Public Health
Actor Gary Coleman dead at 42: reports
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Former child star Gary Coleman, who shot to fame on television sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes” but suffered personal and financial woes as an adult, has died in a Utah hospital after being taken off life support, according to media reports on Friday.
Celebrity website RadarOnline.com said Coleman, 42, was taken off life support on Friday, and similar reports were filed by showbiz site TMZ.com and by CNN, citing a spokeswoman at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah.
The spokeswoman, who earlier issued a statement saying the actor had been put on life support following a brain hemorrhage this week, was not immediately available for confirmation.
Text messages save pregnant Rwandan women
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At midnight Valentine Uwingabire’s back began to hurt. Her husband ran to tell Germaine Uwera, a community health worker in their village in the fertile foothills of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.
Equipped with a mobile phone from the local health center, Uwera sent an urgent SMS text message and within a quarter of an hour, an ambulance had whisked Valentine to hospital. Minutes later Uwingabire’s third child was born.
“We called our child Manirakoze, which means ‘Thank God’,” she told reporters, sitting outside her mud and bamboo house pitched in the shadow of Karisimbi volcano, home to some of the world’s few remaining highland mountain gorillas.
Herbs, supplements often sold deceptively: US report
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Sellers of ginseng, echinacea and other herbal and dietary supplements often cross the line in marketing their products, going as far as telling consumers the pills can cure cancer or replace prescription medications, a U.S. government probe found.
In an undercover probe, investigators at the Government Accountability Office also found that labels for some supplements claim to prevent or cure ailments like diabetes or heart disease - a clear violation of U.S. law.
GAO staff targeted supplements most popular with older consumers and posed as elderly buyers in stores or over the telephone.
Milestone in effort to stem health worker exodus
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Health ministers sealed a rare global accord on Friday to avoid recruiting doctors and nurses from poor countries where there is an acute shortage of medical staff.
The voluntary code for World Health Organisation members is only the second such accord in its history and follows six years of negotiations aimed at stemming the exodus of health care workers from around 60 of the world’s poorest countries.
“You reached agreement on some very important items that are a real gift to public health, everywhere. Thanks to some all night efforts, we now have a code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel,” Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, told the closing session of the annual week-long ministerial meeting of the 193-member body.
County slims down as obesity numbers drop below national average
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THE county’s weight problem is widely documented, but people in Lincolnshire now appear to be slimming down.
Latest statistics released by the Department of Health state that, at the end of the 2009-10 financial year, 33.9 per cent of Lincolnshire people were registered with their GP as being obese, compared with an English average of 34.6 per cent.
Although this means a third of people aged 16 and over in Lincolnshire have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more and therefore are clinically obese, it also demonstrates that we are making steps in the right direction.
Placido Domingo says in good health after surgery
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Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, who underwent colon cancer surgery in March, said he was feeling well and in good health after giving a performance of traditional Spanish music in Doha, Qatar last week.
“I’m lucky that the voice is there, so as long as I’m felling well, I’ll use it. My health is good,” he told Reuters in a recent interview.
The singer, one of the opera world’s biggest names, performed “Antologia de la Zarzuela,” a selection of traditional Spanish music he grew up with, for an enthusiastic audience of nearly 4,000 in Qatar, accompanied by musicians from the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.
ICU Infection Rates Not a Good Measure of Mortality Risk
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ICU-acquired infection rates are not an indication of patients’ mortality risk, according to researchers the University of Pennsylvania, undermining a central tenet of many pay-for-performance initiatives.
Public reporting of quality data is increasingly common in health care. These “report cards” are designed to improve the quality of care by helping patients choose the best hospitals. Yet, they only work if they successfully identify high performers, and may be misleading if they steer patients toward poor performers.
The findings will be reported at the ATS*2010 International Conference in New Orleans.
Older Chinese Consumers Perceive Themselves Younger than Actual Age
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Since the Chinese government enacted the one-child policy in 1978 as a form of population control, the average age of Chinese citizens has begun to get older quickly. After recognizing this trend, Rui Yao, a University of Missouri assistant professor in the Personal Financial Planning department of the College of Human Environmental Sciences, studied the self-perceived age of aging Chinese consumers and how those perceptions should affect marketing strategies aimed at those consumers. Yao found the self-perceived age of older Chinese consumers to be significantly younger than their actual age.
