Health Watch

• Angelina Jolie's Double Mastectomy: Q&A

  

  Posted 8:45 PM 5/14/2013

  May 14, 2013 -- Actress and activist Angelina Jolie's recent decision to have a preventive double mastectomy highlights the difficult choices facing women who find out they have a high risk for breast cancer because of their genes.

  Although relatively rare, mutations in the BRCA1 and (More)
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• Antibiotics May Relieve Back Pain Symptoms

  

  Posted 6:43 PM 5/10/2013

  May 10, 2013 -- Taking antibiotics could relieve symptoms of chronic lower back pain for up to 40% of people, according to a new study.

  Danish researchers say they've found a link between many cases of back pain and infection from bacteria.

  Some experts (More)
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• Night Shifts May Raise Risk of Ovarian Cancer

  

  Posted 9:13 PM 3/15/2013

  March 15, 2013 -- Another study has shown a link between night-shift work and cancer, this time an increase in the risk of ovarian cancer.

  Much of the previous work on the link between cancer and night work has focused on (More)
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• Fewer Patients Awake During Operations

  

  Posted 2:59 PM 3/14/2013

  March 14, 2013 -- Being aware of what's going on during an operation under general anesthesia sounds scary. The good news is a new study suggests it happens less often than had been thought.

  Previous research has found that about 1 in 500 patients is aware or awake under general anaesthesia. The new report, from the U.K.'s Royal College of Anaesthetists, finds it is far less common, about 1 case in 15,000.

  Researchers also found that even where (More)
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• Grow Your Own Replacement Tooth?

  

  Posted 2:19 PM 3/12/2013

  March 12, 2013 -- Growing a replacement tooth from your own cells may be a step closer, according to new research.

  It is still too early for use in people, but the technique involves taking stem cells and growing more of them to produce a very small, immature tooth, similar to what a tooth would look like when it starts to grow in an embryo.

  "It's very (More)
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• Hardening of the Arteries Found in Ancient Mummies

  

  Posted 5:51 PM 3/11/2013

  March 11, 2013 (San Francisco) -- Hardening of the arteries may not be such a modern problem after all.

  Scans of mummies from four geographical regions across a period of 4,000 years suggest that atherosclerosis was more common in ancient populations than (More)
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• Diabetes Cost the U.S. $245 Billion in 2012

  

  Posted 8:14 PM 3/8/2013

  March 8, 2013 (Washington, D.C.) -- Diabetes cost the United States an estimated $245 billion in 2012, according to a new analysis from the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

  The report is an update to the ADA's last cost report issued in 2007. It looks at the use of health resources and lost productivity due to diabetes, as well as costs incurred by people with diabetes (More)
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• Women's Life Span Declining in Many Parts of U.S.

  

  Posted 9:29 PM 3/7/2013

  March 7, 2013 -- A 15-year analysis of death trends in the U.S. surprised health researchers by revealing a widespread increase in premature deaths among women, especially in the Western and Southern regions of the nation.

  "We ... were actually shocked to see that female [death] rates were worsening in more than 42 percent of counties," says researcher David Kindig, MD, PhD, professor emeritus of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin (More)
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• Q&A: Valerie Harper's Cancer

  

  Posted 9:49 PM 3/6/2013

  March 6, 2013 -- Actress Valerie Harper, best known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda in the 1970s, has learned she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.

  The condition happens when cancer spreads to the brain and spinal cord.

  Now 73, Harper told People magazine she received the diagnosis in January.

  The American (More)
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• Insomnia Linked to Future Heart Failure

  

  Posted 9:09 PM 3/6/2013

  March 6, 2013 -- Insomnia symptoms in middle age are strongly linked to the later development of heart failure, a large Norwegian study shows.

  The analysis, which considered more than 54,000 men and women, linked insomnia symptoms and (More)
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• Does Less Housework by Women Lead to More Obesity?

  

  Posted 6:17 PM 3/5/2013

  March 5, 2013 -- A new study adds yet more evidence that the decline in physical activity is contributing to the rise in obesity in the U.S. This study, however, is bound to cause some controversy, as researchers found the increase in obesity in women is tied to a falloff in (More)
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• Shifting Temps May Prime You for Spring Allergies

  

  Posted 3:54 PM 3/5/2013

  March 5, 2013 -- Spring allergy season is again off to an early start in many parts of the country, and doctors say there are some signs it may be even more miserable than usual this year.

  Last year was the fourth warmest winter on record, with consistently mild temperatures. That led to record-breaking pollen counts that struck (More)
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