Health Tips and News Updates

Palliative care should be standard in cancer treatment: guideline For patients with advanced cancer, palliative care should start early and be an integral part of treatment, not just something added on near the end of life, according to a new practice guideline from the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Can energy drinks cause hepatitis? A 50-year-old man developed acute hepatitis from excessive energy drink consumption, according to a new case report published this week in BMJ Case Reports. The man, who was not identified, is a construction worker who worked long, labor-intensive days. When he entered the emergency room, he thought his lack of appetite, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting were just symptoms of a flu. He was alarmed when his urine turned a dark color and his eyes and skin yellowed, both signs of hepatitis, according to the report. Before falling ill, he was in good health, abstaining from tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs, according to researchers from University of Florida College of Medicine. He hadn't changed his diet recently, nor was he taking prescription medications. Though he received a tattoo in his 20s, the worker had never had blood transfusion, nor had he engaged in high-risk sexual behavior, both common ways of hepatitis transmissi...

Zika May Be In The U.S. To Stay Public health authorities and infectious disease specialists now say we may not be able to rid the U.S. of the Zika virus. Despite months of intense work — including house to house inspections and aggressive mosquito control — federal, state and local officials have not been able to stop the spread of Zika in Miami. In Miami Tuesday, the head of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden delivered what he called the "plain truth" about Zika and the mosquitoes that carry it. "Zika and other diseases spread by Aedes aegypti," he said, "are really not controllable with current technologies." The CDC has upgraded its Zika-related health advisory for Florida. The agency says it now believes there's a risk of local transmission in all of Miami-Dade County. It's advising pregnant women to avoid areas in the county where local transmission is taking place and to consider postponing travel to all parts of the county. Preg...

Flu Season: 10 Things Everyone Needs to Know This Year Doctors continue to recommend getting a flu shot this year, but the nasal spray vaccine is no longer advised. Your family and coworkers are constantly coughing and the communal tissues are running low. There’s no doubt about it: Cold and flu season is here. “The cold and flu season really begins when school starts in September, and continues all the way through the spring season,” said Dr. David Topham, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Rochester. No one likes getting sick, but the flu is particularly nasty. The virus can be deadly, and even in mild forms it disrupts work and family life while making its victims miserable. Here's what you need to know to protect yourself this season. 1. The best protection against the flu is getting vaccinated. Doctors say this repeatedly, but it can’t be reiterated enough. Despite some spurious conspiracy theories about flu shots and even some...

6 cancer prevention steps suggested in society's report Canadian Cancer Society calls on provinces and territories to expand free HPV vaccination programs to boys. New cancer cases and deaths continue to rise steadily as Canada's population grows and ages, according to a new report. The Canadian Cancer Society and Public Health Agency of Canada released their annual report on cancer statistics on Wednesday. Current estimates suggest an estimated 202,400 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Canada this year and there will be 78,800 deaths from cancer.

Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to Japan’s Yoshinori Ohsumi for work on ‘cell recycling’ Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering and elucidating a key mechanism in our body's defense system that involves degrading and recycling cellular components. Known as autophagy, this process plays an important role in cancer, Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes, and numerous other devastating diseases. In making the announcement Monday morning, the prize committee in Stockholm said the work involves a series of "brilliant experiments" in the 1990s involving baker's yeast that have helped explain how a cell, the smallest unit of life, adapts in response to stressors like starvation and infection. In studying thousands of yeast mutants, Ohsumi -- an emeritus professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology -- identified 15 genes essential for autophagy. It turned out that virtually identical mechanisms exist in humans as w...

Meat recalled after two state residents sickened HARTFORD — State and federal regulators are warning residents that ground beef purchased from farmer’s markets and Connecticut farms has sickened two people and should be avoided. Both people who consumed the meat have been hospitalized for e.coli and released after treatment. The Connecticut Department of Public Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Adams’ Slaughterhouse in Athol, Massachusetts is recalling veal, bison and beef products that have tested positive for Escherichia. Consumers in other states have also become sick after eating the meat. An investigation revealed the ground beef consumed by patients in Connecticut was traced to Adams’ Slaughterhouse. The facility slaughters, processes, and packs beef products for some small producers here in Connecticut. Some of these producers only sell their ground beef products directly at the farm or at farmers’ markets throughout the state. DPH encourages consumers w...

