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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- Studies have shown that vitamin D is critical for bone health and could have a protective benefit for the heart, but new research suggests that too much of it could actually be harmful.
"Clearly, vitamin D is important for your heart health, especially if you have low blood levels of vitamin D. It reduces cardiovascular inflammation and atherosclerosis, and may reduce mortality, but it appears that at some point it can be too much of a good thing," study leader Dr. Muhammad...
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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- An estimated 38 million American adults are binge drinkers -- defined as men who down five or more drinks at a sitting and women who consume four or more drinks at one time, federal researchers reported Tuesday.
Of the 17 percent of Americans who engage in binge drinking, most are 18 to 24 years old. But those 65 and older engage in the practice more often, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And those numbers may underestimate the scope of the...
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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- Diabetes is a costly disease, and new research suggests those costs may extend far beyond the obvious expense of medicine and related health care.
The study authors found that young people with diabetes were more likely to drop out of high school and, over a lifetime, could expect to earn about $160,000 less than those without diabetes.
"A lot of studies, when they look at the toll diabetes takes, look at medical expenses when people are much older. We wanted to look at...
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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- Dutch researchers report disappointing results from an early clinical trial of the drug Nexavar (sorafenib) in fighting a tough-to-treat form of lung cancer.
But, in better news, an experimental drug known as ganetespib showed promise in laboratory and animal experiments.
The results of both studies were to be presented Tuesday at an American Association for Cancer Research/International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer meeting in San Diego.
In recent years,...
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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
$1,000 Genome Mapping Soon Available, Company Says
A U.S. genomics company says it will be able to offer $1,000 genome sequencing by the end of the year.
California-based Life Technologies Corp. is expected to introduce Tuesday a machine that can map a person's entire genetic makeup for $1,000 and deliver the information within a day, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Currently, the cheapest...
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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- A drug commonly used to treat patients with Alzheimer's disease does not appear to be effective for people older than 40 years who have Down syndrome and Alzheimer's, according to a new study.
Although previous animal studies of the Alzheimer's drug, memantine, showed promising results in mice with Down syndrome, this new study of people with Down syndrome aged 40 and older revealed the opposite, the researchers reported in the Jan. 9 online edition of The Lancet.
Memantine...
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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- People who suffer sudden cardiac arrest are more likely to survive if 911 and EMS dispatchers help bystanders assess victims and begin CPR immediately, says a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association.
One of its main goals is to increase how often bystanders perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
"I think it's a call to arms," statement lead author E. Brooke Lerner, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin,...
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TUESDAY, Jan. 10 -- It's easy to overeat at restaurants. But researchers from University of Texas at Austin say they've come up with a strategy that helped a group of middle-aged women who eat out frequently avoid gaining weight and even lose a few pounds.
Calling it "Mindful Restaurant Eating," researchers taught the women to pay close attention to what they were eating and how they were feeling, with the goal of being satisfied with smaller portions and putting down their forks before they...
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-- Neck pain can stem from a variety of factors and conditions, from injury to a soft-tissue abnormality.
Most cases resolve on their own, but some require immediate diagnosis and treatment.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons offers this list of warning signs that you should call a doctor:
If you have severe pain stemming from an injury caused by a fall or car accident.
If your neck pain feels like it extends into the legs or arms.
If your pain is persistent and continuous.
If the...
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-- A salad isn't automatically a healthier option. With high-fat dressings and toppings, even a salad can wreck your healthy eating plans.
The Cleveland Clinic offers these suggestions for tossing a healthier salad:
Skip higher-fat toppings such as croutons, bacon bits, creamy dressings, eggs and cheese.
Add healthy protein to your salad in the form of nuts, beans and seeds.
Skip the dressing, and instead add a squeeze of lemon.
If you want dressing, order it on the side, dipping your fork...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- The anticoagulant Pradaxa (dabigatran) is associated with a small increase in the risk of heart attack, a new review finds.
Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio looked at seven trials involving Pradaxa that included more than 30,000 patients. This process, called a meta-analysis, uses data from published clinical trials to tease out a pattern that might not show up in a single study.
The researchers found Pradaxa was associated with an increased risk of heart attack...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- For years, people have been told that low-dose aspirin can help reduce their risk of dying from a heart attack, stroke or cancer even if they are healthy. Now, a new evidence review calls this advice into question.
Low-dose daily aspirin therapy does not reduce risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer, according to a new study in the Jan. 9 online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine. However, experts not affiliated with the study caution that there is not...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- New research suggests that the nicotine patches used by people trying to quit smoking could serve an unexpected purpose: They appear to counteract mild memory loss in older patients.
The research is preliminary and only involved a few dozen subjects. There's also the matter of expense: While they're available over the counter, patches may cost several dollars a day.
Still, "nicotine treatment may be a way to improve people's symptoms and maybe extend their ability to do all...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- Nicotine patches and nicotine gum -- the popular mainstays of so-called "nicotine replacement therapy" -- don't help many smokers kick the habit and remain cigarette-free over the long haul, new research suggests.
This conclusion is based on results of several surveys conducted among nearly 800 adult smokers that revealed that those who used nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) did not gain any advantage over non-users in terms of relapse rates.
This observation held up among...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- Combination drug treatment that targets estrogen production significantly reduced the number of tobacco carcinogen-related lung tumors in mice, a new study shows.
"Anti-estrogens have been shown to prevent breast cancer in some women," Jill Siegfried, a professor in the department of pharmacology and chemical biology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said in an American Association for Cancer Research news release.
"If anti-estrogens can prevent lung cancer...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- Statin medications used by women after menopause appear to increase their risk of developing diabetes, according to a large, new study.
The research echoes findings of other studies linking the cholesterol-lowering drugs with an increased diabetes risk in men and women. Statins include drugs such as Lipitor, Lescol and Mevacor.
"We found statins increased the risk of diabetes about 48 percent after adjusting for different risk factors such as family history of diabetes, body...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning on Monday that some narcotic prescription painkillers made at a Nebraska plant may have been mixed up with some over-the-counter medicines packaged at the same facility.
"We issued a public health advisory to health care professionals and patients about a potential problem with opioid products manufactured and packaged for Endo Pharmaceuticals by Novartis Consumer Health at its Lincoln, Nebraska, site," Dr. Edward Cox,...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- Scientists who have started to identify genes and pathways associated with lung cancer in people who have never smoked say it's a first step in the potential development of new treatments.
Never-smokers -- people who've smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes over a lifetime -- account for about 10 percent of lung cancer cases.
But this group of lung cancer patients hasn't been studied as much as smokers who develop lung cancer, according to Timothy Whitsett, a senior postdoctoral...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- There's limited evidence that any particular diet or supplement helps kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but at least some research suggests that omega-3 fatty acids may help while fatty "Western-style" diets do these children no favors.
Researchers from Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago reviewed previous studies on diets and supplements that have been tried in children with ADHD. Among the diets tested: restricting sugar, which some parents...
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MONDAY, Jan. 9 -- Waiting up to a year to treat high blood pressure in a person with diabetes is probably not harmful, but waiting many years to get blood pressure under control could result in serious complications, new research indicates.
In the study, published online Jan. 9 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, researchers from the University of Chicago suggested that the one-year delay could give patients time to make certain lifestyle changes that could help correct the problem,...
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