News Articles
Jan. 22 - PLATTSBURGH - Shoppers looking for healthy choices on their grocery lists can gather tips from a new program being offered by the Clinton County Health Department. Nutritionists from the Health Department will meet with small groups of shoppers for scheduled tours of grocery stores, where they can identify healthy-food products and avoid those not-so-healthy options. "It's something we've...
1/22/2013
Obese people face a much higher risk - of up to 80 percent - of dying in a car collision compared with people of normal weight, researchers reported Monday in a specialist journal. The cause could be that safety in cars is engineered for people of normal weight, not for the obese, they said. Transport safety scientists Thomas Rice of the University of California at Berkeley and Motao Zhu of the University...
1/22/2013
When Matthew Foutz helped co-found the Human Tribe Project, a crowdfunding website that helps people raise money for medical or other crises, he never thought he'd end up using it for his own family. But two years ago, when his daughter Mia was 5, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She had surgery, then months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, which left Mia, now 7, with permanent memory,...
1/21/2013
Dieting is down but not out. On average, about 20% of people said they were on a diet during any given week in 2012, down from a high of 31% in 1991, according to new data from the NPD Group, a market research firm. Women showed the biggest decline: 23% report being on a diet in 2012, compared with 36% in 1991. That drop may partly explain this finding: About 23% of people in 2012 said that people...
1/21/2013
Jan. 21 - When Gatorade fan Sarah Kavanagh learned that her favorite drink contains an emulsifier banned in other countries over health concerns, she was taken aback. "I was shocked that they'd put their consumers at risk like that and that the FDA would allow something like that to be put in products," said the Mississippi 15-year-old, who launched a petition in November asking Gatorade to remove...
1/21/2013
Jan. 20 - BARTOW - If you're sick with symptoms that could be flu, visiting someone in the hospital is a bad idea. Hospitals encourage potential visitors to stay home if they're sick. But, recognizing that won't always happen, often the facilities post signs warning people how to behave. The warnings are particularly timely, with federal health officials saying the flu is worse than usual and that...
1/20/2013
Hotels are rushing to prepare to accommodate guests who arrive or come down with the potentially deadly flu that's sweeping the nation. "We hear the flu reports every day, and we want to be prepared (for sick guests)," says Andy Labetti, general manager of the Omni Berkshire Place in Midtown Manhattan. Preparations include having chicken soup to serve to sick guests stuck in their rooms, stocking up...
1/18/2013
Doctors have searched for years for a way to save the lives of patients infected with C. difficile, a treacherous bacteria that often stalks the halls of hospitals and nursing homes, attacking the weak and the elderly. The infection can cause severe diarrhea and life-threatening bowel inflammation, especially in patients treated extensively with antibiotics, which can kill off many "good" bacteria...
1/17/2013
Parents can have confidence about the safety of the standard childhood vaccine schedule, a report from a panel of experts says. The Institute of Medicine, which advises the government on health, looked into the vaccine schedule because of concerns from some parents that children today receive too many vaccines too soon. Yet delaying shots prolongs the time babies and children are vulnerable to "devastating...
1/17/2013
Some parts of the country are experiencing spot shortages of flu vaccine because of increased demand in a flu season that started earlier and is more severe than previous years. In Las Vegas, Celeste Tom tried six times before she found a flu shot for her boyfriend. "I'd been bugging him to get a flu shot, but he kept putting it off," said Tom, 55. The Smith's Food and Drug Center where she got her...
1/17/2013
Acontroversial new government study have have shaken some dieters' resolutions to lose weight. The research showed that people who are moderately heavy, up to 30 or so pounds above normal, have a slightly lower risk (6%) of premature death than those at a normal weight. But those who are extremely obese - roughly 60 or more pounds over a normal weight - have a 29% greater risk of dying early, according...
1/16/2013
Are parents happier than people without kids? Conventional wisdom would say kids bring parental joy, but in past research, childless people have reported greater well-being. Now, new studies in the journal Psychological Science find that overall, "parents (and especially fathers) report relatively higher levels of happiness, positive emotion, and meaning in life than do non-parents." Of three studies...
1/16/2013
What the nation owes each year to veterans who are disabled by war and service has more than doubled since 2000, rising from $14.8 billion to $39.4 billion in 2011, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The toll of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where troops served repeatedly in combat zones, is a key contributor to escalating costs of individual disability payouts, says Allison Hickey, VA...
