Surgeons Seek Repeal of Transplant Ban Between HIV-Positive People

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Fear of Childbirth Linked to Longer Labor, Study Says

HealthDay – 31 mins ago WEDNESDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- Women who are afraid to give birth tend to have longer labor than women who are more relaxed about the process, new research suggests.

Researchers in Norway found women fearful of giving birth spent about an hour and a half longer in labor than other women (about eight hours compared to six and a half hours).

Fear of giving birth was also associated with a greater likelihood of an instrumental vaginal delivery or an emergency Cesarean section.

The study was published June 27 in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Researchers surveyed more than 2,200 women pregnant women, about half of whom were going to be first-time mothers, about their attitudes toward childbirth. About 7.5 percent of the women were afraid of childbirth.

Even after taking other factors into account that could prolong labor, such as epidural anesthesia and labor induction, labor for the women who feared childbirth was longer than for more relaxed women.

But, the study authors pointed out that even though women who feared childbirth labored longer, 89 percent managed to deliver vaginally, compared to 93 percent of women who did not fear giving birth.

"Fear of childbirth seems to be an increasingly important issue in obstetric care," study co-author Samantha Salvesen Adams, of Akershus University Hospital, said in a journal news release.

"We found a link between fear of childbirth and longer duration of labor," Adams said. "Generally, longer labor duration increases the risk of instrumental vaginal delivery and emergency caesarean section. However, it is important to note that a large proportion of women with a fear of childbirth successfully had a vaginal delivery and therefore elective Cesarean delivery should not be routinely recommended."

Experts note that while this study found an association between fear of childbirth and longer labor, it didn't prove that anxiety about giving birth caused the longer labors.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health provides more information on childbirth.

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Exercise Program Boosts Health After Lung Transplant: Study

HealthDay – 31 mins ago WEDNESDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- A structured exercise program boosted the overall health of lung transplant patients and reduced their risk of cardiovascular problems, a new study reports.

Lung transplant patients often have weak muscles and limited physical endurance due to inactivity before the transplant and the drugs they must take after, the researchers said.

Many patients remain inactive after their transplant, and up to half develop conditions such as high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, diabetes and osteoporosis, the study authors noted.

Exercise can help prevent these problems.

The new study included 40 patients with an average age of 59 who had single or double lung transplants. About half were assigned to a three-month exercise program while the rest (the control group) received usual care.

The patients in the exercise group did three 90-minute workouts per week after they were discharged from the hospital. The activities included cycling, walking, stair climbing and leg presses. Exercise intensity increased over the course of the training program.

The control group did not engage in the training regimen, but did perform daily mobility exercises -- such as walking, cycling and stair climbing -- for about six weeks after their surgery.

One year after being discharged from the hospital, patients in the exercise group were walking an average of 85 minutes a day, compared with 54 minutes for those in the control group.

The patients in the exercise group also had significantly more leg strength and self-reported physical functioning, could walk farther in six minutes, did much more physical activity and had lower blood pressure and better cardiovascular health than those in the control group.

The study was published in the June issue of the American Journal of Transplantation.

"Our study showed patients who had uncomplicated lung transplant surgery benefited greatly from supervised exercise training, which was initiated immediately after they were discharged from

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Fossilized Teeth Hold Clues to Early Human Species' Diet

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Experimental Vaccine Seems to Stop Nicotine Addiction in Mice

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Weight Loss May Increase Testosterone Levels

HealthDay – 31 mins ago WEDNESDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- Shedding pounds may help overweight men with low testosterone boost their levels of the male hormone, new research finds.

Overweight men are more likely to have low levels of testosterone, according to the study, which involved nearly 900 overweight, middle-aged Irish men with pre-diabetes. People with pre-diabetes have abnormally high blood glucose levels, but the levels aren't yet high enough to be considered diabetes.

Men were assigned to one of three treatments. One group was told to eat a lower-fat, lower-calorie diet and exercise at least 150 minutes a week; a second group took the diabetes drug metformin; and a third group took a placebo pill.

Among men in the healthy-lifestyle group, the rate of low testosterone levels dropped from 20 percent to 11 percent after a year. The rate of low testosterone didn't budge in the diabetes-drug group or the placebo group.

The study was expected to be presented this week at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Houston.

"Doctors should first encourage overweight men with low testosterone levels to try to lose weight through diet and exercise before resorting to testosterone therapy to raise their hormone levels," study co-author Dr. Frances Hayes, a professor at St. Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin, said in a society news release.

The healthy lifestyle group lost an average of 17 pounds.

"Losing weight not only reduces the risk of pre-diabetic men progressing to diabetes, but also appears to increase their body's production of testosterone," Hayes said.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Experts also note that the study found an association between weight loss and higher testosterone, but did not prove that losing weight caused testosterone levels to rise.

More information

The American Diabetes Association provides more information on prediabetes.

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Pictures of Fatty, Sugary Foods May Spur Cravings

HealthDay – 31 mins ago WEDNESDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- Looking at pictures of hamburgers, cupcakes and other high-calorie edibles can trigger cravings for fattening foods, especially if you're drinking something sweet at the time, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Southern California found that drinking a sugary beverage while viewing these foods activates appetite and reward centers in the brain, which could play a role in obesity.

