This class of medicines, called oral bisphosphonates, are the most commonly used drugs to treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases. While anecdotal reports have suggested that they may increase the risk of esophageal cancer, the scientific evidence has been limited, the researchers noted.

Researchers looked at a rapid response team, known as the eTeam, created at the VA Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2005.]]> http://www.vitabeat.com/9577/response-team-reduces-rate-cardiac-arrests-hospital Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 -0500 http://www.vitabeat.com/9576/experimental-tb-test-called-fast-accurate An experimental test that can diagnose tuberculosis in less than two hours, making only one doctor visit necessary before treatment starts, is being hailed as a potentially significant advance against a disease that kills nearly 2 million people annually, most of them in developing countries.

"This is a very important discovery," said infectious disease expert Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University. "This could be an important tool worldwide, and even here in the United States."

The new study included 662 Canadian students between grades 7 and 11 who completed up to 20 questionnaires about their use of cigarettes to affect their mood. The participants were divided into three groups: never smokers; smokers who used cigarettes to self-medicate; and smokers who said their use of cigarettes was not to self-medicate, enhance mood or physical state.

"The more time they spent with negative news about young people, the higher self-esteem they reported. They may get some self-esteem boost out of this," said study author Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, an associate professor at Ohio State University's School of Communication.

The finding runs contrary to prior indications that health information gleaned from close-knit online social networks is actually less likely to drive behavioral change, given the likelihood that groups of people who are in frequent contact with each other are likely to exchange repetitive and redundant advice.

The new study included participants in the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study, a long-term project tracking age-related changes in thousands of patients that's being conducted by a team at the Group Health Research Institute and the University of Washington in Seattle.

Forecasters were trying to pinpoint how close the strongest winds and heaviest storm surge would get to North Carolina's Outer Banks, a fragile chain of barrier islands. They also were trying to determine whether the category-four storm would remain offshore as it heads north, or bring hurricane-force winds to Long Island, Cape Cod and the Boston area, the Associated Press reported.

During the first phase of the act, some businesses employing some 16.6 million workers will be eligible for these tax credits, according to the report released Thursday from the Commonwealth Fund.

Its researchers found that the group most vulnerable to addiction has four main risk factors in common: age (being younger than 65); a history of depression; prior drug abuse; and using psychiatric medications. Painkiller addiction rates among patients with these factors are as high as 26 percent.

Use of two or more drugs increased from 25 percent to 31 percent, and the use of five or more drugs increased from 6 percent to 11 percent, according to the analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

The results were significant even after accounting for other risk factors for dementia such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.

The American Academy of Pediatrics offers these suggestions:

The U.S. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse says cirrhosis causes scarring of the liver, which can impair its ability to:

As part of the Harris Interactive/HealthDay survey, respondents were asked to provide their height and weight, from which pollsters calculated their body-mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height. Respondents were then asked which category of weight they thought they fell into.

In line with prior research, the study finds that such mental activity may slow declines in thinking and memory during normal old age.

The finding is stirring mixed reactions from experts.

Two reports on the data find that high doses of Plavix are good for some patients, but not all, while high-dose aspirin is no better than a low dose for preventing new heart attacks, other cardiac problems, stroke and death.

The case involved a 70-year-old man with a growing, but painless, mass on his left wrist, according to rheumatologists at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. A similar growth on the man's right wrist had cleared up without treatment. The patient had no obvious recent injuries to his wrists or hands, but he had been a professional percussionist for more than 30 years.

That's the finding of a study published Sept. 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Platelets, which are the colorless, disc-shaped blood cells that are key to clotting, are suspected to be involved in lupus, explained senior study author Dr. Patrick Blanco, of the University of Bordeaux in France, but "their precise role was poorly understood until now."

Ohio State University researchers analyzed data from 2,400 women who were married to, or living with, the father of their child at the end of the first year of a three-year period. The women were divided into three groups: those who experienced no abuse, those in physically violent relationships, and those in controlling relationships where their partners were extremely critical and insulting and tried to control the woman's actions.

The team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle created a new way to sequence millions of immune system T-cell receptors from a single sample. T-cell receptors are a critical part of the adaptive immune system, which is responsible for protection against new pathogens.

