Health News

Diabetes Costs The US $245 Billion A Year Says New Report

Date: Mar-07-2013
Diagnosed diabetes cost the United States an estimated $245 billion in 2012, according to new research released by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) this week. The new figure represents a 41% rise in five years. In 2007, when the cost were last estimated, it came to $174 billion. A report on the research, commissioned by the ADA, was published online before print in Diabetes Care on 6 March...

Brain Pacemaker May Help Treat Patients With Anorexia

Date: Mar-07-2013
Surgically implanting a pacemaker into the brains of severe anorexia patients may help treat their symptoms. The neurosurgical implant was used safely for the first time in six patients with severe and enduring anorexia after receiving no benefits from other known treatments. The results were published in the journal The Lancet. The procedure, referred to as deep brain stimulation (DBS), involves a device comparable to a pacemaker that becomes implanted into the brains of patients with anorexia...

Processed Meat Linked To Cardiovascular Disease & Early Death

Date: Mar-07-2013
Processed meat is now linked to cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to a new, large scale study published in the journal BMC Medicine. It is often tough to calculate the effect of eating meat on health because of the confounding effect lifestyle has on health. Generally, vegetarians have healthier lifestyles than the rest of the population. They are more likely to be physically active, less overweight, and less likely to smoke. As vegetarians do not eat any kind of meat, including processed meat, their data will influence statistics on non-processed meat consumers...

Early Evidence Shows 'Good' Cholesterol Could Combat Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm

Date: Mar-07-2013
New research provides early evidence that 'good' cholesterol may possess anti-aneurysm forming properties. In laboratory-based investigations, scientists found that increased levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL), the so-called good cholesterol, blocked the development of aneurysms - dangerous 'ballooning' in the wall of a blood vessel - in the body's largest artery, the aorta...

Strong Link Between Processed Meat And Premature Death

Date: Mar-07-2013
In a huge study of half a million men and women, research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine demonstrates an association between processed meat and cardiovascular disease and cancer. One of the difficulties in measuring the effect of eating meat on health is the confounding effect of lifestyle on health. Often vegetarians have healthier lifestyles than the general population, they are less likely to smoke, are less fat, and are more likely to be physically active...

Use Of Certain Therapies For Inflammatory Diseases Does Not Appear To Increase Risk Of Shingles

Date: Mar-07-2013
Although patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have a disproportionately higher incidence of herpes zoster (shingles), an analysis that included nearly 60,000 patients with RA and other inflammatory diseases found that those who initiated anti-tumor necrosis factor therapies were not at higher risk of herpes zoster compared with patients who initiated nonbiologic treatment regimens, according to a study appearing in the March 6 issue of JAMA. "For patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the risk of herpes zoster is elevated an additional 2- to 3-fold...

FDA Approves Two Dako Assays As Companion Diagnostics For Genentech's New Breast Cancer Medicine Kadcyla

Date: Mar-07-2013
Dako, an Agilent Technologies Company and worldwide provider of cancer diagnostics, announced today it has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the addition of Kadcyla in the labeling of two Dako companion diagnostic assays. Kadcyla (ado-trastuzumab emtansine) is Genentech's new medicine for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who have received prior treatment with Genentech's cancer medicine Herceptin (trastuzumab) and a taxane chemotherapy. The two assays are Dako's HercepTest and HER2 IQFISH pharmDx...

Brain Scan Study Sheds Light On Source Of Mood Disorders

Date: Mar-07-2013
People at risk of depression could benefit from earlier medical care, a brain study suggests. Researchers have found that some people with a family history of mood disorder have increased activity in the insula cortex - a part of the brain that regulates mood - even before they become unwell. Experts say that in future this finding could aid early diagnosis of the condition enabling people with depression to be identified before the onset of illness...

Deaths From Dementia Soar According To New Study

Date: Mar-07-2013
Dementia and Alzheimer's disease have risen from the 24th leading cause of death in the UK to the 10th in the last 20 years according to a study published in The Lancet today (Tuesday 5 March 2013). The study is a UK-specific analysis of worldwide data published late last year as the Global Burden of Disease and looks into how the UK is performing on a number of public health outcomes...

How Do We Make Safety Claims About GMOs More Transparent?

Date: Mar-07-2013
Consumer confidence in the quality and safety of the food supply has suffered repeated blows in recent years, most recently after food inspectors in Europe found horsemeat in beef products. Restoring public trust in the food supply depends on a transparent regulatory process, and especially on public access to the research that regulators rely on. But corporate claims of confidentiality often keep the safety studies that inform regulatory decisions hidden from public view-inevitably increasing consumer distrust...