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Dec. 22 - Beginning early next year, Texans who plan for their old age will get a special break from the state. People who buy long-term care insurance will be allowed to keep more of their savings if they ever need to turn to Medicaid to pay for nursing home care or in-home aides. State officials hope the new break will encourage more people to purchase private long-term care insurance and save the...
December 21, 2008
BATON ROUGE - From the front door of the aged brick school, the 4-year-olds at Wyandotte Early Childhood Center can spot the cottony plumes from the refinery just over the trees. The ExxonMobil plant, the nation's second-largest refinery, processes about a half-million barrels of crude oil each day. Its sprawling complex sits a few blocks from the school - and from the swing set on the playground and...
December 21, 2008
MILWAUKEE, Dec 21, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has kept data about potentially dangerous chemicals secret, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says. The newspaper said its analysis of more than 2,000 EPA dangerous chemical filings during the last three years found that the U.S. department allowed chemicals' names to remain undisclosed in more than half those cases. In...
December 21, 2008
In the holiday season, some folks might quibble with the notion that it is better to give than receive. But what about taking? "Nobody likes that," says psychologist Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago. In experiments described in the Psychological Science journal, Keysar and colleagues played a game with volunteers to see how they responded to being given cash or having it taken away. Walkie-talkie-equipped...
December 21, 2008
Jay Cutler has a cannon for an arm. A few weeks ago, when the 6-foot-3, 240-pound quarterback for the Denver Broncos and his team were backed up on their 1-yard line, he took the ball, faked a handoff and spun left to find himself face to face with a 300-pound lineman. Cutler passed, juking the opponent out of his socks. You'd never guess the quarterback spends a good portion of every game on the sidelines...
December 21, 2008
Today's teenagers and young adults are far more likely than their parents to believe they're great people, destined for maximum success as workers, spouses and parents, suggests a report comparing three decades of national surveys. And these so-called Millennials or Gen Y young people may be heading for a fall when their self-esteem is punctured by reality, says psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego...
December 21, 2008
FOR MORE than a dec ade, Casting for Re covery has helped breast cancer survivors in retreats that provide emotional and medical support and teach new skills of catch-and-release fly fishing. Many consider Casting for Recovery one of the leading programs providing support for women with breast cancer. The program has just announced the retreat schedule for 2009, which you can see on their Web site...
December 21, 2008
ShellyAnn King was resting in her hospital bed at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn on Oct. 27, dreaming of a new future. In a bed beside her was her husband, Michael - a man who loved her so much, he had just given her a kidney. Suddenly, Michael's heart monitor started beeping. "Something is happening to my husband! Please, save my husband!" ShellyAnn cried out. Hospital workers rushed in,...
December 21, 2008
TIANJIN, China - Alonzo Bland is spending the holiday season at a Chinese "fat farm." The Green Bay, Wis., native will miss his family, but otherwise he's not complaining. "It's a little drastic to come to China," admits Bland, 33, a self-confessed couch potato and devourer of KFC food. "But drastic is what I needed, at 646 pounds." That was Bland's weight when his China adventure began in May, after...
December 19, 2008
A common strain of influenza circulating in the United States this winter is resistant to Tamiflu, the most popular drug used to treat it, federal health officials said on Friday. The situation poses little danger, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, because Tamiflu is only used in a minority of cases. It advised doctors to use rival drug Relenza or rimantadine, an older...
December 19, 2008
WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - The White House issued a new regulation Thursday that protects healthcare workers who refuse to participate in services that violate their beliefs. The 127-page regulation was sought by conservative groups and abortion foes, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association and the Family Research Council, The Washington Post...
December 19, 2008
Since Starbucks began donating a portion of its sales on Nov. 27, customers have generated contributions equal to more than 1.4 million daily doses of antiretroviral medicine, which would provide a year of therapy to more than 3,800 Africans with HIV, the company said Thursday. This means that Starbucks customers have bought roughly 12 million (RED) beverages so far, according to the Seattle P-I's...
December 18, 2008
There's never been a better time to be a woman in New York City. Men trail women badly in how long they live, according to the Health Department. Figures released yesterday show that women born in 2006 can expect to live an average of 81.7 years, up five months from 2005, while men gained just 2.5 months in their life expectancy for an average of 75.9 years. "Men do things like smoke more, drink more,...
