health – News Stories About health - Page 35

China Has Change of Heart On Transplants

Apr 6, 2007 4:40 PM CDT

China Has Change of Heart On Transplants

Puts a stop to lucrative transplant tourism

(Newser) - China is rethinking a major medical cash cow: providing organ transplants for Westerners on overcrowded waiting lists at home. "Transplant tourism" has been a particularly popular option in Israel, where insurers are required to pony up for overseas operations. But health officials recently ruled that organs should not be...

Conjoined Twins Are Freed

Apr 6, 2007 9:59 AM CDT

Conjoined Twins Are Freed

Thai twins joined at the heart and liver healthy after surgery separates them

(Newser) - A pair of conjoined twins attached at the liver and the heart are alive and separate after a surgery Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital calls a "world first." The 10-month-old girls' hearts were joined at the atrium, and the blood flow was connected, but the organs were not dependent...

Bacteria Battle Depression

Apr 6, 2007 8:55 AM CDT

Bacteria Battle Depression

Research shows brain produces serotonin as an immune response

(Newser) - Clinical depression may be treatable with bacteria, doctors at Bristol University posit. They got the idea when they observed lung cancer patients inoculated with harmless Mycobacterium vaccae who showed reduced symptoms and improved mental health. The brain produces serotonin as an immune response, the docs hypothesized, raising the low serotonin...

Cheap Anticancer Drugs Are Ignored

Apr 5, 2007 9:51 PM CDT

Cheap Anticancer Drugs Are Ignored

Why? They don't make pharmeceutical companies enough money

(Newser) - Ralph Moss writes about why inexpensive cancer treatments get no research dollars. The publisher of a newsletter that covers both conventional and alternative cancer therapies, Moss blames the inability to patent already discovered and available chemicals and drugs for the situation.

States Rewrite Organ-Donation Laws

Apr 4, 2007 11:26 AM CDT

States Rewrite Organ-Donation Laws

New revision would make it easier to obtain organs

(Newser) - Doctors will be able to take organs from potential donors in more sticky situations, under revisions to state laws on the boards in more than 24 states. Model legislation that's already passed in four states clarifies how to handle ethically complex decisions, helping to alleviate the chronic shortage of kidneys...

Depression Causes Preemies

Apr 4, 2007 8:40 AM CDT

Depression Causes Preemies

Depression is more dangerous before the baby is born, researchers say

(Newser) - Most new mothers with post-partum depression are ill long before their babies are born, the first study of clinical depression during pregnancy has found. The research, conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, shows that depression, triggered by a natural increase in stress hormones during pregnancy, is a "...

Insurer Ties Employee Pay to Patient Health

Apr 4, 2007 8:32 AM CDT

Insurer Ties Employee Pay to Patient Health

Plan will offer bonuses for boosting patients' use of preventive services

(Newser) - The country's largest health insurer says it will pay up for good health--offering bonuses to employees who boost patients' use of preventive medical services. WellPoint Inc.'s plan is intended to encourage participation in programs like diabetes management, which helps patients handle their medical needs before they end up in...

Docs Tell Younger Women: Avoid Mammograms

Apr 3, 2007 8:16 AM CDT

Docs Tell Younger Women: Avoid Mammograms

Younger women should think twice before x-raying breasts, docs say

(Newser) - Forty-something women should consider skipping their annual mammograms, the American College of Physicians is suggesting after a new review of research. Docs point to danger from radiation and unnecessary biopsies, surgery and chemotherapy, thanks in part to a high rate of false positives. "We don't think the evidence...

Docs Too Quick to Cry
Depression

Apr 3, 2007 6:58 AM CDT

Docs Too Quick to Cry Depression

Study finds almost any negative emotion seems to prompt medication

(Newser) - Shrinks are too quick to term patients clinically depressed, says a new study reported in the Washington Post. Researchers argue that a quarter of "acute grief reactions," the standard symptom of depression, may in fact constitute normal responses to stress; they blame the bloated psychopharmaceutical industry, in part,...

How We Fight: In Public and
In Private

Apr 2, 2007 4:15 PM CDT

How We Fight: In Public and In Private

Jonathan Alter relives his own struggle with cancer

(Newser) - Fit and under fifty when diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma, Newsweek reporter Jonathan Alter talks about his own battle with cancer in the wake of a week of high-profile recurrences. Now in remission, as Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow were until last week, Alter describes managing the fear...

