Causes of weight loss

Friday, June 1, 2012

Taking Anti-HIV Meds Prior to Exposure May Help Prevent Infection

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Sex Ed For Teens With Intellectual Disabilities

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Summer's Heat May Enflame Hives

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Scientists Map the Tomato's Genome

Brave New World of Genetics Requires Safeguards, Experts Say

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U.S. Program Targets Antipsychotic Drug Use in Nursing Homes

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High Blood Sugar May Make Pneumonia Deadlier

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Elevated blood sugar levels may help predict death in pneumonia patients, researchers say.

The new study included nearly 6,900 patients, average age 60, with community-acquired pneumonia who were admitted to hospitals and private practices in Austria, Germany and Switzerland between 2003 and 2009.

Community-acquired pneumonia, one of the leading infectious diseases in industrialized nations, is a major cause of illness and death, according to background information in the study published online May 29 in the journal BMJ.

Compared to patients with normal glucose levels at admission, those with elevated levels had a higher risk of death within 28 and 90 days. The higher a patient's glucose levels, the greater the risk of death, the investigators said in a journal news release.

The death rate within 90 days was 3 percent for patients without diabetes and normal glucose levels, 10 percent for those without diabetes but with elevated glucose levels, and 14 percent for patients with diabetes, regardless of their glucose levels on admission, the study revealed.

The findings show the necessity of glucose testing and close glucose monitoring after patients with community-acquired pneumonia are discharged from hospital, in order to diagnose diabetes and to prevent further complications, concluded Dr. Philipp Lepper, of the University Hospital of Saarland in Germany, and colleagues.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about pneumonia.

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Infant 'Smarts' Similar With Different Types of Formula: Study

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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Once-Obese Women Still Face Stigma, Study Finds

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Even after they shed their excess pounds, formerly obese women still have to contend with "anti-fat prejudice," according to a new study.

Researchers asked young women and men to read about women who had either lost 70 pounds of excess weight or had stayed the same weight (weight-stable), and who were either currently obese or currently thin.

The participants were then asked about some of the women's attributes, including their attractiveness.

"We were surprised to find that currently thin women were viewed differently depending on their weight history," study leader Janet Latner, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in a news release from the University of Manchester, in England. "Those who had been obese in the past were perceived as less attractive than those who had always been thin, despite having identical height and weight."

The participants also showed greater bias against obese people after they had read about women who had lost weight, compared to after reading about weight-stable women -- regardless of whether the weight-stable women were thin or obese.

The findings, published May 29 in the journal Obesity, suggest that the stigma of obesity is so powerful that it can continue even after an obese person has lost weight.

The researchers said they were particularly troubled by the finding that participants' negative attitudes towards obese people increased when they were falsely told that body weight is easily controlled.

"The message we often hear from society is that weight is highly controllable, but the best science in the obesity field at the moment suggests that one's physiology and genetics, as well as the food environment, are the really big players in one's weight status and weight loss," study co-author Kerry O'Brien, from the University of Manchester School of Psychological Sciences and Monash University in Melbourne, in Australia, noted in the news release.

"Weight status actually appears rather uncontrollable, regardless of one's willpower, knowledge and dedication. Yet many people who are perceived as 'fat' are struggling in vain to lose weight in order to escape this painful social stigma. We need to rethink our approaches to, and views of, weight and obesity," O'Brien noted.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases offers advice about choosing a safe and effective weight-loss program.

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FDA Warns of Fake Version of ADHD Drug Adderall

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- A counterfeit version of the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug Adderall, sold online, contains the wrong active ingredients, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Adderall is also used to treat narcolepsy. The drug, made by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, is currently in short supply in the United States.

The counterfeit versions of Adderall are ineffective and potentially harmful, the FDA warned Tuesday.

Authentic Adderall contains four active ingredients: dextroamphetamine saccharate, amphetamine aspartate, dextroamphetamine sulfate, and amphetamine sulfate. Preliminary laboratory tests by the FDA found that the counterfeit version being sold as Adderall 30-milligram (mg) tablets contains tramadol and acetaminophen, ingredients in medicines used to treat acute pain.

Genuine Adderall 30-mg tablets are round, orange/peach in color, and have "dp" embossed on one side and "30" on the other side. The tablets are packaged only in a 100-count bottle with the National Drug Code (NDC) 0555-0768-02, the agency said.

In contrast, the counterfeit tablets are round, white and do not have any type of letters or numbers, the FDA said. Fake tablets may also come in blister packages and have spelling mistakes on the packaging, such as:

"NDS" instead of "NDC""Aspartrte" instead of "Aspartate""Singel" instead of "Single."

