Earth For Human Live

FDA relents from midodrine withdrawal plan

2010-09-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK – Federal regulators have backed off a plan to remove a Shire PLC low blood-pressure treatment from the market after warning in August that the drug has not been proven effective.
Food and Drug Administration representative Sandy Walsh said in an emailed statement that the agency will continue to allow access to ProAmatine, also known as midodrine, "while the necessary data is collected and the legal issues get sorted out."
Roughly 100,000 U.S. patients received prescriptions for ProAmatine or generic versions last year, according to the FDA. The drug is approved to treat orthostatic hypotension, a type of low blood pressure that causes patients to become dizzy or faint when standing upright.
Last month, the FDA proposed withdrawing the drug from the market and giving Shire, which is based in Ireland, an opportunity to schedule a hearing to discuss the matter. It had approved ProAmatine in 1996 based on promising early results in treating low blood pressure. But a mandatory follow-up study to actually prove the long-term benefits of the drug was never conducted.
Shire acquired the drug when it bought Roberts Pharmaceuticals in 2000. Shire spokeswoman Jessica Mann said the drugmaker did conduct follow-up trials and submitted data in 2005 that it believes showed its effectiveness. The company plans to continue to work with the FDA.
Shire had said it was planning to withdraw the drug from the market by Sept. 30. But the company no longer intends to do so.
"It's our goal to do what we can to ensure that this treatment is still available to patients," Mann said.
The FDA's letter marked the first time it threatened to pull a drug off the market due to missing follow-up data, though it has long held that power. FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said in an e-mail the issue "continues to evolve," and that it will know more in the coming weeks.
Copies of the letter also were sent to five generic drugmakers who make the drug, including Mylan Inc. and Novartis AG unit Sandoz Inc. The generic versions would also be subject to a market withdrawal, unless their manufacturers complete the study requested by the FDA.

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WHO wants faster, more flu vaccine production

2010-09-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG – The vaccine used to contain the recent swine flu pandemic was effective, but health authorities will need to ramp up the speed and volume of production during the next global outbreak, a World Health Organization official said Monday.
The WHO declared last month that the swine flu pandemic that started in June 2009 was over, after it killed about 18,600 people worldwide, far less than the worse-case scenarios in which authorities said millions could die.
The widespread use of vaccines was critical in limiting the number of casualties, with studies showing they offered protection in up to 95 percent of cases, WHO official David Wood said at a news conference on the sidelines of an influenza conference in Hong Kong.
Some 350 million doses of the vaccine were administered worldwide, according to WHO figures.
"That gives us considerable hope for the future, for the future pandemics, that the technologies that we have to actually make the vaccines are" effective, said Wood, the quality and safety team co-ordinator for the WHO's immunization and vaccines department.
But while vaccines became available six months after the H1N1 virus strain behind the pandemic was identified in April 2009, that was still too late for some countries, he said. In the case of the U.S., vaccination started on Oct. 5, 2009 — weeks after a second wave of cases hit as schools resumed, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention flu expert Nancy Cox told reporters.
The WHO is studying ways to make vaccines more quickly, Wood said without offering specifics, adding that technological breakthroughs will also speed up the process.
"In the short term, we'll be able to make some gains of weeks that Nancy was talking about that can make all the difference. In the longer term, we may even have these new technologies that shorten our lag more significantly, so I'm quite optimistic," Wood said.
The WHO official also said the global healthy body is working on increasing global production capacity beyond the centers of Europe, America and China, targeting countries like India, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil and Mexico.
The WHO was accused by some of hyping the pandemic, prompting excessive buying of vaccines and antiviral drugs that enriched drug companies. Asked about such accusations, Wood said the organization only advised countries to vaccinate high-risk groups, like health care workers and pregnant women.
"I believe that the recommendations that came from the organization were proportionate to the risks that we had at the time," he said.

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Expert warns of complacency after swine flu fizzle

2010-09-06T19:04:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG – A leading virus expert urged health authorities around the world Sunday to stay vigilant even though the recent swine flu pandemic was less deadly than expected, warning that bird flu could spark the next global outbreak.
A World Health Organization official also defended the U.N.'s health body against accusations that it wasted governments' money and enriched pharmaceutical companies with its strong warnings during the swine flu outbreak's early days last year.
WHO declared the swine flu pandemic over last month. The latest death toll is just over 18,600 — far below the millions that were once predicted. The head of the global health body has credited good preparation and luck, since the H1N1 swine flu virus didn't mutate as some had feared.
But speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an influenza conference in Hong Kong, researcher Robert Webster warned against complacency.
"We may think we can relax and influenza is no longer a problem. I want to assure you that that is not the case," said Webster, chairman of the virology and molecular biology department at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Webster predicted that the next pandemic could be sparked by a virus that spreads from water fowl to pigs and then onto humans — such as the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 300 people over the past seven years. He noted that after several years of decline, the number of bird flu cases in humans increased in 2009, lifted by an uptick of cases in Egypt.
"H5N1 can kill 61 percent of humans infected, but it doesn't know how to spread from human to human. But don't trust it because it could acquire that capacity. So we must stay vigilant," he said.
Sylvie Briand, head of WHO's global influenza program, said its surveillance has shown that the bird flu strain isn't capable now of jumping between humans except in rare cases of close personal contact, but echoing Webster, warned: "These are viruses that are evolving. They are changing all the time."
Both experts said it was difficult to predict when — or if — bird flu might set off a new pandemic.
"We don't understand enough about the virus to make predictions," Webster said.
University of Hong Kong microbiologist Malik Peiris said scientists are closely monitoring mutations by influenza viruses — including bird flu viruses — but it's hard to determine which mutations are most likely to spread among humans.
Briand also defended WHO against accusations that it hyped the swine flu pandemic, saying it was acting with limited information when the virus first surfaced and adjusted its response when it became clear the outbreak wasn't as serious as expected.
WHO received at least $170 million from member states to deal with the outbreak, some of which was invested in immunization programs long after the virus strain was known to provoke only mild illness in most of those infected. Governments spent many times that amount buying vaccines and antiviral medicines that are now being junked.
European legislators have repeatedly accused WHO of overstating the danger of swine flu and playing into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry, which has earned millions from the outbreak since it began in April 2009.
"We prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. And as the information became available, there was adaptation of the plan and adaptation of the recommendations in order to really tailor the response to the reality," Briand said. "But it took some time."

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Cholera kills 41 in Central African nation of Chad

2010-09-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

N'DJAMENA, Chad – Health officials in Chad say an outbreak of cholera in the Central African nation has killed at least 41 people.
Mahamat Mamadou Adji said Friday that there have been nearly 600 confirmed cases of the fast-moving infection that causes diarrhea in victims, leading to severe dehydration.
The outbreak in Chad come as officials in the neighboring countries of Nigeria and Cameroon also have expressed concern about cholera deaths.
In Nigeria, health officials say more than 350 people have been killed in only three months.
Cholera is highly contagious yet easily preventable with clean water and sanitation. But Nigerian health officials say in many areas, wells remain uncovered, allowing tainted water to flow into the communities' drinking water supplies.

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Lack of Sleep May Be Linked to Childhood Obesity

2010-09-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Infants and preschoolers who don't get enough sleep at night are at increased risk for later childhood obesity, a new study suggests.
The researchers also found that daytime naps are not an adequate substitute for lost nighttime sleep in terms of preventing obesity.
The study included 1,930 U.S. children, ages 1 month to 13 years, who were divided into two groups -- younger (ages 1 month to 59 months) and older (ages 5 to 13 years). Data on the children was collected at the start of the study (baseline) in 1997 and again in 2002 (follow-up).
At the follow-up, 33 percent of the younger children and 36 percent of the older children were overweight or obese. Among the younger children, lack of sufficient nighttime sleep at baseline was associated with increased risk for later overweight or obesity.
Among the older children, the amount of sleep at baseline was not associated with weight at follow-up. However, a lack of nighttime sleep at follow-up was associated with increased risk of a shift from normal weight to overweight and from overweight to obesity, the study found.
The findings "suggest that there is a critical window prior to age 5 years when nighttime sleep may be important for subsequent obesity status," wrote Janice F. Bell of the University of Washington in Seattle, and Frederick J. Zimmerman of the University of California, Los Angeles.
"Sleep duration is a modifiable risk factor with potentially important implications for obesity prevention and treatment," the authors concluded. "Insufficient nighttime sleep among infants and preschool-aged children appears to be a lasting risk factor for subsequent obesity, while contemporaneous sleep appears to be important to weight status in adolescents. Napping had no effects on the development of obesity and is not a substitute for sufficient nighttime sleep," they added.
The study is published in the September issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about children and sleep.

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Keep Health in Mind When Planning School Day Menus

2010-09-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- As parents prepare for their children's return to school, they need to remember that healthy meals and snacks are essential for learning.
"Parents can make the school day easier for their children by providing nutritious and yummy breakfasts, lunches and snacks that promote optimal learning. Everyone is in a rush in the morning, but it only takes a few minutes on Sunday to plan healthy meals to fuel your child's week," Karin Richards, director of the Exercise Science and Wellness Management program, and director of Health Sciences at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, said in a university news release.
Richards offered the following advice for parents as they plan breakfast, lunch and snacks for their school-age children:
Include at least three types of foods into each meal, making sure to include some type of protein and complex carbohydrates, such as whole wheat bagels or pasta. The complex carbohydrates will provide energy while the protein will satisfy your child's appetite for a longer period of time.
Bring your child to the market with you and let him or her choose one fruit or vegetable each week. Encourage kids to try new and interesting produce such as kiwi, papaya and edamame.
Monitor portion size. Three to four ounces of meat (about the size of your palm) is plenty. Adjust the amount based on your child's age and activity level.
Add more vegetables into your child's diet, even if you have to sneak them in. For example, try zucchini bread, veggies with low-fat dip, or shred carrots into tomato sauce and soups.
For beverages, suggest low-fat milk or water. If you child prefers juice, make sure it's 100 percent juice.
More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about children and healthy eating.

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New test seen as big advance in diagnosing TB

2010-09-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Scientists are reporting a major advance in diagnosing tuberculosis: A new test can reveal in less than two hours, with very high accuracy, whether someone has the disease and if it's resistant to the main drug for treating it.

The test could revolutionize TB care and replace the 125-year-old process used now, which is slow and misses more than half of all cases, experts say. A better test would be a powerful tool to curb TB in poor countries, where most people spread the lung disease before they are diagnosed and treated, and many don't return for follow-up doctor visits to get test results.

In the United States, it could be a big help in inner city clinics, where diagnosing a drug-resistant strain on someone's first visit enables proper treatment right away.

"You can tell the patient before they leave the office if they have TB and if it's drug-resistant. It's transformational," said Dr. Peter Small, head of TB programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helped fund the work, along with the U.S. government.

The World Health Organization will meet with experts over the next few days to review results and plan steps forward, says a statement from one of its TB experts, Dr. Mario Raviglione.

"These results suggest that it has the potential to revolutionize TB care, and WHO will treat it as a top priority," the statement says.

A study of the test was published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

TB kills about 1.8 million people a year and increasingly is caused by bacteria that are resistant to one or more drugs. The best test — growing the bacteria in a lab dish from a mucus sample — takes a week or more, so the most common approach is to look for bacteria in a sample under a microscope. That misses many cases, tells nothing about drug resistance, and doesn't usually give an answer before a patient leaves the clinic.

