Study: Gene Therapy for HIV Safe, But Effectiveness Still Unclear

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Health Tip: Help Prevent Back Pain

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago (HealthDay News) -- Few people go through their entire lives without back pain, which can range from mild to severe. But there are steps you can take to help prevent it.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons mentions these activities that can help prevent back pain:

Practice a regular exercise regimen that combines aerobic exercises with those that help strengthen the abdominal and back muscles.Get rid of excess weight, which can strain your back.Don't smoke.Practice good posture when you sit, stand and lift.

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Clues to 'Slacker' Behavior Found in Brain, Study Says

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U.S. Ranks 131st in World for Premature Birth Rate

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- More than 15 million -- or 12 percent -- of U.S. babies are born prematurely each year, according to a report released Wednesday by the March of Dimes and several other organizations.

This gives the United States a ranking of 131st in the world for its rate of preterm births, on a par with Somalia, Thailand and Turkey and slightly lower than the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the report said.

"It was surprising to see the U.S. ranked 131st in terms of its rate of preterm birth," said report co-author Christopher Howson. "This really should be seen as a call to action in the United States."

According to the report, more than 1 million of these babies die as a result of complications from being born too early, making prematurity the leading cause of newborn death in the United States. Many others go on to have lifelong disabilities.

Babies who are born before 37 weeks' gestation are considered premature.

"Preterm babies can have developmental delays, cerebral palsy and, with extreme prematurity

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Study: Gene Therapy for HIV Safe, But Effectiveness Still Unclear

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Health Tip: Watch for Symptoms of Seizure

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago (HealthDay News) -- Seizures occur when normal electrical activity in the brain is disrupted. Depending on the portion of the brain that's affected, seizures can cause different symptoms.

Womenshealth.gov mentions these potential warning signs of a seizure:

Stiff muscles, or twitching and jerking of the muscles.Falling or losing consciousness.Sudden nausea.Seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling or tasting things that aren't real.Strange behavior, such as walking in circles, smacking lips or blinking repeatedly.Staring into space or blanking out momentarily.

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Study Finds Direct Link Between Obesity, Heart Disease

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- A large new study is the first to show a direct link between a high body-mass index and the risk of developing heart disease, British and Danish researchers say.

Body-mass index (BMI) is a measurement based on height and weight. People with a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 are normal weight while those with a BMI of 30 or more are obese. Those in between are deemed overweight.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from more than 75,000 people in Copenhagen and found that those with a high BMI had a 26 percent increased risk of developing heart disease. Further analysis using genetic and other data showed that a BMI increase of 4 points increases the risk of heart disease by no less than 52 percent.

"By doing epidemiological studies combined with genetic analysis, we have been able to show in a group of nearly 76,000 persons that a high BMI is enough in itself to damage the heart," Borge Nordestgaard, chief physician at Copenhagen University Hospital, said in a university news release.

"Observational studies have also suggested a relationship between heart disease and obesity, but that is not enough to prove a direct correlation. Obese people can share characteristics or lifestyle traits that have an influence on both the heart and weight. Or there can be a reverse causality, that is, it is the diseased heart that causes obesity and not the other way round," said Nordestgaard, who is also a clinical professor in the health and medical sciences faculty at the university.

The study was published May 1 in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Study co-author Dr. Nicholas Timpson, a lecturer in genetic epidemiology at the University of Bristol in England, noted in the news release: "In light of rising obesity levels, these findings are fundamental to improving public health. Our research shows that shifting to a lifestyle that promotes a lower BMI -- even if it does nothing else -- will reduce the odds of developing the disease."

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about the health risks of being overweight.

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Health Highlights: May 2, 2012

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

258 Now Sickened in Tuna-Linked Salmonella Outbreak

A salmonella outbreak linked to a frozen yellowfin tuna product has now sickened 258 people in 24 states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said late Wednesday.

In a statement, the agency said 32 people have been hospitalized but there have been no deaths reported.

The CDC says it is now including two types of salmonella in the "outbreak strains" -- Salmonella Bareilly (247 cases) and Salmonella Nchanga (11 cases).

