Health and Wellness News

Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs in the United States. They are asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases. With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or...
May 12, 2008
Descriptions of Szechuan peppercorns could apply to a drug as easily as a spice. The peppercorn smell is wild and perfumed, and the taste is electric. Devotees swear it's both addictive and medicinal. It literally numbs the mouth, but also imparts a woodsy hint of pine and cedar, and an intoxicating touch of acid sweetness, like a lemon soda. The ingredient - technically the dry berry husk of the prickly...
May 12, 2008
Not that long ago, Christopher Murray was mostly considered a troublesome "bomb thrower" in the field of global health and development. Now, Murray and his colleagues at the University of Washington's new Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation are welcoming hundreds of key players in international health and development to Seattle for a two-day research conference aimed at trying to bring order...
May 12, 2008
NEW YORK - Go figure: David Kirsch, personal trainer to the stars, the man credited with getting a postpartum Heidi Klum ready for the Victoria's Secret lingerie runway, has cheddar cheese in his refrigerator. (OK, so he eats it so sparingly, a hunk will last him three months.) More surprises: Kirsch, the guy who coined the term "carb face" to describe pasta-induced bloat, has penne in his kitchen...
May 12, 2008
Apr. 27 - As a gag gift, the Chia Pet remains a popular choice for the kitsch-inclined. Slather on some seeds, add water and voilà , a ceramic Homer Simpson sprouts fluffy green "hair." But chia seeds as a valuable source of nutrition? Well, to paraphrase Homer, Umm, chia! Turns out, maybe we should have been spreading those seeds on toast, not on a ceramic "pet" all these years. Nutritionists say...
May 12, 2008
Mar. 4 - They say you can hear the pop, but Carly Iulo remembers the sound she heard last September as more of a thud. She initially thought - and hoped - her kneecap was dislocated. But it was worse than that. The anterior cruciate ligament in Iulo's left knee ruptured, bringing an end to her club soccer season and putting her sophomore season at Hilton Head Island High School in danger. Iulo won't...
May 12, 2008
The Bratz doll - with her mesh cami just covering a swell of breasts, her Tammy-Faye-on-steroids makeup, her stacked heels and her blue panties peeking out from the low-rise jeans - is for "ages 6+," says the packaging. What's wrong with this picture? (See the picture on page C3 and decide for yourself). Or direct your attention to the image of Miley Cyrus at right: a squeaky-clean 15-year-old superstar...
May 12, 2008
In 2001, Sandee Pingatore was determined to find out why her son, Troy, 29, had died in a California hospital while being treated for a drug overdose just hours after she had been told he was stable. But Pingatore was unable to get the hospital to produce a key medical record showing his blood pressure in his final hours. When the record finally surfaced last year - too late under state law for Pingatore...
May 12, 2008
On this Siblings Day, recognized in 40 states today, Christine Frisbee of New York City wants people to remember what she calls the "forgotten siblings" - the brothers and sisters of chronically ill children. Frisbee's teenage son, Rich, died in 1989. He had leukemia. In the almost 12 months from the diagnosis to Rich's death, Christine and her husband, Rick, the parents of five children, shuttled...
May 12, 2008
Mar. 17 - Today, David Paterson becomes the first governor who is legally blind. But what does that mean? Legally blind in New York is defined as 20/200 vision or worse, which means that someone looking at an eye chart with their best eye and wearing the best corrective measures like glasses can see only the top line or nothing at all, according to the American Foundation for the Blind. Also, people...
May 12, 2008
Apr. 16 - KUTTAWA, Ky. Paula Cunningham and the women at McClanahan Publishing are known throughout Kentucky as The Cookbook Ladies. Since 1999, Cunningham, owner of McClanahan Publishing House, has written cooking columns culled from her personal recipe collection and from the cookbooks published at McClanahan for Kentucky Monthly magazine. Now, she her staff at and McClanahan Publishing have combined...
May 12, 2008
Heather Burczynski, 32, of Nashville works right next door to a YMCA, but she had a membership for a year before she had the courage to step through the door. When she finally mustered the nerve to go inside, she went directly into the bathroom and sat there for 10 minutes, worried that people would stare at her and think she was too heavy - at 280 pounds - to work out. "It was very frightening," she...
May 12, 2008
Each spring, about 25 percent of Atlantans suffer from nasal congestion, sneezing, itchy/watery eyes and runny noses resulting from seasonal allergies. For some, the sneezing began in February as unseasonably warm weather produced high pollen counts that sparked a flurry of symptoms. Atlanta ranked 10th in 2007 among cities where the challenge is greatest for living with spring allergies, according...
