A rundown of FDA MedWatch alerts from March 2009, led by the March 5 warning that metal in the backing of some medicated adhesive patches can overheat during an MRI scan and burn the skin, plus alerts on Reglan and Raptiva.
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Health News
Drugs, disease, healthcare, government and lifestyle: health news beyond the plate.
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Lifestyle
Exercise could be the heart's fountain of youth
At Washington University in St. Louis, sedentary older adults who trained three to five days a week for about a year doubled their hearts' glucose uptake under drug-simulated exertion, as younger hearts do. By one metabolic measure, women benefited more than men.
Environment
Toxic chemicals found in common scented laundry products, air fresheners
Anne Steinemann of the University of Washington tested six top-selling laundry products and air fresheners and detected nearly 100 volatile organic compounds, none named on the labels. Every product emitted at least one regulated toxic chemical and five emitted a carcinogen.
Lifestyle
55 minutes per day needed to sustain weight loss
Following 201 overweight and obese women eating 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day, University of Pittsburgh researchers found that sustaining a 10% weight loss over two years took about 55 minutes of exercise five days a week - well above the 150 minutes a week currently recommended.
Disease
Fat around the heart may increase risk of heart attacks
Wake Forest researchers reporting in Obesity found fat around the heart may matter more for heart attack risk than BMI or waist size. Drawing on data from 6,800 MESA participants, they looked at whether pericardial fat tracks with calcified plaque. Even a thin person can carry it.
Environment
Industry says granite countertops are safe to use
The Marble Institute of America dismissed Rice physicist W.J. Llope's radiation findings as junk science, citing EPA statements that the agency has no reliable data showing countertop granite significantly raises indoor radon, which it attributes mainly to soil gas.
Lifestyle
Important precautionary advice on cell phone use
Ronald Herberman of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute emailed colleagues an advisory on cell phone use, saying a growing body of studies links long-term use to possible harms including cancer, though the evidence remains controversial. France, Germany and India limit exposure.
Drug
Exposure to x-ray linked to increased risk of prostate cancer
Men who had a hip or pelvic X-ray or barium enema a decade earlier were 2.5 times more likely to have prostate cancer than the general population, in a study of 431 men diagnosed before 60. The researchers stress this is an association, with no proof the radiological tests caused the increase.
Environment
Cell phone users at higher risk of tumors
An American Journal of Epidemiology study of 402 benign and 58 malignant parotid gland tumours in Israel found people who used cell phones more than 22 hours a month had a 50 percent higher risk, with tumours more often on the side the phone was held.
Drug
Melanoma rates on the rise among young women
Federal researchers analysing cancer data from 1973 to 2004 found melanoma in younger women rose 50 percent after 1980 while young men's rates leveled off. They could not explain the gap and speculate recreational sun exposure or tanning beds may be responsible.
Disease
Obesity may lower men's fertility
Among 2,037 men at the Aberdeen Fertility Centre, those with a normal body mass index produced more semen and more normal sperm than overweight or obese men, researchers reported in Barcelona. Dr. Ghiyath Shayeb suggests men hoping to conceive lose some weight first.
Drug
Thousands of adverse reactions to cervical cancer vaccine reported
Media reports say thousands of adverse reactions to Merck's Gardasil have reached the CDC since June 2006, including 15 reports of death, with no proof the vaccine caused them. Reported problems include injection-site pain, nausea, blood clots and paralysis from a neurological disorder.
Drug
Hormone therapy for prostate cancer does more harm than good
A JAMA review of nearly 20,000 men over 65 with early stage prostate cancer found hormone therapy raised deaths from other causes, such as heart disease, offsetting its survival benefit. The authors say monitoring is the better option; the therapy still helps advanced disease.
Drug
FDA: Antibiotics raise tendon rupture risk
The FDA asked makers of fluoroquinolone antibiotics, including Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox, Factive, Floxin and Noroxin, to add a boxed warning about tendinitis and tendon rupture. Risk runs highest over age 60, on corticosteroids, and after kidney, heart or lung transplant.
Lifestyle
Overweight linked to breast cancer in postmenopausal women
A study that followed more than 60,000 Swedish women for two decades found overweight and insulin-resistant postmenopausal women were less likely to be diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and more likely to be diagnosed with larger stage 2 to 4 tumors, researcher Anne Cust reported.
Lifestyle
Pregnancy may help protect against bladder cancer
Female mice that never became pregnant had roughly 15 times as much bladder cancer as those that had been pregnant, University of Rochester researchers report in Urology, a clue to why the disease strikes about three times as many men as women.
Drug
Certain anti-cancer agents could be harmful to patients with heart disease
Hedgehog antagonists, experimental anticancer drugs, worsened cardiac function and ultimately killed mice with heart disease, Washington University researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Senior author David Ornitz urges monitoring patients' hearts.
Drug
Certain cancer drugs damage the heart and may cause death
Washington University researchers gave hedgehog antagonists, experimental anticancer drugs, to mice with heart disease. The drugs blocked hedgehog signaling in the heart, made small coronary vessels vanish and led to heart failure and death. Ornitz urges monitoring patients' hearts.
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