Health News - Friday, April 6, 2007
Milk does the body good -- and may help smokers break the habit, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center. Smokers reported that consuming milk, water, fruits and vegetables worsened the taste of cigarettes, while consuming alcohol, coffee and meat enhanced their taste, according to the scientists.
The findings could lead to a "Quit Smoking Diet" or to development of a gum or lozenge that makes cigarettes less palatable, said lead study investigator Joseph McClernon, Ph.D., an assistant research professor of medical psychiatry at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. "With a few modifications to their diet -- consuming items that make cigarettes taste bad, such as a cold glass of milk, and avoiding items that make cigarettes taste good, like a pint of beer -- smokers can make quitting a bit easier," McClernon said. Continue reading
The FDA has ordered several brands of prescription nausea and vomiting medication off the U.S. market, saying the drugs had not received government approval. Regulators said roughly a dozen manufacturers and distributors have until May 9 to cease sales of rectal suppositories containing the drug. The move does not affect several trimethobenzamide-containing oral drugs and injection drugs also used for nausea and vomiting.
About 2 million suppositories containing trimethobenzamide were sold last year, according to FDA. The ban affects widely distributed brands including Tigan, Tegamide, Trimethobenz, and Trimazide. Patients taking any of those brands should talk with their doctors, says Jason Woo, MD, associate director of scientific and medical affairs in the FDA’s Office of Compliance. Officials said they had no safety concerns but that manufacturers had not shown substantial evidence that trimethobenzamide is effective in suppository form. Continue reading
Since the introduction of the PCV7 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, which began in 2000 in the USA, there has been a significant fall in the number of hospital admissions for pneumonia, according to a new report by researchers from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, USA. The largest drop in hospitalizations was seen among babies under the age of two.
According to Dr. Carlos Grijalva, team leader, a large number of pneumonia can be prevented with PCV7. The vaccine was intended for protection from meningitis and bacteremia. However, it also protects from other common infections, such as pneumonia and ear infections (otitis media). The team studied hospital admissions for pneumonia nationwide during two periods - 1997 to 1999 - and - 2001 to 2004. They found than pneumonia hospital admissions in 2004 dropped by 41,000. As well as protecting those who were vaccinated, others were protected, say the researchers, because they were less exposed to pneumonia (herd community effect). Continue reading
People with mild to moderate sleep apnea may benefit more from breathing pressurized air via a facemask at night than from wearing an oral device while they sleep, Chinese researchers report. In addition, losing weight seems to improve disordered breathing during sleep, but most people can't ease the problem sufficiently with weight loss alone, according to the report in the medical journal Thorax.
Sleep apnea is a condition in which tissues in the airway passages collapse and block breathing for brief but frequent periods while a person sleeps. It's usually diagnosed in a sleep lab, where people can be observed and monitored while they sleep. People with sleep apnea usually suffer from excessive sleepiness during the day and are prone to develop high blood pressure and heart disease. Continue reading