The widespread West Nile virus epidemic could have been easily prevented if more rigorous insecticide spraying had been implemented in the summer of 1999, when the virus was first detected in birds in the NY region, said ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross, in yesterday s Dispatch. But ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, would like to clarify Dr.
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Antioxidants are the panacea that has never quite panned out. Pom Wonderful (the pomegranate juice in the funny bottle), for instance, made its name with claims of its extraordinary antioxidant content. Tell people a product has antioxidants and many are eager to lap it up, eager for the benefits to their immune system, complexion, mental health, heart, joints, and just about everything else.
Too many patients entering hospitals because of a heart attack may be leaving with anemia, a new study finds. The cause, it seems, is not vampires in the ICU, but an excess of blood drawn for laboratory tests.
After first learning of the adverse health outcomes associated with early elective Cesarean sections, we were pleased to hear that some OBGYNS put their foot down on such procedures.
Drug shortages, as ACSH s Dr. Bloom explained in a recent op-ed, are a serious and growing problem in the U.S. As he points out, these shortages consist largely of pharmaceutical staples: saline solution, antibiotics, sedatives, epinephrine and morphine supplies found in every emergency room.
Civilization depends on our expanding ability to produce food efficiently, which has markedly accelerated thanks to science and technology, writes biologist Nina V.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that doctors are screening women for cervical cancer far more frequently than guidelines recommend. In fact, 67 to 85 percent of six-hundred office-based doctors surveyed opted to screen their patients on a yearly basis instead of the recommended three years.
Pack-a-day smokers are increasingly rare in the average U.S. high school; however, a study just published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found that teenagers are more likely to be casual, or social, smokers.
Speaking of smokers, ACSH would like to applaud famed actress Catherine Zeta-Jones for her recent efforts to quit smoking by using electronic cigarettes. According to OK magazine, she s been using this method of clean nicotine delivery for three months now. Our only hope is that more smokers are made aware of the potential benefits of using e-cigarettes to quit their habit of deadly cigarettes.
The media are suddenly abuzz with the latest on the putative health benefits of one of our favorite foods: a study just published in BMJ reports that chocolate may improve cardiovascular health.
It seems that clinicians need to learn not to judge the proverbial book solely by its cover. According to a new study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, patients who are leaner than others are less likely to have their hypertension treated.
A new study in the journal Menopause shows that the benefits of hormone replacement therapy aren t just hypothetical. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that the nearly 81,000 postmenopausal women who discontinued their hormone replacement therapy were at a much greater risk of a hip fracture due to lowered bone density, as compared to those who continued on the preventive regimen.
Last week we reported on findings from a study that showed soy had no beneficial effects on reducing menopausal symptoms. Research on other nonprescription alternatives such as flaxseed, black cohosh, red clover, and botanicals has also arrived at similarly disappointing conclusions. This is unfortunate, since so many women turn to these supplements out of a misplaced fear that treatment with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) will lead to an increased risk of heart attacks and breast cancer.
In his TobaccoAnalysis blog, ACSH advisor Dr. Mike Siegel, professor at Boston University s School of Public Health, reports on the FDA s Center for Tobacco Products latest initiative to compile a list of the ingredients found in cigarettes and cigarette smoke. This endeavor, he says, is a pointless waste of time and resources, since there is nothing the agency can actually do with the list that would benefit public health.
The results of an international study comprised of data from 10 case-control studies of cervical cancer and 16 human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence surveys show that women who used an intrauterine device (IUD) had a 50 percent lower risk of cervical cancer, as compared to women who never used one. IUDs are devices that a gynecologist places through the cervix into the uterus in order to prevent pregnancy.
About fifty years ago, Dr. Tu Youyou began her research in China, which led to the discovery of an improved treatment for malaria. This discovery assumed major proportions due to the development of a high level of resistance to chloroquine, the standard of care at that time. After analyzing 380 extracts from 200 herbs, Dr. Tu discovered that the sweet wormwood, Artemisia annua, held the answer to eliminating the malaria-causing microbe in animals.
Every year, about 36 million people die from non-communicable diseases worldwide. While most attribute these deaths to heart disease and cancer, in fact, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is another major cause. Consisting of chronic progressive respiratory insufficiency due to chronic bronchitis and emphysema which is almost always attributable to cigarette smoking COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in our country, with about 130,000 fatalities in 2009.
Though most of her recent article for the online magazine Fast Company is dedicated to criticizing genetically modified (GM) foods, writer Ariel Schwartz does bring up some poignant facts. For instance, she draws attention to the dire agricultural situation in sub-Saharan Africa, a region continuously on the brink of famine. As Schwartz explains, over 200 million residents in this area rely on the staple food cassava.
Last week, we watched incredulously as the very popular TV personality, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former physician, continued to insist that there may be unsafe levels of arsenic in the apple juice parents are serving to their children. Despite the FDA and other experts stepping in to clarify that Dr.
In 2009, nearly 37,500 people died from drug overdoses in the US. That number, writes Maia Szalavitz in The New York Times, could be significantly lowered if Naloxone (Narcan), a drug used to counter the effects of opiate overdose, were available over-the-counter and placed in every first aid kit.
C-sections account for nearly one-third of U.S. births, and though the procedure is common enough, many may not know that the operation significantly increases a new mother s risk of blood clots. These clots the medical term is deep vein thrombosis (DVT) originate in the legs or groin and can travel to the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism, which is a serious problem and can even be fatal. During pregnancy and up to six weeks after delivery, as many as two out of every 1,000 women will experience DVT.
Patients suffering from kidney disease rely on dialysis in order to stay alive. Without functioning kidneys to remove the waste and fluids that accumulate in the body, the majority of the 400,000 Americans with this condition have their blood purified by a dialysis machine three days a week.
The medical community had high hopes for a device that would prevent strokes using a mechanism similar to that used to prevent heart attacks but the study was abruptly halted as the number of strokes in patients with the device continued to rise.
A study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found it possible to approximate men s level of sexual function after treatment for prostate cancer. The latest study used a number of variables, including factors as basic as age, race, and body mass index, as well as quality of sexual life beforehand, to successfully predict post-treatment erectile function in 10 to 70 percent of the over 1,000 men involved.
For some women on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the risk of severe asthma attacks may increase, according to a new study led by Dr. Klaus Bonnelykke from the Danish Paediatric Asthma Centre in Copenhagen. Presented Tuesday at the European Respiratory Society meeting in Amsterdam, the study analyzed data from over 23,000 women and found that, after accounting for factors such as smoking and body mass index, those using HRT were 30 percent more likely to be hospitalized for asthma.
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