Researchers at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Vienna said exercise and a brain-healthy diet can help. One study found older adults having one to two drinks a day had about a 37 percent lower dementia risk, with no benefit for those already impaired.
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Health News
Drugs, disease, healthcare, government and lifestyle: health news beyond the plate.
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Miscellaneous
Half of all bathtub injuries involve toddlers
A national survey analyzed by Columbia Children's Hospital found most toddler bathtub injuries happen with a parent present, and about 43,000 toddlers a year are hurt. Cuts accounted for 60 percent of injuries and sprains or soft tissue damage for 50 percent.
Government
New Hampshire Medical Marijuana Bill Vetoed by Governor Lynch
New Hampshire Governor John Lynch vetoed a bill letting patients possess small amounts of marijuana for medical use, saying it still had too many defects and noting federal law bans possession. The bill's author, Rep. Evalyn Merrick, who has multiple myeloma, vowed to seek an override.
Miscellaneous
Women with Greater Language Skills in their Twenties Less Likely to Develop Alzheimer’s
A Johns Hopkins study in the ongoing Nun Study confirms a 1996 finding that nuns who wrote complex sentences in their twenties were less likely to develop dementia. One group carried the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's without memory loss, suggesting a protective mechanism.
Disease
Obese people at risk of severe complications and death from H1N1 infection
An editor's note frames a verbatim CDC report on Michigan intensive-care patients with the novel H1N1 virus, predicting officials will urge obese people to get vaccinated and calling that good business for drug makers. The CDC counted 94,512 cases and 429 deaths worldwide as of July 6, 2009.
Lifestyle
Low intake of calories and or methionine extends lifespan
In a 20-year Science study of monkeys, 80 percent of those fed 30 percent fewer calories were still alive against 50 percent eating freely, and the restricted animals were half as likely to develop cancer or cardiovascular disease. Whether the same holds in humans is unknown.
Drug
Fentanyl Has a Long History of Abuse
A synthetic opiate thought to be 100 times stronger than morphine, fentanyl has drawn addicted medical staff since 1980 and killed 18 doctors nationwide by 1991. A surgical technician with hepatitis C swapped prepped syringes for saline; it is also sold on the street as heroin.
Disease
Swine flu throws a curve ball
German researchers infected five pigs with the pandemic H1N1 strain and watched it spread to three others within four days, reporting in the Journal of General Virology. Thomas Vahlenkamp says preventing human-to-pig transmission should be a priority; pig vaccine tests are underway.
Miscellaneous
Think You'll Marry After 40? Buy a Lottery Ticket
A humor column riffs on the odds that single women over 40 will marry, comparing the statistics to terrorism and plane crashes and poking at prenuptials, single motherhood and the lingering sting of the phrase old maid.
Disease
Celiac Disease 4 Times More Prevalent than Fifty Years Ago
Mayo Clinic researchers compared more than 9,000 blood samples from 1948-54 with 12,000 recent samples from Olmsted County, Minnesota, and found the gluten antibody 4.5 times more common now, roughly 1 in 100 people. Why the rate climbed remains under debate.
Government
FDA Requires Makers of Darvon, Darvacet, to Issue Strong Warnings
Rather than ban Darvon and Darvocet as its own panel urged, the FDA will require a boxed warning on painkillers containing propoxyphene and ask makers to detail the drug's toxicity in overdose. Critics say it is so weak that patients may take extra doses.
Miscellaneous
Ice-free Arctic summer on the horizon?
NASA satellite data show Arctic sea ice thinned about 7 inches a year between the winters of 2004 and 2008, 2.2 feet in all, while the area of older, thicker ice shrank 42 percent. A separate report puts twice as much carbon in Arctic and boreal permafrost as in the atmosphere.
Miscellaneous
Would You Eat "Dove"? Neither Do Most Dove Hunters
A caustic look at Governor Mark Sanford's Argentine dove-shooting trip and the Cordoba lodges advertising no bag limits, quoting hunters who boast of downing more than 1,000 birds in a day, and noting most states offer youth dove hunts for children as young as 8.
Drug
Drug Test May Not Tell the Whole Statin Story
A Tufts and University of Bern study found 25 of 44 statin patients with muscle pain had microscopic muscle injury despite normal creatine phosphokinase readings. The researchers conclude a CPK test can confirm muscle damage but cannot rule it out.
Drug
Advisory Panel Suggests Banning Vicodin, Percocet
An FDA advisory panel urged the agency to ban Vicodin and Percocet over liver damage from the acetaminophen they contain. Overdoses account for 400 deaths and 42,000 hospital visits, in part because many people do not know cold remedies and other drugs also contain the ingredient.
Drug
FDA Okays Eli Lilly Lung Cancer Treatment
The FDA cleared Eli Lilly's Alimta as a maintenance treatment for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, letting doctors keep giving it after initial chemotherapy instead of waiting for tumors to start growing again.
Disease
Climbing Obesity Rates Concern Researchers
A Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report drawing on 2004-2006 CDC data found obesity rates rose in half the states, and that only 37 percent of 26,000 children studied fell in the normal weight range. Job losses also cut families off from wellness programs.
Lifestyle
Childhood obesity on the rise
Analyzing NHANES data on 12,384 US children aged 2 to 19, researchers found severe obesity, a BMI at or above the 99th percentile, rose more than 300% since 1976 and over 70% since 1994, reaching 3.8% of children in 1999-2004, with rates highest among black children.
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