Early Exposure to Antibiotics Augments Allergy, Eczema Risk Rates of hayfever and eczema are higher in children exposed to antibiotics in the first 2 years of life than in unexposed children, according to results from a systematic review and meta-analysis. "We strongly suggest physicians take this into account when they prescribe antibiotics, especially for children in early life," said lead investigator Fariba Ahmadizar, PharmD, from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. For their meta-analysis, presented here at the European Respiratory Society International Congress 2016, Dr Ahmadizar and her colleagues examined cohort, case–control, and cross-sectional studies published between January 1966 and November 2015. They looked at 21 studies involving 394,517 children with hayfever, 22 studies involving 229,080 children with eczema, and 12 studies involving 64,638 children with both. Overall, early antibiotic exposure was associated with an increased risk for ...

Average American 15 Pounds Heavier Than 20 Years Ago There's no doubt about it: Americans are getting heavier and heavier. But new U.S. estimates may still come as a shock -- since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the average American has put on 15 or more additional pounds without getting any taller. Even 11-year-old kids aren't immune from this weight plague, the study found. Girls are more than seven pounds heavier even though their height is the same. Boys gained an inch in height, but also packed on an additional 13.5 pounds compared to two decades ago. When looked at by race, blacks gained the most on average. Black women added 22 pounds despite staying the same average height. Black men grew about one-fifth of an inch, but added 18 pounds, the study found. "We are not doing nearly enough to control and reverse the obesity epidemic and doing far too much to propagate it. This is another notice of that sad fact," said Dr. David Katz. He directs the ...

Scientists find cancer in million-year-old fossil Cancer may not be so modern after all. Though we typically think of it as a new affliction attributed to bad habits, bad luck or longevity, a surprising discovery has revealed that the disease existed in human ancestors more than a million years ago. Scientists have found evidence of cancer in a foot bone and spine from two ancient hominin specimens in South Africa.

Drinking Alcohol Linked to 7 Types of Cancer A new analysis finds compelling evidence that drinking alcohol can cause at least seven types of cancer. It found that heavy drinkers are at the highest risk, but even low to moderate drinkers are more likely to get certain cancers than non-drinkers. The review of evidence, published in the journal Addiction, also says studies claiming alcohol can help protect against heart disease should be treated with skepticism. Health experts say the review strengthens the need to increase public awareness that drinking alcohol is a cause of cancer. The new analysis by Professor Jennie Connor, PhD, of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, examined studies on alcohol and cancer over the last 10 years. It finds sufficient evidence to conclude that drinking increases the risk for areas of the body that come into direct contact with alcohol and where it may damage DNA, which is a known cause of cancer. The seven areas are: ...

Study Confirms Vaginal Ring Protects Women From HIV Woman holding the dapivirine vaginal ring International Partnership for Microbicides A silicone ring impregnated with an antiviral drug can protect 75 percent or more of women from the AIDS virus, researchers reported Monday. The ring has been designed to give women a discreet way to protect themselves from infection in situations where they may not be able to refuse sex or demand that a man use a condom.

National Health Spending to Surpass $10,000 Per Person in 2016 WASHINGTON — National health spending will average more than $10,000 a person this year for the first time, the Obama administration said Wednesday, a milestone that heralds somewhat faster growth in health spending after several years of exceptionally low growth. By 2025, the administration reported, health care will represent 20 percent of the total economy, up from 17.8 percent last year. By 2025, one of every five Americans will be on Medicare, and the program will spend an average of nearly $18,000 a year for each beneficiary. Medicare spent about $12,000 per beneficiary in 2015. The administration, in a report published in the journal Health Affairs, predicts that the pace of health spending will pick up in the coming decade, driven by improvements in the economy, higher medical prices and the aging of the people born from 1946 to 1964. From 2015 to 2025, health spending is expected to grow an average of...

