Low testosterone in men linked to earlier death
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Older men with low levels of the hormone testosterone may die sooner than other men their age with normal testosterone levels, a study suggests.
Researchers found that among 794 generally healthy older men, those with the lowest testosterone levels were 40 percent more likely to die within the 1985-2004 study period.
Most heart attacks in women are preventable:
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A new study shows that women can significantly cut their risk of having a heart attack by eating right, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol, staying physically active, maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking.
“If women adopted these five ‘rather simple’ healthy diet and lifestyle factors, most heart attacks (i.e., 77 percent) could be avoided,” Dr. Agneta Akesson from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, noted in an email to Reuters Health.
“Love” hormone helps mom and baby bond
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Levels of the hormone oxytocin circulating in a pregnant woman’s body play a critical role in how closely she will bond with her newborn—both emotionally and behaviorally, a new study shows.
In animals, oxytocin, dubbed “the hormone of love and bonding,” is known to be important for the development of good parenting and maintaining close relationships.
Simple test can catch smokers who fib
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A simple device for detecting carbon monoxide in the blood may help doctors get an honest answer out of patients who smoke, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The device, called a pulse co-oximeter, is typically used to test for carbon monoxide levels in firefighters, but it can also detect carbon monoxide levels in people who smoke, offering a powerful tool for educating patients about the effects of smoking.
Catholic condom ban fueling HIV spread in Latam
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The rapid spread in Latin America of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is made worse by the Roman Catholic Church’s stand against using condoms, a U.N. official said on Monday.
Some 1.7 million people across Latin America have HIV infection or AIDS, and the epidemic is spreading swiftly with up to 410,000 new cases in 2006, up from as many as 320,000 new cases in 2004, according the UN AIDS program, UNAIDS.
Double mastectomies to prevent cancer increase
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From 1998 through 2003, the rate of double mastectomies among women in the United States who had cancer diagnosed in only one breast more than doubled, according to a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
“Many surgeons had noticed that more women were requesting double mastectomy for treatment of the cancer in only one breast. So, we weren’t surprised by the overall trend, but we were very surprised by the magnitude,” lead author Dr. Todd M. Tuttle said in an interview with Reuters Health.
Meeting UN goals can lower childhood mortality
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A combination of environmental and nutritional programs that target the poor can substantially reduce childhood mortality globally, new research suggests.
The findings illustrate how working toward environmental and nutritional United Nations Millennium Development Goals can help achieve other goals, in this case improving child survival, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Improvement still needed in HIV testing in high-risk groups
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Since 2000, the rates of HIV testing have remained relatively low and constant in the United States, with about one third of Americans ever having had an HIV test, and less than a quarter of the people considered at high risk for contracting the virus that causes AIDS report having been tested in the past year.
The Duke University researchers who conducted an analysis of testing rates argue that while national HIV testing efforts have been expanded to include lower risk populations, there is still untapped potential to increase testing rates among high-risk individuals.
Transparent zebrafish help researchers track breast cancer
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What if doctors could peer through a patient’s skin and see a cancer tumor growing? They’d be able to study how tumor cells migrate: how they look, how they interact with the blood system to find nourishment to grow and spread through the body.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine can’t look through human skin. But a small, tropical minnow fish common to aquariums has given UCSD researchers a window for viewing live, human cancer cells in action.
Educated People Who Develop Dementia Lose Memory at Faster Rate
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People with more years of education lose their memory faster than those with less education in the years prior to a diagnosis of dementia, according to a study published in the October 23, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study included 117 people who developed dementia out of an original cohort of 488 people. Researchers followed the participants for an average of six years using annual cognitive tests. Study participants ranged in formal education levels of less than three years of elementary school to people with postgraduate education.
High-Risk Individuals Less Likely to Follow Through on HIV Testing Plans
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One-fourth of individuals at high risk for contracting HIV report planning to be tested for the virus in the next year, but fewer appear to follow through on that intention than individuals who are at lower risk, according to a report in the October 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
About 1.1 million U.S. individuals are affected with the HIV virus, and 24 percent to 27 percent do not know they are infected, according to background information in the article. The HIV epidemic is increasingly affecting groups not perceived as being high-risk, including women, the poor and individuals living in rural areas. “Initiatives to increase the rates of HIV testing, particularly among groups not traditionally perceived as being at high risk, have been advanced as a primary strategy in the effort to combat the HIV epidemic,” the authors write.
Teens with jobs more likely to smoke
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High school students who work at jobs for pay appear to be more likely to start smoking than their peers who don’t work outside of school, researchers report. They also found that youths who work longer hours are more likely to smoke that those who work fewer hours.
Dr. Rajeev Ramchand, a behavioral scientist at RAND Corporation in Arlington, Virginia, and colleagues looked at the relationship between working for pay and the initiation of smoking among nearly 800 urban, predominantly African-American students.
Sunlight Exposure May Decrease Risk of Advanced Breast Cancer
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A research team from the Northern California Cancer Center, the University of Southern California, and Wake Forest University School of Medicine has found that increased exposure to sunlight – which increases levels of vitamin D in the body—may decrease the risk of advanced breast cancer.
In a study reported online this week in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers found that women with high sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer, which is cancer that has spread beyond the breast, compared to women with low sun exposure.
US FDA adding hearing loss risk impotence drugs
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U.S. regulators on Thursday said warnings about the risk of sudden hearing loss linked to popular drugs for impotence, including Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, would be added to the drugs’ labels.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was prompted to look into a possible connection after a published report of a man taking Viagra, made by Pfizer Inc, who suffered from sudden hearing loss, a rare condition.
Obese often return to full-time work after surgery
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After undergoing gastric bypass surgery to treat extreme obesity, also known as “morbid” obesity, roughly one third of patients who were medically disabled and on Medicaid can return to full-time work, according to a report in the Archives of Surgery. The likelihood appears to be greatest among patients with obesity-related conditions that resolve after treatment.
Gastric bypass surgery, also referred to as bariatric surgery, “is the only effective treatment for morbid obesity,” according to Dr. Richard C. Thirlby and associates at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.
