Health News

Kids Recognize That They Eat Too Much Candy During Halloween

Date: Oct-25-2012
As Halloween approaches, children's views and perceptions were measured by experts and revealed that kids agree that they eat too much candy and would actually prefer to receive a gift like a video game, instead. A new questionnaire, conducted by the American Dental Association and PopCap Games, targeted trick-or-treating aged children (5 to 13 years) in the U.S., inquiring about their views on Halloween. The researchers found that around 94 percent of all American children participate in trick-or-treating, and 65 percent of them think Halloween is the best holiday of the year...

Guidance On Hard Core Smokers' Quit Options, England

Date: Oct-25-2012
If you can't quit smoking in one go, what are your options? In England it appears that hard core smokers may be offered an alternative route that starts with "harm reduction" rather than quitting in one step. A draft guidance based on this approach was launched this week for public consultation. Although over the last 50 years or so there has been a dramatic reduction in the numbers who smoke, there remains a "hard core" of people who find it hard to quit, as well as those who don't want to...

Alzheimer's Risk Changes With Timing Of Hormone Therapy

Date: Oct-25-2012
New research from the US suggests that use of hormone therapy may affect women's risk for developing Alzheimer's disease: those who start it within five years of menopause may experience a lower risk, and those who start it later may experience a raised risk for the neurodegenerative disease. Peter P. Zandi of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and colleagues write about their findings in a paper that was published online in the journal Neurology on Wednesday...

Best Options For Safe, Effective Patient Treatment For Fungal Meningitis Outbreak

Date: Oct-25-2012
As the number of fungal meningitis cases continues to rise, physicians across the country are faced with how best to provide the early treatment that can save lives. A University of Michigan Health System infectious disease expert is the lead author of a New England Journal of Medicine report detailing how the outbreak evolved and the complexities of providing anti-fungal treatments. Carol F. Kauffman, M.D...

Warning: Diabetes Devices May Be Damaged By Airport Security Scanners

Date: Oct-25-2012
Full-body or X-ray scanners used for airport security screening may affect the function of insulin pump or continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices. People with diabetes can present a travel letter obtained from their physicians to avoid possible damage caused by exposure to imaging equipment in airports...

Higher Levels Of Activity, Lower BMI May Help To Protect Amish Children Against Type 2 Diabetes

Date: Oct-25-2012
Old Order Amish children are much more physically active and three times less likely to be overweight than non-Amish children, which may provide them with some long-term protection against developing Type 2 diabetes, University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care. The researchers found that Amish children in Lancaster County, Pa...

'Revolutionary' Findings Of Online Studies Should Be Interpreted With Caution

Date: Oct-25-2012
'Direct to consumer' research, using data obtained through increasingly popular online communities such as 23andMe, PatientsLikeMe and the Personal Genome Project, has methodological limitations that are known to epidemiological studies, including selection bias, information bias, and confounding. These limitations mean that the results and conclusions of research using these methods need to be interpreted with caution, according to a paper published in the journal PLoS Medicine...

Endovascular Aneurysm Repair Found To Reduce Ruptures, Mortality

Date: Oct-25-2012
Minimally invasive elective repairs of abdominal aortic aneurysms, potential deadly bulges in arteries, reduces vessel rupture and short-term, AAA-related mortality, according to a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center study. Endovascular abdominal aortic repair (EVAR), where surgeons use stents to repair damaged blood vessels, was first introduced in 1999 and has resulted in lower rates of death and complications than open surgical repair...

Ghrelin And Leptin Levels Affected During Sleep Deprivation Consistent With Increases In Appetite

Date: Oct-25-2012
Evidence linking partial sleep deprivation to energy imbalance is relevant to weight gain prevention and weight loss promotion. A new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics bases this finding on an extensive review of literature published over a fifteen-year period. More than 35 percent of American adults are obese and more than 28 percent sleep less than six hours a night...

Removing Age Restrictions On Rotavirus Vaccination Could Save Children's Lives

Date: Oct-25-2012
A study published in this week's PLOS Medicine, which suggests that the additional children's lives saved by removing the age restrictions for rotavirus vaccination in low- and middle-income countries would be much greater than any extra deaths from vaccine-associated complications (namely, intussusception-a form of bowel obstruction), has informed policy regarding the age restrictions for this vaccine...