Consumers who believe they have the counterfeit version of 30-mg Adderall tablets should not use them and should talk to their health care professional about their treatment options, the FDA said.

Adderall is currently in short supply because Teva is having difficulty obtaining all of the active ingredients used in the drug. Consumers need to be extra cautious when buying medicines online and remember that drugs in short supply are often targets for counterfeiting, the FDA said.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration offers a consumer safety guide for buying prescription medicines online.

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Health Highlights: May 30, 2012

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

New Tests for E. Coli in Beef to Begin Monday

Beginning Monday, U.S. food safety inspectors are scheduled to begin testing for six strains of potentially deadly E. coli bacteria that will not be permitted in certain cuts of raw beef.

The implementation of long-delayed federal regulations target a group of E. coli bacteria collectively referred to as "the Big Six," msnbc.com reported.

These strains of E. coli will be classified on the same level of danger as the better known E. coli O157:H7, which is often implicated in serious illnesses associated with hamburger.

The new strains of E. coli to be the subject of testing include E. coli O26, O111, O103, O121, O45 and O145, msnbc.com reported.

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Childhood Cancer DNA Research May Lead to New Treatments

The world's largest collection of genetic data on childhood cancers has been released by U.S. scientists in order to hasten the development of new treatments.

The U.S. Pediatric Cancer Genome Project team mapped the complete genome (all the DNA) of 260 young cancer patients and their work appears in the journal Nature Genetics, BBC News reported.

The data has already revealed a new treatment for a rare form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma and also provided new information about aggressive childhood cancers of the brainstem and blood.

"We have identified unusual, 'cryptic' changes in many patients' cancer cells that we would not have found using other methods," said Dr. Richard Wilson, head of the Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine, BBC News reported.

"We are pleased to be able to share this data with the research community in the hope that others can build upon our initial discoveries," Wilson added.

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Disease Could Wipe Out Gray Bats in U.S.

Gray bats in the United States could be wiped out within a few years due to white-nose disease, Fish and Wildlife Service officials said Tuesday.

The first cases of the highly contagious disease were confirmed in the endangered bat species this spring, the Washington Post reported.

White-nose fungus has killed millions of bats in the northeastern U.S. and could prove especially devastating to gray bats, which live in the southeastern part of the country. Ninety percent of the gray bat population is found in nine caves in five states. The bats live in the caves year-round, which could lead to a fast spread of the disease.

"They could potentially be wiped out in just a couple of years," Ann Froschauer, the Fish and Wildlife Service's national communications leader on white-nose syndrome, told the Post. "If the disease behaves in a similar way it has in the Northeast, we really could be looking at losing this species."

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Many Working-Age Veterans Lack Health Coverage: Study

A new study finds that more than 1.3 million working-age veterans in the United states don't have health insurance and are not taking advantage of health care available through Veterans Affairs.

Veterans ages 19-64 are more likely to have health insurance than people in the general population, but about 1 in 10 of the nearly 12.5 million veterans in that age group do not have any type of health coverage, msnbc.com reported.

Veterans under age 35 appear to have especially high rates of uninsurance, according to the study from researchers at the Urban Institute.

Their analysis of census data also showed that uninsured veterans also tended to have lower incomes and lower levels of education, and were less likely to have full-time jobs than veterans with health coverage, msnbc.com reported.

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Personalized Blood Pressure Therapy May Help Diabetics

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Aggressive efforts to control blood pressure in people with diabetes may be leading to overtreatment with blood pressure drugs in some patients, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined data from nearly 1 million diabetes patients treated at Veterans Affairs health facilities across the United States and found that as many as 82 percent were receiving treatment to keep their blood pressure under control.

However, more than 8 percent of patients were possibly being overtreated to control their blood pressure, and 6 percent were not being treated as aggressively as they could be, the study found.

The findings, published online May 28 in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, suggest that the current one-size-fits-all method of blood pressure control needs to be reconsidered, the researchers said.

This personalized approach should be possible with the help of electronic health records, which can combine blood pressure, prescription and other health data on patients' individual risks such as heart disease or balance problems, the study authors explained in a University of Michigan Health System news release.

"Appropriately treating blood pressure in people with diabetes is extremely important, and good blood pressure control should still be the goal to reduce risk of heart attack, stroke and other conditions," first author Dr. Eve Kerr, director of the Center for Clinical Management Research at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in the news release.

"But just treating to a blood pressure target in all patients may result in overtreating and harming some patients because their blood pressures actually fall too low," she added. "We need to find better ways to measure and incentivize appropriate blood pressure management to make sure that patients who need aggressive treatment are getting it, and to decrease the rate of inappropriate overtreatment."

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more about high blood pressure and diabetes.

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