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Dec. 17 - Like their counterparts throughout the United States, fewer patients in northwestern Wisconsin appear to be dying from heart attacks and strokes, an improvement local medical experts attribute to more aggressive treatment and healthier lifestyles. A study released Monday by the American Heart Association shows a 30 percent decline in deaths from heart attacks and strokes between 1999 and...
December 16, 2008
Flashing a handsome smile and hugging a heart-shaped pillow to his chest, 18-year-old Janarie Payton looks like any girl's dream date. The pillow isn't for a girl though. Signed by his surgeons, nurses and other patients, it helps keep his arms locked in an embrace to aid the healing of his sternum after open-heart surgery Nov. 5 at Mayo Clinic. It's also a souvenir showing he made it, thanks to the...
December 16, 2008
COLUMBIA, S.C., Dec 16, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - Scientists using nationwide data collected since 1970 have produced a map depicting natural hazard mortality across the United States. Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden from the University of South Carolina said their map presents a county-level representation of the likelihood of dying as the result of natural events such as floods, earthquakes or extreme...
December 16, 2008
A paralegal, recently laid off, wanted to get back at the "establishment" that he felt was to blame for his lost job. So when he craved an expensive new tie, he went out and stole one. The story, relayed by psychiatrist Timothy Fong at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital, is an example of the rash behaviors exhibited by more Americans as a recession undermines a lifestyle built on spending....
December 15, 2008
WASHINGTON - A Supreme Court decision Monday allowing smokers to sue tobacco companies for fraud in marketing "light" cigarettes is the latest development against cigarettes touted as low in tar and nicotine. In a win for consumers over business interests, the justices decided 5-4 that federal regulation of cigarette labels does not shield manufacturers from state claims of deceptive advertising. The...
December 15, 2008
It's become widely known that major health disparities exist among the nation's minority communities, including higher rates of certain cancers, high blood pressure and diabetes, and poorer access to medical insurance and disease screenings. Yet with all of the statistics pouring out of labs around the country, until now, there has never been a meeting in which scientists and those in the disparities...
December 15, 2008
Anyone who's ever had a colonoscopy knows the worst part is preparing for it, not the procedure itself. You have to make sure your colon is as clean as a whistle so your doctor can get an unobstructed interior view. In the old days - the late 20th century, that is - you had to drink a gallon of a special salty liquid to cleanse your bowels in basically one sitting. So patients cheered when tasteless...
December 15, 2008
BEIJING, Dec 15, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - China says it's cracking down on food additives, banning 17 and warning producers it is intent on restoring public trust in the country's food system. Officials Monday unveiled the blacklist of banned additives, including substances from past food recalls such as melamine, used in infant milk formula, and the cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan red, used to...
December 15, 2008
The little box clipped to 13-year-old Daniel Hartung's jeans looks like a pager - but it's not. It's small, has a digital readout and is blue and clear. "My friends think it looks more like an iPod because of the cord coming out of it," said Hartung of Aberdeen. But it's not that either. It's an insulin pump. Every 15 minutes or so, the pump releases insulin into Hartung's body through a site on his...
December 15, 2008
ATLANTA - The racial gap in colon cancer death rates is widening, a new report says, and experts partly blame blacks' lower screening rates and poor access to quality care. Colon and rectal cancer death rates are now nearly 50 per cent higher in blacks than in whites, according to American Cancer Society research being released Monday. The gap has been growing since the mid-1970s, when colon cancer...
December 15, 2008
Nervous New Yorkers are popping more pills. Prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs, anti-depressants and sleep aids are surging as residents struggle with the economic crisis, Crain's New York Business reports. "If we looked to diagnose the city, I'd say it has an anxiety disorder," psychotherapist Dr. Mel Schwartz told the weekly. In September and October, sleep-aid prescriptions reportedly rose by...
December 14, 2008
I feel old. But that doesn't mean I have to look it. Here are five favorite tips from Real Simple magazine to take the years off. 1. HYDRATE. Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. This is the hardest one for me because coffee, soda and liquor are soooooo much tastier. Still, everyone knows that water will keep your skin glowing. 2. TAKE IT OFF. Don't sleep in your makeup. I know it's easy to fall...
