New Recommendations for Bacterial Meningitis Vaccination
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Hearing bacterial meningitis mentioned on the evening news can strike fear in any parent, especially if their child is in a high risk setting such as a high school or college dorm. Although rare, this illness can be life threatening, and is particularly alarming because it appears suddenly and can progress rapidly even in healthy children and teenagers.
Managing Asthma in Children
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Asthma is the No. 1 cause of hospitalizations among children, but with proper management, children can have full participation in school and sporting events.
Experts estimate nearly 20 million Americans have asthma, ranging from 7 percent to 12 percent of children. Among African-Americans the rate of asthma is even higher.
China Limits Teenage Internet Gaming
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The Chinese government has launched a campaign to limit the number of hours teenagers spend online playing games.
Under new rules that took effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must install a program that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and “do suitable physical exercise.” If they continue, the software slashes by half any points earned in the game. All points are wiped out if players stay on more than five hours.
New test pinpoints deadliest prostate cancers
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Scientists have found a new way to identify a particularly deadly form of prostate cancer in a breakthrough that could save tens of thousands of men from undergoing unnecessary surgery each year.
In contrast to many cancers, only certain prostate tumors require treatment. Many are slow-growing and pose little threat to health. But separating the “tigers” from the “pussycats”—as oncologists dub them—is tricky.
India to register pregnancies to fight feticide
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India plans to create a registry of all pregnancies to help curb widespread female feticide and reduce its high infant mortality rate, although activists say the scheme will be hard to implement.
“With this, mysterious abortions will become difficult,” Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury told the Hindustan Times.
Gene Discovered for Type 1 Diabetes in Children
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Pediatrics researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and McGill University in Montreal have identified a gene variant that raises a child’s risk for type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes. As investigators continue to pinpoint genes contributing to diabetes, they have their eyes on providing a scientific basis for designing better treatments and preventive measures for the disease.
The research adds a new gene and new knowledge to the four genes previously discovered for type 1 diabetes, in which the immune system destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas and makes patients dependent on frequent insulin injections to keep the body’s blood sugar under control. As the project continues, the study team expects to identify additional genes (perhaps as many as 15 or 20) thought to interact with each other in the disease.
Eye test causes severe lethargy in infants
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New research suggests that an eyedrop used to diagnose a rare syndrome in infants can cause severe lethargy lasting up to 10 hours and requiring hospital admission and oxygen administration. In the article “Adverse Effects of Apraclonidine Used in the Diagnosis of Horner Syndrome in Infants”, published in the June issue of Journal of AAPOS (Journal of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus), Dr. Patrick Watts and coauthors described five cases of extreme drowsiness or unresponsiveness after infants under 6 months of age were administered 1% apraclonidine eyedrops.
Apraclonidine was developed to lower intraocular pressure and minimize the systemic side effects associated with the use of its parent drug, clonidine. An investigation of the site of action of apraclonidine incidentally uncovered a reversal of anisocoria in patients with Horner syndrome, a neurologic condition that causes a small pupil and a drooping eyelid on one side of the face. David G. Hunter, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of AAPOS explains, “Horner syndrome is very rare in infants, but testing occurs frequently, so it is very important that ophthalmologists and neurologists are made aware of this complication.”
Calcium, vitamin D may lower diabetes risk
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Calcium and vitamin D, whether from food or supplements, may help lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a research review.
A number of studies have found links between type 2 diabetes risk and calcium, vitamin D and dairy food intake. When the results from these studies are combined, the new review found, people with the highest intakes of vitamin D and calcium had an 18 percent lower risk of diabetes than those with the lowest intakes.
Malawi unveils mass HIV testing campaign: report
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Health officials in Malawi are preparing on Monday to launch a massive HIV testing program to identify tens of thousands of people unknowingly infected with the virus in the southern African nation.
Many of the estimated 14 percent of Malawian adults who are HIV-positive do not know they are infected, jeopardizing efforts to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among sexually active teenagers and adults, the government has said.
Many Activities and Events, from Waking Up to Earthquakes, Can Trigger Heart Attacks and Strokes
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Many Activities and Events, from Waking Up to Earthquakes, Can Trigger Heart Attacks, Strokes, and Cardiac Arrests
Heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac arrests seem like they come out of the blue, but most don’t. They usually appear after cholesterol-rich plaque has festered in the arteries that nourish the heart and brain. So what makes one happen at a particular time? A trigger, reports the July 2007 issue of the Harvard Heart Letter.
Important triggers include:
Waking from sleep. Before you wake up, your body trickles stress hormones into the bloodstream. This helps you get up, but also slightly stresses the heart. That, along with dehydration that occurs overnight and the overnight fade in protection from heart medicines, may explain why heart attacks are most common in the morning.
Breast tumor genes no hinder to cancer survival
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Women who develop breast cancer because they carry defective genes are no less likely to survive over the long term than other breast cancer patients, Canadian and Israeli researchers said on Wednesday.
Women with and without the best-known cancer genes had virtually the same overall survival rate after 10 years, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Therapy for depression cuts suicide attempts
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Treating people with depression—by means of either medications or psychotherapy—leads to a drop in suicide attempts, according to a new report.
The findings relate to the controversy about treating young people with antidepressant drugs, and the suspicion that doing so may be linked to increased suicide rates.
Newer beta-blocker doesn’t up weight in diabetics
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Unlike earlier beta-blocker drugs used to treat high blood pressure, the newer drug carvedilol does not cause weight gain in people with diabetes, according to findings from a new study.
“Increases in body weight have been documented with long-term therapy of traditional beta-blockers,” Dr. Franz H. Messerli, of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, and colleagues write in the American Journal of Medicine. “Any weight gain is of concern in patients with type 2 diabetes because of the rise in insulin resistance associated with excess weight and obesity.”
New drugs lower blood glucose without weight gain
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wo new antidiabetes drugs are modestly effective at reducing blood glucose levels without causing weight gain in people with type 2 diabetes, according to a review in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Both drugs target incretin hormones that are produced in the gastrointestinal tract and boost the release of insulin triggered by glucose. This “incretin pathway” appears to be weakened in type 2 diabetes.
PepsiCo, others settle benzene suit: plaintiffs
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Soft drink companies including PepsiCo Inc. have settled a lawsuit alleging that their products contained ingredients that could form the carcinogen benzene, the suit’s plaintiffs said on Thursday.
The settling companies, which also include Sunny Delight Beverages Co., Rockstar Inc., Polar Beverages Inc. and Shasta Beverages Inc., agreed to reformulate or had already reformulated some products to lessen the chance that their ingredients would form the cancer-causing chemical.
