Full-term newborns with jaundice are at a higher risk for psychological disorders, including the autism spectrum disorder known as pervasive developmental disorder, according to a very large Danish study published in yesterday’s Pediatrics.
Search
High levels of the amino acid homocysteine have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, so it would make sense that homocysteine-lowering supplements like folic acid could reduce one s risk of heart disease but a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine failed to find evidence supporting such an effect.
Researchers announced yesterday that they discovered a new strain of swine flu (H1N1) in Singapore in early 2010 that has since spread to Australia and New Zealand. The new flu variant may require the development of an updated seasonal flu vaccine sooner than expected.
Be sure to read ACSH President Dr. Elizabeth Whelan’s op-ed in today’sNew York Post describing the fantastic gains scientists have made fighting breast cancer, transforming the disease from a “virtual death sentence” to a far less threatening condition.
The American Heart Association has recommended new guidelines for the performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In emergency people are are now advised to give 30 chest compressions first, and then check the airway and administer rescue breaths as needed to children and adults. Previously the guidelines called for the rescue breaths coming before the chest compressions, a system dubbed ABC, for airway-breaths-chest compressions. Now it’s CAB — compressions, airway, breathing.
This week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication by the CDC, found that the proportion of cigarette smokers who also use smokeless tobacco products — such as snuff and chew tobacco — ranged from 0.9 to 13.7 percent on a state-by-state analysis, according to data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
An investigative report that appeared over the weekend in The New York Times reveals how the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been funding a marketing agency designed to get Americans to eat more cheese while simultaneously urging people to eat less saturated fat.
Alarmed by the spread of the supposed “superbugs” — bacteria that resist modern antibiotics — politicians from both parties are considering policies to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to develop new antibiotics. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a physician, recently introduced the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now bill, which would extend patent protections for antibiotics for five additional years and speed reviews by the FDA. Rep.
Systematically immunizing schoolkids against influenza reduces outbreaks in the entire community, according to a study in the December issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Researchers led by ACSH advisor Dr. Paul Glezen at Baylor College of Medicine examined what happened in schools in eastern Bell County, Texas, after 48 percent of elementary school children were vaccinated via a nasal spray in the fall and early winter of 2007.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a ban on Happy Meals that made the Bay Area even more of a laughingstock than usual. The Board of Supervisors passed the measure by a veto-proof margin of 8-3, so we suspect the veto will be overridden, but kudos to Newsom for trying.
The measure will prohibit restaurants from giving away toys with meals unless they meet strict nutritional standards and include fruits and vegetables. Newsom said this wasn’t the way to combat childhood obesity.
A study of first-time heart attack patients at a Minneapolis hospital found that only 10 percent of them had been receiving preventive treatments such as drugs to lower cholesterol, reduce blood pressure or prevent clots. The University of Minnesota researchers studied 815 patients at Abbot Northern Hospital between 2007 and 2010 andpresented their research at the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago.
Tara Parker-Pope writes in The New York Times that a study showing CT scans can reduce lung cancer deaths in heavy smokers is already being used in advertisements for a screening center in Atlanta — advertisements seemingly aimed at a broad group, including women who had never smoked.
Even though the number of U.S. adults with high blood pressure has not changed over the past decade, U.S. government researchers report that many more know about it — over 80 percent in 2008, up from 70 percent in 1999-2000 — and are getting treated for it. Approximately 30 percent of Americans have high blood pressure — a number that has remained stable since 1999 across gender, age and race — but almost 74 percent of adults took drugs to treat it in 2008, compared to 50 percent in 1999-2000.
NYC Health Department’s tactics as disgusting as their gross-out videos
Most of us may already know that smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing an average of 440,000 people annually. But not all of us know that women who smoke or used to smoke regularly are at a greater risk of dying from breast cancer. Those statistics come from a large prospective cohort study conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and presented at the Ninth Annual American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference.
Halloween may already be over, but the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) hasn’t given up on scaring smokers quite yet. Describing it as “the most significant change in more than 25 years,” the HHS revealed yesterday new, larger, more graphic warning labels that will be required on cigarette packages and ads. The pictures will include images of a dead body in a morgue, a man having a heart attack, and a lung bisected with a surgical scar.
ACSH friend Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania supplies some needed background to yesterday’s Dispatchitem about graphic labels on cigarette packs. Commenting on the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposal to mandate scary images on cigarette packs, Dr.
Advocacy group Food & Water Watch argues that consumers need more food labeling so they can know what poisonous ingredients may be in their food — specifically, their chicken. On Tuesday, advocates in Maryland rallied against the use of chicken feed and medicines containing arsenic, which the poultry industry defends as a safe and effective means of stimulating growth, promoting chicken health, and producing the pinker meat consumers prefer.
In yesterday’s Dispatch, we discussed the introduction of a bill called Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now, which seeks to provide financial and other incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in the development of new antibiotics to combat drug-resistant bacteria (superbugs).
Kansas State University nutrition professor Marc Haub’s infamous “Twinkie” diet challenges the notion of “junk” food — he lost twenty-seven pounds and lowered his BMI by four points in two months by eating Hostess, Little Debbie, and other convenience store snacks for meals.
Exercise helps protect people from colds, suggests a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. During two 12-week periods in 2008, members of a cohort of 1,002 adults who said they exercised at least five days a week had 43 percent fewer days with a respiratory tract infection than those who just exercised one day a week or not at all.
Electronic cigarettes are a “rapidly growing Internet phenomenon” that may pose unknown risks, two doctors and a researcher from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital write in an opinion piece for the Annals of Internal Medicine. E-cigarettes “may pose a risk as starter products for nonusers of tobacco,” could release dangerous toxins, and are unproven as smoking-cessation aids, write the authors, led by David W.
A higher education may have its drawbacks. New research finds that parents in relatively high socioeconomic brackets forgo vaccines for their children more often than poorer individuals. Between 2008 and 2009, vaccination rates in children insured by commercial plans — a surrogate for higher income — dropped nearly four percentage points while vaccination rates for children covered under Medicaid actually increased, according to the annual State of Health Care Quality report.
Following a probe last week by the Tampa Tribune that found some reusable grocery bags manufactured in China contained “concerning” levels of lead, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is requesting further federal investigation of the bag’s lead content.
Patients already using low-dose aspirin (baby aspirin) to protect against cardiovascular disease may also be reducing their cancer risk, according to a new study published online in today’s The Lancet. British researchers conducted a meta-analysis of more than 25,000 people from eight clinical trials testing the efficacy of baby aspirin (81 mg dose in the U.S.
Pagination
ACSH relies on donors like you. If you enjoy our work, please contribute.
Make your tax-deductible gift today!