"It's antiquated," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "If you have 50 patients in a clinic and one person looking at a microscope it could take hours and hours."

The government set out to develop a better test with a host of partners: Cepheid, a California-based diagnostics company; the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, a Swiss-based nonprofit group supported by the Gates Foundation.

The test they devised is simple enough to be done with minimal training. It requires only 15 minutes of manual labor, for taking the mucus sample, mixing it with chemicals and putting it in an inkjet-like cartridge that goes into a machine. The machine amplifies the DNA in the sample and checks for bits of bacterial genes.

The whole process takes less than two hours.

The study tried it on 1,730 patients with suspected TB in Peru, Azerbaijan, South Africa and India. The test successfully identified 98 percent of all confirmed TB cases and 98 percent of ones resistant to rifampin, one of the top drugs to treat the disease.

It correctly picked out nearly three-quarters of TB cases that were mistakenly declared negative from the microscope exam. And it accurately ruled out TB in 99 percent of people who did not have it.

Besides WHO endorsement, Cepheid will seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the test, which went on sale late last year in Europe. The test costs about $63 there, but the company has agreed to provide it for less than half that in poor countries, said John Bishop, Cepheid's chief executive officer. The machine costs around $30,000, but would be priced under $20,000 in poor countries, he said.

While the cost per test is higher, it doesn't take a sophisticated lab to do the test, so the overall cost may be lower, Bishop said. It also tells the diagnosis and drug resistance for that price.

The microscope-sample method costs a few dollars, plus $15 for drug-resistance testing, said Small of the Gates Foundation. He agreed that the new test may be viewed as more cost-effective because it's more accurate, fast and gives more information.

Further study is under way to see if the test can reveal multi-drug-resistant strains. If TB is resistant to rifampin, it's often resistant to another commonly used drug, Fauci said.

Testing for TB in someone who has symptoms is not the same as the TB screening skin tests that many people get. The skin test just shows whether someone has been exposed to TB at some time, and may warrant further testing to ensure they don't have a latent case.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Exercise cuts genetic obesity risk by 40 percent: study

2010-08-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Physical exercise can reduce a genetic predisposition to obesity by an average of 40 percent, a new study showed.

The research challenges the notion that an inherited propensity to obesity is impossible to overcome and boosts the case for the benefit of more exercise for anyone looking to shed some weight.

The study, published in this week's Public Library of American Science Medicine journal, is based on examination of 20,430 people living in Norwich, Britain.

It found most of the study's participants inherited between 10 and 13 genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity, with some inheriting as many as 17 variants, and others as few as six.

Using modelling techniques, the researchers found that each genetic variant was linked to an increase in body mass index (BMI) -- a measure of body size based on both height and weight.

"Each additional genetic variant in the score was associated with an increase in BMI equivalent to 445 grams (1.6 ounces) in body weight for a person 1.70 meters (5.7 feet)," the study said.

For physically active individuals, the increase was just 379 grams (13 ounces).

That was "36 percent lower than in physically inactive individuals in whom the increase was 592 grams (21 ounces) per variant," the research found.

Each additional variant also raised the individual's chances of obesity 1.1-fold, but in physically active individuals, "the increased odds per variant for obesity risk were 40 percent lower."

Ruth Loos of Britain's Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, who carried out the research, said the study "challenged deterministic view of the genetic predisposition to obesity."

"Our findings further emphasize the importance of physical activity in the prevention of obesity," Loos said.

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For Bonobo Males, Mom Is the Best Wingman

2010-08-31T19:04:00.000-07:00

To most human males, the thought of your mother anywhere near your sex life is probably horrifying. Not so for the bonobo, one of our closest primate relatives. A new study confirms that hanging out with mom boosts male bonobos' chances of getting intimate with a fertile female.

The study found that when their mothers are around, low- to mid-ranking bonobo males get more opportunities to mate. Mothers facilitated sons' presence in their social circle so they were able to interact with more females, and also chased away rival males who might try to break up their sons' blooming relationships.

The mothers aren't just busybodies, say the researchers. In fact, taking an active interest in their sons' love lives helps mothers pass on their own genes.

"If they support their sons, they can have more grandkids," study researcher Martin Surbeck, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, told LiveScience.

Bonobo mama's boys

As any newlywed can tell you, parental interest in offspring's reproduction is common. Orcas are known to form strong mother-son bonds, and according to a study published in August in the journal Nature Communications, being born to a high-ranking mom gives male hyenas a reproductive boost later in life.

In primates, mothers have been shown to improve the survival of their daughters' offspring. But mother-son bonds are harder to measure, because most primate males leave their mother's side at puberty. Bonobos, a cousin to chimpanzees, are an exception. Bonobo communities are female-dominated, and males stick with their mothers in adulthood.

Researchers have long known that the status of bonobo males is linked to the status of their mothers, and field observations suggested that moms were taking an active role in facilitating their sons' mating, said Surbeck. To figure out the maternal role, he and his colleagues used DNA information to tease out the relationships between the bonobos in their field area at Salonga National Park in the Congo. Then they observed the bonobos over a 10-month period, watching how often they fought, mated and became fertile.

Maternal matchmakers

They saw that while the primates split into different "parties" during the day, sons stuck with their mothers between 81 percent and 92 percent of the time. When moms weren't around, the dominant male was responsible for about 41 percent of sexual encounters with fertile females. But when the mothers of low-to mid-ranking males were present, that proportion dropped to 25 percent. In other words, moms kept the dominant male from monopolizing the most fertile females, allowing their own sons to mate, too.

Sometimes, the moms interfered, chasing unrelated males away from females or backing up fights involving their sons. Other times, they stood guard while their sons mated, keeping competitors at bay.

But in large part, the mom's role may be more like that of a matchmaker. Since females have lots of social status in bonobo communities, Surbeck said, a mother's presence allows a son to play a more central role in the group. Being in the center of the social group means more interactions with females and more opportunities to mate.

Evolutionary cousins

The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, "confirms largely what we've known for a long time" about the importance of mothers in bonobo communities, said Jo Thompson, the director of the Lukuru Wildlife Research Project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Thompson, who researches bonobos but was not involved in the current study, said the research raises new questions about the influence of a mother's social rank on her son's success, as well about how other family members, like brothers, might influence mating. She also warned that while the current study showed low- and mid-ranking males got to mate more with fertile females when their moms were present, it didn't investigate whether they actually had more offspring.

"This is a good solid study that continues to build on the knowledge we have, and leads to more questions," Thompson said. "The next step is where we really get interesting."

Studying bonobos is important for conservation reasons, as the animals are threatened by habitat loss and poaching, said University of California Los Angeles anthropologist Joan Silk, a primate researcher who was not involved in the study. But because humans share an evolutionary ancestor with bonobos, the studies may also give us hints about our own evolutionary background, Silk said.

"Seeing both chimpanzees and bonobos gives us an idea of the range of possibilities of our ancestors'" behavior and social structure, Silk said. "They help us imagine what early human ancestors might have been like."

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Original Story: For Bonobo Males, Mom Is the Best Wingman
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U.S. Pediatricians Decry Media's Portrayal of Sex

2010-08-31T19:02:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- The nation's leading group of pediatricians has issued a strong policy statement directed toward pediatricians, parents and the media on the danger of messages American teens and children are getting about sex from television, the Internet and other media outlets.

The statement, Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media, was published online Aug. 30 and in the September print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

"The media represents arguably the leading sex educator in America today," said Dr. Victor Strasburger, the lead author of the paper. "We do such a poor job of educating kids about sex in sex education classes in school, and parents are notoriously shy about talking to kids about sex. The media picks up the slack."

Seventy percent of teen shows contain sexual content, Strasburger added, "and less than 10 percent of that content involves what anyone would classify as being responsible content. There's no mention of contracting an STD [sexually transmitted disease] or the need to wait to have sex until later."

The United States leads the western world in teen pregnancy rates and American teens have an alarmingly high rate of STDs -- one in four children.

Meanwhile, U.S. children spend seven hours and more a day with various types of often-sexually explicit media, including music, movies, television shows, magazines and the Internet.

"The research shows us that the portrayal of sex in the media is really unrealistic. It's unhealthy. It doesn't consider the consequences of sexual behavior," said Alan Delamater, professor and director of child psychology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "This is what our kids are growing up thinking. This is what sex is about. To deny its impact is ignorant because there's so much knowledge of it at this point."

Many pediatricians would like to flip the equation and see media outlets introduce more responsible programming.

"Media has an opportunity to continue doing the same old thing, which is to have an adverse effect on child development, or turn it around and shape attitudes and behavior that could have a positive effect on child development," Delamater said.

The statement contains a number of recommendations for parents, physicians and the media.

"We want physicians to ask two media questions at every well-child visit: how much entertainment screen time per day does the child engage in, and is there a TV set or Internet connection in his or her bedroom," said Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. "That takes 20 seconds and may be more important than asking about childproofing or car seats or bicycle helmets."

The authors of the statement ideally would like ads for erectile dysfunction drugs to not be shown on TV until after 10 p.m.

"Half a billion dollars of ads for erectile dysfunction drugs and virtually no ads for birth control pills or condoms or emergency contraception," Strasburger said. "There's not a single shred of evidence that exposing kids to birth control ads or even making birth control available to them makes them sexually active at a younger age. We're doing things completely backwards."

There should also be more attention paid to how kids use social networking sites on the Internet. And parents can use media story lines as teaching tools to discuss sex with their children, instead of having "the big talk," the statement said.

On the more idealistic side, the statement also recommends that advertisers no longer use sex to sell a wide range of products.

"We want parents to realize that kids are spending more time with media than in any other activity but sleeping, and that the media represents a powerful source of information and in this case a powerful sex educator," Strasburger said.

More information

To learn more about children and the media, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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Benefits seen for high-risk women in ovary removal

2010-08-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

CHICAGO – Surgery to remove healthy ovaries gives a triple benefit to high-risk women: It lowers their threat of breast and ovarian cancer, and boosts their chances of living longer, new research suggests.

The study is the largest to date to find advantages for preventive surgery for women who carry BRCA gene mutations. Women with the faulty genes have a dramatically higher cancer risk than other women — five times greater for breast cancer and at least 10 times greater for ovarian cancer.

The study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, found benefits for women with two different BRCA gene variants whether they had previously had breast cancer or not.

The results offer more tailored evidence for women considering ovary removal, a surgery that ends fertility, fast-forwards them into early menopause and may contribute to osteoporosis or heart problems later in life.

"It's really critical to have the best information when making such a profound decision," said senior author Timothy Rebbeck of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The researchers followed nearly 2,500 women with BRCA mutations in Austria, England, the Netherlands and the United States. All the women were cancer-free at the start. They were watched for an average of four years. Most of the women were younger than 50 at the start of the study.

They got counseling to help them choose between surgery or increased screening to watch for cancers early.

Ten percent of the women chose mastectomy and 40 percent chose to have their ovaries removed; some had both. More than half the women had neither surgery.

The women who chose ovary removal had impressive results:

_1 percent were later diagnosed with ovarian cancer that showed up in cells missed by surgeons, compared to 6 percent of the women who kept their ovaries.

_11 percent were diagnosed with breast cancer, compared to 19 percent of the women who kept their ovaries.

