Latest Medical News
2011/12/10
1. No to over-the-counter morning-after pill; Obama Health Chief Blocks FDA on 'Morning After' Pill (HHS, 12/7/11)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA and stopped the Plan B morning-after pill from moving onto drugstore shelves next to the condoms. This means the Plan B One-Step emergency contraceptive will remain behind pharmacy counters, as it is sold today - available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age.
2. CDC Issues New TB Treatment Guidelines (CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 12/9/11)
New guidelines on treating so-called "latent" tuberculosis infection in the United States should significantly shorten and simplify the course of the therapy from about 9 months to 3 months. The new guidelines are based on expert opinion and the results of three clinical trials. Latent TB infection occurs when a person is infected with TB bacteria but does not yet have symptoms and so cannot transmit the bacteria to others. However, if the bacteria becomes active, the person will develop the disease and can also spread it to others. Certain people, including those with weakened immune systems, are more likely to progress from latent to active TB. Many high-risk people with latent TB feel fine and don't begin the nine-month course of treatment, which typically requires 270 daily doses of the anti-TB drug isoniazid. And many of those who do begin the therapy don't see it through to the end. However, the new regimen streamlines the treatment to 12 once-per-week doses of isoniazid, along with another anti-TB drug called rifapentine.
3. Raw Cookie Dough Ready to Bake, Not Ready to Eat (Clinical Infectious Diseases, in print)
Raw cookie dough, whether it's homemade or store-bought, should be destined for your oven, not your mouth. That's one of the CDC's top lessons from the 2009 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in refrigerated Nestle Toll House cookie dough products. During the outbreak, 77 people in 30 states became ill after eating the dough before baking it. Of these, 35 people were hospitalized. The outbreak prompted a recall of 3.6 million packages of cookie dough and some changes in the way that Nestle and other companies manufacture their cookie dough. That was the first time an E. coli outbreak was traced to ready-to-bake commercial prepackaged cookie dough.
4. Should Nuns Take the Pill for Health Reasons? (Lancet, 12/11)
The world's 94,790 nuns pay a price for their chastity: an increased risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers. A commentary by Australian researchers highlights the health hazards of nulliparity (the condition of never being pregnant)- hazards they say could be minimized by the birth control pill. Should the Catholic Church make the oral contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns to reduce the risk of cancer?
5. Most U.S. Presidents Live Longer Than Their Peers (Journal of the American Medical Association, 12/7/11)
A few years in the White House do not appear to cut short the lives of U.S. presidents, and most live longer than their peers. Stress may increase the visible signs of aging, but it does not shorten a president's lifespan. Stress is less deadly when you have more control over your life.
6. FDA Targets Homeopathic Weight Loss Products (FDA, 12/6/11)
The FDA is taking action to remove controversial, unapproved and illegally labeled HCG weight loss products from the market. HCG stands for human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone made by the human placenta and found in the urine of pregnant women. HCG is approved as an injectable drug for treating some cases of female infertility and other medical conditions, but is not approved as a weight loss aid. The products are typically given in conjunction with an extremely low-calorie diet -- as low as 500 calories per day. People on severely restricted diets put themselves at increased risk of gallstones, electrolyte imbalances and heartbeat disorders called arrhythmias.
7. Diabetes, Obesity After 60 May Drive Up Breast Cancer Risk (San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2011, 12/6/11)
A woman's risk of developing breast cancer appears to rise if she has diabetes or is obese after age 60.
8. Treating Prehypertension Lowers Stroke Risk (Stroke, 12/8/11)
The risk of stroke dropped about 22 percent in people with prehypertension who took drugs that lower blood pressure. These people didn't yet have high blood pressure, but they still benefited from taking the medications, although there was no significant reduction in the rate of heart attacks for people taking antihypertensives. Prehypertension is defined as blood pressure that is between 120 to 139 mm Hg systolic (the top number) and 80 to 89 mm Hg diastolic. Anything 140/90 mm Hg and above is considered hypertension. Prehypertension is very common, and may affect as many as 40 percent of Americans.
9. Women who mix day and night shifts 'have a greater risk of type 2 diabetes' (PLos Medicine, 12/11)
Women who mix day and night shifts are at greater risk of type 2 diabetes. Disrupted eating and sleeping patterns leads to weight gain. Diabetes can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and blindness.
10. To live longer, focus on fitness, not fat (Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 12/6/11)
If you want to live longer, maintaining your level of fitness could add years to your life, regardless of whether or not you gain weight along the way. Men who maintained fitness levels or improved them over the course of 11 years were less likely to die from any illness, including heart disease and stroke -- regardless of whether or not they gained weight over the years.
11. Expert Panel Pinpoints Environmental Culprits in Breast Cancer (Institute of Medicine, 12/7/11)
Women can lower their risk of developing breast cancer by avoiding unnecessary medical radiation, forgoing menopausal hormone therapy and limiting alcohol use, /but they don't need to worry about using hair dyes or cellphones. The 400 page report also states that "The potential risk reductions from any of these actions for any individual woman will vary and may be modest."
12. Starchy Foods May Boost Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence (2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference, 12/8/11)
Increased consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods, especially starches, may boost the risk of breast cancer recurrence. Women who increased their carbohydrates and particularly their starch intake (foods such as potatoes) had a greater risk of recurrence than the women who decreased it. A link between a high-carb diet and a higher breast cancer risk has been reported before, but this new study focused particularly on starchy carbs.
