Previous Medical News
2009/06/06
1. Web Therapy Can Help Cure Insomnia: CBTforINSOMNIA.com or MySelfHelp.com (Sleep, 6/09)
Web-based treatments have emerged for all kinds of bad habits and disorders, such as overeating, smoking, depression — and insomnia. 81% of participants who completed a five-week, online program for insomnia reported improvement in sleep.
2. Immune therapies finally working against cancer (American Society of Clinical Oncology, 5/31/09)
Cancer vaccines use the body's natural defender, the immune system to fight cancer. One such vaccine kept a common form of lymphoma from worsening for more than a year. Experimental vaccines against three other cancers — prostate, the deadly skin disease melanoma and an often fatal childhood tumor called neuroblastoma — also gave positive results in late-stage testing.
3. Women Who Run May Benefit From Extra Folic Acid (American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, 5/31/09)
High-dose folic acid supplementation improved vascular function in young female runners who stopped menstruating (amenorrhea) because their caloric intake was lower than their energy output. The researchers measured the women's vascular function before and after four to six weeks of treatment with 10 milligrams a day of folic acid. At the end of that time, vascular function had returned to normal in the amenorrheic women and remained at normal levels in the other women.
4. Hormone therapy lifts lung cancer death risk (American Society of Clinical Oncology, 5/30/09)
Use of menopausal hormone-replacement therapy increases the risk of death from lung cancer by 60 percent after five years.
5. Some antidepressants may risk breast cancer return (American Society of Clinical Oncology, 5/31/09)
Breast cancer survivors risk having their disease come back if they use certain antidepressants (including Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft ) while also taking the cancer prevention drug tamoxifen, which cuts in half the chances of a breast cancer recurrence. Many also take antidepressants for hot flashes, because hormone pills aren't considered safe after breast cancer, but new research demonstrates they can virtually wipe out the benefit tamoxifen provides.
6. Traces of cocaine 'found in Red Bull' in Hong Kong (Centre for Food Safety, 6/2/09)
Traces of cocaine have been found in cans of Red Bull. Taiwanese officials at the Centre for Food Safety said a laboratory analysis found tiny amounts of the illegal drug in samples of "Red Bull Cola," "Red Bull Sugar-free" and "Red Bull Energy Drink.”
7. Moving May Up Adolescent Suicide Risk (Archives of General Psychiatry, 6/09)
The risk of suicide increases directly with the number of times a child or adolescent moves.
8. Food Poisoning May Raise IBD Risk (Digestive Disease Week, 6/1/09)
Salmonella or campylobacter food poisoning triples the risk of inflammatory bowel disease.
9. Fewer Americans following a healthy lifestyle (The American Journal of Medicine, 6/09)
The number of middle-aged and older Americans who eat right, exercise and keep their weight down has declined substantially in the past two decades. The decline in healthy lifestyle habits may translate into higher rates of diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
10. 'Cell Phone Elbow' -- A New Ill for the Wired Age (Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 5/09)
The latest affliction of the wired age is cell phone elbow. Medically known as cubital tunnel syndrome, cell phone elbow is numbness, tingling and pain in the forearm and hand caused by compression of the ulnar nerve, which passes along the bony bump on the inside of the elbow. Prolonged flexing of the elbow puts tension on the ulnar nerve. In susceptible people, holding the bent-elbow position for extended periods can lead to decreased blood flow, inflammation and compression of the nerve.
11. Exercise after age 30 may curb breast cancer risk (American College of Sports Medicine's annual meeting, 6/3/09)
After age 30, exercising for more than an hour a week may help cut a woman's chances of developing breast cancer.
12. Recall: Regal Gourmet Snacks In-Shell Pistachios-Salmonella contamination (FDA, 6/2/0)
Regal Health Food International Inc. is recalling certain in-shell pistachio products because of possible contamination with salmonella, an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in young children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. No known illnesses have been reported to date.
13. Obesity May Dampen Response to Asthma Meds (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 6/09)
Obesity may not worsen asthma but it could dampen the response to medications commonly used to manage the chronic condition. Inhaled corticosteroids are the most widely prescribed drugs to treat people with asthma, many of whom are overweight or obese. Obese people with asthma may not respond as well and need to be reassessed by their doctors after they start treatment to confirm effectiveness.
14. Tourette Syndrome Diagnosed in 3 in Every 1,000 Kids (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 6/4/09)
In the first estimate of its kind, U.S. health officials report that three of every 1,000 children, mostly boys, are diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome. Tourette Syndrome is a neurological disorder that usually begins in early childhood, with symptoms typically becoming more severe between the ages of 10 and 12. The key features of the condition are recurring motor tics plus at least one vocal tic.
