Health News

March 31, 2006

A new Swedish study suggests that mobile phone use can raise the risk of brain tumors, which contradicts previous studies.

The new study was conducted by researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life. The researchers compared the use of mobile phones among 905 people between the age of 20 and 80 who had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and found a link. Of the 905 people whi participated in the study 85 of them were said to be high users of mobile phones. It was also noted that the tumors often appear on the side of the head that the mobile phone is used.

March 29, 2006

We already know that being overweight or inactive takes a toll on the heart, but could loneliness also be bad for the heart?

A psychologist of the University of Chicago has found that older adults and middle-aged adults that are lonely have higher blood pressure levels than those who are least lonely. Although the effect of loneliness on blood pressure increased with age, loneliness remained to be a predictor of higher blood pressure.

The study focused on 229 adults between the ages of 50 and 68. The data was gathered in 2002 and participant underwent several psychological evaluations and measurements including the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale.

The authors of this study emphasize that this study is limited by its correlational nature.

March 28, 2006

Smokers and drinkers with colon cancer appear to develop the disease up to ten years earlier than those who do not smoke or drink. This recent study suggests that some people with these habits should be screened earlier for colorectal cancer than currently recommended.

It is advised that people should begin regular screening for pre-cancerous intestinal polyps at the age of 50. For people who have a family history of the disease screenings should start earlier.

This new study of more than 160,000 patients with colon cancer is offering a new perspective on when screenings should begin for some patients. Age 50 might be too late for people who smoke and use tobacco to begin colonoscopy screenings. The study analyzed data of colorectal cancer patients between 1993 and 2003, which revealed that alcohol and tobacco users were diagnosed with the disease 7.8 years earlier on average than those who did not smoke or drink.

March 27, 2006

A recent study suggests that women who have had breast cancer surgery benefit from lift weights. Weight lifting can help women gain a sense of well being and achieve a better quality of life.

The study included 86 women who had been treated for breast cancer 4 to 36 months previous to the study. The group that was assigned a weight lifting routine twice a week had a better quality of life and global psychological score.

Previous studies only focused on the benefits of aerobic exercise on breast cancer patients. This study demonstrates that weight lifting is provides similar quality of life benefits to breast cancer survivors.

March 24, 2006

The most recent study of omega-3 oils reveals that the fatty acids may not offer as many health benefits as previously believed. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil, nut oils and some plants has been said to fight heart disease.

Although the study does not rule out potential health benefits, it does suggest that the finding of previous studies may be less conclusive. In a review of 89 previous studies that measured the effect of omega 3's, no clear evidence was found to support the benefits of omaega-3's. The study was published in the journal BMJ.

Currently researchers recommend that further study is needed to fully understand the benefits and risks of omega-3 fatty acids.

March 23, 2006

Depression affects nearly 15 million Americans and more than 189 million prescriptions for antidepressants are written each year.

A new government study reveals that those patients whose depression is not in remission through their first course of drugs should be persistent. The study suggests that adding a second drug or switching to a different drug can often yield treatment results.

As reported in SF Gate, about half of the nearly 1,500 patients in the study achieved remission -- virtually the complete absence of symptoms -- by completing two treatment steps, and many others showed improvement.

The results of this study might provide a "road map" for how depression patients should be treated. Depression patients often give up if they do not see immediate results or suffer side effects. This study suggests that that trying different drugs is the most likely path to remission.

Although this study has offered some insight into depression treatments, many patients who suffer from depression do not go see positive results.

March 21, 2006

The use of ADHD drugs is on the rise among adults. According to a recent study by Medco the number of children under the age of 10 using ADHD drugs has declined 5%. The number of adults between the ages of 20 to 44 taking ADHD drugs has risen 19%.

Medco said that in 2005 in the U.S., about 1.7 million adults, aged 20 to 64, and 3.3 million children took ADHD prescription drugs.

