 |
 NEWS
|
| Mutated scarlet fever fuels Hong Kong outbreak Ultramodern Hong Kong is tussling with a centuries-old bug long forgotten in many developed countries — an outbreak of drug-resistant scarlet fever that has killed the first children there in a decade. And with it is the rise of a mutated strain that appears to be more contagious. The number of cases has spiked this year to more than 500, with health officials issuing warnings in the southern Chinese city jammed with 7 million people and hypersensitive to any type of disease outbreak. Experts warn the main strain of the bacterial infection is likely transmitted easier. It is 60 percent resistant to two drugs of choice, up from a resistance level of 10 to 30 percent previously. Lifestyle Changes Might Alter Breast Cancer Rates FRIDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- Lifestyle changes such as losing weight, drinking less alcohol and getting more exercise could lead to a substantial reduction in breast cancer cases across an entire population, according to a new model that estimates the impact of these modifiable risk factors. Although such models are often used to estimate breast cancer risk, they are usually based on things that women can't change, such as a family history of breast cancer. Up to now, there have been few models based on ways women could reduce their risk through changes in their lifestyle. Nearly Half of Older Breast Cancer Patients Don't Get Radiation MONDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- Even though radiation after mastectomy for advanced breast cancer has been proven to save lives and multiple guidelines call for it, nearly half of these patients don't receive it, researchers say. Between 1999 and 2005, only 55 percent of older high-risk breast cancer patients who should have undergone radiation therapy actually received it, according to the study that appears online June 27 in the journal Cancer. "When physicians are not guided by published evidence, there is the chance that patient outcomes will suffer or that patients will undergo unnecessary treatments and tests," study co-leader Dr. Shervin Shirvani, of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said in a journal news release. Bristol diabetes pill tied to certain cancers SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A new type of diabetes pill being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca was effective in a two-year study but more bladder and breast cancers have been found in patients treated with the drug. In all studies so far completed, 1.4 percent of patients treated with dapagliflozin developed some type of cancer, compared with 1.3 percent of control group patients, said Elisabeth Bjork, vice president of development for dapagliflozin at AstraZeneca. Calories, Not Protein or Carbs, Are Key to Weight Loss: Study SUNDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- Curbing calories is the key ingredient for diabetics seeking to lose weight, and low-fat diets that are either high in protein or high in carbs are equally effective, researchers say. "I think there are two key messages from this study," said study lead author Jeremy D. Krebs, a senior lecturer with the school of medicine and health sciences at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand. "The first is that no matter what diet we prescribe, people find it extremely difficult to sustain the changes from their habitual diet over a long time. But if they are able to follow either a high-protein diet or a high-carbohydrate diet, they can achieve modest weight loss." |