On April 16, nearly 59,000 pounds of tuna product linked to the outbreak -- labeled Nakaochi Scrape AA or AAA -- were recalled by Moon Marine USA Corp. of Cupertino, Calif. The product, which is scraped off fish bones, was sold to grocery stores and restaurants to make dishes such as sushi, sashimi and ceviche.

As reported early in the outbreak by the Associated Press, many people who became ill reported eating raw tuna in sushi as "spicy tuna."

As of Wednesday, the CDC said illnesses linked Salmonella Bareilly had been reported in: Alabama (2), Arkansas (1), California (2), Connecticut (9), District of Columbia (2), Florida (1), Georgia (10), Illinois (23), Louisiana (3), Maryland (24), Massachusetts (27), Mississippi (2), Missouri (4), Nebraska (1), New Jersey (25), New York (39), North Carolina (4), Pennsylvania (20), Rhode Island (6), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (2), Texas (4), Virginia (16), Vermont (1) and Wisconsin (16). Illnesses linked to Salmonella Nchanga had been reported in Georgia (2), New Jersey (2), New York (5), Virginia (1), and Wisconsin (1), the CDC said.

The CDC noted that salmonella illness is often serious for infants, older adults, pregnant women and persons with impaired immune systems, and these individuals should not eat raw or partially cooked fish or shellfish.

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USDA Introduces New Rules to Combat E. Coli Contamination in Meat

Updated rules to keep potentially the deadly bacterium out of meat have been introduced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The new regulations allow inspectors to start looking for meat contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 as soon as early testing shows a potential problem. The goal of the new policy is to accelerate the USDA's ability to track down and contain contaminated hamburger and ground beef, USA Today reported.

The USDA says it will be quicker to take action if there are signs of trouble. Previously, the agency did not launch investigations into possible contaminated meat until several tests were completed, a process that often took days.

The policy change "buys us 24 to 48 hours in terms of finding the sources," said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen, USA Today reported.

Other new safety measures introduced by the USDA include an early reporting system that requires companies to notify the agency within 24 hours if potentially harmful meat or poultry has been shipped. The agency has also added six new E. coli strains to a government watch list.

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Study Points to Trigger Behind Need for Nighttime Urination

Low levels of a certain protein might spur people to get up numerous times in the night to urinate, according to a new study conducted in mice.

Japanese researchers found that reduced levels of the connexin43 protein trick the bladder into believing that it is full, which sends a "must urinate" signal to the brain, Agence France-Presse reported.

The finding was made in laboratory mice that had been genetically modified to lack the gene that produces connexin43.

The study was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

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More American Teens Using Marijuana: Survey

A new survey says a growing number of American teens are smoking marijuana.

Past-month use of marijuana rose from 19 percent in 2008 to 27 percent last year. The percentage of teens who smoked marijuana 20 or more times a month increased from 5 percent in 2008 to 9 percent last year, according to the Partnership at Drugfree.org survey results released Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

Abuse of prescription drugs appears to be easing among youth in grades 9 through 12, but still remains high.

The survey also found that teens' use of harder drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine has stabilized in recent years, the AP reported.

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Dog Food Recall Expanded

Diamond Pet Foods' recall of dog food due to possible salmonella contamination has been expanded to include puppy food, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.

The latest recall is for Diamond Puppy Formula dry dog food that was distributed in 12 states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, msnbc.com reported.

Previous recalls were for Diamond Naturals Lamb & Rice dry dog food and Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul Adult Light formula dry dog food.

The FDA says there have not been any reports of dogs becoming ill after eating the recalled products, msnbc.com reported.

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Mother Charged After Young Daughter Suffers Burns in Tanning Booth

A New Jersey woman has been charged with child endangerment after she allegedly took her 5-year-old daughter into a stand-up tanning booth and the girl suffered burns.

Police were called to an elementary school on April 24 because a kindergarten student was suffering pain due to a "pretty severe sunburn," Nutley Police Det. Anthony Montanari told The Record newspaper, the Associated Press reported.

New Jersey law bans anyone younger than age 14 from using tanning salons.

Patricia Krentcil, 44, posted $25,000 bail and was released to authorities in Camden County, where she had an outstanding warrant on a municipal charge, the AP reported.