The potential cardiovascular issues associated with taking these drugs are often overlooked. Many ADHD drugs contain stimulants that are suspected of triggering potentially serious cardiovascular problems.

The FDA will consider adding stern warnings to ADHD drugs so that users are aware of the elevated cardiovascular risk.

March 20, 2006

The difference in the size of a woman's right and left breast may help predict her risk for developing breast cancer.

Few women have perfectly symmetrical breasts, but the intriguing early research from the U.K. suggests that larger difference in size is an independent risk factor for the disease.

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March 17, 2006

CNN.com Health News reports that 2 more women have died after taking the abortion pill RU-486.

The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors to watch for a rare but deadly infection previously implicated in four deaths of women who had taken RU-486. The drug combination, also called Mifeprex or mifepristone, has not been proved to be the cause in any of those cases.

Nor has the FDA confirmed the cause of the latest two deaths. However, in one of them, the woman's symptoms appeared to resemble those in a cluster of four cases in California where the women died from an infection of the bloodstream, or sepsis. Those women did not follow FDA-approved instructions for a drug-induced abortion, which requires swallowing three tablets of one drug, followed two days later by two pills of another drug.

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March 16, 2006

According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times, doctors have found what they describe as the best evidence yet that heart disease can be reversed, and not just kept from getting worse.

That finding came Monday in a study in which people saw their "bad cholesterol" reduced to the lowest levels ever seen -- and, as a result, had blockages in their blood vessels shrink.

Two-thirds of the 349 study participants had regression of coronary artery buildups when they took the maximum dose of Crestor -- which is the strongest of the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs on the market, though it's come under fire by the consumer group Public Citizen, which contends that the drug has more side effects than its competitors.

It's too soon to tell whether this shrinkage of artery blockages will result in fewer heart attacks.

Read the full article

March 15, 2006

According to a new study, caspian, the compound that gives red pepper its heat could stop the spread of prostate cancer. Previous studies have linked red chili papers to inhibiting the growth of pancreatic cancer cells. This new study was published in the journal of Cancer Research.

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March 14, 2006

According to HealthDay News Greek researchers say the minds of long-term pot smokers don't process things as well as those of other people.

The findings of this marijuana study were published in the March 14 issue of Neurology. Researchers discovered that discovered that people who smoke at least four marijuana joints a week perform worse on a variety of mental tests including measuring memory, attention and verbal fluency. Those users who had smoked for more than 10 years show the most problems of all.

The study doesn't definitively link marijuana use to the cognitive problems, and it's possible that other factors could be to blame. Prior research has also offered conflicting findings about the mental effects of marijuana.

Greek researchers at the University Hospital of Patras gave cognitive tests to 64 people in a drug-abuse treatment program. Twenty were long-term marijuana users who had smoked for at least a decade. Twenty others had smoked pot for shorter periods and the remaining 24 hadn't used marijuana for at least two years. All the participants abstained from using marijuana for 24 hours prior to the tests.

Marijuana users tended to do worse on the tests, the researchers report. On a decision-making test, for example, long-term users were impaired 70 percent of the time, compared to 55 percent among short-term users and 8 percent among non-users.

In another test, the participants were asked to recall a list of words. The non-pot users did best, recalling an average of 12 of 15 words; the long-term users could only remember an average of seven. Research into the mental effects of marijuana is controversial, with some advocates of the drug claiming that its rumored mind-addling powers are a myth.

March 13, 2006

Recent studies have revealed that red wine may help prevent and treat inflammatory periodontal disease. Research has also shown that red wine, especially grape seeds have anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor properties that can help prevent heart disease. The phenolic compounds in red wine have antioxidant properties.

Scientists from Universiti Laval (Quibec, Canada), conducted a study to investigate the role of polyphenols, including those found in red wine, in scavenging free radicals released by immune cells stimulated with components of bacteria causing periodontal diseases. The results indicated that red wine polyphenols significantly modulate several inflammatory components released by macrophages (a population of host immune cells) in response to bacterial stimuli.

