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Health & Wellness

 

Smoking

  • 4 April 2012: Identification Of Strong Oral Carcinogen In Smokeless Tobacco - The chemical (S)-N'-nitrosonornicotine, or (S)-NNN, which is present in smokeless tobacco products, is a strong oral carcinogen, according to results presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, being held March 31 - April 4...
  • 5 April 2012: Link Discovered Between Estrogen And Tobacco Smoke - The hormone estrogen may help promote lung cancer - including compounding the effects of tobacco smoke on the disease - pointing towards potential new therapies that target the hormone metabolism, according to new research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 by scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia...
  • 10 April 2012: Exploring Nicotine Addiction With The Help Of Mobile Technology - Some people quit smoking on the first try while others have to quit repeatedly. Using such mobile technology as hand-held computers and smartphones, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh is trying to find out why...
  • 13 April 2012: Lung Cancer Among Women Still Rising, UK - Cases of lung cancer among women in the UK continue to rise, according to new figures released by Cancer Research UK on Friday. The leading charity says the rate of lung cancer among women in the UK has risen from 22.2 in every 100,000 women in 1975, to 39.3 today...
  • 13 April 2012: Menthol Cigarettes Raise Stroke Risk - Poor old Tobacco coming under fire again. This time, it's a study on the non cancerous effects of menthols, that gives us new insight into the dangers of smoking. Menthols have previous been flagged for seeming more attractive and less harmful and also being preferred by women, youngsters and African Americans...
  • 19 April 2012: New Blood Marker May Detect COPD Earlier - New research from Austria suggests that a protein called HSP27 has the potential to be a new blood biomarker for the earlier detection of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), thereby increasing the chance of earlier treatment and better outcomes...
  • 20 April 2012: Marijuana Smoked More Than Admitted In National Surveys - USA-based studies show that tobacco and cannabis smoking are linked with four times as many young adult smokers using cannabis as non-smokers. However this age group is very varied, and hard to reach, so traditional means of monitoring substance use does not provide the full picture...
  • 22 April 2012: Cancer Prevention Efforts Outlined In Report - An annual report from the American Cancer Society says much of the suffering and death from cancer could be prevented by more systematic efforts to reduce tobacco use, improve diet and physical activity, reduce obesity, and expand the use of established screening tests...
  • 23 April 2012: Adults Helped To Stop Smoking By Anti-Tobacco TV Ads - Anti-tobacco television advertising helps reduce adult smoking, according to a study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy -- but some ads may be more effective than others. Adults and youth are exposed to a variety of anti-smoking messages on television...
  • 23 April 2012: Despite Success Of Smoke-Free Legislation, Quitting Is Hard - The successful implementation of smokefree legislation in Hong Kong has led to an overall decrease in the total number of smokers but the remaining smokers who are finding it difficult to quit are going on to become "hardcore" smokers, according to a new study from Hong Kong presented at the World Congress of Cardiology...
  • 23 April 2012: Lives Lost Due To Global Ignorance Of Tobacco's Harm To Cardiovascular Health - A report released at the World Heart Federation World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai reveals significant gaps in public awareness regarding the cardiovascular risks of tobacco use and secondhand smoke...
  • 23 April 2012: The Physical Harm Caused By Smoking May Be Reduced By Omega-3 Fatty Acids - Omega-3 fatty acids may help to reduce the physical harm caused by smoking, according to a new study presented at the World Congress of Cardiology. The study, carried out in Greece, assessed the effect of four-week oral treatment with 2 g/day of omega-3 fatty acids on the arterial wall properties of cigarette smokers...
  • 23 April 2012: The Role Of Exercise In Life Expectancy, Smoking Cessation - Exercise may help smokers to quit and remain smokefree, according to new data presented at the World Congress of Cardiology. Moreover, exercise increases life expectancy in smokers and non-smokers alike...
  • 25 April 2012: Risk For Rare Tumor May Be Reduced By Smoking, But Not Nicotine - New research confirms an association between smoking and a reduced risk for a rare benign tumor near the brain, but the addition of smokeless tobacco to the analysis suggests nicotine is not the protective substance...
  • 27 April 2012: Tobacco Exposure, Genetic Variants And Lung Cancer Risk - There is an association between the rs1051730-rs16969968 genotype and objective measures of tobacco exposure, which indicates that lung cancer risk is largely, if not entirely, mediated by level of tobacco exposure, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute...