_3 percent of those who had surgery died, compared to 10 percent of the others.

The study also found preventive mastectomy lowered the risk of breast cancer. No breast cancers were seen in the women who had their breasts removed. That may seem unsurprising, but mastectomy can leave behind breast tissue that can turn cancerous.

The study was observational, meaning it can't prove one choice was better than another. Other factors could have caused differences in the women's cancer rates.

But the results will help doctors counsel their patients, said Dr. Virginia Kaklamani of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.

"I'll use it mostly in talking to people considering genetic testing," Kaklamani said. "I can tell them, 'If we know you test positive, there are things to do that will help you live longer.'"

The increased risk for BRCA carriers is frightening. In the general population, about 12 in 100 women will get breast cancer during their lifetimes, compared to about 60 in 100 women who have faulty BRCA genes, according to the National Cancer Institute. For ovarian cancer, the lifetime risk in the general population is a little more than 1 in 100 compared to 15-to-40 in 100 women with BRCA mutations.

For women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, the decision to get tested can be agonizing. The $3,300 blood test, while often covered by insurance, can disrupt families, force decisions on childbearing and leave a woman feeling stigmatized. Surgery costs thousands of dollars, not including lost time at work. Without preventive surgery, a woman faces a regimen of mammograms, MRIs and blood tests to look for cancer.

But several signs point to "the beginning of a new era" for high-risk women, said Joanna Rudnick, a 36-year-old Los Angeles filmmaker. She has known for nine years that she carries a breast cancer gene mutation. Engaged and planning to have children, she's also planning to have her breasts and ovaries removed when she's 40. Her documentary "In the Family" tells about her choices and those faced by other "BRCA-positive" women.

With testing more than a decade old, researchers are just beginning to have better data to understand the benefits of risk-reducing surgery. For high-risk women, equally important are the breakthroughs in cosmetic breast reconstruction, laws to prevent genetic discrimination and evolving attitudes toward removing body parts to avoid cancer, Rudnick said. A federal judge recently struck down patents on the two genes held by Myriad Genetics Inc., which may widen research possibilities and testing options.

Rudnick's glad to hear ovary removal may reduce her risk of breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer.

"This is one of the rare silver linings that has been learned from these prospective studies," Rudnick said.

___

Online:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

BRCA genes: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/brca

news source www.news.yahoo.com

Aging vets' costs concern Obama's deficit co-chair

2010-08-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

RALEIGH, N.C. – The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit commission said Tuesday.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson's comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

"The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess," said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has also allowed Vietnam veterans to get money for ailments such as lung cancer and prostate cancer, and the agency finalized a proposal Tuesday to grant payments for heart disease — the nation's leading cause of death.

Simpson declined to say whether the issue would become part of his work on Obama's panel examining the nation's debt. He looked to Congress to make a change.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, a Hawaii Democrat who currently chairs the VA committee, said Tuesday he will address the broader issue of so-called presumptive conditions at a hearing previously set for Sept. 23. The committee will look to "see what changes Congress and VA may need to make to existing law and policy," Akaka said in an e-mail.

"It is our solemn responsibility to help veterans with disabilities suffered in their service to our country," said Akaka, who served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. "That responsibility also requires us to make sure limited resources are available for those who truly need and are entitled to them."

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat and Vietnam combat veteran, has also raised questions about the spending. The leading Republican on the committee, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, has not responded to several requests for comment on the topic in recent months.

Because of concerns about Agent Orange, Congress set up a system in 1991 to grant automatic benefits to veterans who served in Vietnam at any point during a 13-year period and later got an ailment linked to the defoliant. The VA has done that with a series of ailments with strong indications of an association to Agent Orange, including Hodgkin's disease, soft-tissue cancers and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Other ailments have been added even though and Institute of Medicine review has found they only have a potential association and that they could not rule out other factors. Those maladies include prostate cancer, lung cancer and diabetes. The committee has said that, for diabetes, more powerful influences include family history, physical inactivity and obesity.

The AP found in reviewing millions of VA compensation records that diabetes is now the most frequently compensated ailment, ahead of post-traumatic stress disorder, hearing loss or general wounds. VA officials use a complex formula when awarding benefits and do not track how much is spent for a specific ailment, but AP calculations based on the records suggest that Vietnam veterans with diabetes should receive at least $850 million each year.

Paul Sullivan, executive director for the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense, said it would be unreasonable for veterans to have to prove on a case-by-case basis that their illness came from Agent Orange. He believes the science supports the decision by VA to grant presumptive benefits.

"The presumptive law is absolutely essential," he said. "Money should not be an issue."

Sullivan also said many veterans file claims not for the compensation but for access to free health care.

The VA also acknowledged in its heart disease rule Tuesday that it could cost billions more than initially anticipated. The initial projection was that the new ailments, mostly heart disease but also Parkinson's disease and certain types of leukemia, would total $42.2 billion over 10 years. But that was based on disease prevalence rates for the general population, not representative of the aging class of Vietnam veterans.

VA used an age-adjusted formula in its latest proposal and estimated that it could cost some $67 billion in the next decade.

"It's the kind of thing that's just driving us to this $1 trillion, $400 billion deficit this year," Simpson said. "It's not that I'm an uncaring person, but common sense is the most uncommon thing in Washington."

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Scientists expect C-section rate to keep rising

2010-08-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON – More women will be giving birth by C-section for the foreseeable future, government scientists said Monday, releasing a study into the causes of a trend that troubles maternal health experts.

Overall, cesarean deliveries account for about a third of births in the U.S. While much attention has recently focused on women having repeat C-sections, researchers with the National Institutes of Health found that nearly one third of first-time moms delivered by cesarean.

That is "somewhat surprising," said Dr. Jun Zhang, lead author of a study that looked at nearly 230,000 deliveries in 19 hospitals around the country. "It has consequences for future pregnancies."

Many doctors and hospitals follow a policy of "once a cesarean, always a cesarean."

The study also suggested a link between chemically induced labor and higher likelihood of a C-section. Women whose labor was induced were twice as likely to have a cesarean. The authors said more research is needed to clarify if there's a cause-and-effect relationship.

Many medical experts consider cesarean deliveries to be a major component of "overtreatment" in the U.S. — procedures and tests that provide little or no benefit while subjecting patients to additional risks. Indeed, new clinical recommendations say vaginal birth is safe for most women who've had a first C-section.

But the trend does not appear likely to reverse. Since the mid-1990s, the C-section rate in the U.S. has increased by more than 50 percent.

How low should it be? In Scandinavian countries it hovers in the 20 percent range, with no evidence of ill-effects for mothers or babies, Zhang said. How high can it go? In some countries 60 percent to 70 percent of babies are now delivered surgically.

"I hope that we won't get there," said Zhang. "The upward trajectory seems likely to continue in the near future."

Explaining the increase in C-sections is no simple matter. The study found a variety of reasons, some related, including heavier moms and babies, women giving birth later in life, an increase the number of twins and multiple births, and evidence that doctors may be opting for a cesarean if women encounter difficulties in the early stages of labor.

One factor that made no difference was whether the mother had private health insurance or was covered through a government program like Medicaid.

The study was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

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Prostate biopsy can cause urinary, erectile problems

2010-08-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Biopsies taken to diagnose prostate cancer commonly cause temporary erectile dysfunction and, in some cases, lingering urinary problems, according to a new study.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Urology, highlight the fact that even the tests for diagnosing prostate cancer can have side effects.

And men who are undergoing prostate biopsies -- as well as those considering prostate cancer screening -- should be aware of those risks, experts say.

This is especially important for men facing the prospect of multiple biopsies, since the risk of side effects appears to be related to the number of needle sticks used.

For the study, German researchers followed 198 men who had been randomly assigned to undergo one of three forms of biopsy to check for suspected prostate cancer: a standard biopsy, where a needle was used to take no more than 10 tissue samples; a 10-sample biopsy along with the use of a periprostatic nerve block to lessen any pain from the procedure; or a "saturation" biopsy, where 20 tissue samples were taken.

Saturation biopsies may be done in some cases where the doctor suspects a man has a particularly elevated risk of having cancer -- such as a man who has had a negative biopsy in the past yet has persistently suspicious findings on PSA screening tests. Taking more tissue samples during the biopsy should increase the chances of finding any tumor.

But all those needle sticks may come at a cost, the study found.

Men who underwent saturation biopsies had the highest risk of developing lingering problems with urination, such as straining to pass urine and frequent nighttime trips to the bathroom.

Of that group, 10 percent reported severe symptoms before the biopsy; that figure increased to 18 percent one week after the test, and to 29 percent 12 weeks afterward.

Men who'd had a standard biopsy showed an increase in urinary symptoms only in the first week. The percentage reporting moderate symptoms increased from roughly 32 percent to 39 percent, and the proportion with severe symptoms rose from 18 percent to 20.5 percent.

Among men who'd had a biopsy with nerve block, just 0.6 percent reported severe urinary symptoms before the test. That rose to 8 percent one week afterward, and to almost 17 percent by week 12 -- though that latter finding was not statistically significant, which means it could have been due to chance.

When it came to erectile function, men in all three biopsy groups had more problems one week after the test. The side effect did, however, gradually decrease over time.

Among men in both the standard biopsy and saturation-biopsy groups, just over half reported severe erectile dysfunction one week after the test -- up from around one-quarter before. In the nerve-block group, that rate rose from 11 percent to 39 percent.

By week 12, the men's rates of erectile problems had declined to close to their baseline levels.

The findings are "not unexpected," said Dr. Paul Schellhammer, a urologist at Sentara Health System/Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk who was not involved in the research.

However, he noted in an interview, there has been little study into the urinary and erectile side effects of prostate biopsies.

"This study begins to define the risks," said Schellhammer, who has studied the effects of prostate cancer treatment on men's sexual and urinary function.

Men facing repeat biopsies over time -- whatever the type of biopsy -- should be particularly aware of the chances for side effects, Schellhammer told Reuters Health, since it appears that the greater the number of needle-sticks into the prostate, the greater the odds of lingering urinary problems.

It is not clear from this study exactly why men undergoing saturation biopsy had a greater risk of longer term urinary symptoms, according to lead researcher Dr. Tobias Klein of Marienhospital Herne in Germany.

But it is possible, he told Reuters Health in an email, that damage to the "neurovascular bundle" -- a complex of nerves and blood vessels close to the prostate -- plays a role.

The fact that prostate biopsies carry some risks -- which, besides the ones seen in this study, include more-immediate problems like bleeding and infection -- also has implications for men considering prostate cancer screening, according to Schellhammer.

Routine screening with PSA testing is controversial. The tests measure concentrations of prostate-specific antigen, a protein produced by the prostate gland whose blood levels generally rise when a prostate tumor is present; however, a relatively high PSA does not necessarily mean cancer, and a biopsy must be done to confirm. And those biopsies often turn out to be negative.

In the current study, 40 percent of the men were found to have cancer after their prostate biopsy.

Much of the concern about PSA testing revolves around the fact that prostate tumors are often slow-growing, and screening may result in many men being treated for cancers that would never have caused them problems. So those treatments -- with their risks of side effects like erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence -- can do more harm than good for some men.

But men should also be aware, Schellhammer said, that prostate biopsies can have side effects as well, and that can be considered when they are making decisions on PSA screening.