13. Obesity Linked to Worse Outcomes With Early Breast Cancer (2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 12/7/11)
Obesity may contribute to worse survival outcomes in early stage breast cancer patients who have received adjuvant therapy to treat their disease. Adjuvant therapy is treatment given following the initial local therapy with surgery. Its purpose is to provide whole-body treatment to keep the cancer from returning. Adjuvant therapy can include chemotherapy, endocrine (hormone) therapy, or targeted therapy. Obesity puts a breast cancer patient at risk for worse survival outcomes.
14. Family Tree May Affect Diagnosis Age in Some Breast Cancers (San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 12/8/11)
Some women who inherit the BRCA1 or BRCA2 breast and ovarian cancer genes from their father may be diagnosed with breast cancer nearly a decade earlier than those who inherit the genes from their mother.
15. Mammograms May Cut Breast Cancer Deaths in Half (Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 12/6/11)
Despite the controversies over mammograms, the bottom line is they still save lives in women aged 50 to 75. A new Dutch study shows the scan reduced the risk of death from breast cancer in this age group by almost half.
16. Big promise is seen in 2 new breast cancer drugs (San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium/New England Journal of Medicine, 12/7/11)
Two new medicines significantly delay the time until women with very advanced cases get worse. An experimental drug from Genentech called pertuzumab held cancer at bay for a median of 18 months when given with standard treatment, versus 12 months for others given only the usual treatment. It also strongly appears to be improving survival, and follow-up is continuing to see if it does. In a second study, another drug long used in organ transplants but not tried against breast cancer -- everolimus, sold as Afinitor by Novartis AG -- kept cancer in check for a median of 7 months in women whose disease was worsening despite treatment with hormone-blocking drugs. A comparison group that received only hormonal medicine had just a 3-month delay in disease progression.
17. More Evidence Links Specific Genes to ADHD (Nature Genetics, 12/4/11)
Variations in genes involved in brain signaling pathways appear to be linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The findings suggest that drugs that act on these pathways may offer a new treatment option for ADHD patients with the gene variants. At least 10 percent of the children with ADHD had so-called "copy number variations" -- deletions or duplications of DNA sequences -- in four genes that are all part of the glutamate receptor gene family. The strongest result was in gene GMR5. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter, a protein that transmits signals between neurons in the brain.
18. Women's post-natal depression linked to partners' abuse (BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 12/11)
Forty percent of women who suffer depression after childbirth are abused either physically or emotionally by their partners.
19. FDA advisers: revise popular birth control labels; FDA favors more risk info on birth control pills (FDA, 12/8/11)
U.S. health advisers recommended a revision of labels for the widely used new generation of birth control pills, based on data showing they may put women at a higher risk of dangerous blood clots. Although all common birth control pills increase women's chances of getting blood clots, concerns have recently been mounting about an even higher risk linked to a newer generation of pills that contain the compound drospirenone, such as Bayer AG's popular Yaz and Yasmin.
20. Contagious Yawns May Show Social Bonds (PLoS ONE, 12/7/11)
Yawns may be contagious for good reason. Yawning after someone else yawns may be a sign of social empathy and emotional bonds between family and friends.
21. Abusive Boss May Harm Workers' Home Life, Too (Personal Psychology, Winter 2011)
Having an abusive boss can do more than ruin your workday, it can also harm your family life. However, the longer the employee-partner relationship, the less effect the abusive boss had on the family. The researchers also found that having more children at home meant greater family satisfaction for the employee.
22. Risk for Dementia Rises When Diabetes, Depression Meet (Archives of General Psychiatry, 12/5/11)
Patients with type 2 diabetes are twice as likely to develop dementia three to five years after being diagnosed with depression compared to nondepressed people with diabetes.
23. Some depressed people do worse on medications (Archives of General Psychiatry, 12/5/11)
Up to a fifth of patients on Cymbalta and similar medications may actually do worse than those given drug-free placebo pills. Patients' symptoms over the first couple months of antidepressant use separate into "responders," who get progressively better, and "non-responders," who don't improve with treatment but may still suffer side effects.
24. Few teens sexting racy photos, new research says (Pediatrics, 12/5/11)
Teen sexting of nude photos online or via cellphone may be far less common than people think. Only 1 percent of kids aged 10 to 17 have shared images of themselves or others that involve explicit nudity. Roughly the same number said they'd shared suggestive but less graphic photos; while 7 percent said they'd received either type of picture. The research suggests texting of sexual photos among younger kids is extremely rare but more common among older teens.
25. Babies learn whom to trust at early age (Infant Behavior and Development, 12/11)
You can fool them once, but babies will not be fooled again if adults trick them. Infants choose not to learn from someone who they perceive as unreliable.
26. 3-D TV Doesn't Raise Seizure Risk for Kids With Epilepsy (American Epilepsy Society annual meeting, Baltimore, 12/4/11)
Children with epilepsy do not appear to face an increased risk for seizures while watching 3-D TV. However, the results did reveal that about one in five of these children is vulnerable to other unpleasant reactions when viewing 3-D television, including nausea, headaches and dizziness.
27. Most Doctors Don't Tell Parents Kids Are Overweight (Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 12/5/11)
Less than one-quarter of American parents with an overweight child remember ever being told by a health care professional that this was the case.
28. Very Low Birth Weight May Affect Adult Memory, IQ (Neurology, 12/6/11)
Adults who had a very low birth weight are more likely to have memory and attention problems than those who had a low to normal birth weight. Less than 3.3 pounds was defined as very low birth weight in this study.