 

Health Insurance

  • 6 January 2012: Kaiser Permanente Study Finds Continuous Health Coverage Essential For Patients Managing Diabetes - When patients with diabetes experience interruptions in health - insurance coverage, they are less likely to receive the screening tests and vaccines they need to protect their health. A new study finds that this is true even when patients receive free or reduced-cost medical care at federally funded safety net clinics...
  • 9 January 2012: In Hospital In-Patient Setting, Uninsured Receive Same Quantity, Value Of Imaging Services As Insured - Insurance status doesn't affect the quantity (or value) of imaging services received by patients in a hospital, in-patient setting, according to a study in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Approximately 51 million Americans, or 16.7 percent of the population, were without health insurance for some or all of 2009...
  • 17 January 2012: Study Reveals 1 In 10 Canadians Cannot Afford Prescription Drugs - One in ten Canadians cannot afford to take their prescription drugs as directed, according to an analysis by researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. The study, published in the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) is the first to examine the relationship between drug insurance and the use of prescription drugs in Canada...
  • 8 February 2012: Study Examines Misconceptions Of Who Picks Up Tab When Patients Walk Out - There are ways in which patients who leave the hospital against medical advice wind up paying for that decision. Being saddled with the full cost of their hospital stay, however, is not one of them. Insurance companies know this. Patients who walk out may know this. But many physicians, according to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, do not...
  • 9 February 2012: Justifying Insurance Coverage For Orphan Drugs - How can insurers justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient per year on "orphan drugs" - extremely expensive medications for rare conditions that are mostly chronic and life-threatening - when this money could provide greater overall health benefit if spread out among many other patients? Those spending decisions reflect the "rule of rescue," the value that o...
  • 10 February 2012: Although The Financial Burden Of Prescription Drugs Is Dropping, Costs Remain A Challenge For Many - The financial burden Americans face paying out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs has declined, although prescription costs remain a significant challenge for people with lower incomes and those with public insurance, according to a new RAND Corporation study...
  • 13 February 2012: Improved Access To Care For Young Adults Allowed To Stay On Parents' Health Insurance - Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that laws permitting children to stay on their parents' health insurance through age 26 result in improved access to health care compared to states without those laws. This analysis indicates the potential positive impact of a key provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA)...
  • 19 February 2012: Study Finds Ending Individual Mandate Would Not Dramatically Hike Insurance Prices - A new RAND Corporation study concludes that eliminating a key part of health care reform that requires all Americans to have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges. The study comes as the U.S...
  • 20 February 2012: How To Find Private Health Insurance - Private health insurance is the main source of health coverage for the majority of people in the United States. Approximately 58% of all Americans have private health care coverage. For elderly citizens and eligible children and families from low-income households, public programs are the primary source of health cover. Public programs include Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP...
  • 23 February 2012: Among People With Health Insurance, The Recession And High Co-Pays Tied To Fewer Colonoscopy Screenings - The recent U.S. economic recession was the longest and most severe since World War II. During this period, personal spending on health care grew at the slowest rate in over 50 years, suggesting that Americans used less health care. A new study finds that these cut backs were not limited to Americans who lost their health insurance, nor restricted to unnecessary services...
  • 2 March 2012: Due To Language Barriers, Over 100,000 Californians Likely To Miss Out On Health Care - Language barriers could deter more than 100,000 Californians from enrolling in the Health Benefit Exchange, according to a study released today by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education...
  • 8 March 2012: Treatment Discontinued By One In Four U.S. HIV Patients - Only about 75 percent of HIV/AIDS patients in the United States remain in care consistently, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published online this week in AIDS...
  • 13 March 2012: News From The Annals Of Family Medicine: March/April 2012 - Four articles in the current issue draw attention to policy initiatives and implications of the rapidly changing U.S. health care environment. Collectively, they examine some of the challenges and opportunities facing the country following the 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act...
  • 23 March 2012: Affordable Care Act's Patients' Bill Of Rights: Nearly All States Have Taken Action - As the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act approaches, a new Commonwealth Fund report finds that 49 states and the District of Columbia have already taken action supporting the law's implementation, such as passing legislation, issuing regulations or other guidance, or actively reviewing insurer filings...
  • 30 March 2012: How Insurance Status Influences Emergency Department Visit Rates - A study published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, reveals that newly insured and newly uninsured adults are more likely to go to the emergency department (ED) due to recent changes in health insurance status. The report is part of the journal's Health Care Reform series. The hospital ED is a significant indicator for access to care...

