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Nearly one-fourth of patients with obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) are not being treated with a statin drug, despite the overwhelming evidence of benefit. Further, over one-fifth of such patients are not on any lipid-lowering therapy at all, according to the results of a new study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers from St.

Given all the different advice out there about how to start running and how to most effectively train for fitness, it s hard to know which way is best. However, in an article for The New York Times, Gina Kolata writes that the best advice is probably to just listen to your own body.

In a small but concerning study, researchers report that doctors may not always make MRI recommendations with their patient s best interests in mind. According to the study, presented at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago, doctors who own an MRI scanner may be more likely to recommend an unnecessary back scan than if they had no financial interest in the procedure.

A study just presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases has found that, despite its popularity, milk thistle extract provides no benefit for hepatitis C patients. A randomized trial from the University of North Carolina found that milk thistle (also known as the botanical compound silymarin) was no better than a placebo at improving liver function.

Continuing the long but not so honorable tradition of slinging anti-chemical accusations against safe consumer products, the Breast Cancer Fund, a group that targets environmental factors they claim are related to breast cancer, has reported that a variety of canned Thanksgiving foods contain concerning levels of bisphenol-A (BPA).

After 300,000 job losses in the pharmaceutical industry in the past decade, some Novartis employees in Switzerland finally took a stand, writes ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom in his latest blog post for Medical Progress Today. Read his Occupy Route de l Eztraz entry here.

In other nonsense news, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that people who eat a lot of unfermented soy products, such as tofu or soy milk, have a 23 percent lower risk of lung cancer than those who eat the least amount. The results were obtained after researchers from the Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine pooled findings from 11 observational studies.

If you want a truly frustrating job in public health, try getting people to stop smoking. Even when researchers combine counseling and encouragement with nicotine patches and gum, few smokers quit. Recently, though, experimenters in Italy had more success by doing less. A team led by Riccardo Polosa of the University of Catania recruited 40 hard-core smokers ones who had turned down a free spot in a smoking-cessation program and simply gave them a gadget already available in stores for $50.

The FDA has just rejected two petitions to ban a long list of antibiotics used in food animal production. The petitions, which date from 1995 and 2005, were filed by a number of consumer and sustainable agriculture advocates who are concerned that the use of these antibiotics in livestock to promote growth and prevent disease contributes to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

In a recent op-ed for InvestorPlace, journalist Jonathan Berr outlines the various reasons why taxes on soda, high-fat foods, and candy which have already been proposed by several states won t solve the obesity epidemic. These taxes, he writes, try to reduce a complicated issue like obesity to a simple exercise of picking good foods and avoiding bad foods. ACSH s Dr.

Dr. Elizabeth Whelan in Research Media Ltd., November 15, 2011
Research Media Ltd. Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Whelan

In an unprecedented move, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has overruled a decision by the FDA to allow emergency contraception the morning-after pill to be sold over-the-counter to teenagers under 17.

In an article for Science Careers, a supplement to the journal Science, reporter Elisabeth Pain interviewed ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom about his take on the crises in the pharmaceutical sector. Jobs are being lost, pipelines are drying up, and revenue is decreasing for a multitude of reasons, explains Dr. Bloom, not least of which is outsourcing.

HER-2 positive breast cancer, accounting for approximately 25 to 30 percent of breast cancer patients, is considered to be a more aggressive form of cancer, often associated with poorer outcomes. Advances in treatment, however which include the monoclonal antibody Herceptin (trastuzumab) in conjunction with chemotherapy have allowed for better outcomes in women diagnosed with this variant of the disease when it is localized and can be surgically removed.

Though some women may use pregnancy as an excuse to indulge a little, some health experts caution that obese pregnant women should be more mindful of their eating habits and perhaps actually strive to lose some extra pounds.

This past spring, we discussed the dangerously cracked logic of a weight-loss fad centered on the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Dieters were duped into believing that shots of this hormone would allow them to lose 26 pounds in 26 days. However, what they actually lost was as much as $1,000 per shot, as well as money they shelled out over the Internet for lozenges and sprays containing homeopathic forms of the hormone.

The results of a new nationwide survey reveal conditions that aren t favorable to improving the health of overweight children. This report, published in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that more than half of the country s states and districts didn t require regular physical education classes in their elementary schools.

Activists at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) are patting themselves on the back now that the FDA has agreed to respond to their petition demanding a ruling on bisphenol A s (BPA) health risks or lack thereof.

In a two-part series for his blog, Tobacco Analysis, ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, details the most serious barrier yet to tobacco harm reduction. Dr.

Protecting IV drug users from dangerous diseases by allowing them access to clean needles is a cost effective and sound public health policy that we should not abandon, writes ACSH friend Dr. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, in a piece for MSNBC. Nevertheless, Congressional Republicans have proposed to curtail or abandon funding for clean needle exchange programs. Dr.

Medical researchers in England and the U.S. have just reported their successful treatment of six hemophilia-B patients using gene therapy a major breakthrough in the treatment of the disease. Hemophilia-B, the second most common type of hemophilia, is a type of hereditary bleeding disorder that affects only males due to its linkage to the X-chromosome.

Good news for patients with elevated systolic blood pressure. The results of a 22-year follow-up on a randomized trial show that the diuretic drug chlorthalidone improved all-cause mortality among patients with this condition. The new analysis of the trial data, which dated back to 1984, has found that chlorthalidone, used to treat high blood pressure, was especially effective at reducing the toll of cardiovascular events, including sudden death.

Knowing that they ll have to jog for 50 minutes to burn off one soda may keep teenagers from buying such beverages. A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that, when a sign stating the amount of jogging time required to burn off one soda was placed on a drink cooler, inner-city teenagers in four neighborhood stores were only half as likely to buy a sugary beverage.

For the first time ever, two major U.S. drugstore chains are selling a male fertility test. The at-home test, known as SpermCheck Fertility, is already available online from Walgreens and CVS; in April, Walgreens will begin offering the $40 product in stores. The test provides an approximate sperm count, indicating whether the count is within the normal range or not.