May 12, 2008
Each spring, about 25 percent of Atlantans suffer from nasal congestion, sneezing, itchy/watery eyes and runny noses resulting from seasonal allergies. For some, the sneezing began in February as unseasonably warm weather produced high pollen counts that sparked a flurry of symptoms. Atlanta ranked 10th in 2007 among cities where the challenge is greatest for living with spring allergies, according...
May 12, 2008
As a neuroscientist who has spent her career researching sleep, Polly Moore never expected to have trouble getting a baby to nap. But when her first child was born, Moore says, she felt as helpless as any other parent whose baby won't sleep. Although some parents urged her to put her daughter on a schedule, others told horror stories of failed nap schedules. Then, when her daughter Maddie was 3 1/2...
May 12, 2008
May 12 - When the car flipped right in front of him, Danny Inacio almost didn't believe what he was seeing. What he did over the next few minutes made people feel the same way about him. The 22-year-old Livingston resident was driving his girlfriend home to Winton on Tuesday afternoon when the black Jetta in front of them hit a median. The Jetta was going at least 50 mph when its driver tried to turn...
May 12, 2008
May 6 - Cribs and changing tables may be exposing babies to unhealthy levels of formaldehyde, according to a new environmental report. In a report published today, Environment California found a half dozen products - out of 21 nursery furnishings it tested - emitted formaldehyde at levels high enough to trigger allergy and asthma attacks in children. The only standards for formaldehyde exposure come...
May 12, 2008
Chicago Tribune (MCT) CHICAGO - More than two decades after the U.S. set the national drinking age at 21, a movement is gaining traction to revisit the issue and consider allowing Americans as young as 18 to legally consume alcohol. Serious discussions already are under way in several states. In Vermont, the state Legislature has formed a task force that will study whether the drinking age should be...
May 12, 2008
May 12 - When the car flipped right in front of him, Danny Inacio almost didn't believe what he was seeing. What he did over the next few minutes made people feel the same way about him. The 22-year-old Livingston resident was driving his girlfriend home to Winton on Tuesday afternoon when the black Jetta in front of them hit a median. The Jetta was going at least 50 mph when its driver tried to turn...
May 12, 2008
Sunday's Race for the Cure was supposed to be like a three-mile-long grief support group. So why were so many people laughing? "Woo-hoo!" shouted Rhonda Zweber, of Prior Lake, the leader of the team carrying signs saying "Rhonda's Rack." What did that refer to? "My breasts," she said, giving a for-a-reporter-you-sure-are-stupid look. Onlookers chuckled at signs only a breast cancer group could get...
May 12, 2008
A best-selling video game series, Grand Theft Auto, is releasing a new version Tuesday amid a firestorm of concern about the impact of violent games on children. The Chicago Transit Authority is pulling ads for the game off its buses. The Parents Television Council is calling on retailers to keep it away from children. The PTA has a campaign to explain ratings. More than a dozen bids in five states...
May 12, 2008
May 12 - The Niagara Falls School District is now on the front lines in the battle against childhood obesity. Along with math, science and history, students are now being tested on how fit they are. And they're being graded, too. Parents of students at Gaskill and LaSalle preparatory schools have been receiving fitness report cards this semester listing their child's body mass index, which indicates...
May 11, 2008
BOISE, Idaho - Somewhere among 14,000 people expected at the Komen Race for the Cure Saturday will be a special family of five: Kate, Chad, Claret, Treysen and Jumelle. That all five of the Brusses are there can be attributed to one thing: determination. Kate found a lump in her breast about 24 weeks into her pregnancy with triplets last summer. She was about a month into 12 weeks of bed rest awaiting...
May 11, 2008
Like millions of parents, Lynne Bruton tried all the usual ways to get her three children to bed on time: turning the television off 30 minutes before bedtime, stopping them from eating and drinking well before going to sleep and sticking to a nightly routine that included sitting with her children in their rooms to help them "wind down." But sometimes these methods didn't work - particularly with...
May 11, 2008
Deaths from drugs and alcohol in Boston soared dramatically in 2006, an increase fueled by cheap heroin, the allure of crystal methamphetamine, and the widespread availability of addictive prescription medications. Boston health authorities are so alarmed by the spike in fatalities - 176 people died from substance abuse in 2006 - that they are scouring medical examiner reports on each case, hunting...
May 11, 2008