He added that the findings are also relevant to men diagnosed with prostate cancer who choose "active surveillance" -- where the doctor does not immediately treat the cancer, but instead monitors its progression. That surveillance, Schellhammer noted, might include yearly biopsies.

SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/wew28n Journal of Urology, online August 19, 2010.

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Clinical Trials Update: Aug. 30, 2010

2010-08-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

(HealthDay News) -- Here are the latest clinical trials, courtesy of ClinicalConnection.com:

Migraine

This study is for females who have at least two migraine attacks per month just before or during the menstrual cycle. If you qualify, the investigational medication and study exams will be provided at no cost.

The research site is in Plano, Texas.

More information

Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/migraine.aspx.

-----

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

This study will evaluate an investigational irritable bowel syndrome drug. You may qualify if you are aged 18 to 79, have at least 28 stools over a seven-day period, and have moderate-to-severe pain in the abdomen.

The research site is in Burbank, Calif.

More information

Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/ibs.aspx.

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

This study is for people who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. You may qualify if you have trouble getting organized, paying attention, finishing tasks and often feel distracted.

The research site is in Seattle, Wash.

More information

Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/adhd.aspx.

-----

Copyright 2010 ClinicalConnection.com. All rights reserved.

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Pediatric Group Issues New Flu Shot Guidelines

2010-08-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, Aug. 30 (HealthDay News) -- All children and adolescents 6 months of age and older should receive the annual trivalent influenza vaccine this flu season, according to updated recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The AAP also says special efforts should be made to immunize anyone who falls into the following categories: all family members, household contacts and out-of-home care providers of children younger than 5 years of age; children with high-risk conditions such as asthma, diabetes and neurological disorders; health care workers; and pregnant women.

These groups are most vulnerable to flu-related complications, the academy pointed out in a news release.

Two influenza vaccines were recommended last year but only one trivalent vaccine is being made for the 2010-11 seasonal influenza vaccine schedule. In this year's trivalent vaccine, the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) strain has replaced last year's influenza A (H1N1) strain. The new vaccine also includes two other strains of flu virus.

The seasonal flu vaccine policy statement was released online Monday and will be published in the October print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Other recommendations included in the policy statement are as follows:

Children younger than 6 months of age should not receive influenza vaccine because they are too young.
For children 9 years of age and older, only one dose is needed.
For children younger than 9 years but older than 6 months, a minimum of two doses of 2009 pandemic H1N1 vaccine is needed. If they already received the H1N1 vaccine during last year's flu season, one dose of vaccine is needed this year, otherwise they will need two doses of seasonal influenza vaccine this year.
Those under 9 years of age who have never received the seasonal flu vaccine before will need two doses this year.
Children younger than 9 years who received seasonal flu vaccine last year for the first time, but only received one dose, should receive two doses this year.
Also, those under 9 years who received a flu vaccine last year, but for whom it is unclear whether it was a seasonal flu vaccine or the H1N1 flu vaccine, should receive two doses this year.
All children who are recommended to get two doses this year should receive the second dose at least four weeks after the first dose.

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Medicare expands coverage to help smokers quit

2010-08-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON – They've lived with the health warnings about smoking for much of their lives and doubtless seen the ill effects on friends, relatives and even themselves, yet about 4.5 million older people in the U.S. keep on lighting up. Medicare is finally catching up to most private insurers by providing counseling for anyone on the program who's trying to kick the habit.

Dr. Barry Straube, Medicare's chief medical officer, says it's never too late to quit, even for lifelong smokers.

"The elderly can respond to smoking cessation counseling even if they have been smoking for 30 years or more," says Straube. "We do know we can see a reduction in the death rate and complications from smoking-related illnesses." Not only cancer, heart disease and lung problems, which can kill, but also gastric reflux, osteoporosis and other ailments that undermine quality of life.

Smoking-related illnesses cost Medicare tens of billions a year. Straube cites a two-decade estimate of $800 billion, from 1995 through 2015.

Medicare already covers drugs used to help smokers quit, as well as counseling for those who have developed a smoking-related illness. But starting immediately, the program will expand the benefit to cover up to eight counseling sessions a year for people who want to quit.

Next year, such counseling will be free, under a provision in President Barack Obama's health care law that eliminates co-payments for preventive services.

Older smokers often don't get as much attention from doctors as do younger ones. "They just figure, 'Well, it's too late,'" said Straube, that the damage is already done. That may start to change now.

About one in 10 seniors smoke, compared with one in five people among the U.S. population as a whole. It turns out that smokers age 65 and older present a medical paradox.

Many started when it was fashionable to light up. They are more likely than younger smokers to be seriously hooked on nicotine and less likely to attempt quitting. But research shows that their odds of success are greater if they do try to give up the habit.

Older smokers who receive counseling are significantly more likely to quit than those who only get standard medical care. One study of elderly heart attack patients found that those who got counseling to help quit smoking were more likely to be alive five years later.

It's unclear why older people who try to quit have better luck than younger smokers.

Some experts think it's because older smokers are more motivated, perhaps from having seen a loved one die of cancer or heart disease, or by recognizing how the cigarette habit has left its mark in their own bodies, anything from wrinklier skin to shortness of breath.

Straube has his own theory: "They're under less stress," he said. "They are not working anymore, and they have more time."

Medicare's new smoking cessation benefit will also be available to younger people who are covered by the program because of a disability. About 1 million of them are smokers.

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ER visits for concussions soar among kid athletes

2010-08-30T00:37:00.000-07:00

CHICAGO – Emergency room visits for school-age athletes with concussions has skyrocketed in recent years, suggesting the intensity of kids' sports has increased along with awareness of head injuries.

The findings in a study of national data don't necessarily mean that concussions are on the rise. However, many children aren't taken for medical treatment, so the numbers are likely only a snapshot of a much bigger problem, doctors say.

"It definitely is a disturbing trend," said lead author Dr. Lisa Bakhos, an ER physician in Neptune, N.J.

The study examined concussions in organized youth sports involving ages 8 to 19. ER visits for 14- to 19-year-olds more than tripled, from about 7,000 in 1997 to nearly 22,000 in 2007. Among ages 8 to 13, visits doubled, from 3,800 to almost 8,000.

While awareness has increased, many parents, coaches and players still don't understand how serious concussions can be, Bakhos said. Many often seem less concerned with the injury than with how soon kids can return to sports.

"They want to know if they can play tomorrow, and you're just like, 'No!'" she said. "It's not just as simple as get up, shake it off and you'll be fine.

"If they're not treated properly, with rest, then they can have long-term problems," Bakhos said. Those include learning difficulties, memory problems and chronic headaches.

The study appears in Pediatrics, published online Monday, along with a report about sports-related concussions from the American Academy of Pediatrics' sports medicine council.

A concussion means the brain has been jostled. Symptoms aren't always obvious. There usually is no loss of consciousness. And a concussion doesn't show up on an imaging scan unless there is bruising or bleeding.

Symptoms can include headache, nausea, dizziness and trouble concentrating, and may last about a week. Sometimes it can take months to recover.

Potential concussions should not be "toughed out," say the authors of the Pediatrics report. Affected athletes should always be examined by a doctor or someone else with medical expertise.

Treatment is mainly rest — both physically and mentally, avoiding activities that require concentration and focus. That may mean reducing schoolwork or staying home. Video games, computer use and TV can worsen symptoms and should be avoided, the academy report says. Some doctors advise against aspirin and similar painkillers right after a head injury because they might raise the risk for brain bleeding.

Above all, anyone with a concussion should not return to sports or other physical exertion until their symptoms have disappeared.

"If you go back in too early, that can be devastating," said Dr. Kevin Walter, co-author of the report and a concussions specialist at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Resuming sports too soon risks another concussion that could be deadly or cause permanent brain damage, he said.

A concussion should not be dismissed as "not a big deal," Walter said. "In my mind, how the hell can a brain injury not be big deal?" he said.

Sports-related concussions have made recent headlines because of research about brain damage, depression and memory problems including Alzheimer's disease in retired NFL players who had repeat concussions.

Researchers believe young athletes may be more vulnerable than adults to lasting damage from these head injuries because their brains are still developing. Several states have adopted or are considering tougher limits on when athletes can resume play after a concussion, as have some schools, amateur leagues and the NFL.

Dr. Michael Koester, chairman of a sports medicine committee at the National Federation of State High School Associations, said young athletes increasingly are playing and practicing year-round to stay competitive, a trend that increases chances for injury.

Evan Nolte, 16, a top high school basketball player in Atlanta, says the injuries "are more serious than people think."

Evan hit his head hard on the floor during a tournament earlier this year when he dived for a ball and another player landed on top of him. He didn't think he had a concussion, and only sat out several minutes before returning to the game.

A few days later, he was elbowed in the head in another game. Evan sat out the rest of the game, feeling disoriented. His doctor diagnosed a concussion the next day and told him to avoid sports for a few weeks. When Evan had trouble focusing in class, and complained that his head was spinning, his parents took him to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's concussion clinic.

The clinic is among an increasing number of centers nationwide that use computerized or written tests to measure mental function after concussions. Evan's results showed some deficits. His scores improved after several days, but it took him about a month to feel 100 percent.

Now he's back to training. At 6-feet-7, Evan plays competitively 10 months of the year and plans to play in college. Coaches from top schools have already shown interest.

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Weight loss cuts risk of pregnancy complication

2010-08-30T00:36:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Losing the weight gained during pregnancy is a real struggle for many new mothers. But dropping just 10 pounds between pregnancies may help many women diagnosed with a dangerous complication during the first pregnancy to avoid a recurrence the second time around.

Preeclampsia, which is characterized by high blood pressure, protein in the urine and swelling, occurs in about 5 percent of American pregnancies every year.

"It can be more systemic than just high blood pressure. It can affect the liver, kidneys and the body's blood clotting system," Dr. Dorothea Mostello told Reuters Health. It's one of the leading causes of maternal death in childbirth in the developed world, she added.

Mostello, based at the St. Louis School of Medicine, is lead author of a new study in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Mostello and colleagues wanted to know if women could do anything to reduce their risk of a recurrence during a second pregnancy.

Previous research by the team showed that pre-pregnancy weight is one of the "strongest risk factors for recurrence." Because other research suggests that losing even a small amount of weight offers health benefits, such as reduced risk of heart disease, they wanted to know if it would reduce the risk of preeclampsia too.

They analyzed the medical records of nearly 18,000 Missouri women who gave birth twice between 1989 and 2005 and developed preeclampsia during the first pregnancy.

Before their second pregnancies, 1417 of the women had weighed less than before their first, 8,783 had remained about the same, and 8,798 had weighed more. The women who maintained their weights were used as the control group.

Overall, about 16 percent of these Missouri women developed preeclampsia during their second pregnancies. Of the women who had lost weight between pregnancies, 13 percent had a recurrence while 15 percent of women who maintained their weight and nearly 19 percent of those who gained weight had a recurrence.

Small changes in maternal weight between pregnancies -- as little as 10 pounds for an average height overweight woman -- "significantly alter the risk of preeclampsia recurrence," across all weight categories, the authors note.

"If you are overweight and you lose weight, your rate (of preeclampsia recurrence) is as low as someone in the normal weight category, and if you are overweight and gain weight, your rate is as high as someone in the obese category. Similarly, if normal weight people gain weight they have as high a risk as overweight people," Mostello said.

