Merck’s cervical cancer vaccine wins US approval
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The first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer won U.S. approval on Thursday when health officials cleared a Merck & Co. Inc. vaccine to block a sexually transmitted infection that causes the deadly disease.
Public health experts called the Gardasil vaccine a major advance against a disease that kills about 300,000 women worldwide annually. Industry analysts said the product also should help revive the fortunes of struggling Merck with annual sales that could top $2 billion.
The vaccine blocks infection with certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes genital warts and most cervical cancer.
Young adult blacks in US hit hard by HIV infection
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Non-Hispanic blacks between 19 and 24 years of age are 20 times more likely to be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, than young adults in any other racial or ethnic group in the United States, according to new estimates.
The overall HIV infection rate for young adults is 1 case per 1,000 people. However, the infection rate in this age group among blacks is 4.9 per 1,000, compared to a rate of 0.22 per 1,000 for all other races of similar age, researchers have shown.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Public Health, are based on a random sample of more than 13,000 19- to 24-year-olds who agreed to be screened for HIV infection as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, or Add Health Study.
Monkey trial may show possible way to AIDS vaccine
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A shot that helps keep AIDS-infected monkeys alive may offer the best clues yet about how to make an effective HIV vaccine, researchers reported on Thursday.
The experiment provided important clues about how the AIDS virus destroys the immune system, and how to track the health of infected people, the researchers said.
“A vaccine of this type does not appear to prevent infection,” Dr. Norman Letvin of Harvard Medical School in Boston, who helped lead the study, said in a telephone interview. What the vaccine may do, he said, is help infected people live longer without becoming ill.
Wendy’s cuts most trans fats from fries, chicken
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Wendy’s International Inc. on Thursday said it would significantly cut trans fats from its menu, beating market leader McDonald’s Corp., which still has not made good on its promise to remove the artery-clogging fats from french fries in the United States.
Wendy’s, the No. 3 U.S. burger chain, said its restaurants in the United States and Canada will switch to a new blend of corn and soy oil for french fries and breaded chicken items starting in August.
The move will reduce trans fats in french fries to just zero to 0.5 grams, depending on serving sizes, while all of the breaded chicken products will have zero grams of trans fats.
High rate of self-harm seen among college students
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One in six young adults have injured themselves intentionally at least once, according to the largest US survey to investigate the practice among college students.
Self-injurious behavior can include scratching and pinching oneself, cutting, swallowing poison and even breaking bones. People who injure themselves say it helps relieve distress.
“It’s a harbinger of distress, in all likelihood, and inability to cope positively,” Dr. Janis Whitlock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
More doctors can use computers, gaps remain
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U.S. doctors increasingly have access to computers to look up information on their patients, but more than half still don’t have digital health records or the ability to write electronic prescriptions, a study released on Wednesday found.
Twenty-two percent of doctors surveyed by the Center for Studying Health System Change last year had access to electronic prescription tools compared with 11 percent in 2001.
About half can use computers to access notes on their patients or exchange data with other doctors, up from about 37 percent and 41 percent, respectively, four years earlier.
Black women twice as likely to get aggressive breast cancer
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New research has found that African-American women who contract breast cancer before reaching menopause are more than twice as likely as white women to have an aggressive, deadlier form of the disease.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill believe the higher rates of basal-like cancer among younger black women partly explains why blacks are at greater risk of dying from breast cancer than white women, despite having a lower overall risk of the disease.
Popular hypertension drugs triple the risk of birth defects
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A study by American researchers has found that certain widely used hypertension drugs, once considered safe in the early stages of pregnancy, can almost triple the risk of birth defects.
It was always considered that drugs, known as ACE inhibitors only caused problems when taken after the third month of pregnancy but this latest study demonstrates that this is not the case at all.
The drugs already carry a warning that they may cause injury and even death to the developing fetus when used during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
Black women prone to aggressive breast cancer
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African-American women who haven’t entered menopause but who develop breast cancer have a higher risk of dying from the disease than their white counterparts. Now, new research suggests that this increased risk may be in part due to the higher rate of so-called basal-like breast tumors among premenopausal African-American women.
