SEATTLE, Apr 9, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - A 20-year-old woman aboard a flight to Seattle from the Netherlands may have put a number of travelers at risk of contracting measles, officials said. Travelers on Northwest Airlines Flight 33 to Seattle from Amsterdam and people at Sea-Tac Airport March 26 should be on the look out for any measles symptoms, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. The woman...
April 10, 2008
WASHINGTON, Apr 10, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the recall of "Total Body Formula" and "Total Body Mega Formula" because of possible contamination. FDA officials say they found hazardous levels of selenium in samples of the dietary supplements after receiving 43 reports of people from nine states who experienced adverse reactions using the products. The agency...
April 10, 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...
April 10, 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...
April 9, 2008
The whole episode remains a blur to Kenneth Transeau of Katy, Texas, as he was flown by an air ambulance to a stroke center in Houston. But sometime after the noisy ride and the hurried brain scans, Transeau went from being a stroke patient to a test subject. Researchers are trying to find out if they can help patients like Transeau, 69, by dripping an experimental drug made from viper venom into their...
April 9, 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...
April 9, 2008
Four of 18 beef slaughterhouses that supply the nation's school lunch program were cited for inhumane treatment of cattle in a recent federal audit, and one was temporarily shut down. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released the results Tuesday to Congress, which asked for the audit in February after the shutdown of Westland/Hallmark Meat in Chino, Calif., a school lunch supplier cited for egregious...
April 8, 2008
Our next-door neighbors moved out over the weekend. They're a young couple, so they moved themselves. With the help of a few friends, of course. I just watched from my living room window as they carried their sofa, their bed and dozens of boxes from the house, lugging it all to a U-Haul truck parked down at the corner. A lamp sat on the sidewalk. A mirror leaned up against the lamppost. I'm glad I'm...
April 8, 2008
People with depression are more likely to later develop Alzheimer's disease, according to two studies published yesterday. "What we think it suggests is that depression truly is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a sign that the disease is developing," said Dr. Robert Wilson, whose study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Wilson's team tracked 917 retired Catholic priests...
April 8, 2008
LONDON, Apr 8, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - A British study suggests artificial color added to food and beverages could lower a child's intelligence. Researchers at Southampton University said developmental damage from seven food additives could lower a child's IQ by up to five points, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday. Britain's Food Standards Agency will meet Thursday to consider recommendations that...
April 8, 2008
Randy Pausch is lying on his bed, his head propped up by pillows, his hands interlocked on his chest. In his pressed khakis, red polo shirt and bare feet, he looks the stereotypical suburban dad, which he is. And with his rosy cheeks and dark hair still wet from the shower, he also looks the picture of health, which he is not. He's dying. Pausch, 47, has pancreatic cancer, a terminal disease. So far...
April 7, 2008
Reluctant to deal with the hassles of airport security, sales executive Michael D'Souza generally packs the syringes he needs for his daily medication in a bag that he checks when he travels. The strategy backfired for the Toronto resident recently when he needed the medication while he was stuck during a four-hour delay at Newark Liberty. D'Souza found new needles when an airport customer service...
April 7, 2008
Infants and toddlers who slept fewer than 12 hours in a 24-hour period were twice as likely to be overweight than longer sleepers by the time they're 3 years old, a study showed Monday. The children most likely to be overweight were those who slept less than 12 hours and watched at least two hours of television a day, says the study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Although previous...
April 7, 2008
WASHINGTON, Apr 7, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) - Using regular phone contact to check on the health of chronically ill U.S. Medicare patients appears to cost more than it saves the system, a study found. The test began three years ago, using eight companies to provide the service. The problem is that the fees paid to the companies make the program uneconomic, The New York Times reports. The goal of the system...
April 7, 2008
King County parents, take note: Chances are about one in three that your high school sophomore hit the bottle at some point in the past month. The legal drinking age may be 21, but that doesn't stop hundreds of teenagers from obtaining and drinking alcohol, according to the most recent Healthy Youth Survey, a biennial statewide student study conducted by the Department of Health, the Liquor Control...
April 7, 2008
Cox News Service WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Talking about God seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Mention God and a mental illness in the same sentence, and you might as well consider the conversation over. It seems weird that a country founded by a bunch of folks who wanted religious freedom should wince when God is mentioned. But we do. So public discussions about treatments for mental illness...
April 7, 2008
Pamela Langford, 50, of Ypsilanti, Mich., had a simple reason for wanting to lose weight and get fit. "I wanted to live," she says. Langford was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer several years ago and had a couple of cancer scares after that. Langford talked to her doctors and realized that her high-fat diet and sedentary way of living might have contributed to the disease, so she was determined...
April 6, 2008
Say yo to yogurt with fiber Quick quiz: Where are you likely to find fiber? A. A textiles show at an art gallery B. A can of beans C. Archer Farms high fiber cereal D. Yogurt The answer? All of the above. Yes, we are in-the-know enough to realize that dairy products don't tend to make the chock-full-o'-fiber category. Or didn't, until this one: Fiber One Creamy Nonfat Yogurt from Yoplait. It comes...
April 6, 2008
Apr. 6 - The teen years are hard. There's the school work and pressure to get into a good college. There are problems with friends, parents and boyfriends/girlfriends. And all the while, hormones are raging and feelings of doubt and insecurity are a constant. It's no wonder teens get down sometimes. But sometimes it's more than just feeling blue or a temporary slump. It could be depression. Nancy Nelson,...
April 6, 2008
TEMPE, Ariz. The healing powers of clay have long been the stuff of lies and legends. Itinerant merchants called it a cure-all, historical references go back centuries, and in the Bible, Jesus mixes it with spit to cure a blind man. Now Arizona State University researchers say clay may indeed be the miracle dirt, capable of killing deadly infections. They just don't know how it kills bacteria, a missing...
April 6, 2008
When Francesca Tenconi turned 16, she didn't ask for a Sweet 16 party and she didn't ask for any presents, although no one deserved a good time as much as she did. Tenconi, 24, was diagnosed at 11 with pemphigus foliaceous, a skin disease that threatened her life and eventually claimed most of her skin. During the four years it took to recover, Tenconi learned the loneliness of having a severe skin...
April 6, 2008
Shaun's restaurant in Inman Park is the kind of intimate spot where guests at neighboring tables might strike up a conversation. But on a recent Sunday night, Dora Burke and Jennifer Harris not only swapped notes on the prix fixe dinner, they compared the diagnoses that had brought them to it. Burke has rheumatoid arthritis, Harris celiac disease. Both had come to Shaun's for the chef's special gluten-free...
April 5, 2008
Apr. 6 - BLOOMINGTON - School lunch programs take care of five meals a week, but planning for the other 16 can be a challenge. | That's why The Pantagraph started a recipe roundup as part of Fit Kids, a nearly year-long initiative dedicated to identifying and highlighting common-sense approaches to preventing childhood obesity and developing healthier lifestyles for kids and their parents. Twin City...
April 5, 2008
MENDON, Vt. Officials in Vermont say the Legionnaires disease bacteria found in the Cortina Inn in Mendon most likely originated in the hotel's water tank. Three cases of Legionnaires disease reported over the last six months were traced back to the hotel. All have recovered. The Vermont Health Department didn't pinpoint the source of the bacteria until after the most recent case was confirmed last...
April 5, 2008
BALTIMORE - A prominent public health school has restored the word "abortion" as an acceptable search term on a reproductive health Web site funded by a federal agency that restricts references to abortions. The move by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health follows criticism from some health advocates and librarians that the restriction amounted to censorship. The restriction on the POPLINE...
April 5, 2008