Researchers don't know why some women develop preeclampsia and others don't. Being African American appears to be a risk factor, so is being overweight or obese. While a woman can't do anything about her genetics, she may be able to reduce her risk of a recurrence by "modest, generally achievable degrees of weight loss before pregnancy," the authors conclude.

Few options exist for lowering a woman's risk of developing preeclampsia in her second pregnancy, the authors write. Losing weight between pregnancies "is the most reasonable measure to meaningfully lower the risk," they conclude.

"Most weight-loss programs can get you a 10 or 15 pound weight loss," Mostello said.

The findings also underscore the need for uninterrupted healthcare between pregnancies, Mostello said. "This is the period where we can make a real difference," she said.

SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/cyg77n Obstetrics & Gynecology September 2010.

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Child health at risk from non-prescription drugs: study

2010-08-30T00:34:00.000-07:00

LISBON (AFP) – Many parents give their children too large or frequent doses of non-prescription medicines for fever, coughs and colds, putting their health at risk, according to an Australian study released Monday.

"Many children are being put at risk by parents? over-use of widely-available over the counter medicines for fever, coughs and colds," concluded the study by University of Sydney researchers presented at a conference of the International Pharmaceutical Federation.

"We were surprised and concerned to find that some people thought that medicines must be safe because you can buy them without prescription", said Rebekah Moles, who headed up the study of 97 parents and day care centre employees.

"Taking all the scenarios together, 44 percent of participants would have given an incorrect dose, and only 64 percent were able to measure accurately the dose they intended to give", said Moles.

Only 14 percent managed the fever scenario correctly.

The noted that 48 percent of calls in 2008 to the New South Wales Poisons Information Centre, which receives all out of hours calls from around Australia, concerned accidental overdose in children, with 15 percent needing hospitalisation.

Australia is unlikely to be a special case, the researchers said, and they believe that the inappropriate use of children's medicines is widespread throughout the world.

"It is vital that parents worldwide should understand the proper usage of medicines so that they do not continue to put their children's health at risk," said Moles.

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One More Way to Avoid Diabetes: Breastfeed

2010-08-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

New moms know that breastfeeding can be good for babies, providing them with much-needed nutrition as well as a shot of antibodies and other cells that help build immune systems. Now, evidence suggests that the practice may keep the mothers themselves healthier too.

Researchers led by Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz at University of Pittsburgh found that women who breastfeed are half as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as women who do not. That's a big statistical difference, and although it's not clear what is behind the gap, scientists speculate that it has something to do with pregnancy pounds that expectant moms gain. Breastfeeding helps moms lose the abdominal fat they gain during pregnancy more efficiently. And while abdominal - or visceral - fat is important for the gestating baby's development, it can be detrimental to a mother's health if it continues to build after delivery, since it's been linked to greater risk of metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and heart disease as well as diabetes.

"When you look at mammals, you have to consider lactation as part of the pregnancy experience," says Schwarz. "When women don't breastfeed after pregnancy, or lactation is curtailed or prematurely discontinued, women end up retaining more fat than they would have if they breastfed. Then the mother's health can suffer." (Read about mothers opting for breast-milk, not breastfeeding.)

Animal studies have helped reveal other reasons this is so. Breastfeeding, those studies found, can increase a mother's response to insulin, allowing her to break down glucose more effectively and keep sugar metabolism in check. Lactation also inhibits hormones that promote growth hormone activity, which can also affect insulin levels. In addition, studies have shown that when women do develop diabetes during pregnancy, known as gestational diabetes, breastfeeding the newborn can improve their glucose metabolism and help stabilize the condition. (See photos of pregnant belly art.)

Despite the growing body of research establishing the health benefits of breastfeeding, moms in the U.S. remain resistant.The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that new mothers breastfeed their infants for at least six months, yet only 14% of women do. For the 86% who don't, Schwarz says lifestyle interventions such as exercise and changes in the diet can go a long way toward lowering their diabetes risk - even if it doesn't replace the health dividends the babies would be receiving if they were breastfed. "This [study] shows that perhaps counseling these women to try to reduce their personal risk of developing diabetes should be something that doctors should consider," says Schwarz. "And if you are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant, or currently breastfeeding, then stick with it because it's important to both your baby's and your own health."

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Link Between Diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease Strengthened

2010-08-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Two of the most common and dreaded illnesses in America may share a connection, with new research suggesting that having insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes raises your risk of developing the brain plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease.

After adjusting for other risk factors, the Japanese study found that people with the highest levels of fasting insulin had nearly six times the odds of having plaque deposits between nerves in the brain, compared to people with the lowest levels of fasting insulin.

Those with the highest scores on a measure of insulin resistance (where cells become less able to use insulin effectively) had about five times the odds of having brain plaques vs. those with the lowest scores on the insulin-resistance test, the study found.

In fact, "the risk of plaque-type Alzheimer's disease pathology increases in a linear relationship with diabetes-related factors," according to one study author, Dr. Kensuke Sasaki, an assistant professor in the department of neuropathology at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan.

Results of the study appear in the Aug. 25 online issue of Neurology.

Both type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease have been rapidly increasing in incidence, so much so that experts worry the illnesses may overwhelm the health-care system in the coming years if nothing is done.

While numerous studies have found a link between cognitive decline and dementia in people with type 2 diabetes, the current study sought to determine the reason for that link.

Using autopsies from 135 Japanese adults, the researchers were able to compare if different indicators of insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes correlated with the development of plaque deposits between the nerves in the brain (neuritic plaques) or neurofibrillary tangles, which are found in dying cells in the brain. Plaques and tangles are thought by many to be the two main causes of the destruction of brain tissue seen in Alzheimer's disease.

All of those autopsied died between 1998 and 2003. In 1988, they had undergone numerous tests as part of an ongoing study on brain and heart health. The tests included an oral 2-hour glucose tolerance test, fasting blood sugar and insulin levels, and a measurement of insulin resistance using a test called homeostasis assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR).

The researchers adjusted the data to control for age, sex, blood pressure, cholesterol, body-mass index, smoking, exercise and cerebrovascular disease.

They found no association between diabetes risk factors and the development of tangles. However, higher levels of blood sugar two hours after eating, high fasting insulin levels and an elevated HOMA-IR score were associated with an increased risk of developing plaques. Fasting blood sugar levels were not associated with an increased risk of plaques, according to the study.

When the researchers compared varying levels of diabetes risk factors, such as fasting insulin, they found a linear association with the development of plaques. For example, fasting insulin was broken into three groups: low, medium and high. The low group didn't have an increased risk of plaques, while the medium group had more than twice the risk of brain plaques, and those in the high group had a six times higher risk of plaques than those in the low group.

The researchers also performed a separate analysis to see if the presence of a gene long implicated in Alzheimer's disease (ApoE4) would have an effect on the association between diabetes risk factors and the development of plaques. It did: Those with the ApoE4 gene has the strongest association between high blood sugar levels, insulin resistance and fasting insulin levels and the development of plaques.

"Research has been linking diabetes to dementia, and probably to Alzheimer's, and this study is one more bit of evidence to say that we'd better get a handle on this," said Dr. Richard Bergenstal, president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association.

Bergenstal said this study's findings are likely applicable to people with both type 2 and type 1 diabetes, and possibly to those with pre-diabetes, as well.

"This study fits into a body of literature looking at the relationship between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. This area is being pretty aggressively researched for a number of reasons. Would better control of type 2 diabetes improve the cognitive fate of those with the disease, and is there some way we can intervene in glucose metabolism that might affect Alzheimer's?" said William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer for the Alzheimer's Association.

"If you have diabetes, it's certainly a good idea to keep it under control while we're sorting out the research," Bergenstal said.

"Although we don't know anything that can prevent Alzheimer's disease right now, I do think there are a lot of good reasons for people to try to prevent type 2 diabetes, much of which can potentially be avoided with regular physical activity and weight maintenance," said Thies. "Preventing or controlling diabetes is good for all kinds of reasons, and also because it might contribute to your risk of Alzheimer's disease."

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FDA releases latest list of safety issues

2010-08-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released its latest list of possible drug safety concerns, citing Roche's breast cancer drug Herceptin and Sanofi Aventis' heart drug Multaq, among others.

The list, which comes out quarterly, covers safety issues that the FDA flagged between April and June and was released on the agency's website on Friday.

Other drugs listed include Merck & Co Inc's birth control Implanon, Pfizer's antibiotic Cleocin and Novartis' Afinitor.

Takeda Pharmaceutical's gout management drug Uloric, AMAG Pharmaceutical's anemia drug Feraheme and Shire Plc's phosphate binder Fosrenol were also included, among others.

In most cases, the FDA offered few clues into what the concerns were and simply said the agency "is continuing to evaluate this issue to determine the need for any regulatory action."

Merck's cholesterol drug Zocor, Genentech's HIV drug Invirase and various GnRH agonists were also listed, but the agency has already issued more specific safety alerts on those drugs. Genentech is a unit of Roche.

Johnson & Johnson's Nucynta, a pain treatment, was also listed as having a risk of convulsions, hallucinations and serotonin syndrome.

FDA also named omeprazole products, used to treat ulcers, saying there is a risk the drug could cause low levels of magnesium in the blood.

The drug manufacturers were not immediately available for comment.

The list is online at: http://link.reuters.com/myg77n

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by John Wallace and Richard Chang)

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Doctors look for orange-size lump, find 56-pounder

2010-08-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Doctors were shocked when they looked into a woman's uterus searching for an orange-size tumor but found something that resembled a giant rock instead.

Surgeons ended up removing a 56-pound (23-kilogram) tumor from the 54-year-old woman. It was 19 inches (50 centimeters) across.

"At first sight, one could see it was going to be a big tumor, but not that big," said Dr. Oscar Lopez, leader of the surgical team that operated on the woman at Gandulfo Hospital in the city of Lomas de Zamora.

"We were totally shocked," Lopez added Thursday in discussing the procedure that was conducted earlier this year.

Stunning perhaps, but not the biggest. News stories and medical reports say that was a 303-pound (137.6-kilogram) ovarian cyst removed in 1991 in California, and other growths exceeding 100 pounds (45.5 kilograms) have been reported.

A biopsy determined the growth removed at Gandulfo Hospital was a sarcoma, a malignant tumor, and the patient is being monitored by doctors after spending five days in the hospital following the surgery.

The woman, a housewife, who prefers to remain anonymous, weighed 343 pounds (140 kilograms) at the time of the surgery, which lasted four hours and involved eight surgeons — about double the time and staff usually needed.

Lopez said the woman had felt a constant growth in her abdomen for a year and a half, but just thought she was gaining weight.

Finally, she consulted doctors and it was determined she needed surgery, and the tumor was removed a couple of months ago, he said.

Lopez said that before removing tumors, surgeons generally puncture a growth in various places to remove liquid, but in this case the tumor remained solid.

"We thought the tumor could be reduced to an orange's size, but it was totally solid," he said.

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New Study: Young Children Surprisingly Perceptive

2010-08-30T00:23:00.000-07:00

The way they weep and vomit without warning, it's tempting to think that preschoolers are incapable of rational thought. As biologist and emeritus Harvard professor Edward Wilson has written, a prevailing view - one promoted by the famed developmental theorist Jean Piaget - has long been that very young children are "reflex-dominated" and "egocentric": in other words, they see little outside themselves until they reach the age of reason (usually considered to be about 7).