“Someone who is 50 doesn’t think they are 50,” Yao said. “They see themselves as 45 or 40 years old.”
During the study, older Chinese consumers were surveyed in six different cities in China. Only consumers that were 50 years old and older were surveyed. While almost 50% of the people surveyed were between the ages of 50 and 59, only about 33% perceived themselves as being that old.
Australian researchers identify a new disease
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Researchers at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) and the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital have identified a previously undiagnosed condition and successfully treated it by performing an experimental stem cell transplant.
Having spent her late teenage years in and out of hospital Katie Pulling had almost given up hope. “It was very confusing and very daunting. I kept hearing the doctors say, ‘We don’t know what is wrong’, ‘We don’t know why you are so sick’,” said Katie, who lives in north-eastern NSW.
With no options left Katie agreed to an experimental stem cell transplant - a transplant which ultimately saved her life.
Obesity turning into global epidemic, say experts
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Stressing that obesity is turning into a global epidemic, affecting children, adolescents and adults in both developed and developing nations, on the eve of the World Hypertension Day, experts revisited the health hazards of excessive body weight.
“Being overweight can lead to high blood pressure or hypertension, which in turn causes fatal conditions such as stroke, heart failure, weakening and expansion of blood vessels and kidney failure,” said Dr NP Singh, senior consultant, Fortis Hospital, Mohali. He said obesity was now the world’s worst nutritional problem, causing more ill health and deaths than poverty and infectious diseases.
“Unfortunately, increasing urbanisation, sedentary lifestyle and eagerness to adopt Western ways have resulted in more and more Indians joining the 1.5 billion victims of high blood pressure all over the world,” he said.
Preserve community access to diabetes supplies, says pharmacy group
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Backers of a bill that would remove certain diabetes testing supplies from national competitive bidding say it will inject “some sanity” into the program.
Introduced May 6 by Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the Medicare Access to Diabetes Supplies Act would exempt diabetes supplies like strips, monitors and lancets, that are furnished by small community pharmacies, from the bidding program. The Small Business Administration classifies small pharmacies as those with annual sales of $7 million or less.
While nearly three quarters of community pharmacists offer some DME, including diabetes supplies, it typically comprises less than 10% of their business, says John Norton, associate director of public relations for the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).
China scientists find use for cigarette butts
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Chemical extracts from cigarette butts—so toxic they kill fish—can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, a study in China has found.
In a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water.
They applied the extracts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting.
By 2030, cardiovascular disease and death rates in China will surge
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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death rates will surge in China by up to 73 percent by 2030, due to aging, smoking, high blood pressure and other risk factors, according to research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.
“China is a prime example of a middle income nation in transition. The country’s standard of living and life expectancy have improved for many, but aging, dietary changes and less physical activity are leading to more heart disease and stroke,” said lead author Andrew Moran, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, N.Y. “Our study used a computer model to forecast future cardiovascular disease in Chinese adults, and is the first to project the individual and combined effects of major risk factor trends on a national scale.”
Moran and colleagues reviewed risk factor surveys of Chinese adults, ages 35-84, since economic reforms in the 1980s, and used them to project future trends in blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes and body weight.
Obama touts healthcare in new bid to ease doubts
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President Barack Obama on Saturday touted the benefits of his healthcare overhaul, renewing a bid to counter Republican criticism and ease public doubts more than a month after he signed reform into law.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama made clear he would keep up his campaign to promote the healthcare revamp, which is already shaping up as key issue in the campaign for pivotal congressional elections in November.
“While it will take some time to fully implement this law, reform is already delivering real benefits to millions of Americans,” Obama said. “Already, we are seeing a healthcare system that holds insurance companies more accountable and gives consumers more control.”
WHO sees good progress on UN health goals for poor
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Far fewer children are dying and rates of malnutrition, HIV and tuberculosis are declining thanks to good progress on health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.
In its annual health report for 2010, the U.N. body said some countries had made impressive gains, although others may struggle to meet some of the 2015 targets.
“With five years remaining to the MDG deadline in 2015 there are some striking improvements,” said the report, which is based on data collected from WHO’s 193 member states.
