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Promising new treatment for alcohol dependence

According to the World Health Organization's Global Burden of Disease project, alcohol dependence, a major public health problem, ranks fourth as one of the worlds leading cause of disability. In the US alone over 100,000 deaths each year, where alcohol was a contributing factor, could have been prevented.

6 Apr 2005

Contrary to common wisdom, sleeping pills may not increase fall risk

In nursing homes across the country, elderly people with insomnia often go untreated, because of the perception that sleeping pills increase the risk of falls and injuries that are a bane of old age.

6 Apr 2005

Cardiovascular Disease: Diet, Nutrition And Emerging Risk Factors

Despite improvements in death rates from cardiovascular disease (CVD) around the world, CVD remains a leading cause of death and ill health in the UK, where death rates are amongst the highest in the world. Reducing death rates from this disease remains high on the Government’s agenda, yet attention to the classical risk factors may not provide all the answers.

6 Apr 2005

Pentagon too slow responding to Anthrax scare

A report by officials in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia says the Pentagon was too slow in informing local officials about the recent anthrax scare in Defence Department mail facilities and gave antibiotics to workers without coordinating with public health officials. It says the Homeland Security Department (DoD) "needs to be involved earlier in such incidents".

6 Apr 2005

No association found between diet and pancreatic cancer

According to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), the risk of pancreatic cancer does not appear to be associated with dietary patterns.

5 Apr 2005

Diuretics work better for high blood pressure

Study results by faculty members of the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston suggests that the older, cheaper diuretics remain the drug of choice for both black and non-black patients in treating high blood pressure and reducing risk of heart disease, and confirms earlier findings that diuretics rather than newer, more expensive drugs such as ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, or beta blockers should be preferred as a first therapy for most patients.

5 Apr 2005

Modest triglyceride elevations linked to coronary artery disease risk

Even modest increases in blood levels of triglycerides, as well as a type of high cholesterol known as type III hyperlipidemia, are strongly associated with coronary artery disease in people with a family history of the disease, according to a new study in the April 5, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

5 Apr 2005

Britain becoming "pill for every ill" society

A report by the influential Commons Select Committee on Health, criticises the drugs industry for promoting the wider use of medication in a bid to increase its profits, and says Britain is being turned into "pill for every ill" society by the multibillion-pound drugs industry, which encourages patients to take medication even for "unhappiness".

5 Apr 2005

E.Sakazakii Meningitis to become a notifiable disease

A potentially fatal form of meningitis in premature babies linked to contaminated milk powder should be made a notifiable disease according to a report released today.

5 Apr 2005

Seven-year research project to expand the evidence base in dentistry

Washington Dental Service, the University of Washington School of Dentistry and the School of Dentistry at Oregon Health Sciences University are partnering in a seven-year research project to expand the evidence base in dentistry.

5 Apr 2005

Obesity costs California $21.7 billion a year

California businesses are feeling the financial pinch from employees with obesity-related health conditions, State Public Health Officer Dr. Richard J. Jackson announced today. The combined cost of physical inactivity, obesity and overweight totaled $21.7 billion in 2000, according to a new report, The Economic Costs of Physical Inactivity, Obesity and Overweight in California Adults, the first such research conducted for California.

5 Apr 2005

Meningitis epidemics driven by the wind

A meningitis epidemic hits West Africa every year, affecting 25 000 to 200 000 people. It has long been known that the timing of this epidemic and its spatial distribution within the “Meningitis Belt”, situated between 10° and 15° North, are closely linked to climatic conditions. Involved in the AMMA programme, IRD and University of Paris-VII researcher produced the first quantified description of this relationship using statistical methods.

5 Apr 2005

Parents fail to set the rules on smoking

A study involving 1,770 parents and guardians in New York and New Jersey has found that despite repeated health warnings about the dangers of second-hand smoke, a large percentage of families have no rules that limit children's exposure to tobacco smoke.

5 Apr 2005

Much more money needed to tackle flu virus

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is recommending that governments throughout the world need to set aside 5 per cent of what they spend on influenza vaccines to help get ready for the next big flu epidemic.

4 Apr 2005

Obesity may hinder body's ability to control influenza infection

Obesity apparently reduces laboratory mice’s ability to turn on elements of their immune systems needed for controlling influenza infection, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine study shows.

4 Apr 2005

Effect of individualized diets on chronic disease risk

Today at the 2005 Experimental Biology Conference, the Dairy Council of California sponsored a thought-provoking symposium titled "Individualized nutrition as a tool to prevent and treat chronic disease."

4 Apr 2005

More exhaust inhaled by kids inside school buses than by others in the area

Children on school buses collectively inhale as much or more exhaust emitted from those buses as does the rest of the city's population, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California.

4 Apr 2005

You might as well smoke

Information on the internet about the health risks associated with the consumption of smokeless tobacco usually overstates the risk. This is the conclusion of research published today in the Open Access journal BMC Public Health, entitled "You might as well smoke; the misleading and harmful public message about smokeless tobacco".

4 Apr 2005

Unravelling the Ebola virus’s biological cycle

Ebola virus infection in humans provokes a violent haemorrhagic fever. It usually flares up as intense epidemics. These kill 80 % of the people infected. Seven such outbreaks have hit Gabon and the Republic of Congo since 1994, leading to 445 cases resulting in 361 deaths.

4 Apr 2005

Early home environment and television watching influence bullying behavior

Four-year-old children who receive emotional support and cognitive stimulation from their parents are significantly less likely to become bullies in grade school, but the more television four-year-olds watch the more likely they are to bully later, according to an article in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

4 Apr 2005