But a paper published recently in the journal Psychological Science shows that very young children can be far more attuned to the "desires, preferences, beliefs [and] emotions" of others, including adults, than the Piaget theory assumes. The paper suggests that young children possess a skill many adults assume they lack: they are able to judge when a human behavior is statistically probable versus when it is unusual. Very young kids, it turns out, often know when adults are not acting as they usually do.

Three psychologists - Tamar Kushnir of Cornell; Fei Xu of the University of California, Berkeley; and Henry Wellman, who chairs the Center for Human Growth & Development at the University of Michigan - conducted the two experiments that went into the paper. For the first experiment, the scientists recruited 72 preschoolers (average age: 4 years, 1 month) from a small, unnamed Midwest city. They put the kids into a room with various boxes containing two different types of toys such as small plush baseballs and basketballs. The kids were told that a puppet that looked liked a squirrel (which was creatively called "Squirrel") liked one group of toys - either the baseballs or the basketballs - but not other.

The different boxes in the room contained different proportions of the two types of toys. The conditions of the game changed with different groups to ensure randomness, but just for purposes of explanation, let's look at the group of kids that was told that Squirrel liked to play with baseballs and not basketballs. Three boxes were opened in front of the kids. One had only 18% baseballs; another contained half baseballs and half basketballs; the last had all baseballs.

The children were then asked to pick toys for Squirrel. And something interesting happened: when the boxes containing only 18% baseballs were opened, the preschoolers usually chose to give one of the baseballs to the Squirrel. When the boxes contained half baseballs were opened, the kids would sometimes pick one for him and sometimes pick a basketball - or do nothing. And when the boxes that contained all baseballs were opened, the kids would often just sit there. Maybe they would wanly hand a baseball to Squirrel. After all, didn't Squirrel understand his own preference? He could take whatever he wanted on his own. For the researchers, this was evidence that preschoolers can understand how other people's desire works: they can take what they want.

The authors say this is the first scientific "evidence that young children can use intuitive statistical abilities to infer a psychological cause - a preference." Anyone who has ever had to mind children sharing toys in a sandbox may argue they have seen similar behavior, but this is the first time we have clear data that kids pay attention to proportions when they think about preference. Even preschoolers, in other words, can see that some people might need more help getting what they want when less is available to them.

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Girl-band star escapes jail over HIV infection

2010-08-30T00:21:00.000-07:00

DARMSTADT, Germany (Reuters) – A German pop singer who confessed to knowingly exposing two men to the risk of HIV after finding out she had the virus herself was convicted by a court on Thursday of grievous bodily harm.

Nadja Benaissa, 28, from German girl-band No Angels was given a two-year suspended sentence. She could have faced up to 10 years in jail. Prosecutors had sought a lenient sentence because Benaissa had confessed and expressed remorse.

"I made a huge mistake," Benaissa told the Darmstadt court in western Germany at the end of the trial on Wednesday, adding she had kept it all a secret because she was afraid of what would happen if the public learned she had been HIV-positive.

"I was a coward," she said. "I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. I wish I could turn back the clock and make it all not happen."

Benaissa was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm in one instance for infecting a 34-year-old talent agent, and attempted grievous bodily harm for another occasion when she had unprotected sex with another man between 2000 and 2004.

She was also required to perform 300 hours of community service and submit to regular counseling sessions.

The talent agent later contracted full-blown AIDS, while the other man was not infected with HIV. Benaissa said she had been aware she was HIV-positive since a routine blood test taken during her pregnancy in 1999, when she was 17.

Both state prosecutor Peter Liesenfeld and her defense attorney Oliver Wallasch had sought a suspended sentence. Liesenfeld told reporters her full confession and expression of regret were the main reasons for the leniency.

Born in Frankfurt to a German mother and a Moroccan father, Benaissa and four others formed No Angels in 2000 after taking part in a television casting show.

The band became of the most successful girl-groups in Germany with hits such as "Daylight in Your Eyes" that were popular across Europe.

Benaissa, who has also worked as an actress in Germany, was initially arrested on the charge in April last year and spent 10 days in detention.

Prosecutors' publication of her medical condition sparked criticism that she had been unfairly treated.

(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Steve Addison)

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Older Diabetes Patients Still Sexually Active, Study Finds

2010-08-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Most older adults with diabetes are sexually active but the disease does cause some problems with intimacy, a new study found.

U.S. researchers surveyed 1,993 people, aged 57 to 85, and found that nearly 70 percent of partnered men with diabetes and 62 percent of partnered women with diabetes had sex two or three times a month, which is comparable to people the same age without diabetes.

However, compared with men without diabetes, diabetic men were more likely to lack interest in sex and to experience erectile dysfunction. Men and women with diabetes reported a higher rate of orgasm problems, such as climaxing too soon (men) or not at all (men and women).

The study, published in the September issue of the journal Diabetes Care, also found that 47 percent of men with diabetes had discussed sexual problems with a doctor, compared with only 19 percent of diabetic women. Men were much more likely than women to initiate this type of discussion.

"Patients and doctors need to know that most middle-age and older adults with partners are still sexually active despite their diabetes. However, many people with diabetes have sexual problems that are not being addressed," study lead author Dr. Stacy Lindau, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of medicine at the University of Chicago, said in a university news release.

"Failure to recognize and address sexual issues among middle-age and older adults with diabetes may impair quality of life and adaptation to the disease," added senior author Dr. Marshall Chin, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "Sexual problems are common in patients with diabetes, and many patients are not discussing these issues with their physicians."

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'Thirdhand Smoke' Especially Harmful For Asthma Sufferers

2010-08-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

Components in cigarette smoke that linger long after the cigarette has been extinguished can pose their own health risks, especially for asthma sufferers, according to a new study.

"Thirdhand smoke" - the residue that can persist for months after a cigarette is put out - can react with pollutant ozone to form tiny, potentially harmful particles.

These "ultrafine" particles, less than 100 nanometers wide, can make their way deep into a person's lungs and could present a bigger threat to asthma sufferers than nicotine itself, said study researcher Mohamad Sleiman, a chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter. The diameter of a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers.)

"Ultrafine particles have the capacity to carry and deposit potentially harmful organic chemicals deep into the lower respiratory tract," Sleiman said. "It's been well established by others that the elderly and the very young are at greatest risk" from these types of particles.

Thirdhand smoke

The dangers of firsthand and secondhand tobacco smoke, which contain several thousand chemical toxins distributed as particles or gases, have been well documented. Then, in February, a study conducted by Sleiman and his colleagues revealed the potential health hazards of thirdhand smoke from cigarettes. It was shown to react with nitrous acid, a common indoor air pollutant, to produce dangerous carcinogens.

Until now, however, no studies have looked at the reaction of nicotine with ozone.

Released as a vapor by the burning of tobacco, nicotine is a strong and persistent adsorbent onto indoor surfaces that can be released back into the indoor air for a period of months after smoking has ceased. Ozone is a common urban pollutant that infiltrates from outdoor air through ventilation and has been linked to health problems, including asthma and respiratory ailments.

The researchers found that when nicotine reacts with ozone, some of the products place higher up on a scale of particles hazardous to asthma sufferers than nicotine itself, said study researcher Lara Gundel, also of Berkeley National Laboratory.

Backfiring purifiers

The findings suggest using air purifiers that emit ozone to clear out the smell of tobacco smoke may not be such a good idea.

The researchers caution that the levels of both ozone and nicotine in their study were at the high end of typical indoor conditions.

"In addition, we need to do further investigations to verify that the formation of ultrafine particles occurs under a range of real-world conditions," Sleiman said. "However, given the high levels of nicotine measured indoors when smoking takes place regularly and the significant yield of ultrafine particles formation in our study, our findings suggest [a] new link between asthma and exposure to secondhand and thirdhand smoke."

The study was published online in the July 29 journal Atmospheric Environment.

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Anemia Drug May Raise Stroke Risk in Kidney Patients

2009-11-02T23:27:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY, Oct. 31 (HealthDay News) -- A drug designed to fight anemia appears to double the risk of stroke in patients with diabetes and kidney disease without substantially improving their quality of life, a new study finds.

Darbepoetin alfa, marketed as Aranesp and known as an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA), is often prescribed for diabetic patients with chronic kidney disease and mild anemia.

"The benefits we assumed we would have by treating anemia were less striking and the risks were more striking," said lead researcher Dr. Marc A. Pfeffer, a professor of medicine in the cardiovascular division of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"This provides new data for doctors and patients to make their own risk-benefit assessment," he said. "There was a perception that treating anemia would make people feel so much better that we'll take risks, but the benefit in quality of life was not as great as we thought, and there was a clear doubling of your risk for a stroke."

The report was published in the Oct. 30 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with its scheduled presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology in San Diego.

For the study, Pfeffer's team randomly assigned more than 4,000 patients with diabetes, chronic kidney disease and anemia to receive Aranesp or placebo. During the study, 632 patients receiving Aranesp died or suffered a cardiovascular event, compared to 602 of the patients receiving placebo.

As well, 101 patients taking Aranesp had a fatal or non-fatal stroke compared with 53 of the placebo patients, the researchers found. In addition, patients taking Aranesp reported only a modest improvement in their fatigue, the researchers noted.

In earlier studies, Aranesp and a similar drug, epoetin alfa, marketed as Procrit or Epogen, were linked to increased risk of death in cancer and stroke patients.

Pfeffer believes that people with more severe kidney disease, such as those on dialysis, might still find Aranesp beneficial and the risk acceptable.

"People on dialysis generally feel even worse and generally have even more severe anemia, and this class of therapy has been very helpful to them," he said.

Because the drug was beneficial to these patients, doctors assumed it would help less severely anemic patients, Pfeffer said.

"But this use of ESAs exceeded the data," he said. "Now we have the data, and we will revisit how the drug is used now."

Dr. Phillip Marsden, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and author of an accompanying journal editorial, said these findings mean that doctors and patients will have to discuss whether or not to start the medication.

"For most of these patients, the modest improvement in quality of life will not be enough to subject themselves to the increased risk of stroke and death," he said.

ESAs have been used for two decades, Marsden noted. "It is a bit shocking that it took us 20 years to address whether or not these drugs were safe -- and now we know more."

Dr. Ajay Singh, clinical chief of the renal division and director of dialysis at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said this "landmark study" raises the fundamental question of whether epoetin or darbepoetin should routinely be used in treating anemia of chronic kidney disease.

"Earlier studies raised the specter of increased risk with ESA treatment. This study definitively confirms that there is meaningful risk with routine use of ESAs," said Singh, also an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"In my own practice, I will be cautious in using ESAs for most patients with chronic kidney disease, balancing risk with benefits and reserving treatment largely for patients who need frequent blood transfusions or who are candidates for a kidney transplant," he said.

More information

For more information on ESAs, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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Neurotic? It could lead to asthma

2009-11-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who are neurotic -- they tend to worry a lot and to have emotional ups and downs -- seem to be at increased risk of developing asthma, a new study hints. Those who suffer through a divorce or other relationship conflict are also at risk for asthma, according to the study.

Animal studies have shown that chronic stress alters hormone levels, which can inflame airways making it difficult to breathe. Researchers believe that neurotic character traits may exert similar effects. If so, then helping neurotic people to calm down or "chill out" could, theoretically, reduce their risk of asthma.

