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No one said eating enough fruits and vegetables was going to be a piece of cake - even if you're giving it your best shot. The majority of Americans say they've been trying to eat more fruits and vegetables over the past year, according to a poll of 1,057 adults for the International Food Information Council Foundation. But most people are consuming less than half of what the government recommends....
July 10, 2012
Sitting less could lead to a longer life, a study out Monday says. If most people spent less than three hours a day sitting, it would add two years to the average U.S. life expectancy. And if they cut the time they spent on the couch watching TV to less than two hours a day, it would add about 1.4 years to overall life expectancy, the research found. This is far less than the six hours a day that many...
July 10, 2012
Astronaut Alan Poindexter's accident made national headlines this month: the 50-year-old man died in a collision between water scooters in Pensacola, Fla. Such accidents are relatively rare and aren't on the rise, but tragedies like it resonate with the public. Experts are increasing efforts to warn people about the danger of personal high-speed water vehicles. The latest figures available from the...
July 10, 2012
Consumers and relatives of victims are pushing for a ban on tabletop firepots and the "gel fuels" used to ignite them because of the burn risks. Firepots, which are also known as personal fire pits or fire bowls, are popular candlelike decorations that have sold for $20 to $40 since late 2009. The gel-like fuels used to light them burn without a visible flame, which makes it possible to unintentionally...
July 10, 2012
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of men (and women) in the USA, so it's no wonder that cardiologist Gordon Tomaselli dispenses direct, no-nonsense advice: "Get up and move more, don't smoke, make sure you control your blood pressure and cholesterol, and don't ignore symptoms of heart disease, particularly if you have a family history." It may sound difficult, but the results could be lifesaving, says...
July 9, 2012
Building on two decades of work, neuroscientists are making inroads on ways to translate brain signals into messages to help communicate with paralyzed patients who are "locked in," unable to move any muscles. Some of these paralyzed patients have been forced to rely on eye blinks or facial muscle twitches that are interpreted by devices on computers to slowly send messages. In the journal Current...
July 5, 2012
Want to monitor your blood pressure and sugar level? Eat healthier meals? Screen yourself for depression? Now you can do it all with apps on your smartphone. There are 40,000 medical applications available for smartphones and tablets, and the market is in its infancy. But that growth is in the crosshairs of new regulatory efforts by the Food and Drug Administration. Medical apps offer the opportunity...
July 3, 2012
Heat is a major killer in the USA, and those at greatest risk are infants, children, seniors and people with chronic medical conditions. Heat was responsible for more deaths in the USA than any other weather-related cause between 2002 and 2011, says the National Weather Service. In that period, there were 1,185 heat deaths, compared with 1,139 hurricane deaths and 1,075 from tornadoes. June had a record...
July 3, 2012
About one of every four U.S. servicemembers killed in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan in the past decade - about 1,000 people - might have survived with more advanced combat medicine on the battlefield, according to an Army study. In 90% of those cases servicemembers bled to death, something medics and corpsmen with the right tools and training might prevent, Army Col. Brian Eastridge said in presenting...
July 2, 2012
Denise Hrncir (pronounced Hern-sir) of Farmington, Minn., loves to exercise. She'd do it every day if she had the time. But the 52-year-old human-resources administrator often works nine to 10 hours a day, stops for groceries on her way home, fixes dinner and then tries to go to bed at a decent hour so she can get up at 5 a.m. to make it on time to her job at an electric company. So on the weekends,...
June 29, 2012
When parents send children to school or camp, they may worry about many things, from bullies to bus accidents. But unauthorized sunscreen use? It turns out that many schools and camps do that worrying for parents, with policies that ban kids from carrying sunscreen without a doctor's note and warn staffers not to dispense it. Such policies are getting new scrutiny this week, thanks to Jesse Michener,...
June 28, 2012
In a sweep across Florida on Wednesday, federal and state police arrested seven doctors and raided seven medical clinics that investigators say are part of a crime ring that trafficked in millions of doses of powerful painkillers, including oxycodone. At Miami-Dade Medical Solutions, a clinic tucked into a leafy office campus a few blocks from the interstate here, physicians Michael Bengala and Roger...
