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It seems so easy. In fact, it really is. Infections in hospital intensive-care units were cut by nearly a quarter when patients were washed daily with antiseptic wipes, a new study has found.

People who eat a southern diet, heavy on deep-fried foods and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda, are more likely to suffer a stroke, according to a new study. This study began in 2002 when researchers began to administer food surveys to more than 20,000 people in the contiguous 48 states, sorting respondents into five different diet styles.

Vegetarians are much less likely to suffer from serious heart disease than their meat- and fish-eating counterparts, British researchers have found.
The new study comes from the University of Oxford, where Dr Francesca Crowe lead author and medical researcher at the Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford and colleagues analyzed data from 45,000 volunteers from England and Scotland, recruited in the 1990s and tracked until 2009.

The Super Bowl is over but the NFL and General Electric are just getting started with a four-year partnership to better detect and study concussions, which have been found to lead to brain injuries that accumulate over time and cause depression and dementia all too often.

A few weeks ago, we covered a story about how obesity rates are actually declining among children in New York and California. Now we might have an explanation. A new federal analysis found that American children consumed fewer calories in 2010 than they did a decade before. And although obesity rates have remained flat in many other places, this may an indication of changes to come in the future.

Well, Mayor Bloomberg is at it again. As we have recently learned, along with his ban on big sodas taking effect in March eateries are also to be prohibited from serving or selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.
What does that mean? No more 2-liter sodas with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid s birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub.

Emergency contraception isn t a secret anymore. An estimated 11 percent of sexually active girls and women aged 15 to 44 have used the morning-after pill at least once, a new federal report says.
That comes to 5.8 million women, about half of whom said they used the pill because they had unprotected sex. The other half worried that their birth control method had failed.

In other public health news, the CDC s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, has shown an incredible decline in motor vehicle fatalities among persons aged 15-24 years.

There s depressing news about aging in America. As many as 1 in 3 seniors die with Alzheimer s disease or other forms of dementia, according to a new report from the Alzheimer s Association.

A federal judge today blasted the Food and Drug Administration s refusal to allow emergency contraception to be sold over-the-counter without any limit on age, and gave the agency 30 days to lift its restrictions.
Judge Edward Korman ruled that the government s insistence on age restrictions on the pill requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.

Newlyweds may be gaining more than wedded bliss when they exchange their vows, according to a new study.

U.S. life expectancy at birth is among the lowest of all high-income countries. While analysis of the reasons for this unpleasant reality are complex, one example of the recent research into possible explanations showed that the lower life expectancy was largely due to premature deaths of those age 50 and younger compared to their counterparts in other industrialized nations.

Two Canadian researchers are arguing against mandatory flu shots for health care workers, saying the vaccine isn t effective enough to merit such a mandate.
Drs. Michael Gardam and Camille Lemieux of the Infection Prevention and Control Unit at Toronto s University Health say a review of recent literature shows the flu shot is only around 60 percent effective in healthy adults.

Researchers involved in a vast, international study of potential genetic cancer markers have found risk markers for breast, ovarian and prostate cancer before, but this new analysis doubles the known list of markers, one expert says.

Thinking about quitting smoking? You can t use I might gain weight as an excuse, according to a new study.
Recent quitters do tend to gain weight, but even if they put on a few extra pounds, they still have a lower chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke than they would have if they continued to smoke.

Former ACSH trustee Betsy McCaughey has an important message for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Stop playing politics with infection control. McCaughey, founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and the former lieutenant governor of New York, says the CDC s current infection guidelines are no match for CRE, the so-called nightmare bacteria that s raging through hospitals, killing up to half of all patients it infects.

Vaping is catching on. The number of American smokers who have tried e-cigarettes doubled in just a year, from 10 percent in 2010 to about 21 percent in 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Among former smokers, the number grew from 2.5 percent to 7.4 percent, according to the report in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
E-cigarette use is growing rapidly, says CDC Director Thomas Frieden. There is still a lot we don t know about these products, including whether they will decrease or increase use of traditional cigarettes.

A new study linking breast cancer and the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is both concerning and comforting, but, without carefully studying the data it is not easy for most women (or their doctors ) to know what to make of this. Upon closer examination, however, the study actually helps clarify the controversial and sometimes contradictory issue what are the risks and benefits of HRT?

Financial incentives are used by about 67 percent of employers in order to encourage employees to adopt healthier habits. According to a new study, financial incentives may result in greater weight loss in obese employees. Further, group-based incentives had a larger impact on weight loss than individual incentives.

We don t often agree with The New York Times editorial board but they were spot-on Friday with an editorial questioning why genetically engineered food should be labeled.

If there is one area that has been clouded by confusion in recent years, it is the detection and treatment of prostate cancer.

About one third of adults in the United States have high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. And although research has been done analyzing the differences in prevalence among racial/ethnic populations, less is known about variations between states.

Sometimes you don t know whether to laugh or cry. From thinking aliens landed at Roswell to believing President Obama is the anti-Christ, Americans believe in some pretty weird conspiracy theories, a new poll from Public Policy Polling has found.

It s common knowledge that obesity has become an important part of American health care costs, as well as impairing the quality of life for up to a third of the population. And experts have been concerned that obesity rates have increased all age groups in the last few decades. Both energy intake and expenditure are key aspects of body weight changes.

It seems like neither women nor their docs are getting the message about mammograms, which have been proven to do more harm than good in younger women. Mammogram rates actually increased slightly from 2008 to 2011, going from 51.9 percent to 53.6 percent, according to researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. [...]
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