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Public health officials in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV remains prevalent, may soon find themselves in another predicament: The results of a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases warns that women who use injectable hormone contraceptives double their risk of becoming infected with HIV. In addition, HIV-positive women increase the risk that their male sexual partners will become infected with the virus as well.

Elderly men with naturally high levels of testosterone seem to be less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than their peers with lower levels of the hormone, reports a study just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study, led by a doctor at a university hospital in Sweden, measured the testosterone levels and cardiovascular health of 2,400 Swedish men in their 70s and 80s.

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.

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.

As the nation works to curb smoking, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presented some statistics on lung cancer rates that serve as inspiration for all who work in the trenches of public health: National lung cancer rates have declined, particularly among women, who witnessed a 2 percent decrease between 2006 and 2008. That decline in lung cancer incidence was even greater in the West, which experienced a 4 percent decline.

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.

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.

In 1989, hepatitis C, (formerly called non-A, non-B) was first identified. At first it got little attention, but once HIV began to yield to a relentless pharmaceutical assault in the mid- to late-1990s, hepatitis C became the primary target for most antiviral research. And rightly so.

Although the premise may seem logical screen people routinely for lung cancer in order to treat it early regular chest X-rays do not in any way reduce lung cancer mortality, a recent report in JAMA confirms.

If there is anyone who still isn t convinced that tanning beds significantly increase a person s risk of skin cancer, a recent study provides even more conclusive evidence. Conducted by researchers from Harvard University and Brigham and Women s Hospital in Boston, the study followed over 70,000 nurses from 1989 to 2009 and tracked their tanning bed habits during high school, college, and between the ages of 25 and 35.

When it comes to filling prescriptions for new medications, a new study finds that about one in four of us never actually complete the task. After analyzing approximately 425,000 CVS Caremark e-prescriptions for new drugs issued nationwide, researchers from the Brigham and Women s Hospital in Boston found that 24 percent of such scripts were never filled.

People suffering from Lynch Syndrome, a genetic disease carried by about one in every 1000 people, have at least a 10-fold increased risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC), compared to the general population. Out of the approximately 160,000 new cases of CRC that occur in the U.S. every year, Lynch Syndrome accounts for about 8,000.

In its 2011 Global Tuberculosis Control Report, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that last year, for the first time, the global incidence of tuberculosis (TB) declined, while deaths associated with the disease dropped to a record low for the past decade. Currently, approximately one-third of people worldwide are infected with TB, a bacteria that enters the lungs and destroys tissue there.

A large study has found that the risk of ischemic stroke the most common type rises over time with diabetes, and may triple ten years after the diagnosis is made. Researchers from Columbia University s Neurological Institute followed nearly 3,300 multiethnic patients over a median of nine years, assessing for diabetes at baseline and annually.

A new prenatal blood test made by Sequenom will test for Down syndrome less invasively in the early stages of pregnancy. Known as MaterniT21, the test determines with a high degree of accuracy whether the baby will have Down syndrome. This condition, in which the child has some degree of mental retardation, is caused by Trisomy-21 three copies of the chromosome 21, instead of the normal set of two.

We may have run out of clever puns, but yet another, very large study has refuted the spurious link between cell phone use and brain cancer. Read more, here, about a team of Danish researchers findings that long-term data do not support the too-often cited link.

There has lately been much debate about how often women should be screened for breast cancer. In 2009 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended that the standard age for routine screening be raised from 40 to 50, while advising that the frequency be reduced from yearly to once every other year.

Despite European consumers longstanding aversion to genetically modified (GM) food products, BASF, the world s largest chemical company, is making headway toward European Union approval of a genetically modified potato.

Rotavirus is a virus that causes inflammation of the stomach and intestines, resulting in the kind of severe diarrhea, vomiting, and fever that lead to dehydration and too often death in young children. Because the virus is responsible for an estimated half-million deaths each year in children younger than five years old, the World Health Organization recommends routine use of the rotavirus vaccine in all countries.

The results of a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveal that receiving an organ transplant doubles a person s risk of developing cancer, compared to the general population.

A new study from the German Heart Center in Munich should ease the minds of air travelers with pacemakers or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). The researchers found that undergoing metal detector security screenings did not result in any functional abnormalities in such devices.

The FDA s efforts to mandate the display of graphic images on cigarette packs have been blocked by a judge s ruling. Declaring that the regulation violates the tobacco companies First Amendment right to free commercial speech and would likely be considered unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon stopped the regulation from taking effect until a lawsuit filed by the companies against the graphic images is resolved.

Four common medications are responsible for the majority of adverse drug reactions in older Americans, a study just published in The New England Journal of Medicine has found. Blood thinners and diabetes medications were responsible for 67 percent of emergency hospitalizations in people over the age of 65.