June 28, 2012
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first new prescription diet drug in more than a decade Wednesday and may approve a second within a month. For now, the FDA has approved lorcaserin, to be sold as Belviq (pronounced bel-veek), from Arena Pharmaceuticals. It works to create a feeling of fullness and can help people lose about 5% or more of their weight combined with a healthy diet and exercise....
June 28, 2012
Critics of the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the new diet drug lorcaserin say the agency's track record on weight-loss pills ought to give consumers pause. In a statement Wednesday, Sidney Wolfe, director of the health research group at Public Citizen, a consumer group, said that as with other diet drugs, he expects "this one will be withdrawn from the market after the agency is forced...
June 28, 2012
A new study is raising questions about the age-old belief that a calorie is a calorie. The research finds that dieters who were trying to maintain their weight loss burned significantly more calories following a low-carb diet than they did on a low-fat diet. But some experts say the findings are preliminary. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was designed to see whether changing...
June 27, 2012
A low-carb diet, similar to the Atkins diet, with only 10% of calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and 60% from fat. This diet emphasized beef, fish, chicken, eggs, cheese, some vegetables and fruits, while slashing breads, pasta, potatoes, rice, cakes, cookies and starchy vegetables. A low-fat diet that was about 20% of calories from fat, 60% from carbohydrates and 20% from protein. It emphasized...
June 27, 2012
The Food and Drug Administration is meeting with orthopedic experts today and Thursday to look into a growing body of worldwide evidence showing metal-on-metal hip devices have a higher failure rate than those made of plastic or ceramic. "The FDA has been aware of some of these problems for three years and has made recommendations in the past, but I think what you'll see coming out of these meetings...
June 27, 2012
Physicians should screen all adult patients for obesity during office visits and either refer them to a comprehensive weight-management program or offer one, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says in recommendations out Monday. "We found that some weight-loss programs do work, and often the gateway to finding the right program can be through your physician," says David Grossman, a member of the...
June 26, 2012
By late this summer, the Food and Drug Administration could approve a widely used AIDS drug as the first pill to prevent transmission of HIV, the AIDS virus. The drug, Truvada (pronounced tru-VAH-duh), made by Gilead Sciences of Foster City, Calif., already is commonly used in combination with other drugs to treat patients with HIV infection. If approved for HIV prevention, as an FDA advisory panel...
June 26, 2012
A first-of-a-kind study looking at older women finds that eating disorders are common - and 62% of those surveyed say their weight or shape has damaged their lives. Historically, eating disorder research has focused on teens and young women. But a study last week in the International Journal of Eating Disorders shows 13% of women ages 50 and older struggle with the problem - some for the first time...
June 25, 2012
Even when parents and caregivers are aware of infants' food allergies and have been instructed in avoiding potentially dangerous trigger foods, allergic reactions still occur, the result of both accidental and non-accidental exposures, a study finds. Accidental exposures from unintentional ingestion, label-reading errors and cross-contamination resulted in 87% of 834 allergic reactions to milk, eggs...
June 25, 2012
Swimmer Dara Torres, 45, is still sprinting in the pool; she is a favorite to qualify for her sixth Olympics when trials begin next week. Pitcher Jamie Moyer, 49, is still striking out batters; he became the oldest pitcher to win a game in the majors in April and followed with another win for the Colorado Rockies in May. Now, the Baltimore Orioles have their eye on him. Not bad, right? Now add more...
June 22, 2012
For most Americans, the Supreme Court's ruling next week on President Obama's health care law will be an academic exercise with political fallout - but not personal implications. For millions of people, however - some young, some old, some sick - the law is already affecting their pulse rates and pocketbooks, and a decision to strike it down could come with a medical or financial cost. Among the decisions...
June 22, 2012
In the American imagination, Europeans are always whizzing down the street on bicycles or hoofing it across the cobblestones of the town square. But for many Brits, "exercise" is the walk from the telly to the fridge to grab another pint. Nearly one-third of Brits engage in no physical activity, according to 2009 data collected by the European Commission, marking Britons far more torpid than their...
June 21, 2012
Rising health care costs may be one of the biggest retirement worries, but medical billing errors and fraud are also draining many retirement savings. As the problem gets worse, companies are coming up with troubleshooting services. "Health care is changing dramatically in front of us, and there is a huge disconnect between the amount of money we are charged and an understanding of what we actually...
June 21, 2012
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