Dr. Adrian Loerbroks from Heidelberg University, Germany and colleagues explored associations between neuroticism, stressful life events and asthma by surveying a sample of 5,114 men and women aged 40 to 65 years from Heidelberg and its surroundings.

Right from the start, they noticed a link between asthma and neuroticism in men, and between asthma and unemployment in both sexes. In women, having broken off a life relationship was associated with having asthma.

Among the 4,520 individuals reported to be free of asthma at the start of the study, 63 or about 2 percent, developed asthma during a median follow-up of more than 8 years, they report in the latest issue of the journal Allergy.

According to the investigators, individuals who were highly neurotic were three times more likely to develop asthma than those who were less neurotic, and breaking off a life partnership increased the risk of asthma development by more than twofold.

The link between high neuroticism and the development of asthma was present in women and men, whereas breaking off a life relationship increased asthma risk only in women.

Unemployment and death of a close person were not significantly associated with the development of asthma, the researchers note.

The researchers call for more study on personality traits, stress and asthma.

"The physiological mechanisms by which personality, stress, and emotions might influence the development or course of asthma," they note, "are still not well known."

SOURCE: Allergy, October 2009.

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New York study says menu labeling affects behavior

2009-11-02T23:18:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New York's mandate that fast-food restaurants post calorie information on their menus has changed consumer habits, the city said on Monday, contradicting a recent independent study showing no effect.

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released preliminary data showing evidence that people bought food with fewer calories at nine of the 13 fast-food and coffee chains included in a study on the effects of menu-labeling laws that went into effect in 2008.

Researchers surveyed more than 10,000 customers at 275 locations in early 2007 and another 12,000 this year.

They found statistically significant decreases at four chains -- McDonald's, Au Bon Pain, KFC and Starbucks -- and said diners who saw and acted on calorie information bought food containing 106 fewer calories on average than those who did not notice the postings.

All told, 56 percent of fast-food customers reported seeing the calorie information, researchers told the annual meeting of the Obesity Society in Washington.

The earlier study by researchers at New York University and Yale University, which included 1,156 adults who ate at Burger King, KFC, McDonald's and Wendy's immediately before and after the rule went into effect, found no change to consumer habits in low-income neighborhoods.

The city's researchers said their study was more representative of dining habits because it included more people over a longer period of time and not limited to outlets in low-income neighborhoods.

In July 2008, New York became the first U.S. city to require fast food restaurants to post calorie counts in large type on menu boards.

The system has since become a model for similar rules intended to combat obesity and promote good nutrition in California, other parts of New York state, the cities of Seattle and Portland, and elsewhere.

Health advocates see menu labeling as a tool for fighting obesity. About one-third of U.S. adults are obese, a condition that increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other medical problems, and another one-third are overweight.

Both the city and New York University studies were funded by the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Lynn Silver, assistant commissioner for New York's Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Control, said government findings show diners are noticing and acting on the labels.

"Dietary change is likely to come gradually; it will start with consumers interested in making informed, healthy eating decisions and we hope industry will respond by offering more healthier choices and appropriate portion sizes," she said in a statement.

But city researchers also found that the labeling laws' influence can be overcome by restaurant marketing.

The privately held Subway restaurant chain, which has promoted its menu as a vehicle for weight loss and healthy eating, posted calorie information on some of its menus before the labeling laws went into effect in 2008.

The number of calories purchased at Subway more than doubled during the study period, which coincided with an advertising campaign to promote larger 12-inch sandwiches. The calorie gain at Subway was roughly the same as losses at seven other food chains, researchers said.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Scientists identify new lethal virus in Africa

2009-05-28T20:14:00.002-07:00

ATLANTA – Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.

It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug comes from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.

"This one is really, really aggressive" he said of the virus.

A paper on the virus by Lipkin and his collaborators was published online Thursday on in PLoS Pathogens.

The outbreak started in September, when a female travel agent who lives on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.

She was airlifted to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died.

A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Johannesburg and died. The three others infected were health care workers in Johannesburg.

Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.

"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.

The name given to the virus — "Lujo" — stems from Lusaka and Johannesburg, the cities where it was first identified.

Investigators in Africa thought the illness might be Ebola, because some of the patients had bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites, said Stuart Nichol, chief of the molecular biology lab in the CDC's Special Pathogens Branch. Other symptoms include include fever, shock, coma and organ failure.

Genetic extracts of blood and liver from the victims were tested at Columbia University in New York, and additional testing was done at CDC in Atlanta. Tests determined it belonged to the arenavirus family, and that it is distantly related to Lassa fever, another disease found in Africa.

The drug ribavirin, which is given to Lassa victims, was given to the fifth Lujo virus patient — a Johannesburg nurse. It's not clear if the medicine made a difference or if she just had a milder case of the disease, but she fully recovered, Nichol said.

The research is a startling example of how quickly scientists can now identify new viruses, Fauci said. Using genetic sequencing techniques, the virus was identified in a matter of a few days — a process that used to take weeks or longer.

Along with Fauci's institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Google also helped fund the research.

__

On the Net:

PLoS Pathogens: http://www.plospathogens.org/home.action

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Stroke group expands time for clot-busting drugs

2009-05-28T20:14:00.001-07:00

DALLAS – A change to stroke treatment guidelines is expanding the time that some patients can get clot-busting drugs. Current recommendations limit the use of the medicine to within three hours after the start of stroke symptoms. That treatment window is now being lengthened to 4 1/2 hours for some patients.

But the committee that made the change stressed that the earlier the treatment, the better for stroke victims.

"They should call the ambulance straight away and get moving," said Dr. Gregory del Zoppo, of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, who headed the committee for the American Heart Association Stroke Council.

The update, published online Thursday in the heart group's journal Stroke, comes after a European study last fall found stroke sufferers still benefited from getting the medicine an hour or so beyond the three-hour window.

The new guideline is expected to increase the number of people who get the treatment. Only about a third of stroke sufferers get help within three hours, and only about 5 percent get the drug now. Many people don't recognize the signs of a stroke: numbness or weakness in the face, arm or leg; trouble speaking, seeing or walking; a sudden, severe headache.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., with about 795,000 people suffering a new or recurrent stroke each year and more than 140,000 people dying. Strokes caused by blood clots are the most common; the clot blocks an artery supplying blood to the brain, which starves brain cells of oxygen. The drug TPA breaks up the clot and opens the artery.

Another member of the committee, Dr. Jeffrey Saver, of the University of California at Los Angeles, said some hospitals extended the time for using the clot dissolver after the European study, while many have been waiting for national guidelines.

He said the change could increase the number of people who get the drug by a third, to 7 or 8 percent of stroke victims.

Dr. Mark D. Johnson, a stroke specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said that the expanded time frame is good news but the emphasis is still on getting treatment sooner rather than later.

"If you were to arrive in 30 minutes, the chances of a better outcome are higher than if you arrive in four hours," said Johnson.

The new guideline notes that some patients should still be restricted to treatment within the three-hour period: people older than 80, those suffering from a severe stroke or with a history of stroke and diabetes or those taking anti-clotting drugs.

___

On the Net:

American Stroke Association: http://www.strokeassociation.org

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CDC says October soonest for swine flu shots

2009-05-28T20:13:00.001-07:00

ATLANTA – A U.S. health official said a swine flu vaccine could be available as early as October, but only if vaccine production and testing run smoothly this summer.

Dr. Anne Schuchat (Shook-it) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency began shipping virus samples to manufacturers in the past several days. The government will have to review the safety and effectiveness of what's produced, and decide if a vaccination campaign is warranted. October is about the time seasonal flu vaccine campaigns generally get rolling.

CDC officials reported more than 8,500 probable and confirmed cases in the U.S., including 12 deaths and more than 500 hospitalizations.

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Congress can learn from Mass., Tenn. health plans

2009-05-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Laid off from her job in Massachusetts, Danielle Marks thought immediately about losing her health insurance. How could she afford the medication and physical therapy she needed to heal after shoulder surgery?

Valerie Nash, laid off in Tennessee, thought about her diabetes. Could she stock up enough test strips and insulin before her coverage expired?

The two women, both briefly uninsured, got covered again thanks to their home states' 3-year-old experiments in expanding health insurance coverage. And while both are mostly pleased with the coverage and low cost of their new state-backed plans, their futures hold plenty of doubt.

Congressional lawmakers can look north to Massachusetts and south to Tennessee for guidance as they craft a national plan to restrain costs and cover the nation's estimated 50 million uninsured.

In Massachusetts, nearly every resident has health insurance, but doctors are turning away new patients, costs to the state are climbing and thousands have paid tax penalties for being uninsured. In Tennessee, that state's much smaller program hasn't cramped the budget, but few people are buying the new insurance even though premiums are as cheap as a monthly cell phone bill.

"The belief that we should all have health insurance coverage is broadly held," said Alan Weil of the nonpartisan National Academy for State Health Policy. "But there are tremendous differences around the country in beliefs on how to achieve that goal."

A Massachusetts-style requirement for individuals to obtain health insurance is likely to emerge as part of the health overhaul taking shape in Congress, although details remain unsettled. A variation of Tennessee's practice of charging higher premiums to smokers and those who are overweight also may emerge; some in Congress are discussing a lifestyle tax on alcohol and sugar-sweetened drinks to help finance the national plan.

In Plymouth, Mass., Marks and her husband, Tad, now pay just $78 a month for state-subsidized insurance that covers doctor visits, prescriptions and hospital stays. Because she's pregnant, Marks, who worked as an administrative assistant until her layoff, pays nothing for her checkups, medicine and vitamins.

But pared-down benefits may lie ahead in Massachusetts because throngs of the newly insured swelled costs of Commonwealth Care to $628 million last year.

And the demand for care is outstripping the number of doctors. One in five Massachusetts adults said a doctor's office or clinic told them they weren't taking new patients with their type of insurance, or they weren't accepting new patients at all, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs.

Massachusetts chose to cover virtually everyone. It set high standards for minimum health insurance and decided to deal with costs later. Soon a state commission expects to call for fundamental changes in the way doctors and hospitals are paid, a plan that amounts to putting them on a financial diet.

"Once you start down the moral path to universal coverage, you inevitably confront costs," said Jon Kingsdale, who directs the board that oversees the state's plan. He and others said Congress can learn the Massachusetts way: coverage first, then cost control.

"If you get everybody covered first, it's easier to deal with costs," Kingsdale said. "If you're going to hold the uninsured hostage to containing costs, you have more than doubled the height to get up this hill."

Tennessee, on the other hand, chose to get just a few more people bare-bones insurance at a budget price with limits on how much plans would pay for hospital stays.

In Chattanooga, Tenn., Nash, who had worked at a car dealership, and her husband, Larry, now pay $193 a month for their state-subsidized coverage, called CoverTN. Their doctor visits and generic drugs are covered, but the plan pays only $10,000 a year on hospital bills. A serious medical crisis could bankrupt them.

"My husband and I barely squeak by as it is now," Valerie Nash said. "It would be a devastating blow."

Compared to Massachusetts, Tennessee is similar in population size, but has more uninsured adults of working age and higher rates of diabetes, childhood obesity, low birth weight and smoking.

What set the stage for Tennessee's go-slow approach was the state's history with expanding health insurance during the 1990s, said Gov. Phil Bredesen.