"Studies have shown that advertisements featuring food make us think of eating, but our research looked at how the brain responds to food cues and how that increases hunger and desire for certain foods," said the study's principal investigator, Kathleen Page, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the university's Keck School of Medicine, in a university news release.

"This stimulation of the brain's reward areas may contribute to overeating and obesity, and has important public health implications," said Page.

In conducting the study, the researchers measured the brain responses of 13 obese, Hispanic females, aged 15 to 25 years, as they looked at both high-calorie and low-calorie foods.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the women's brains were scanned twice as they viewed images of foods such as hamburgers, cookies, cakes, fruits and vegetables.

After seeing all of the images, they were asked to rate their hunger as well as their desire for sweet or savory foods.

Halfway through the scans, the women drank 50 grams of glucose, which is similar to drinking a can of sugary soda. In a separate instance, they drank 50 grams of fructose. Glucose and fructose are found in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

"We hypothesized that the reward areas in the women's brains would be activated when they were looking at high-calorie foods, and that did happen," said Page. "What we didn't expect was that consuming the glucose and fructose would increase their hunger and desire for savory foods."

The researchers pointed out that fructose resulted in more intense cravings and hunger among the women than glucose.

"Our bodies are made to eat food and store energy, and in prehistoric days, it behooved us to eat a lot of high-calorie foods because we didn't know when the next meal was coming," Page said.

"But now we have much more access to food, and this research indicates added sweeteners might be affecting our desire for it," she added in the news release.

The researchers said they limited the study to Hispanic women because research has indicated women are more sensitive to food cues, and the Hispanic community has a high incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

More studies are needed to explore whether these cravings are due to obesity or genetics, the authors noted.

The study was presented Tuesday at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Houston. Data and conclusions of research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine provides tips on how to tame food cravings.

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Health Highlights: June 27, 2012

HealthDay – 31 mins ago Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

CDC Launches Free Drugstore HIV Testing

Drugstore testing for HIV may someday become routine if a government-sponsored pilot program catches on across the United States.

Free rapid HIV tests -- like those used in doctor's office and health clinics -- are available now at seven sites around the country, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Tuesday that it plans to add 17 more pharmacies and in-store clinics in cities and rural regions, the Associated Press reported.

"By bringing HIV testing into pharmacies, we believe we can reach more people by making testing more accessible and reduce the stigma associated with HIV," Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC's HIV prevention program, said in a statement.

The HIV saliva test, which involves swabbing the mouth, provides preliminary results in 20 minutes. Customers with positive results will be referred for laboratory testing and, if the results are confirmed, counseling and treatment, the AP said.

While gay men and injectable drug users are considered at highest risk, the CDC currently recommends all teenagers and adults up to age 64 get tested at least once. The agency estimates that one-fifth of the 1.1 million Americans infected with HIV don't know they carry the virus that causes AIDS.

CDC, which is training drugstore personnel to administer the tests, will review the program results next summer.

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Bagged Salads Recalled From Kroger, Wal Mart Stores

The Dole company is recalling fresh bagged salads from Kroger and Wal Mart stores across six states due to potential contamination with listeria, the company has announced.

No illnesses have yet been reported in the "precautionary" recall of 1,077 cases of bagged salads that were distributed in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The products under recall include Kroger Fresh Selections Greener Supreme coded N158 211B 1613 KR04 with Use-by date of June 19 and UPC 11110 91039; Kroger Fresh Selections Leafy Romaine coded N158 111B KR11 with Use-by date of June 19 and UPC 11110 91046; and Wal Mart Marketside Leafy Romaine coded N158111B with Use-by date of June19 and UPC code 81131 02781.

The Product Code and Use-by dates are located in the upper right-hand corner of the salads' packaging, and the UPC is found on the reverse side of the package.

Dole is asking that consumers who have these products discard them. Retailers and consumers can find out more by calling Dole at 1-800-356-3111.

Listeria monocytigenes can trigger illness with symptoms such as fever, muscle ache and gastrointestinal symptoms, with pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems most at risk for serious illness.

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Low Testosterone Not Part of Normal Aging: Study

Factors other than aging are likely responsible for the drop in testosterone some older men experience, a new study finds.

Researchers in Australia tracked the testosterone levels of more than 1,500 men, ages 35 to 80, who had their testosterone levels sampled at clinic visits spaced five years apart, UPI reported.

The study found that testosterone levels didn't undergo a steep decline -- instead they only fell less than 1 percent per year. And certain health or lifestyle factors seemed linked to those slight declines.

"Men who had declines in testosterone were more likely to be those who became obese, had stopped smoking or were depressed at either clinic visit," lead author Dr. Gary Wittert, professor of medicine at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, said in a statement. "While stopping smoking may be a cause of a slight decrease in testosterone, the benefit of quitting smoking is huge."

Wittert and his team believe, therefore, that a drop in testosterone is not an inevitable part of the aging process in men.

