NEW YORK: Red-meat lovers may have a greater likelihood of developing certain cancers of the throat and stomach than people who limit their intake of steaks and hamburgers, a new study suggests. Researchers found that among nearly 500,000 older US adults followed for a decade, only a small number developed cancers of the esophagus or stomach. However, the risks were relatively greater among those who ate a lot of red meat, or certain compounds generated from cooking meat.
LONDON : People should be cautious about taking vitamin E supplements regularly because doing so can increase the risk of a certain type of stroke, an international team of scientists said on Friday. Researchers from the United States, France and Germany reviewed existing studies of vitamin E and its effect on stroke and found that taking the vitamin increased the risk of hemorrhagic stroke, where bleeding occurs in the brain, by 22 percent, but cuts the risk of ischaemic stroke by 10 percent.
CHICAGO : Slight differences in five amino acids in a protein called HLA-B may explain why certain people resist the human immunodeficiency virus, US researchers said on Thursday in a study that lends new clues about how to make a vaccine to prevent AIDS. “For a long time, we’ve known that some people progress extremely rapidly when they get infected, and others can stay well for three decades and never need treatment and still look entirely well,” said Dr. Bruce Walker of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, whose study appears in the journal Science.
NEW YORK: Exercise appears to have little long-term impact on depression, according to a new review of large studies investigating the relationship. As long as people with depression were taking part in an exercise program, it appeared to have a small effect on their symptoms - but months after the intervention ended, they were just as depressed as people who did not participate in the exercise program.
NEW YORK: Couples undergoing infertility treatment in the European Union are routinely tested for HIV and hepatitis multiple times, but a new study suggests that this is unnecessary. According to an EU directive issued in 2006, couples undergoing infertility treatment using their own eggs and sperm should be tested for HIV and the liver infections hepatitis B and C “at the time of donation.”
NEW YORK: A patient may be twice as likely to undergo an X-ray, ultrasound or other diagnostic imaging test after seeing a self-employed urologist as opposed to an employed urologist on salary, suggests a new study. While other factors may be at play, the finding builds on growing evidence for the role of financial incentives in physician behavior and the impact that this behavior may have on soaring health care expenditures in the US
NEW YORK : Eli Lilly said on Thursday US regulators approved the use of Cymbalta, its blockbuster anti-depressant drug, for chronic musculoskeletal pain, including lower back pain and osteoarthritis. The approval could lead to a sales boost for the drug, which at annual sales of some $3.5 billion, is already the No. 2 product for Lilly. But any increase would be temporary as Cymbalta loses its US patent protection in mid-2013.
CHICAGO : Americans will keep growing fatter until 42 percent of the nation is considered obese, and having fat friends is part of the problem, researchers said on Thursday. The prediction by a team of researchers at Harvard University contradicts other experts who say the nation’s obesity rate has peaked at 34 percent of the US population.
WASHINGTON : Screening smokers and former smokers for lung tumors using three-dimensional X-rays reduced their risk of dying from lung cancer by 20 percent, researchers said on Thursday. The study sponsored by the US National Cancer Institute is the first to show that people can be screened for lung cancer, akin to mammograms for breast cancer and tests for colon and prostate cancer.