“Basal-like cancers,” Dr. Lisa A. Carey explained in an interview with Reuters Health, “are highly proliferative, have a lot of ... features of aggressive tumors, and tend to have a poor prognosis.”
Carey is an oncologist at the University of North Carolina-Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill and is lead author of a report published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Report links asbestos to larynx cancer
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Research has linked another cancer to asbestos, according to a report released on Tuesday that found exposure can cause cancer of the voice box, or larynx, and possibly of the colon, stomach and upper throat.
The U.S. Senate had asked the Institute of Medicine to look at the link between asbestos and cancers of several organs that are currently listed in stalled legislation to create a $140 billion asbestos injury compensation fund.
It was unclear whether the findings would compel lawmakers to further amend the bill to exclude some cancers that could not be definitively linked to asbestos.
Calcium and vitamin D supplements do not reduce breast cancer
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A large multicenter randomized clinical trial reported that supplementation with calcium and vitamin D did not reduce breast cancer risk in the overall population.
However, exploratory analyses suggest the effect of vitamin D and calcium supplements on breast cancer risk may vary according to a woman’s initial supplement use.
“Our findings suggest that calcium and vitamin D supplementation may reduce breast cancer risk in some women, but more research is needed to clarify these results,” said Rowan T. Chlebowski, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) and the study’s lead author. “We can’t yet make a general recommendation about how much calcium and vitamin D individuals should take each day as supplements.”
The Risks and Benefits of Cosmetic Surgery
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In 2004, almost 12 million cosmetic procedures were performed in the United States, a 44% increase from 2003. Choices of procedures abound, and you can find many articles and brochures describing them. But much of this information comes from the marketing departments of businesses trying to sell you their services. Reliable, objective information isn’t easy to come by. That’s why Harvard Medical School has published advice from two renowned cosmetic experts in its new special health report, Cosmetic Surgery A to Z.
This clear, easy-to-follow report covers the most popular cosmetic procedures and surgeries. It also gives candid details about recovery times, how long results last, and what you are likely to pay. It describes new advances in treatments, such as the recently approved procedure called the Contour Thread Lift, a more subtle alternative to the face lift in which the patient is awake and can offer input as the surgeon inserts threads to combat sagging skin.
Low-carb diets not a threat to bone health
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Contrary to concerns raised by animal studies, people on low-carb diets don’t run a risk of weakening their bones, Florida researchers report.
Scientists had suspected that such diets might leach calcium out of the bones by causing the kidneys to excrete more acid, and research in animals had supported this possibility.
To investigate whether this occurs in humans as well, Dr. John D. Carter and colleagues from the University of South Florida in Tampa had 15 people follow a low-carb diet for three months, comparing them to 15 age- and sex-matched “controls” who ate a normal diet.
Researchers create process to inhibit proteins important in HIV and cancer
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Using small molecules containing platinum, Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers have created a process to inhibit a class of proteins important in HIV and cancer.
The findings may help researchers develop new drugs to fight HIV or cancer by selectively targeting proteins known as zinc fingers.
In the journal Chemistry & Biology, researchers reported that a zinc finger protein, known as HIV NCp7, can be inhibited when it is exposed to a platinum complex. They observed that when the HIV NCp7 protein interacts with platinum, the zinc portion of the molecule is ejected from the protein chain. This causes the protein to lose its tertiary structure or overall shape. For these molecules, shape is an important property that enables the protein to carry out certain biological functions.
Stress of caregiving may lead to dental ills
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While providing care for others, many caregivers seem to forget about their own well-being, including their oral health, new study findings suggest.
“Our results indicate that caregiving is associated with elevated plaque and gingivitis levels, thus indicating that this demanding task, usually associated with increasing stress, is a significant risk factor of poor oral hygiene,” the researchers write in the Journal of Periodontology.
Caretakers “need some time to take care of themselves,” study co-author Dr. Fernando N. Hugo, of the State University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, told Reuters Health.