 

Depression

  • 26 April 2012: Anti-Depressants May Be Doing More Harm Than Good - Commonly prescribed anti-depressants appear to be doing patients more harm than good, say researchers who have published a paper examining the impact of the medications on the entire body...
  • 26 April 2012: Alternative Cause, Drug Target For Depression Suggested By Yeast Cell Reaction To Zoloft - Princeton University researchers have observed a self-degradation response to the antidepressant Zoloft in yeast cells that could help provide new answers to lingering questions among scientists about how antidepressants work, as well as support the idea that depression is not solely linked to the neurotransmitter serotonin...
  • 29 April 2012: More Research Needed Into The Fetal Effects Of Some Drugs During Pregnancy - Prescription drug use during pregnancy is prevalent, however, not enough is known about the adverse effects they may have on the developing fetus, concludes a new review published in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist. The majority of women take prescriptions for pregnancy-related complaints and minor infections...
  • 30 April 2012: Anxiety Or Depression Common Among Aging Adult Americans With Arthritis - Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that one-third of U.S. adults with arthritis, 45 years and older, report having anxiety or depression...
  • 30 April 2012: Arthritis - Anxiety Twice As Common As Depression - Approximately one third of adults with arthritis in the USA aged 45+ years suffer from anxiety or depression, researchers from the CDC reported in the journal Arthritis Care & Research. The authors added that the prevalence of anxiety in adults with arthritis is almost twice as high as depression, in spite of more studies focusing on the arthritis-depression link...
  • 1 May 2012: Youths With Special Needs At Risk For Depression When Ostracized By Peers - The challenges that come with battling a chronic medical condition or developmental disability are enough to get a young person down. But being left out, ignored or bullied by their peers is the main reason youths with special health care needs report symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to a study to be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Boston...
  • 2 May 2012: Scientists Identify Brain Circuitry Associated With Addictive, Depressive Behaviors - Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have determined how specific circuitry in the brain controls not only body movement but also motivation and learning, providing new insight into neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease - and psychiatric disorders such as addiction and depression...
  • 2 May 2012: Interferon For Hepatitis C Can Cause Depression - There's a high rate of depression among patients with hepatitis C, but a standard treatment for the disease includes a drug, interferon, that can cause depression. In a review article, researchers tackle the complexities of diagnosing and managing depression before and after initiating treatment with interferon. Dr. Murali S...
  • 3 May 2012: Obesity, Depression/Anxiety, ADHD, Asthma Contribute To Fatigue Even After A Good Night's Sleep - Children who have learning, attention and behavior problems may be suffering from excessive daytime sleepiness, even though clinical tests show them sleeping long enough at night, a new study reports...
  • 3 May 2012: Willingness To Work May Hinge On Dopamine In The Brain - Slacker or go-getter? Everyone knows that people vary substantially in how hard they are willing to work, but the origin of these individual differences in the brain remains a mystery...
  • 4 May 2012: Compliance By African-Americans To HIV Therapy Problematic, Untreated Depression Makes It Worse - African-Americans with HIV are much less likely to adhere to drug therapy than others with the disease, according to a University of Michigan study. Moreover, untreated depression may greatly hinder adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for all low-income, HIV-infected patients, regardless of race...
  • 5 May 2012: Finding That Emotion Is Reversed In Left-Handers' Brains Could Lead To New Treatment For Anxiety, Depression - The way we use our hands may determine how emotions are organized in our brains, according to a recent study published in PLoS ONE by psychologists Geoffrey Brookshire and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research in New York. Motivation, the drive to approach or withdraw from physical and social stimuli, is a basic building block of human emotion...
  • 7 May 2012: How A Persons "Ranks" Their Suffering May Stop Them Seeking Help For Depression And Anxiety - People's judgements about whether they are depressed depend on how they believe their own suffering "ranks" in relation to the suffering of friends and family and the wider world, according to a new study...
  • 8 May 2012: The Brain May Avoid 'Traffic Jams' Via Multiple Thought Channels - Brain networks may avoid traffic jams at their busiest intersections by communicating on different frequencies, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the University Medical Center at Hamburg-Eppendorf and the University of Tubingen have learned...
  • 8 May 2012: Middle Aged And Elderly With Depression Have Higher Risk Of Dementia - A report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry draws a link between people in mid-life and late-life, suffering from depression and the possibility of them developing dementia. More than five million people in the US alone suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and the health care costs run at a staggering $172 Billion. Deborah E. Barnes, Ph.D., M.P.H...