In the September issue of Cancer Prevention Research, researchers report that metformin was associated with a substantial reduction (up to 73 percent) in the number of tumors mice developed when they were given a common carcinogen found in tobacco.

The researchers exposed the animals to secondhand smoke five times per week for two or four months. The exposures occurred in two three-hour shifts twice a day, separated by a two-hour break.

So claims a new study that found men who reported having insomnia or who slept for short periods of time were much more likely to die over a 14-year period.

The study team from the Netherlands interviewed 216 women and 185 men, average age 54, who underwent planned surgery, ranging from orthopedic to cosmetic procedures.

The study, published in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep, found that these sleep-deprived teens consumed 2.2 percent more calories from fat, and ate more snacks than those who slept eight hours or more a night. They also ate more total calories.

The American Academy of Family Physicians suggests how to avoid a corneal abrasion when there's something in your eye:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests how to avoid driving while impaired:

Researchers studied 5,500 seventh- and eighth-graders at 16 schools in California. More than one-fifth of the students said they'd consumed alcohol, while 10 percent said they'd smoked and 7 percent reported smoking marijuana.

The surgery in question is drastic: removal of the breasts or ovaries before any signs of cancer have arisen.

Researchers looked at 20,430 people in Norwich and focused on genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity. Most people had inherited 10 to 13 of these variants from their parents, but some had more than 17 while others had fewer than six.

Using a special treadmill and a computer program, Austrian researchers examined the movements of joints in the front and back legs of dogs as they did three types of exercises: walking uphill, walking downhill and walking over low obstacles.

It has been known that premature birth is associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy, but this is one of the first studies that has linked the neurological condition with past-term birth, the researchers noted, although that increased risk is still very small.

The program -- called Care of Persons with Dementia in Their Environments (COPE) -- seeks to improve dementia patients' ability to perform day-to-day tasks and thus reduce some of the burden on their caregivers. The program was designed by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

The diet they examined -- called the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) -- was designed to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. In this new study, it reduced the risk of heart attack by almost 20 percent, the researchers said.

Puerto Rico and northeast Caribbean islands were lashed with winds, rain and waves Monday and the hurricane, now a powerful Category 4 storm, is on a projected path to the East Coast.

But, the researchers stressed that quitting smoking will do far more to reduce risk than "an apple a day" or having a salad for lunch.

The 24-year study included 8,710 girls from poorer families, average age 16, whose hearing was tested when they entered a residential facility in the northeastern region of the United States. Between 1985 and 2008, high-frequency hearing loss -- a common result of excessive noise exposure -- among the girls nearly doubled, from 10.1 percent to 19.2 percent.

The findings should reassure the millions of people worldwide who take the drugs, said the researchers at the University of Oxford in the U.K. and the University of Sydney in Australia.

The statement, Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media, was published online Aug. 30 and in the September print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The University of Maryland Medical Center says these are common signs of ringworm:

The agency says these symptoms indicate that a person with dementia is no longer safe behind the wheel:

German researchers used MRI to examine the hearts of 26 professional male triathletes (mean age 27.9) and a control group of 27 men who were recreationally active no more than three hours per week (mean age 27.3).

University of Iowa researchers analyzed relationship surveys and found that average relationship quality was higher for people who took it slowly than for those who became sexually involved in "hook-ups," casual dating, or "friends with benefits" relationships.

In one study, Bryan Traynor, from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and an international group of colleagues analyzed the genomes of 405 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients in Finland and 497 people without the disease ("controls"). The investigators pinpointed genetic variations on chromosome 9 that are linked to increased risk for ALS.

"These are significant deviations from what should be happening," Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said during an afternoon news conference at which the agency released the results of what is known as a "483" inspection report.

The new study included more than 7,200 patients who had stents coated with clot-prevention drugs implanted between mid-2003 and the end of 2008.

From 1996 to 2007 the rate of cesarean delivery climbed by more than 50 percent, and "one in three first-time mothers are now being delivered by cesarean delivery," lead researcher Dr. Jun Zhang, of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said during a press conference Monday.