Solution to killer superbug found in Norway :
Solution to killer superbug found in Norway The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the leading public health threats on the planet. A six-month investigation by The Associated Press found overuse and misuse of medicines has led to mutations in once curable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, making them harder and in some cases impossible to treat.
New form of malaria threatens Thai-Cambodia border :
New form of malaria threatens Thai-Cambodia border PAILIN, Cambodia – O'treng village doesn't look like the epicenter of anything.
Just off a muddy rutted-out road, it is nothing more than a handful of Khmer-style bamboo huts perched crookedly on stilts, tucked among a tangle of cornfields once littered with deadly land mines.
Yet this spot on the Thai-Cambodian border is home to a form of malaria that keeps rendering one powerful drug after another useless. This time, scientists have confirmed the first signs of resistance to the only affordable treatment left in the global medicine cabinet for malaria: Artemisinin.
Study: Ginkgo Does Not Slow Cognitive Decline of Aging :
Study: Ginkgo Does Not Slow Cognitive Decline of Aging Researchers at six universities across the U.S., led by Dr. Steven DeKosky at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, report that elderly people taking ginkgo supplements showed no notable differences in scores on brain-function tests from people taking placebo pills. The team, which published its results Tuesday, Dec. 29, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, tested volunteers on a range of tasks, including memory, attention, language, and visual and spatial constructions, and found that the extract from the ancient tree did little to slow the decline of these functions.
-- Time
New Guidelines Urge A1C Test for Diabetes Diagnosis :
New Guidelines Urge A1C Test for Diabetes Diagnosis In its latest set of clinical guidelines, the American Diabetes Association is promoting a more prominent role for the hemoglobin A1C blood test in the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes.
Long used in the management of diabetes, the A1C blood test measures average blood sugar levels for the previous two to three months. The new guidelines call for the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes at A1C levels above 6.5 percent, and prediabetes if the A1C levels are between 5.7 and 6.4 percent.
-- Healthday
Texas study confirms lower autism rate in Hispanics :
Texas study confirms lower autism rate in Hispanics Hispanic kids are less likely than their non-Hispanic white counterparts to be diagnosed with autism, and socioeconomic factors don't seem to explain the difference, according to a new study in Texas schoolchildren.
"These findings raise questions: Is autism under diagnosed among Hispanics? Are there protective factors associated with Hispanic ethnicity?" Dr. Raymond F. Palmer of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and his colleagues write in the American Journal of Public Health.
-- Reuters
Diabetics Less Prone Now to End-Stage Kidney Disease :
Diabetics Less Prone Now to End-Stage Kidney Disease The incidence of end-stage kidney disease, one of the most serious complications of diabetes, rose steadily in people with diabetes for decades. But, in 1996, the rate of diabetes-related end-stage kidney disease finally began to decline.
Since that time, the incidence has dropped steadily -- about 3.9 percent a year, a new government study finds.
"The incidence had decreased for all age groups and for both men and women," noted study author Nilka Rios Burrows, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
-- HealthDay