 

Fitness / Obesity

  • 10 May 2012: Commuters May Be Risking Their Health - As populations move even further away from urban centers, more people spend longer hours behind the wheel on their way to and from work. While sedentary behavior is known to have adverse effects on cardiovascular and metabolic health, the impact of long commutes by automobile are less understood...
  • 10 May 2012: Pre-Pregnancy Obesity Linked To Lower Test Scores In Offspring - Women who are obese before they become pregnant are at higher risk of having children with lower cognitive function - as measured by math and reading tests taken between ages 5 to 7 years - than are mothers with a healthy pre-pregnancy weight, new research suggests...
  • 10 May 2012: Targeted Strategy To Prevent Obesity Could Avert Hundreds Of Thousands Of Diabetes Cases - A study presented by Australian researchers at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France, demonstrates that 220,000 cases of type 2 diabetes could be averted by 2025 in Australia by using a targeted high-risk prevention strategy...
  • 11 May 2012: Long Car Commutes Risk Health - Individuals with the longest commutes by car to and from work were the ones least likely to report frequently engaging in moderate to vigorous exercise, and most likely to show risk factors for poorer cardiovascular and metabolic health These were the findings of a new study by Dr Christine M. Hoehner of Washington University in St...
  • 11 May 2012: Novel Surgery Using Capsaicin May Reduce 'Beer Belly' Visceral Fat - According to research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), the ingredient that gives hot sauce its heat could play a role in the future of weight loss...
  • 11 May 2012: Obesity Drug Lorcaserin Gets Positive Vote From FDA Panel - Lorcaserin, an investigational obesity drug, was given a positive recommendation by the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee, which advises the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Committee voted 18 to 4 in favor, with one abstention, in advising the FDA whether to approve the medication for obese or overweight individuals...
  • 12 May 2012: Kidney Donation Hindered By Obesity - Researchers at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine and Feinstein Institute for Medical Research conducted a retrospective analysis which found that morbid obesity impedes kidney donation...
  • 12 May 2012: Hazardous To Health - Social Jet Lag - Social jetlag - a syndrome related to the mismatch between the body's internal clock and the realities of our daily schedules - does more than make us sleepy. It is also contributing to the growing tide of obesity, according to a large-scale epidemiological study reported online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication...
  • 13 May 2012: Waist To Height Ratio Better Than BMI - Waist to height ratio is a better predictor of heart disease and diabetes risk than BMI, according to new research presented at a scientific meeting recently. Study leader Dr Margaret Ashwell, an independent consultant and former science director of the British Nutrition Foundation, presented the findings at the 19th Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France, on Saturday 12 May...
  • 14 May 2012: Protein Identified That Stimulates Brown Fat To Burn Calories - Scientists have identified a protein which regulates the activation of brown fat in both the brain and the body's tissues. Their research, which was conducted in mice, was published in the journal Cell. Unlike white fat, which functions primarily to store up fat, brown fat (also known as brown adipose tissue) burns fats to generate heat in a process known as thermogenesis...
  • 14 May 2012: Younger People More Likely To Drop Out Of Diet Programs - A new study reveals that individuals who participate in a 1-year weight-loss program called Itrim, in Sweden, are significantly more likely to discontinue with the program if they are under 40 years of age. The study, conducted by Dr...
  • 14 May 2012: Waist Less Than Half Of Height Helps You Live Longer - A new study reveals that waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) is a significantly better predictor of cardiometabolic risk than waist circumference (WC) and body-mass index (BMI). In addition WHtR takes account of differing heights, therefore making it the best proxy to use across all countries. Findings from the study, conducted by Dr...
  • 14 May 2012: Behavioral Treatment Helps Very Obese Children, But Not Severely Obese Adolescents - Researchers have found that severely obese children respond well to behavioral treatment, but not severely obese adolescents. The study, conducted by Dr. Pernilla Danielsson, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, was presented at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France...
  • 14 May 2012: Egg Proteins For Breakfast Keeps You Feeling Full For Longer - Individuals who consume egg proteins for breakfast are more likely to feel full during the day than those whose breakfasts contain wheat protein. Results from the study, conducted by Dr. Nikhil Dhurandhar, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana, USA, and colleagues were presented at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France...
  • 15 May 2012: Helping Primary Care Physicians To Counsel Obese Patients With Obesity - Managing adult obesity is challenging for primary care physicians, but a new review published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) aims to provide an evidence-based approach to counselling patients to help them lose weight and maintain weight loss...