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Appeals Judge Grants Extension in Planned Parenthood Funding Case

In the ongoing legal fight over funding for Planned Parenthood in Texas, a federal appeals judge on Tuesday said more time is needed to hear arguments on whether that state can prevent the group from receiving funding as part of the the Women's Health Program.

The move comes less than 24 hours after another federal district court judge, Judge Lee Yeakel, issued an order forbidding Texas from enforcing a law that bans Planned Parenthood from participating in the program.

On Tuesday, Fifth Circuit Appeals Judge Jerry Smith gave lawyers for eight Planned Parenthood clinics involved in a lawsuit against the state until 5 p.m. Tuesday to present their arguments about why Texas should be prevented from enforcing the law, the Associated Press reported.

"We are disappointed in the stay granted last night," Sarah Wheat, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood of Austin Family Planning, told the AP. "When presented with both sides, the District Court agreed the rule was likely unconstitutional, and that implementation would cause a serious problem with health care access for Texas women."

Under the appeals judge's order, Texas can exclude the Planned Parenthood clinics from the Women's Health Program today, according to Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman.

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Once-Banned Bird Flu Study Suggests Pandemic Threat Is Real

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- Data in a formerly banned study detailing how the H5N1 avian (bird) flu virus can morph -- with the possibility that it could spread from person to person and cause a global pandemic -- may help nations prepare for the impending threat.

That's some of the motivation for lifting the ban and publishing the study in the May 2 online issue of Nature, experts say.

The initial ban applied to two studies slated to be published in two medical journals, Nature and Science. In December, the U.S. government intervened, requesting that both journals censor some of the data for national security purposes. The concern was that terrorists might use the information to create a lethal biological weapon.

The ban was lifted in April, after the U.S. government conducted a risk assessment in March. Nature also commissioned an independent assessment. Both showed that publication would confer more public benefit than risk.

In the Nature study, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and colleagues tweaked the H5N1 virus using genetic material borrowed from H1N1 'swine' flu to see if it would transmit easily between ferrets -- an animal model thought to be closely related to humans.

It did.

These genetic changes can make the virus easier to transmit, the study found. Knowing their footprints can help researchers know what to look out for and hopefully catch the virus early before it begins to spread.

"H5N1 viruses remain a significant threat for humans as a potential pandemic flu strain," Kawaoka said. "We have found that relatively few mutations enable this virus to transmit in mammals."

The information provided by this study is important as the virus could mutate on its own. Now "we can better prepare should a pandemic virus emerge in nature," Kawaoka said. Currently available vaccines and antivirals are effective treatments for this engineered virus.

"Stockpiling H5N1 vaccines and antivirals will be important for pandemic preparedness," he said, and flu trackers too can use this information when they develop vaccines in the future. "Just as for a seasonal flu vaccine, it will be important for an H5N1 vaccine to be made to a closely related virus, so knowing which mutations may confer transmissibility will help prioritize vaccine candidates," Kawaoka explained.

The new data also help advance science by increasing the understanding of the basic biology of flu transmission. "Sharing the data with other scientists will lead to important additional discoveries that may aid the development of improved vaccines and therapeutics," Kawaoka said.

There had been doubt that the bird flu could mutate and cause a pandemic, said microbiologist Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris, of the University of Hong Kong. He was a co-author of a journal editorial accompanying the new study. He said this research does suggest that bird flu can mutate. "It suggests that the H5N1 virus can potentially acquire transmissibility in humans. However, whether it will ever do so is another matter."

While there have been sporadic cases of bird flu in humans, these have been traced to people directly handling live birds, for instance while working in a poultry market.

Importantly, this research and its publication are not a threat to U.S. security, Peiris said. "This research only tells us that the mutated H5N1 transmits in ferrets. It also tells us that the mutated virus no longer kills ferrets," he said. "Why would anyone who wanted to 'create harm' put so much effort into generation of such a virus with so much uncertainty on how it would work in practice?"

But, Peiris noted, the study "is important for pandemic risk assessment because it gives indications of the mutations that we should be watching out for."

Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an infectious diseases specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., agreed that publication is likely to do more good than harm. "We should be aware of the fact that this influenza can mutate," he said. "Publication makes us safer because we know what to look out for now. This can help facilitate preventive strategies and can eventually lead to more effective vaccine development and antiviral therapy."

He added, "We live in a much smaller world because of air travel and population density and certainly we are more vulnerable to viruses as a result."

This virus is not likely to be used by terrorists to cause a pandemic, Hirsch said. "It became less lethal in the animal model. I am reassured by the fact that the ability to make it a 'terror' virus has not really been demonstrated."

More information

Learn more about bird flu at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Aspirin as Effective as Warfarin for Heart Failure: Study

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- Aspirin is just as effective as the blood-thinner warfarin in preventing stroke and death in heart failure patients with a normal heart rhythm, a landmark study indicates.

Although the two treatments are equally effective, researchers from Columbia University in New York City said their findings could prompt more doctors and patients to choose aspirin because it is much cheaper.

The 10-year study was the largest comparison of aspirin and warfarin (Coumadin) in the treatment of heart failure patients. In conducting the comparison, researchers followed more than 2,300 patients in 11 countries on three continents. Study participants were assigned randomly either to aspirin or warfarin, and neither the patient nor their doctor knew which medication each patient was taking.

The investigators found that the combined risk of death, stroke and cerebral hemorrhage during the study period was 7.47 percent for patients taking warfarin and 7.93 percent for patients taking aspirin -- a difference that is statistically insignificant.

Although patients taking warfarin had a nearly 50 percent lower risk for stroke than those taking aspirin, their risk for major bleeding was twice as high. As a result, the researchers argued that the benefits do not outweigh the risks. They noted, however, that taking warfarin for four years or more may be more effective at preventing stroke and death.

"With at least 6 million Americans -- and many more around the world -- suffering from heart failure, the results of the ... study will have a large public health impact," Dr. Walter Koroshetz, deputy director of the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said in a Columbia University news release. "Patients and their physicians now have critical information to help select the optimum treatment approach. The key decision will be whether to accept the increased risk of stroke with aspirin or the increased risk of primarily gastrointestinal hemorrhage

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Less Invasive Heart Valve Replacement Works for Elderly: Study

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Dengue Fever a Major Cost Burden in Puerto Rico

HealthDay – 3 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- The costs of treating and coping with dengue fever in Puerto Rico total nearly $38 million a year, a new study finds.

It also said that every $1 spent on surveillance and prevention of the mosquito-borne disease could save $5 in illness-related costs.

Households pay nearly half the costs of the disease, followed by government (24 percent), insurance companies (22 percent) and employers (7 percent), according to researchers from Brandeis University's Schneider Institutes for Health Policy in Waltham, Mass.

The study appears in the May issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Given that the U.S. government covers 62 percent of Puerto Rico's public health expenses, "sound investments related to dengue would benefit not only residents of Puerto Rico but all taxpayers throughout the United States," the researchers said in a journal news release.

They focused on Puerto Rico because it's an area within the United States with substantial numbers of dengue fever. In 2010, more than 22,000 cases of dengue fever were reported, which works out to an incidence rate of 57 cases per 10,000 people. Because treatment is readily available, deaths from dengue fever in Puerto Rico average about 16 per year.

"People generally think of dengue as a disease of poor countries; the fact that we found it to be a major burden in a U.S. territory -- and because it recently has cropped up on the U.S. mainland -- is a reminder that mosquito-borne illnesses can present an equal opportunity threat," study co-author Donald Shepard said in the news release.

Dengue fever, which broke out in the Florida Keys in 2010, currently threatens nearly 3 billion people worldwide. Public health experts warn that the spread of dengue fever could prove more costly and cause more illness than malaria.

Symptoms in dengue include high fever plus at least two of the following: severe headache, eye pain, joint pain, muscle or bone pain, rash, mild bleeding and low white blood cell count, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Worldwide, dengue fever infects 100 million to 200 million people each year and causes 20,000 deaths, according to the release.

The study received funding from vaccine maker , which is developing a dengue vaccine, the release disclosed.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has more about dengue fever.

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