Search results

Here is some relief for women experiencing pain during sexual intercourse (dyspareunia), one of the most common problems reported by postmenopausal women. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just approved a new drug to treat mild to moderate dyspareunia. Osphena acts like estrogen, making vaginal tissues thicker and less fragile, resulting in a reduction in pain.

Sigh. It s another victory for the scaremongers. PepsiCo. is removing brominated vegetable oil from its citrus-flavored Gatorade drinks after hearing rumblings from consumers concerned about the emulsifier.
PepsiCo. spokeswoman Molly Carter told the Associated Press the change was in the works for a year and was not in response to a recent petition on Change.org by a Mississippi teenager that attracted 200,000 signatures.

Are viruses alive? Dead? Dead-alive? ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom posed this question last night on the new ACSH-sponsored Facebook page, Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, with the promise of a Snickers bar for the best answer. He got a ton of responses, including one woman who wrote, They don t contain all of the structures and biosynthetic machinery necessary for reproduction. Their genome is mostly DNA or RNA, but not both like most organisms.

More Americans now die from drug overdoses than from car accidents and the numbers just keep going up, as you can see from chart below from the CDC.

There were 42,917 poisoning deaths in 2010, with drugs accounting for most (38,329) of those. Opiate analgesics such as oxycodone (Percocet) accounted for 43 percent of all drug overdose deaths, the CDC says.

There has been a drastic rise in the number of diagnosed cases of ADHD Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in American children over the last decade, according to new data released by the CDC.

The evidence continues to mount that routine annual mammography screening isn t such a good thing. Even when a false positive doesn t result in surgery, it takes a psychological toll on women, researchers in Denmark say.

Children may already have one of the tools necessary to combat obesity technology. A Pew Internet study found that 78 percent of teens have cell phones and 47 percent of those are smartphones. Researchers around the country have started to develop programs using these resources to encourage teens to make healthier choices.

A new study, published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggests that screening colonoscopy may markedly reduce the risk of developing advanced colon cancer.

There s good news for vapers for the most part.
Researchers led by Dr Maciej L Goniewicz of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., conducted a comprehensive analysis of the vapor from a dozen brands of electronic cigarettes under a controlled setting. They say that while e-cigarette vapors contained some toxic substances, the levels of toxicants were nine to 450 times lower than cigarette smoke.

Mayor Bloomberg s ban on large sugary drinks set to go into effect on Tuesday, March 12th is not only applicable to soda, but may affect your morning coffee routine as well. And those restrictions are even more difficult to understand than the soda regulations, sorry to say.

A simple skin exam can significantly reduce the odds of being diagnosed with invasive melanoma, according to a new study. And these results hold true for patients who have had even a single skin exam as compared to those patients with no history of dermatologic examination.

Ever had surgery for a tear in your medial meniscus, the hard rubber-like cartilage in your knee? No less than three ACSH staffers have. But maybe it wasn t necessary, a new study suggests.

In a finding that is sure to have the Natural Resources Defense Council ordering their vassals at Mother Jones to insist we are shills for Big Gel Manicure, we have noted that correlation between gel manicures - used to prevent nail from chipping - and cancer was not good science. It wasn't even good epidemiology.
If two women get cancer and have no family of history of cancer but both had gel manicures, that is not worth claiming they cause cancer - it is simply that cancer can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Earlier this month, we published a Dispatch item on the possibility of using cellphones to combat childhood obesity. Now, a new study published in the journal Obesity suggests that active games – exergames which are a form of exercise and use technology to track body movement – may play a role in weight loss in [...]
The post Exergames for weight-loss in teens appeared first on Health & Science Dispatch.

This week’s announcement from Mount Sinai Hospital’s World Trade Center Health Program that Ground Zero workers have been found to have a “15 percent higher rate of cancer” than expected set off cries for more compensation for the heroic WTC victims of the toxic dust at the site of the terrorist destruction over 11 years ago. [...]
The post Ground zero cancer: cynical manipulation of statistics rather than science appeared first on Health & Science Dispatch.

A new study published in journalBMC Medicine found that gaining weight increases ones risk of coronary heart disease just as much as getting older.
Researchers followed 1.2 million women for about 10 years. They found that every 5-unit increase in BMI increased incidence of CHD by 23 percent. This is equivalent to the risk incurred from aging 2.5 years. For obese women BMI = 34 risk increased to one in six.

Many assume that vigorous exercise is a more effective means of reducing risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD) than is more moderate activity. New research however, suggests that this assumption isn t necessarily true.

Earlier this week we reported on a study that found individuals who were offered monetary incentives to lose weight were more likely to ditch the excess pounds than those spurred on solely by motivation or education.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1eldWh0XiI
They are almost universally perceived by Americans as natural, safe and non-drugs, but in reality, dietary supplements are none of these. And ironically, despite the constant media attention and public concern over the safety of prescription drugs, according to a recent study, supplements are also responsible for more than half of all drug recalls.

Can you patent a human gene? The Supreme Court today seemed skeptical, raising questions about the legality of Myriad Genetic’s isolation of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that signal an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. It’s a complex issue. Companies can’t patent abstract ideas, natural phenomena and laws of nature. But an appeals [...]
The post Supreme Court skeptical of Myriad’s gene patents appeared first on Health & Science Dispatch.

They are almost universally perceived by Americans as natural, safe and non-drugs, but in reality, dietary supplements may or may not be natural, and many of them are, in fact, drugs. And ironically, despite the constant media attention and public concern over the safety of prescription drugs, according to a recent study, supplements are also responsible for more than half of all drug recalls.

Just days after two bombs in Boston killed three people and injured 170 more, letters that may — or may not — have been poisoned with ricin addressed to President Obama and a Mississippi senator have been intercepted by authorities. But don’t panic yet. The rapid test that authorities used in this case frequently causes [...]
The post Don’t panic over apparent ‘ricin’ letters appeared first on Health & Science Dispatch.

Can you patent a human gene? The Supreme Court today seemed skeptical, raising questions about the legality of Myriad Genetic s isolation of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that signal an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Although medical guidelines have changed, most physicians opt for the 'better safe than sorry' approach when it comes to cervical cancer screenings among their patients, according to a government survey.