Nettie Stevens discovered XY sex chromosomes. She didn't get credit because she had two X’s. At the turn of the 20th century, biologist Nettie Stevens was driven to solve a scientific mystery that had perplexed humanity for millennia. The mystery was so simple but daunting: Why do boys become boys and girls become girls? In her pioneering work at Bryn Mawr College, Stevens discovered the sex chromosomes that make the difference. Today would be her 155th birthday. Google is celebrating her accomplishments today — she’s featured in the Google Doodle — and so should we. Before Stevens, we were utterly clueless about how embryos become boys or girls Thanks to Stevens’s work — and the work that built upon it — we now know that sex is hereditary, and that dads’ sperm in particular determine the sex of offspring. But for most of human history, this question was an absolute mystery — and it yielded some interesting theories. Aristotle believed a child’s sex ...

Access expanded for medication-assisted treatment of opioid use disorder A new rule finalized Tuesday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration increases the number of patients health care providers can treat with buprenorphine, Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia M. Burwell said. Buprenorphine is a medication to treat opioid use disorder, similar to methadone. This rule change supplements the opioid initiative launched by HHS in March 2015. The initiative focused on three priorities, including expanded access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. According to Burwell, congressional approval of President Obama's request for $1.1 billion in federal budget funds to support the initiative and fight the nationwide prescription opioid and heroin epidemic is "critical."

Sanofi Teams Up With U.S. Army on Zika Vaccine Partnership to expand research, development of promising experimental immunization A worker checks the filling of H1N1 flu vaccine vials at a Sanofi SA laboratory in Val-de-Reuil, France. Sanofi has formed a partnership with the U.S. Army to expand research and development of an experimental Zika vaccine. PHOTO: EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY Sanofi SA has formed a partnership with the U.S. Army to expand research and development of an experimental Zika vaccine that has shown promise in early laboratory studies and is among a few candidates expected to be tested on humans in the coming months. At least 15 companies and entities, including Sanofi, are racing to develop vaccines against the Zika virus, which is behind an epidemic in the Americas that the World Health Organization says constitutes a public health emergency because the virus is linked to birth defects in multiple countries.

Highland Park mosquitoes test positive for West Nile virus The Lake County Health Department reported Thursday that a batch of mosquitoes sampled June 23 in Highland Park has tested positive for West Nile virus, which marks "the first confirmed indicator of the disease's presence" in the county this year. According to information released by the health department Thursday afternoon, five human cases of West Nile virus were reported in Lake County in 2015, and a total of 68 pools or batches of mosquitoes and one bird tested positive for the virus. "This is the time of year when we begin to see mosquito pools testing positive for West Nile virus," Mark Pfister, the Health Department's interim executive director, said in a statement. Pfister added that with the arrival of hot weather, residents should protect themselves against mosquito bites by following a system of four D's — drain empty water from outdoor containers; dress with long-slee...

Nutrition needs before pregnancy. Healthy eating  When you are trying to get pregnant it pays to make sure your diet is giving you all the nutrients you need. A healthy diet may improve your chances of conceiving and give your baby a better start. Fad diets or gorging on fast foods won’t do your pre-pregnancy body any favours. A balanced diet with a few special tweaks is the best way forward. If you are either too overweight or underweight it may reduce your chances of getting pregnant, so try to make sure you are at a healthy weight when trying to conceive. "Getting your body into prime condition pre-pregnancy gives your baby the best possible start in life," says British Dietetic Association spokesperson Priya Tew. "There are links between the nutrition a foetus receives in the womb and their health later on in life, with increased risks of some chronic diseases with unhealthy diets," she adds. According to the NHS you are in a healthy weight ra...

Colorado 8-year-old dies after pharmacy allegedly gives him 1,000 times his usual medication dosage for sensory processing disorder Jake Steinbrecher, an 8-year-old boy from Loveland, Colorado, died after a Good Day pharmacist allegedly gave him 1,000 times his usual dosage of his medication. An 8-year-old boy in Colorado died this month after a local pharmacy made a massive error in his medication dosage. Jake Steinbrecher overdosed on his usual medication of Clonidine used to treat his sensory processing disorder — a drug his parents didn't want him to take to begin with. Clonidine is often used to treat high blood pressure as well as ADHD symptoms. "Drugging our child definitely wasn't something we wanted to do," his mother Caroline Steinbrecher told the Daily News. Jake Steinbrecher in the hospital. "The Clonidine was a compromise I could live with, because it was a non-addictive drug," she added. Steinbrecher said that ...