These anti-oxidant properties of red wine polyphenols could be useful in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory periodontal diseases as well as other disorders involving free radicals.

March 10, 2006

The once-banned drug thalidomide appears to improve treatment for patients battling the blood cancer multiple myeloma, a new study shows, but the jury is still out on its impact on their long-term survival. Thalidomide was taken off the market in the 1960s because women who took it during pregnancy had a much higher rate of severe birth defects. However, studies suggesting it might help against cancer led to its reintroduction -- with strict controls -- in 1998.

An Italian team of researchers at the University of Turin added thalidomide to standard therapy (melphalan plus prednisone) for newly diagnosed cases of the blood cancer multiple myeloma in older patients.

As reported in the March 11 issue of The Lancet, there was a 76 percent treatment response rate for the 129 patients who got thalidomide compared to a 47.6 percent response rate for the 126 participants who did not get the drug. Patients who received thalidomide in their treatment also boosted their chance of event-free survival over two years -- 54 percent for those who got thalidomide vs. 27 percent for those who did not.

However, that finding is at odds with the result of an American trial reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. While both studies found that thalidomide provided short-term therapeutic benefit, the University of Arkansas study found that patients taking the drug actually relapsed sooner than patients not on the therapy, eliminating any benefit in terms of added survival.

The Italian researchers agree that more study is needed to sort this out.

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March 9, 2006

In the early days of the AIDS pandemic, fewer women were infected with HIV. In 2004, 27 percent of new AIDS cases in the United States were in women -- and women of color, especially African American women, made up the majority of these new cases. As of 2005, 46 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS throughout the world were women. The majority of women have become infected with HIV through heterosexual intercourse.

Along with African American and Hispanic women, who represented approximately 83 percent of new U.S. cases between 2001 and 2004, younger women are "particularly vulnerable." During this time period 38 percent of new cases in individuals under age 25 were in females, compared with 27 percent among those 25 years or older.

March 10th is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and will be a day of recognition of these disturbing trends.

March 8, 2006

According to a recent study of 4,000 coffee drinkers, two or more cups of coffee a day can increase a persons risk for developing heart disease - but only for some people. People who have a certain genetic mutation that slows the bodies' ability to break down caffeine are at higher risk for developing heart disease related to coffee intake.

In diverse urban areas, the mutation is found in roughly half of all people. People without the mutation can drink as much coffee as they like with no added risk of a heart attack, the scientists said. Unfortunately, there is no commercial test for the mutation, which now puts coffee die-hards in a bit of a quandary.

People who metabolized caffeine slowly and drank two to three cups of coffee each day had a 32 percent higher risk of heart attack, according to the study. Those consuming four cups or more had a 64 percent greater risk.

A single cup of coffee had no effect on heart attack risk, researchers found.

March 7, 2006

Teens who consume soft drinks are piling on the pounds. A recent study followed 103 teens as they consumed either regular sugary drinks or artificially sweetened drinks and noncaloric beverages for six month. The study focused on the consumption of beverages in the teen's home environments. The study reveals that limiting the consumption of sugary drinks had a beneficial effect on weight loss.

Cara Ebbeling, who led the experiment, calculates that a single 12-oz sugar-sweetened beverage per day translates to about 1 pound of weight gain over 3 to 4 weeks. "Sugary beverages have no nutritional value and seem to make a huge contribution to weight gain," she says.

This study was published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity. The International Journal of Pediatric Obesity is a new, peer-reviewed, quarterly journal devoted to research into obesity during childhood and adolescence. The topic is currently at the centre of intense interest in the scientific community, and is of increasing concern to health policy-makers and the public at large.

March 6, 2006

According to a recent report published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, there will be more obese children around the world by the end of the decade. The journal forecasts that almost half of the children in the Americas will be obese by 2010. The current level of obese children in the Americas is one-third.

