating plenty of potassium-rich foods such as leafy greens, potatoes and bananas may reduce the risk of stroke and coronary artery disease, according to Italian researchers.
The new analysis was based on 10 studies published between 1966 and 2009 tha...
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Whole Grains Take a Bite Out of Type 2 Diabetes Risk
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- Brown rice is better than white rice at reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, but whole grains are the most effective at lowering the risk, study findings show.
U.S. researchers analyzed data from 39,765 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Stud...
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You Can't Exercise Away TV's Toll on the Heart
WEDNESDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- People who watch more television in their 20s and 30s are more apt to develop heart disease risk factors by the time they reach their mid-40s than people who spent less time in front of the screen, a new study finds.
And while that's worrisome enough...
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A Purposeful Life May Stave Off Alzheimer's
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- People who say their lives have a purpose are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or its precursor, mild cognitive impairment, a new study suggests.
As the population ages and dementia becomes a more frequent diagnosis, there's increasing impetu...
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Coffee Is Generally Heart-Friendly
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Coffee drinkers can take heart from a series of studies presented this week at American Heart Association conferences in San Francisco.
For example, coffee drinkers appear to have a lower risk of hospitalization for abnormal heart rhythms. And there's...
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Fitness May Boost Kids' Grades
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Fit bodies may bring kids better test scores in school, a new study finds.
''Children's physical fitness is associated with their academic performance," said study author Lesley Cottrell, an associate professor of pediatrics at West Virginia University...
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For Some on Dialysis, Anemia Drugs Pose Risks
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Powerful drugs that treat the anemia caused by kidney failure yield mixed results, depending on the severity of the anemia, a new study has shown.
People on dialysis with severe anemia, according to the study, tend to live longer when given high doses...
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Generic Flomax Approved for Enlarged Prostate
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- The first generic version of Flomax (tamsulosin hydrochloride) capsules has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), the medical term for an enlarged prostate.
California-based IMPAX Laboratori...
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Having Prediabetes May Not Kick-Start Prevention Efforts
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Knowing you're on the cusp of developing diabetes apparently isn't enough to make most people take steps to prevent it.
New research, published in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that only about half of thos...
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Sea Squirt Helps Researchers Test New Alzheimer's Drug
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- The humble sea squirt may offer a new way to test drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers say.
Sea squirts are marine organisms that have a hard outer tunic with a soft body inside. Adult sea squirts spend their lives attached to one spot...
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Secondhand Smoke Starts Damaging Arteries in Childhood
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Kids exposed to secondhand smoke face a higher risk of developing early signs of clogged arteries by the time they're 13, and are also more likely to have other risk factors for heart disease, Finnish researchers warn.
The authors of the new study exam...
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Study Questions Value of Test for Peripheral Artery Disease
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- A new Scottish study raises questions about the value of both the ankle-brachial index, a test widely used to diagnose the risk of blood vessel problems in the legs, and the common practice of prescribing low-dose aspirin to reduce that risk.
The ankle-...
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Workplace Wellness Programs Work
TUESDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Workplace wellness programs help employees lose weight and reduce their risk of heart disease, a new study shows.
U.S. researchers followed 757 hospital workers who took part in a voluntary 12-week, team-based wellness program that focused on diet and...
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Clot Buster More Critical for Female Stroke Victims
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Female stroke patients who aren't given the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) have worse outcomes than men who don't receive the drug, a new study finds.
The research appears in the March 2 issue of Neurology.
"Women ne...
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Cutting Salt Could Prevent Almost 500,000 Heart Attacks
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- A combined government-industry initiative to reduce U.S. sodium consumption by as little as 10 percent would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars, according to new research.
Cutting salt reduces blood pressure, a key factor contributing to he...
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Future Heart Disease May Be in Store for Obese Kids
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Obese children as young as 3 could harbor a warning sign that they're at risk of heart disease in the future, new research suggests.
In a study published online March 1 in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found higher levels of C-reactive prot...
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Low-Fat Diets Beat Low-Carb Regimen Long Term
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Three years after going on a diet, obese men and women on low-carbohydrate "Atkins"-type plans had gained back nearly all their weight, while those on low-fat diets continued to lose, new research finds.
Neither group ended up model-thin, however: Three...
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New MRI May Lead to Better Brain Pictures
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers are reporting that they've developed a new kind of MRI sensor that can detect the neurotransmitter known as dopamine, potentially allowing doctors to get better views inside the brain.
Currently, functional MRI analyzes brain activity by det...
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Popular Diet Plans Can Unclog Arteries
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Any one of three heart-healthy diets -- low-fat, low-carbohydrate, Mediterranean -- can reverse the thickening of artery walls that can lead to heart attack and stroke, an Israeli study indicates.
"Once one adheres to a sensible diet, even though you ex...
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Routine Heart Tests for Athletes Would Save Lives
MONDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- A new study suggests that routine electrocardiogram testing of young American athletes would save lives and be cost-effective.
The testing isn't routine among athletes in college and high school, apparently because doctors think the benefits -- discove...
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Current Blood Thinners Face Tough Competition
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- New studies provide more proof that the mainstays of anti-clotting therapy, namely warfarin and aspirin, are facing some severe competition from newcomers.