A state program built around Medicaid, called TennCare, "got totally out of control. It was growing at 15 percent a year. Tennessee had the most expensive Medicaid program in the country," Bredesen said. "Our experience with trying to do universal coverage ended up being a disaster."

When Bredesen took office in 2003, he inherited soaring state health care spending. In 2005, he cut 170,000 adults from TennCare. He reduced benefits for thousands more.

His new initiative, CoverTN, takes "baby steps" toward covering more people. It targets workers at small businesses, the self-employed and the recently unemployed. The cost of monthly premiums is shared by the state, the individual and employers. No one is forced to participate.

Bredesen said the plan design reflects what uninsured Tennesseans want — primary care, not catastrophic care — in a trimmed-down package. Only eight people have exceeded the annual maximum for inpatient hospital costs since the program began.

"This is not the insurance for someone who's going to get into a motorcycle accident," Bredesen said.

The program costs less than anticipated and a fraction of Massachusetts' cost — $10.9 million last year, in part because only about 19,000 have signed up so far.

"I've dreamed about 100,000," Bredesen said. "I'm always amazed, however, when you actually charge someone for health insurance, how many fewer people are willing to sign up for it, than are willing to demand affordable health care."

Mostly it's the "young invincibles" who are staying away. Those are young adults who "don't feel like they're going to get sick," said Laurie Lee, who directs CoverTN and other state health benefits programs. "We've been surprised by that," she said. Older people with chronic conditions are signing up.

Massachusetts officials boast of adding 432,000 to the insured population; 187,000 of those got insurance through their employers or individual purchase. A state survey last year found fewer than 4 percent of working age adults remained uninsured.

Tennessee's uninsured rate for working-age adults probably is not much lower than it was before CoverTN, roughly 20 percent. New census data on the uninsured comes out later this year.

"We learn from Massachusetts that a bold objective matters. If it can be sustained, that's terrific," said Weil, who's lived in both states and said the plans reflect the states' different political cultures. "It would be nice if you had a southern state that had achieved universal coverage and did it in a different way, but we don't have that."

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Associated Press writers Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report.

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US prescription drug use fell in 2008, study says

2009-05-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK – Prescription drug use in the U.S. fell last year, although total spending on drugs increased as prices rose sharply on brand-name products, pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions said Wednesday.

Medco said the overall decline in prescriptions was the first in a decade. The company, which handles drug benefits covering about 60 million people, said total prescription use was down because few new drugs were launched last year, former blockbuster drugs like Zyrtec became available without a prescription, and some drugs faced safety issues that led to decreased use.

Those factors had a bigger impact on prescriptions than the recession, the company said.

Total spending grew 3.3 percent, Medco said, mainly due to greater use of "specialty" drugs, which often treat chronic or complex illnesses. The strongest growth came from diabetes drugs, and use of specialty treatments for cancer, along rheumatological disease, seizure disorders and antiviral drugs also increased. The average price of brand-name pharmaceuticals rose more than 8 percent in 2008, the fastest increase in five years.

Medco said specialty drug prices are rising more quickly than those for other drugs. Specialty drugs often require special handling that is not needed for other drugs, like refrigeration or protection from light, and many must be administered by a doctor or nurse instead of the patient.

Drugmakers tend to raise the price of a product as the date of its patent expiration approaches. After the key patents supporting a drug expire, generic versions usually reach the market and are available for a fraction of the price.

Several drugmakers cited higher prices in their first-quarter earnings reports. Bristol-Myers Squibb, which makes the anti-clotting drug Plavix, said higher prices were responsible for half its revenue growth in the first quarter of 2009.

Medco projects prescriptions will rise no more than 1 percent in 2009 and in 2010 as well. But it believes higher prices will lift total spending by 3 to 5 percent this year and 4 to 6 percent next year.

Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based Medco is the largest pharmacy benefits manager in the U.S. The company filled almost 800 million prescriptions last year.

Revenue from specialty drugs rose almost 16 percent for the year. Medco said growing use of low-cost generic drugs reduced the growth in total spending: 64 percent of all prescriptions were filled with generic drugs. Medco and other pharmacy benefits managers make a larger profit when generic drugs are substituted for brand-name ones. They encourage health plans to develop ways to increase use of generics and 90-day mail-order prescriptions.

Some drugs that were previously available only with a prescription became over-the-counter in 2008, reducing total prescriptions. The biggest names were Zyrtec, an allergy medication, and the laxative Miralax. Drug use was essentially flat with 2008 if Zyrtec and Miralax are excluded, Medco said.

Prescriptions for people 19 and under grew faster than for any other age group. Medco said that was due to rising rates of diabetes among the young, and more prescriptions for attention deficit disorder and similar problems.

Several billion dollar-selling drugs took hits due to potential safety issues last year. Sales of the diabetes treatment Avandia fell after the Food and Drug Administration added new warnings to its labeling, pointing out concerns about heart problems. Sales of the cholesterol drug Vytorin fell after a study released in January showed it was no better than an older drug, Zocor, at reducing plaque buildup in neck arteries. Zocor is available in generic form for about 80 percent less.

Sales of Amgen's Aranesp and other drugs used to treat chemotherapy-induced anemia have been sliding for two years, since studies connected the drugs to the faster growth of some tumors. Medco said safety issues also affected sales of osteoporosis drugs and hormone replacement therapies, and product recalls hurt sales of migraine and cough and cold therapies.

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Births to unwed moms rising, N. Europe beats US

2009-05-13T19:13:00.000-07:00

ATLANTA – The percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States has been rising sharply, but it's way behind Northern European countries, a new U.S. report on births shows.

Iceland is the leader with 6 in 10 births occurring among unmarried women. About half of all births in Sweden and Norway are to unwed moms, while in the U.S., it's about 40 percent.

France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. and at least 13 other industrialized nations have seen significant jumps in the proportion of unmarried births since 1980, said Stephanie Ventura of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Rates have doubled and even tripled in these countries, according to the CDC report released Wednesday.

"Basically we're seeing the same patterns," Ventura said, noting the trend has accelerated in the last five years.

Experts are not certain what's causing the trend but say there seems to be greater social acceptance of having children outside of marriage.

"The values surrounding family formation are changing and women are more independent than they used to be. And young people don't feel they have to live under the same social rules that their parents once did," said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.

But there are differences in how unmarried pregnancies are viewed in different countries.

In the United States, unmarried mothers are more likely to be on their own and — traditionally — they are more likely to be poor and uneducated, experts said.

In northern Europe, men and women more often live together in unmarried, long-term, stable relationships, Haub said. Because of declining birth rates in some European countries, people tend to be more focused on whether the baby is born healthy instead of whether the mother is married, Haub said.

He predicted that the total number of births internationally will decline — that's already happening in some European countries — because of faltering economies. But he expects trends in the percentage of mothers who are unmarried will persist.

The CDC previously has reported on the percentage of U.S. births to unmarried mothers. The new report gathers previously released information from other countries to make an international comparison.

The report shows trends from 1980 to the most recent years available — 2007 for the United States and most of the other countries, but 2006 for six nations.

Japan had the lowest percentage of unmarried births, with 2 percent in 2007, up from 1 percent in 1980.

Increases were much more dramatic in the other countries, with Italy rising from 4 percent to 21 percent, Ireland from 5 percent to 33 percent, Canada from 13 to 30 percent, and the United Kingdom from 12 percent to 44 percent.

The U.S. proportion of unmarried births rose from 18 percent to 40 percent during that period, according to the report.

___

On the Net:

The CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs

(This version CORRECTS U.S. number to 40 percent in last graf.)

news source www.news.yahoo.com

Swine flu fears evident as world's cases top 6,000

2009-05-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

MEXICO CITY – In China, mask-wearing police cordoned off more hotels Wednesday, quarantining anyone who came in contact with swine flu patients, no matter how mild their symptoms. Not so in Mexico, where the health secretary encouraged tourists to come relax in their favorite vacation spots despite a growing swine flu caseload.

The global outbreak appears mild, but skittishness is evident. Not long after Switzerland lifted its advisory against travel to Mexico and the United States, the Japanese national women's soccer team canceled a tour to North America, where most swine flu cases have been reported.

And in China, hundreds of people have been quarantined inside hotels, hospitals and homes after they came in contact with several infected plane or train travelers from Canada and U.S. The U.S. Embassy said Americans are among those quarantined.

There are now 33 countries reporting an estimated total of 6,080 confirmed swine flu cases, including 3,009 in 45 U.S. states, 2,446 in Mexico and 358 in Canada. But the death total is relatively low — 65, of which 60 were in Mexico, three in the U.S., one in Canada and one in Costa Rica.

Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said Wednesday that Mexico has tested about 9,000 sick people, working through a backlog of samples taken before and after the virus was identified as swine flu — and found that Mexico's dead represents 2.5 percent of confirmed cases, suggesting the virus is not as deadly as intitially feared.

Pneumonia, often brought on by regular seasonal flu, may be much more deadly, Cordova said — killing 9,500 people in Mexico last year. The last death from swine flu was on May 7, he said.

Cordova also addressed Mexico's hard-hit tourism industry, saying there are "very few" cases in tourist destinations — including 7 in Cancun.

"There is no risk for tourists — they can return to these relaxing vacation spots," he said.

There is a danger the virus will mutate into something more dangerous — perhaps by combining with the more deadly but less easily spread bird flu virus circulating in Asia and Africa, according to experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another concern is that it will combine with the northern winter's seasonal H1N1 virus. While not unusually virulent, it was resistant to Tamiflu, and health officials worry it could make the new swine flu resistant to Tamiflu as well.

With swine flu still spreading around the globe, the World Health Organization is warning countries to limit the use of antiviral drugs to ensure adequate supplies.

European countries have been using antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza much more aggressively than the U.S. and Mexico, administering them whenever possible in an attempt to contain the virus before it spreads more widely.

Officials from EU and Latin American nations, including Mexico, were meeting in Prague on Wednesday to discuss the threat.

A WHO medical expert, Dr. Nikki Shindo, said the U.N. agency thinks antivirals should be targeted mainly at people already suffering from other diseases or complications — such as pregnancy — that can lower a body's defenses against flu.

The CDC also said pregnant women should take the drugs if diagnosed with swine flu — even though the effects on the fetus are not completely known.

Pregnant women are more likely to suffer pneumonia when they catch flu, and flu infections have raised the risk of premature birth in past flu epidemics. A pregnant Texas woman with swine flu died last week, and at least 20 other pregnant women with swine flu have been hospitalized in the U.S., including some with severe complications.

For all these reasons, risks from the virus are greater than the unknown risks to the fetus from Tamiflu and Relenza, said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC.

"We really want to get the word out about the likely benefits of prompt antiviral treatment" for pregnant women, she said.

Mexico now gives Tamiflu to anyone who has had direct contact with a person infected with swine flu, Cordova said. And now that schools are back in session, authorities plan to give it to any children who show symptoms and are suspected of being infected.

In Mexico's Baja California state, on the U.S. border, 5,689 children were turned away from schools when classes resumed because they had symptoms like runny noses, headaches or sore throats, the state education department reported Tuesday.

Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche Holding AG announced it was donating enough Tamiflu for 5.65 million more people to WHO. A further 650,000 packets containing smaller doses of the drug will be used to create a new stockpile for children.

Mexican authorities had enough Tamiflu for 1 million people at the start of the outbreak and have received more, building reserves of 1.5 million courses.

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