1/16/2013
Jan. 15 - Dr. Andrea Dugas recalled widespread skepticism at a medical conference 10 years ago when she suggested that social media mentions and search volume could one day forecast flu activity. "They would say, 'How can you use this social media to surveil flu data' and 'It's crazy' and 'You can't do that,'" said Dugas, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies flu-tracking. "Now it's widely...
1/15/2013
Jan. 15 - Looking for one national statistic not climbing steadily alongside the obesity rate? How about instances of weight counseling initiated by primary care physicians. Penn State College of Medicine researchers say weight counseling for patients classified as overweight or obese has dropped 46 percent in 10 years. "We were surprised by these results ourselves," said Dr. Jennifer Kraschnewski,...
1/15/2013
TORONTO - Taking even low doses of opioids like codeine or morphine increases the risk of being involved in a traumatic motor vehicle accident ????? and that risk goes up as people take higher and higher amounts of the powerful pain killers, research suggests. Opioids, the widely prescribed class of drugs that also includes oxycodone, hydromorphone and the fentanyl patch, are prescribed for both acute...
1/15/2013
Beijing (dpa) - The sky over Beijing has darkened ominously. The sun is scarcely able to break through the thick smog as the skyscrapers of the city of 20 million disappear in the murk. The air has a burnt smell, and many people wear face masks. "I scarcely dare to breathe," one 47-year-old woman says. "It's unbelievable." Beijing's residents are accustomed to poor air quality, but nobody can recall...
1/14/2013
Jan. 14 - Laboratory testing for the flu has traditionally taken so long to yield results that most people recovered before finding out if they actually had the virus. But about half a dozen Chicago-area hospitals can now diagnose influenza in just more than an hour through a federally approved machine that has been working overtime during what is shaping up as a horrendous season for the flu. "If...
1/14/2013
Jan. 12 - Hospitals are seeing a dramatic increase in flu cases, including three deaths in Connecticut. This season's flu has officially reached the level of an epidemic in the U.S., federal health officials said Friday, but there's some hope that cases have peaked. Deaths from influenza and pneumonia accounted for 7.3 percent of all deaths in the week ending Jan. 5. The official threshold for an epidemic...
1/12/2013
San Francisco 49ers linebacker Tavares Gooden hadn't heard the news about Junior Seau when he got to the locker room Thursday. He said when he puts on his helmet each day, he doesn't think about potential long-term effects from hits to the head. He does think about it in the offseason, though, and he does something about it. "We can all learn something from Junior," Gooden told USA TODAY Sports. "I've...
1/11/2013
News that Junior Seau showed signs of degenerative brain disease when he killed himself in May did not surprise Mark Walczak, a friend and ex-teammate who spent time with Seau in the last week of his life. "In some ways, I'm relieved there's this finding," Walczak told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) named Seau as the latest of dozens of pro football players...
1/11/2013
An intensifying flu season is filling hospital emergency rooms around the country and renewing pleas for people to get vaccinated. "This is the worst flu season I've seen in all my practicing years," said Pat Meadors, emergency director at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, who graduated from medical school 35 years ago. In Albany, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo received a flu shot Thursday before TV cameras from...
1/11/2013
Here are a few common questions and answers about the flu from experts and public health officials.: Q: What are the symptoms? A: Misery, basically. Flu comes on suddenly, accompanied by fever and chills (rare for a cold), coughing, sore throats, muscle aches, fatigue and headaches. Nausea and diarrhea are more common in children. A bad cold makes daily life rotten, but a bad flu makes it really miserable....
1/11/2013
Americans die younger than people in other wealthy countries - and the gap is getting worse, a new report shows. Men in the USA have shorter lives than men in 16 developed nations. American women also fall near the bottom of the list, living 5.2 fewer years than Japanese women, who live the longest. Americans "have a long-standing pattern of poorer health that is strikingly consistent and pervasive"...
1/10/2013
A severe flu season prompted Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on Wednesday to declare a public-health emergency in the city. Boston health officials have confirmed 700 cases of flu - 10 times the number for the entire season last year. "This is the worst flu season we've seen since 2009, and people should take the threat of flu seriously," Menino said in a news release. The Boston declaration is meant to...
1/10/2013