Obesity has risen in most of the countries, based on factors including a lack of physical activity and the easy availability of junk food, reinforced by massive advertising. Researchers reached the conclusion based on a series of reports tracking obesity in school children in 25 countries and younger kids in 42 countries.

Scientists are also saying that soft drinks are causing much of the obesity problem in children. Two studies are expected to be published this week that link obesity and soft drinks.

March 3, 2006

According to a recent study that focused on intra-abdominal fat, just lifting weights twice a week for one hour can help women battle tummy fat. Intra-abdominal fat is the unhealthiest type of fat because it wraps itself around organs and is linked to heart disease.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and is being presented Friday at an American Heart Association conference in Phoenix.

The waist to hip ratio measurement can help individuals identify their body shape. People who carry excess weight around their waist (apple shaped), as opposed to their hips (pear shaped), have an increased health risk. For women, a healthy waist to hip ratio should be .08 or lower. For men, a healthy waist to hip ratio should be 1 or lower.

The study included 164 overweight and obese Minnesota women ages 24 to 44 divided evenly into two groups. One group participated in a two-year weight-training program. The second group was simply given a brochure recommending exercise of 30 minutes to an hour most days of the week. Both groups were told not to change their diets in a way that might lead to weight changes. Women who did the weight-training for two years had only a 7 percent increase in intra-abdominal fat, compared to a 21 percent increase in the group given exercise advice.

The strength-training group also decreased body fat percentage by almost 4 percent, while the group just given advice remained the same.

March 2, 2006

Grapefruit, especially the red variety, can help keep heart disease at bay according to a recent study by Israeli researchers. The research team discovered that patients who ate one grapefruit a day had lower cholesterol levels than those who did not. This reduction in cholesterol is due to the antioxidants in the fruit.

High blood cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. The grapefruit study helps confirm the many heart-healthy benefits that a citrus fruits can offer. Dr. Shela Gorinstein led the study and has also led several other diet related health studies.

The study included 57 patients that were divided into three groups. Each group was given either a serving of red grapefruit, white grapefruit or no grapefruit, along with regular, balanced meals for 30 consecutive days. The patients who received either red or white grapefruit showed significant decreases in blood lipid levels, whereas the patients that did not eat grapefruit showed no changes in lipid levels, according to the researchers. Red grapefruit was more effective than white in lowering lipids, particularly blood triglycerides, a type of cholesterol whose elevated levels are often associated with heart problems, Gorinstein reported.

March 2, 2006

Soft drinks that are sold in the UK have high levels of cancer causing chemicals. Many popular brands of soft drinks are found to contain high levels of benzene, almost eight times the level of benzene that is allowed in drinking water. The level of benzene in soft drinks is not legally restricted, as it is in water.

Benzene is a by product of a reaction between two other ingredients commonly used to make drinks. It has been linked to leukaemia and other cancers of the blood. Benzene is commonly used to make glues, paints and detergents.

March 2, 2006

A recent study shows acupuncture to be an effective treatment for migraines. A German scientist worked with 900 patients in his study. The patients were divided into three groups that received one of three treatments; real acupuncture, a fake needle treatment or a combination of medications.

After six weeks of treatment 47 per cent of the real acupuncture group said their treatment had reduced their attacks by half. Some 40 per cent of those patients given drugs said the same, and the fake acupuncture treatment was effective in 39 per cent of cases. These numbers suggest acupuncture - real or fake - is as effective as drugs for treating migraines.

March 1, 2006

Is America becoming a sleepless nation? According to today's article in the SF Chronicle by David Lazarus, Americans need a lot of help getting to sleep. A record 43 million sleeping-pill prescriptions were filled in the country last year, resulting in $2 billion in sales. Some estimates forecast sales of sleeping-pills could rise to $5 billion in the next four years.

Some of the most startling figures come when looking at sleeping-pill prescriptions for children. The use of sleeping-pills among children between the ages of 10 and 19 jumped 85 percent between 2000 and 2004. For adults, the use of sleeping pills has doubled between 2000 and 2004.