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Posted Yesterday in Daily MedNews
TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- Children with obstructive sleep apnea may someday be able to avoid a tonsillectomy and get an injection or use a throat spray to stop their potentially dangerous snoring, new research suggests.
In a report in the online edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, researchers say that they've found genes and gene networks linked to obstructive sleep apnea in the tonsil tissues of affected children. An estimated 2 percent to 3 percent of children...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- A new vaccine prevents tuberculosis in people with HIV, a new study shows.
Phase III trials of 2,000 HIV-infected people in Tanzania found that the mycobacterium vaccae (MV) vaccine reduced the rate of definite tuberculosis (TB) by 39 percent. The findings have been published online in the journal AIDS.
TB is the most common cause of death among people in developing countries who have HIV/AIDS, and the results of the clinical trials are a "significant milestone," according...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- Children born to mothers who drink lots of milk and have a high dietary intake of vitamin D during pregnancy have a much lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis later in life, researchers say.
The new study included 35,794 U.S. nurses whose mothers provided information about their experiences and diet during pregnancy. The nurses were followed for 16 years, and 199 of them developed multiple sclerosis (MS) during that time period.
"The risk of MS among daughters whose...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- Severely obese teens who received gastric banding surgery lost significantly more weight than those who made lifestyle changes such as dieting and exercise, Australian researchers report.
Their study included 50 teens, aged 14 to 18, with a body-mass index (BMI) higher than 35 (statistical obesity begins at a BMI of 30). Half underwent laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding while the other half took part in a supervised lifestyle intervention.
Gastric banding involves the...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- U.S. scientists have discovered there are genetic profiles that play a part in prognosis with non-small cell lung cancers, and those profiles differ depending on the age and gender of the patient.
The researchers analyzed genetic and clinical data from 787 patients who were divided into subgroups based on sex and age (below or above age 70). The findings are published in the Feb. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In those younger than 70, 25...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration unveiled a plan Tuesday to reduce radiation exposure from three types of increasingly widespread imaging procedures: computed tomography (CT), nuclear medicine studies and fluoroscopy.
These three imaging techniques are the largest contributors to total radiation exposure among Americans. They use much higher radiation doses than other imaging procedures, such as standard X-rays, dental X-rays and mammography, potentially increasing the...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- New research reveals that women are more likely than men to fail catheter ablation treatments for atrial fibrillation.
Also, men undergo the procedures five times as often as women and usually have fewer complications.
The findings, published in the February issue of HeartRhythm Journal, are based on a study of 3,265 female patients between 2005 and 2008. They underwent pulmonary vein antrum isolation, a kind of catheter ablation.
Almost a third of the women failed the...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for Crestor (rosuvastatin) has been widened to include people who have no obvious symptoms of heart disease, Dow Jones reported.
Maker AstraZeneca can now market the drug to people with normal or slightly above-normal levels of cholesterol, a group formerly considered at low risk for cardiovascular disease, the news service said.
Crestor was deemed effective in the company-sponsored "Jupiter" trial involving nearly 18,000 people...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- Doctors and other health-care professionals need to be aware that certain medications can cause a rare, potentially deadly heart rhythm problem called Torsade de Pointes (TdP), says a joint scientific statement by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.
The rhythm disturbance is associated with a drop in blood pressure that can cause fainting. But TdP may also lead to a more dangerous heart rhythm disturbance called ventricular fibrillation,...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- An experimental drug may improve thinking, learning and memory skills in people with Huntington's disease, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder, new research says.
Huntington's affects movement, behavior and cognitive abilities, and people with the disease usually die within 10 to 30 years of its onset. Cognitive problems begin early in the disease and increase as Huntington's progresses, leading to the inability to work or perform normal daily activities.
Currently, the...
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-- Here are the latest clinical trials, courtesy of ClinicalConnection.com:
Smoking Cessation
This year-long study will evaluate an investigational vaccine to aid in smoking cessation. To qualify, you must be aged 18 to 65, and have smoked more then 10 cigarettes a day for the past year.
The research site is in Boise, Idaho.
More information
Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/smoking.aspx.
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COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
This long-term...
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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
New Guidelines Coming on Use of Newborn Blood Samples
U.S. government advisers say new national recommendations that will give parents more information and more say on the use of blood samples taken from newborns should be available by spring.
The heel-prick blood spots taken from all newborns are tested for a wide range of diseases. But often, the blood spots are kept and used for research...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- After Medicare sweetened payments for simple office-based endoscopic procedures, doctors in one New York City practice performed many more in-office bladder biopsies, but the volume of hospital procedures stayed roughly the same, a new study finds.
So, instead of saving money, Medicare expenditures rose 50 percent after the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) increased physician reimbursement for those outpatient procedures, researchers report in the March 1...
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TUESDAY, Feb. 9 -- People with active inflammatory bowel disease are much more likely to develop blood clots than people without the condition, a new study suggests.
And that may make preventive drug treatment necessary, it adds.
The study, done in the United Kingdom, compared data on 13,756 people who had inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with 71,672 people who did not have it. None of the people were hospitalized. Between November 1987 and July 2001, 304 people developed a blood clot (venous...
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MONDAY, Feb. 8 -- Women with breast cancer who take both tamoxifen and the antidepressant Paxil may increase their risk of dying because Paxil reduces tamoxifen's effectiveness, Canadian researchers report.
"Paxil can deprive women of the benefit of tamoxifen, especially when it is used in combination with tamoxifen for a long time," said lead researcher Dr. David Juurlink, division head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto.
"Patients who are...
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MONDAY, Feb. 8 -- Scientists say they've developed a new and easier way to create what's known as pluripotent stem cells -- cells that can develop into one of many cell types for use in regenerative medicine.
Unlike many other methods, this new technique doesn't use viruses to introduce genes into cells or permanently alter a cell's genome. Instead, tiny circles of DNA are used to transform stem cells taken from human fat into induced pluripotent stem cells, which are the starting point for...
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MONDAY, Feb. 8 -- High blood pressure may predict dementia in older adults with impaired executive function (difficulty organizing thoughts and making decisions), but not in those with memory problems, a new study has found.
The study included 990 dementia-free participants, average age 83, who were followed-up for five years. During that time, dementia developed in 59.5 percent of those with and in 64.2 percent of those without high blood pressure. Similar rates were seen in participants with...
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MONDAY, Feb. 8 -- Tobacco smoke residue found on indoor surfaces -- so-called "third-hand smoke" -- can interact with airborne compounds to form new, potentially cancer-causing substances, research suggests.
Details about the potential role such third-hand smoke might play and what health concerns it might create remain unclear, however, awaiting further study.
"We're talking here about compounds that were not originally emitted by cigarettes but that may form indoors as a result of the...
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MONDAY, Feb. 8 --People who take medication to treat glaucoma appear to outlive those who don't treat the eye disease, new research has found.
However, whether the reduced risk for premature death stems from the glaucoma drugs themselves or from the individuals' overall health or even their access to health care remains unclear.
Use of glaucoma drugs poses important questions for the more than 2 million Americans with the eyesight-threatening condition, which causes steady deterioration of...
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MONDAY, Feb. 8 -- Eating a Mediterranean-style diet -- one rich in olive oil, whole grains, fish and fruit -- may protect aging brains from damage linked to cognitive problems, a new study finds
Other studies have already found that such diets also lower risks for depression, cancer, heart disease and premature death.
The latest study was led by Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, and involved 712 men and women...
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