Should patients be able to choose which form of colorectal cancer screening they receive? Researchers who have published a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggest that they should: According to their study, providing patients with a choice between testing options increases the likelihood that they will follow through with screening.
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People who drink diet sodas may think that skipping the extra calories from regular sodas gives them leeway to eat some extra dessert or a big steak dinner. Not so, says a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. People who drink diet sodas but eat a less healthful overall diet are more likely to develop metabolic syndrome, researchers find.
While it s long been clear that there are strong genetic components to autism, it has remained, for the most part, a mystery as to what exactly these genetic components might be. And with new numbers showing that one in every 88 American children will be diagnosed with autism, it has become an even more urgent priority to identify the causes of this condition.
Since 1994, new and expecting parents have been told to put their babies Back to Sleep. This pithy public health campaign, which emphasized that the safest way to put babies to bed is on their backs, has helped reduce the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) by over 50 percent in 10 years. But now this salutary decline in mortality rate has plateaued, according to Dr. Henry Krous, director of Pathology Research at Rady Children s Hospital in San Diego and author of a recent study on SIDS.
The FDA decided to stand up for science by rejecting alarmist hype that BPA (bisphenol A) is a dangerous threat to our health. Putting an end to years of speculation regarding the future of this chemical, the FDA rejected a petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to ban the use of BPA in food packaging.
For the first time, an advisory committee to the FDA has recommended that the agency approve a drug to prevent the transmission of HIV. The drug Truvada, a combination of two antiretroviral drugs, is not new and has actually been in use to treat HIV since 2004. However, this would be the first pharmaceutical method used in HIV-negative people to reduce an individual s risk of contracting the virus.
A new report presented to the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the WHO s decision in 2008 to endorse the use of thimerosal as a preservative for multidose childhood vaccines in the developing world is indeed scientifically valid. Some had previously claimed that there was a connection between thimerosal in vaccines and autism, but that link has since been debunked. And, as Dr.
Dr. Ross heads off to Williamsburg, Va on Sunday, where a conference called Evidence-Based Science and Regulation of the Tobacco Industry is being held. While there, Dr. Ross will moderate two different panels, one titled Tobacco Harm Reduction and Medical-Ethical Issues, and the other called The Swedish Experience, which will discuss the role Swedish snus has played in lowering the rate of smoking-related diseases in that country.
Here's more evidence that people tend to worry most about risks that are small or nonexistent, instead of paying attention to the risk factors that they can and should control: Injuries are actually the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of one and 44, and the third leading cause of death overall.
Times have changed since the days when alcoholism was regarded as a failure of will. Thanks to advances in science and medicine, however, alcohol addiction is now recognized as a biologically-based chronic disease requiring long-term management, not unlike diabetes or hypertension. And it's this recognition that has led to recent efforts to develop effective therapies that can assist with the long-term management of this disease.
A surprising number of women overestimate the effectiveness of widely-used forms of contraception, according to a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
If you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, or if you just consume a large variety of such products, you may have a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a new study published in the journalDiabetes Care.
Over the course of the last decade, treating breast cancer with brachytherapy has become an increasingly common alternative to mastectomy and external radiation. This method, which involves placing a tiny radiation pellet inside the breast and adjacent to the cancer, irradiates less breast tissue and typically allows for a much shorter course of therapy.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are an enduring problem on a global scale, as we often have the occasion to report. Addressing the conditions that are conducive to such resistant bacteria is one important tack to combat this problem: For instance, poverty, crowding, and poor sanitation in developing countries favor the spread of germs, and having cheap antibiotics available without a prescription encourages bacterial resistance. Furthermore, in all countries, over-use or taking an inadequate course of these medications also encourages resistance.
Recent data has indicated that, despite ongoing claims that obesity is skyrocketing in the U.S., it s prevalence has actually been fairly constant for most of the past decade.
Bike sharing programs, which are gaining widespread popularity, provide users with free or affordable access to bicycles for short-distance trips as an alternative to motorized public transportation and private vehicles. The goal is to reduce traffic congestion and noise. Sounds like a great idea, right? It did to us, until we learned that 80 percent of these riders don t use a helmet, according to a new study.
In yesterday s Dispatch we reported on a piece by ACSH trustee Dr. Paul Offit, in which he criticized the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The NCCAM has devoted vast resources to the study of alternative treatments, and yet, despite the fact that many supplements and other products have been shown to be entirely ineffective (and even harmful), regulation of these products remains lax. Dr. Stan Young, of the U.S. National Institute of Statistical Sciences, wrote to us in response:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will hold a panel discussion in D.C. titled Chemical Policy and Regulation: The Costs of Bad Science and Over-Caution:
It seems that the widely prescribed antibiotic azithromycin (sold as Zithromax in Z-Paks) may slightly increase the risk of sudden cardiac death when compared to no antibiotic treatment, according to a study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Women taking antidepressants who become pregnant are faced with a difficult choice: Should they continue their treatment, which may pose risks to the unborn child, or should they stop taking the medication and risk their own mental health, as well as the health of their newborn?
New Yorkers accustomed to making their own beverage choices may soon have to cede further control to the iron fist of Mayor Bloomberg: The King Mayor has proposed a new city-wide ban on larger servings of sodas and other sugary drinks. Though it s no surprise that the Mayor, in conjunction with Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, is targeting soda yet again, the latest measure is his most extreme by far.
It once was thought that, when we d finally figured out the human genome, we d have all of the answers to the genetic underpinnings of various diseases. A person who had his genome mapped would know all there was about his risk of disease. But now that the human genome has indeed been fully mapped, scientists are starting to realize that the process of understanding the genetic basis of disease is nowhere as simple.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added all baby boomers to the list of people who should receive screening for hepatitis C, which formerly included mainly those who had injected illegal drugs, are HIV-positive, or who received a blood transfusion or organ transplant before July 1992. Hepatitis C is curable, but since most people who are infected don t know they have it, widespread screening for those at risk could save lives, according to the CDC.
Just last week, we observed that ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom is about as qualified to write about Ming Dynasty ceramics as The New York Times Nicholas Kristof is to explain the nuances of chemistry which is to say, not at all.
Tomorrow is World No Tobacco Day, a day to bring attention to the toll of tobacco use on the world s population. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) tobacco use is responsible for 6 million deaths around the globe each year, and if current trends continue, this number may rise to 8 million by 2030, the majority of which will occur in low- to middle-income countries.
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