December 18, 2008
The $112 billion beverage industry, continuing its quest for the perfect no-cal sweetener, began cautiously rolling out a handful of products with a new sugar substitute that got federal approval this week. Rebaudioside A, natural extract from the stevia plant known as Reb A, got much-awaited approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have jumped to try it right away in a...
December 18, 2008
Women who suspect a man of having sex on the brain should listen out for a sneeze, as a pair of British doctors say that sneezing may be a sign of arousal. In an unusual paper published on Friday in the prestigious Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Mahmood Bhutta and Harold Maxwell cite the case of an unnamed middle-aged patient who suffered uncontrollable fits of sneezing whenever he thought...
December 18, 2008
Sometimes the urge strikes after pulling an office all-nighter - or, more often, after staying out way too late at the local club. Before the night slips into morning, there's a sudden need to eat, with hunger pains so strong, they won't wait for sunrise. Forget that it's 3 a.m. Who's serving? Restaurateurs are, more than ever, willing to heed that need, according to the National Restaurant Association,...
December 18, 2008
It's time for holiday parties - Swedish meatballs, bite-size quiches and homemade eggnog. And if the host isn't careful, it's also a time for making guests sick. DeKalb Medical's Dr. Frank Rasler, like many metro emergency room doctors, witnesses a jump in patients with flulike symptoms in December. But in many cases, the culprit in all that suffering is not a virus. It's food poisoning - stemming...
December 17, 2008
Family ties are pulling Americans closer to home. The majority of U.S.-born adults (56%) have not lived outside their birth state, suggests research out Wednesday, and of the 37% who have stayed in their hometown, three-quarters say the main reason is because they want to be near family. Fifteen percent have lived in four or more states. Pew Research Center's survey paints a vivid portrait about how...
December 17, 2008
Are you getting enough vitamin D? Recent research from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that almost half of Americans aren't. Low vitamin D could increase your risk of heart disease, weak bones, cancer and other diseases. In our zeal to slather on sunscreen and avoid skin cancer-causing tans, we may be missing out on an essential vitamin that we obtain largely from the sun,...
December 17, 2008
For every kid who's ever been told to eat more fruits and veggies, one of the nation's largest school cafeteria operators is developing a concept that could make lunchtime more nutritious. Food service giant Aramark will put in 60 elementary schools next month and 300 more next fall a cafeteria format spotlighting fruits and vegetables. The program - dubbed Cool Caf - is being tested in 16 schools...
December 17, 2008
Dec. 17 - Federal regulators have given the green light to stevia, a natural zero-calorie sweetener that could have a big impact on the beverage and packet sweetener business. Chicago-based Merisant Co., which makes a stevia-based sweetener, said Wednesday that it received a notice of "no objection" to the product from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Merisant, maker of the Equal brand sweetener,...
December 17, 2008
CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Dec 17, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - U.S. scientists have come up with another reason for obese people to lose weight - excess driver and passenger weight results in excess fuel consumption. In a 2006 study, University of Illinois Professor Sheldon Jacobson and doctoral student Laura McLay estimated the amount of vehicle fuel consumed as a result of overweight and obese passengers. Now...
December 17, 2008
Local celebrities are among those helping put a new face on Alzheimer's by having their pictures included in a photo collection. The 14 well-known people who are featured wearing purple T- shirts and hoodies with motivational words from the Alzheimer's Association are helping educate people about the disease. Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, University of Oklahoma men's basketball coach Jeff Capel, actress...
December 17, 2008
The poison pumping through Janet Williams' body drains her of energy by midafternoon some days. She speaks with a labored voice and is self-conscious about her bald head. Life was hard enough for Williams before she was diagnosed with breast cancer on her birthday, Aug. 1, and lost her shoulder-length black hair. She is a single parent who takes care of five children, including a niece. Her 20-year-old...
December 16, 2008
Starting next year, Rio Grande Valley children with cancer will have easier access to clinical trials that offer cutting-edge therapies and medications. The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is launching a program to refer more South Texas children with leukemia to clinical-research projects and help families overcome barriers to participating, officials confirmed Tuesday. Through...
December 16, 2008
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