December 14, 2008
Sep. 25 - State health leaders announced Wednesday a plan to put Oklahomans on the path to a healthier future. "GetFit EatSmart" contains strategies to reduce obesity and related diseases, such as diabetes and depression, with the help of organizations and residents across the state. Among the many ideas are eliminating fast food restaurants inside hospitals and other health care facilities, supporting...
December 14, 2008
WASHINGTON, Dec 12, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - A U.S. Food and Drug Administration draft report says most people should eat more fish, a published report said Friday. The draft report, obtained by The Washington Post, calls for the government to reverse current U.S. policy that women of childbearing years, pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants and children and certain groups of people can be harmed...
December 13, 2008
BEIJING, Sep 27, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - Chinese food safety officials say no additional tainted milk has been found in inspections carried out during the last two weeks. The country's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said Friday that it found no melamine in milk tested after Sept. 14, a probe that included 296 batches of liquid milk and yogurt products from...
December 13, 2008
Kevin Berg can get himself a snack and a cup of water in his new house. For Berg, who has cerebral palsy but likes to stay up way later than his wife, Melinda, that's a big deal. "I get hungry and thirsty at 2 a.m.," he said in his new living room last week, speaking with some interpretation from Melinda. "Until a couple weeks ago, I'd never gotten myself a cup of water." The Bergs - whose family includes...
December 13, 2008
Those moves on the dance floor can result in more than sweat and sore muscles - they can mean funds to help the environment. Yes, you can now go green by going out to one of your favorite dance spots. Forest ranger Billy Treese and his group, HoldYourOwn, have partnered with Carbonfund.org - which has calculated carbon offsets for businesses such as JetBlue, Avis and the Discovery Channel - to throw...
December 13, 2008
The feds plan to yank existing 9/11 health-monitoring and -treatment funds for Mt. Sinai Medical Center and the FDNY - and possibly replace it with a national medical contractor headquartered outside the city, two New York member of Congress charged yesterday. "We were dismayed to hear of a new solicitation about to be issued by your department that would apparently replace all current arrangements...
December 13, 2008
If that headache plaguing you this morning led you first to a Web search and then to the conclusion that you must have a brain tumor, you may instead be suffering from cyberchondria. On Monday, researchers at Microsoft published the results of a study of health-related Web searches on the company's Live search engine as well as a survey of its employees. The study suggests that self-diagnosis by search...
December 13, 2008
WASHINGTON, Dec 12, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - Nearly half of all U.S. adults say they're not planning to get a flu shot this year, a RAND survey said. Dr. William Schaffner, president-elect of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said the finding that only 53 percent of adults have been vaccinated falls far short of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's goal of at least 70...
December 12, 2008
They'd known each other barely six months, but as she watched her client become wan, weak and gravely ill, Marana hairdresser Elizabeth Littlefield felt she couldn't just stand by and do nothing. Dale Charnick's kidneys were failing. So Littlefield, an outgoing single mother of two young children, made an offer. "I have two good kidneys," she told Charnick as she styled her hair, barely missing a beat....
December 12, 2008
It only took a few decades, but the Federal Trade Commission has finally put an end to some of the trickery used in cigarette advertisements and marketing. Since the mid-1960s, tobacco manufacturers have been using an industry-created system to measure the amount of cancer-causing tar in their so-called "low-tar" products. But that measuring tool - a device known as the Cambridge Filter Method - is...
December 12, 2008
The Food and Drug Administration Thursday ordered new warnings on prescription bowel cleansers marketed by Salix Pharmaceuticals, a Morrisville company that specializes in gastrointestinal treatments. Oral sodium phosphate drugs, which are used to clear the bowels before a colonoscopy, have been linked to kidney injury that can be permanent, according to the FDA. The FDA alert includes OsmoPrep and...
December 12, 2008
Dec. 12 - 'Tis the season to be jolly. But too much to do - and too little time and money to do it - may have some of us feeling less than merry. Planning ahead, setting realistic goals, asking for help and taking care of your body and mind can ward off the stress and depression that can ruin your holidays and hurt your health, local health experts advise. Michelle D'Agostino, a certified yoga instructor...
December 12, 2008
BOSTON (AP) - Boston officials approved some of the toughest anti-tobacco rules in the nation Thursday, extinguishing cigar bars and hookah bars and ending the sales of tobacco in pharmacies and on college campuses. The Boston Public Health Commission, however, decided to give the bars 10 years before they would have to close, doubling the original proposed grace period for the establishments. Even...
December 12, 2008
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