Hospitals
Dial 911

Apr 2, 2007 2:57 PM CDT

Hospitals Dial 911

Small, specialized facilities unprepared for emergencies

(Newser) - Believe it or not, some small, physician-owned hospitals are calling in paramedics to revive their patients in emergencies. Already accused of cherry picking patients and focusing on profit-maximizing procedures, the facilities are now drawing fire for literally relying on other hospitals to rescue patients when complications arise, reports Reed Abelson...

UK Women Limited to
One Embryo

Apr 2, 2007 8:42 AM CDT

UK Women Limited to One Embryo

Agency will ration IVF to stem problematic multiple births

(Newser) - British women trying to get pregnant via In Vitro Fertilization will be limited to having one embryo implanted at a time, in a move by the government to stem the surge of problematic multiple births, the Guardian reports. Only women with particularly low chances of conception will still be allowed...

'Roid Rage May Be Misplaced

Apr 2, 2007 7:33 AM CDT

'Roid Rage May Be Misplaced

J.C. Bradbury says it's expansion, not drugs, that's damaged baseball

(Newser) - As opening day dawns, expect another season of home-run antics in lieu of your dad's short-ball game. But J.C. Bradbury argues in the New York Times that it's talent dilution, not steroids, that's changed the game: When the league expanded in the 90s, so did the number of hittable...

Heart Valve Grown
From Stem Cells

Apr 2, 2007 7:11 AM CDT

Heart Valve Grown From Stem Cells

Could be available for human transplants in three years

(Newser) - A British team has grown a human heart valve from stem cells—a breakthrough certain to ignite as much controversy as hope. Sir Magdi Yacoub, professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College, tells the Guardian that growing a whole human heart from stem cells is less than a decade away:...

FDA Panel Passes First Cancer Vaccine

Mar 30, 2007 11:20 AM CDT

FDA Panel Passes First Cancer Vaccine

Prostate treatment recruits immune system to fight tumors

(Newser) - A cancer drug that's the first to harness the body's immune system to destroy tumors got a thumbs-up from the FDA's advisory panel, the New York Times reports. If approved, Provenge, a prostate cancer treatment, would be the first of the "cancer vaccines"—experimental therapies that commandeer a...

Alzheimer's Patients Dying In Prescription Scandal

Mar 30, 2007 10:13 AM CDT

Alzheimer's Patients Dying In Prescription Scandal

Sedatives shown to double death rates

(Newser) - Sedatives commonly prescribed to Alzheimer's and dementia patients are leading to their premature death, new research reported in the Guardian concludes. The drugs, called neuroleptics, combat the diseases' more alarming symptoms, including agitation and hallucinations. Their widespread off-label use in the U.K.—where they're licensed only for...

Condom-Hating Health Official Steps Down

Mar 30, 2007 10:00 AM CDT

Condom-Hating Health Official Steps Down

Bush's top family planning official resigns after legal action against him

(Newser) - Bush's top family planning official resigned unexpectedly yesterday, on the heels of a legal action against him in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports. The lawsuit initiated by Medicaid targets Dr. Eric Keroack's private practice in Marblehead. Abortion rights groups protested his appointment five months ago, claiming he opposed birth control...

Twins Found to Be "Semi-identical"

Mar 30, 2007 6:21 AM CDT

Twins Found to Be "Semi-identical"

Children neither fraternal nor identical

(Newser) - A new kind of twin has been discovered, neither strictly identical nor fraternal. Now toddlers, the babies look identical but one is anatomically male while the other has ambiguous genitalia. Genetic tests show the children are identical on their mother's side but share only half their father's DNA.

Red Meat
May Harm Sons' Sperm

Mar 28, 2007 8:23 AM CDT

Red Meat May Harm Sons' Sperm

Lower fertility found in men whose moms scarfed beef during pregnancy

(Newser) - Men whose mothers ate a lot of beef during pregnancy have lower sperm counts, finds a study attempting to track the effect of growth hormones fed to cattle. While the specific chemicals weren't identified, sons of pregnant women who ate beef more than seven times a week were three times...

Tony Snow's Cancer Recurs

Mar 28, 2007 7:53 AM CDT

Tony Snow's Cancer Recurs

(Newser) - White House press secretary Tony Snow has cancer again, and this time it's spread to his liver. Doctors discovered the recurrence when they removed a growth from his lower abdomen yesterday. Snow, who's 51, underwent surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer two years ago.