Researchers presenting their findings during a Friday news conference at the American Stroke Ass...
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Cutting Off Blood Flow to Heart Cuts Damage During Heart Attack
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Cutting off the flow of blood to the heart by repeatedly inflating a blood pressure cuff appears to reduce the amount of tissue damaged during a heart attack, a new Danish study shows.
In a study of 142 patients being rushed to a hospital for treatment...
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Early Liver Detection Methods Ineffective
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that biomarkers used to detect liver cancer in its early stages aren't doing a great job.
In a study led by Dr. Anna S. Lok of the University of Michigan Medical School, researchers found that two biomarkers -- des-gamma-carboxy p...
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New Clues to Lupus' Link With Heart Disease
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- An increase in certain types of immune system antibodies may contribute to the development of heart disease in people with active lupus, a new study finds.
Lupus is an autoimmune illess in which the immune system creates antibodies that attack the body'...
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Reading Remediation Seems to Rewire the Brain
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists studying the anatomy of children's brains during reading discovered something rather unexpected: Remedial training for poor readers results in a growth of white matter tracts in the brain, and the increase correlates with the level of improvement in...
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Stents May Be Effective Weapon Against Stroke
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Both stents and conventional surgery appear to be equally effective in preventing strokes in people whose carotid arteries are blocked, according to research presented Friday at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting in San Antonio.
However, a...
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Twice as Many Women May Soon Be Diagnosed With Gestational Diabetes
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- New measurements for determining dangerous blood sugar levels for pregnant women and their unborn babies mean that two to three times as many women will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, a new study suggests.
Instead of 5 percent to 8 percent of p...
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Zen May Thicken Brain, Thwart Pain
FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- If you're trying to reduce your sensitivity to pain, Zen meditation may help by actually thickening your brain, new research suggests.
The authors of a new study, published in a special issue of the journal Emotion, reached their conclusions afte...
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Chronic Back Pain Soothed by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
THURSDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- People suffering from chronic lower back pain may find relief through cognitive behavioral therapy, a short-term treatment aimed at challenging and reframing negative beliefs.
Chronic lower back pain is one of the three most disabling conditions in th...
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Coffee Drinking May Lower Stroke Risk
THURSDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Regular coffee drinking appears to reduce the risk of stroke, a new study indicates.
The study of 23,000 men and women who were followed for an average of 12 years found that "self-reported coffee consumption was inversely related to stroke risk," sai...
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Fatigue May Predict Heart Attack in Dialysis Patients
THURSDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Fatigue in dialysis patients may be a warning sign of an impending heart attack or other serious heart problems, a new study suggests.
Japanese researchers had 788 dialysis patients complete a fatigue questionnaire and found that about 16 percent of t...
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Vitamin B3 May Help Repair Brain After a Stroke
THURSDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Based on the results of preliminary research in rats, researchers say that doses of vitamin B3 -- also known as niacin -- could help people recover brain function after a stroke.
Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital found that rats who suffered induced...
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Wii-Gaming Could Aid Stroke Rehab
THURSDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Recovering stroke patients whose physical therapy regimen is built around Wii video games appear to improve better than patients treated with standard therapies, a new Canadian study reveals.
The finding suggests that the enormously popular virtual re...
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Black Women at Higher Risk of Birth-Related Heart Problem
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Black women are much more likely than whites to develop a potentially deadly weakening of the heart muscle around the time they give birth, a new study suggests.
Symptoms of peripartum cardiomyopathy, which typically occurs in the last month of pregn...
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Extended-Release Mirapex Approved for Parkinson's Disease
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Mirapex ER (pramipexole dihydrochloride extended-release) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a once-daily option to treat early Parkinson's disease, drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim said in a news release.
Mirapex was first...
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Fitness Boosts Brain Power in Multiple Sclerosis Patients
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise appears to protect the brains of people with multiple sclerosis, new study findings suggest.
Researchers assessed fitness, cognitive function and brain structural changes in 21 women with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS).
...
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Happy Marriage Cuts Men's Risk for Stroke
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Single or unhappily married men seem to run a greater risk of dying from a stroke than those with good marriages, a new Israeli study indicates.
The study, which tracked more than 10,000 civil servants and municipal workers from 1963 to 1997, found t...
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Heart Stem Cells Move Closer to Human Treatments
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers are moving ahead -- although sometimes ploddingly -- toward the goal of using stem cell therapies to rescue people with cardiovascular disease, the leading killer of men and women in the United States.
Although much of the gains thus far...
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New Bone Drug May Prevent Fractures But Raise Clot Risk
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A new drug to fight osteoporosis, the bone condition associated with aging and debilitating fractures, reduces the risk of fractures and the risk of some breast cancers, heart disease and stroke, according to a new study.
But, like other anti-osteopo...
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Strokes Up Among the Young, Down Among the Old
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of stroke seems to be falling among the old. That's the good news.
The bad news, though, is that strokes appear to be occurring more often among the young, a group that has not been considered at high risk for the debilitating and deadl...
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Study Reports Progress Against Fatal Brain Cancer
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A new method to prevent recurrence of deadly glioblastoma brain cancer shows promise, say U.S. scientists.
Radiation |