The study was presented at the Endocrine Society's 94th annual meeting in Houston.

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FDA Probing Safety of Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants

HealthDay – 31 mins ago TUESDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- While thousands of Americans have benefited from hip replacements over the years, problems with metal-on-metal implants can lead to troubles requiring surgery to replace defective devices, experts say.

Specifically, experts say, tiny fragments of metal can shear off from these joints, causing chronic pain or infection and raising levels of metals in the bloodstream. Experts estimate that more than 500,000 Americans have received a metal-on-metal hip joint, mostly between 2003 and 2010.

Worry over the failure rate of the implants, and the speed at which they were initially approved for the U.S. market, has led to a special two-day session, beginning Wednesday, by experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"Data from recent studies and from FDA's own review show some patients experiencing complications, including the need for additional surgeries, which could be attributed to metal-on-metal hip implant devices," said FDA spokeswoman Michelle Bolek.

Since 1999, almost 17,000 problems with these devices have been reported to the FDA. Of these, more than 12,000 were reported last year alone.

According to the agency, the problems with metal-on-metal implants are about the same as those seen with polyethylene and ceramic implants, except for the specific risks caused by the metal itself.

But others say that when it comes to complications, metal-on-metal implants are in a class of their own. Writing earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Joshua Rising of the Pew Charitable Trusts, and colleagues said that "there is now compelling evidence that these implants fail at a higher rate than hip prostheses made of other materials; indeed, one type of metal-on-metal hip has a failure rate of nearly 50 percent at 6 years."

Responding to these concerns, the FDA panel is considering the risks and benefits of metal-on-metal implants and what might be needed to monitor the health of patients who have them.

Of the estimated 400,000 hip replacements done in the United States each year, 27 percent involve metal-on-metal devices, according to the FDA.

Critics, including an independent panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine, have noted that metal-on-metal implants may have been approved too quickly under the FDA's "fast-track" program for medical devices.

Responding to concerns, in May 2011 the FDA ordered manufacturers to carry out "post-market" studies, tracking the safety of metal-on-metal hip implants in recipients. But in the NEJM article, Rising and colleagues noted that most of these studies have yet to begin and their first results will take years to arrive.

The FDA's Bolek made it clear that the advisory panel meeting is not a regulatory meeting and is not intended to look at the process that brought the devices to the market, or to deal with any planned or current post-marketing studies.

Metal-on-metal devices have already been recalled twice. In 2008, a device from manufacturer Zimmer, the Durom Acetabular Component, was recalled because instructions were not clear.

And in 2010 a device from DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. was recalled because more patients than expected had to have new surgeries, according to the FDA.

Earlier this month, a device called the R3 Acetabular System from Smith & Nephew was taken off the market because the company said it was "not satisfied with the clinical results of this component."

In Europe these concerns have led to calls to ban metal-on-metal hip replacement devices. Writing in March in the journal The Lancet, British researchers concluded that "metal-on-metal stemmed articulations give poor implant survival compared with other options and should not be implanted." Metal-on-metal implants had a five-year failure rate of more than 6 percent, three times higher that seen with ceramic or plastic joints.

Banning metal-on-metal joints isn't an option being considered by the FDA panel at this time.

"During the panel meeting, FDA will discuss failure rates and modes for these devices, as well as any local and systemic complications that could result from metal debris and metal ion levels in the bloodstream from the device," Bolek said.

The panel will also discuss metal ion testing and soft tissue imaging, tools that can potentially be used in the clinical management of patients who have these devices, Bolek said.

"We will also review specific risk factors for specific patient populations and considerations for post-implant follow-up," she added.

Mindy Tinsley is a spokeswoman for metal implant maker DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., which is owned by Johnson & Johnson. She said that "DePuy believes that no single bearing surface meets the needs of all patients, and metal-on-metal implants provide the potential benefit of greater function and a lower risk of dislocation for some patients."

Tinsley also said that all metal-on-metal implants are not alike and they should not be grouped together if problems arise.

One orthopedic expert agreed. Dr. Joshua Jacobs, first vice president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, said that "metal-on-metal devices are not all the same. You have to go down to the individual product to fully understand the result. When you lump metal-on-metal together you miss a lot of important differences."

According to Jacobs, who is chairman of the department of orthopaedic surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, the advantages of metal-on-metal implants are that there is typically less wear on the joint, leading to less loosening and less bone loss over time.

In addition, he said, metal allows for a thinner, larger socket and head, which makes it less likely the hip will dislocate after surgery, which is a common failure of other types of hip replacement.

Still, given the problems with these devices, Jacobs agrees that patients need to be monitored.

"We are trying to learn the optimal way of monitoring patients with metal-on-metal implants, so we can understand when it is appropriate to intervene," he said. "Right now we are amassing clinical data to understand that better."

More information

For more on hip replacement, visit the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

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'Atkins'-Type Diets May Raise Risk of Heart Problems: Study

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Partial Frown Kept TV Reporter Off the Air

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CDC trying out free AIDS tests at drugstores

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