public health

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Longtime Smokers Need Yearly CT Scan: US Panel

Feds think move will save 20K lives a year

(Newser) - Longtime heavy smokers should add a yearly chore to their medical regimen, says an influential federal panel: Get a CT scan. Specifically, the panel recommends that people 55 to 79 who have smoked a pack a day for 30 years should get the tests, even if they've long since...

Obesity Now Officially a Disease

AMA hopes designation will help people get treatment

(Newser) - More than a third of adults and nearly a fifth of children in the US are now officially considered to have a disease: obesity. The American Medical Association has now declared obesity to be a disease, a move it hopes will influence policy changes on the same scale that sharply...

Icky Hospital Problem: Getting Staff to Wash Hands

Many are trying high-tech monitoring, or even prizes as incentives

(Newser) - And the award for Heebie-Jeebiest Story of the Day goes to this gem from the New York Times , headlined: "Hospitals Struggle to Get Workers to Wash Their Hands." Turns out that, left to their own devices, hospital workers don't wash their hands all that often while interacting...

Poop Found in Most Swimming Pools

CDC has some unfortunate news

(Newser) - The CDC sampled 161 public swimming pools and discovered a very good reason to keep your mouth closed in the water: 58% of them had fecal contamination, reports USA Today . The pools were in Atlanta, but a CDC official says the findings would almost certainly apply to any city. Researchers...

Study: No Need to Dramatically Cut Salt

Consuming ultra-low levels may actually do more harm than good

(Newser) - Go easy on the salt, but not too easy. That's the surprising finding of a new study from the prestigious Institute of Medicine, reports the New York Times . The report concluded that people who follow the advice of groups such as the American Heart Association and limit intake to...

San Francisco Loses Fight to Put Warnings on Phones

Industry sued to avoid listing potential radiation risks

(Newser) - San Francisco is giving up its fight to become the first city in the US to require that cell phones come with warnings about the potential health risks of radiation, reports Reuters . The city tried to put such a law on the books in 2011, but the industry blocked it...

Sugar, Not Obesity, Is Our 'Smoking Gun'

Study conclusively finds that sugar is toxic, declares Mark Bittman

(Newser) - Sugar is "toxic," and is hands-down the biggest problem with the American diet, declares Mark Bittman in the New York Times . He cites a new study that finds increased sugar consumption is linked to increased diabetes rates, regardless of obesity rates. "In other words, according to this...

This Year's Flu Shot Isn't Protecting Seniors

It helps in just 9% of cases, says CDC

(Newser) - Senior citizens who got the flu shot this year needn't have bothered, reports USA Today . For those ages 65 and older, this year's vaccine helped in just 9% of cases against the predominant strain, a percentage deemed to be statistically insignificant by the CDC. Factoring in all ages,...

LA Tests Hotel's Water After Tourist's Body Found in Tank

Guests say water had been trickling out of taps for days

(Newser) - Guests at the Hotel Cecil thought something was up with the water supply. It had been dribbling out of faucets and showers for days. Now, they know why: There was a dead body in the water tank . The LA County Department of Public Health has been testing the hotel's...

America Mired in &#39;Severe Epidemic&#39; of Chlamydia, HPV
America Mired in 'Severe Epidemic' of Chlamydia, HPV
Happy Valentine's Day
Feb 14, 2013 7:46 AM CST

America Mired in 'Severe Epidemic' of Chlamydia, HPV

Top 8 STIs running rampant, CDC finds

(Newser) - Happy Valentine's Day! To celebrate, the CDC got you a romantic little pair of studies that declare America to be in the midst of "an ongoing, severe STI epidemic." With 20 million new infections in 2008 (the most recent year studied in the reports) and 110 million...

Healthier Menu Items Boost Sales at Restaurants

Lighter offerings turn into big sellers

(Newser) - Turns out that offering patrons lower-calorie options isn't just a good move for waistlines, it's a "business imperative" for restaurants, says the lead author of a new study. The report from the Hudson Institute finds that sales were up 5.5% between 2006 and 2011 at restaurants...

Thanks, Australia: Stomach Bug Spreading in US

Cases from new strain of norovirus on the rise, says CDC

(Newser) - A new strain of a highly contagious stomach virus from Australia is making lives miserable across the US, says the CDC. This particular strain is now responsible for most (58%) of the norovirus cases being reported in the country, reports WebMD and USA Today . The bug brings the usual happy...

Smokers Lose 10 Years
 Smokers Lose 10 Years 
landmark study
Jan 23, 2013 7:25 PM CST

Smokers Lose 10 Years

But those who quit before 35 erase the lost life expectancy

(Newser) - Lifetime smokers can expect to lose about 10 years off their lives, according to one of the most comprehensive studies ever done on the subject. Other highlights from the research in tomorrow's New England Journal of Medicine:
  • Those who quit before age 35 get back those years of life
...

Paid Sick Days Should Be a Right, Not a &#39;Benefit&#39;
Paid Sick Days Should Be a Right, Not a 'Benefit'
OPINION
Jan 22, 2013 12:58 PM CST

Paid Sick Days Should Be a Right, Not a 'Benefit'

We're all sicker when ill people have to work

(Newser) - Shamus Khan at Time offers this cheery little reminder amid the flu season: If you go out to eat or to grab a cup of coffee, most of the employees serving you don't get paid sick days. Which means they're probably going to show up even if they'...

Only Tennessee, Hawaii Still Escaping Flu

But CDC says it's on the wane in some areas

(Newser) - Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this season to 29, health officials said today. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu, so it is not known whether this year will be better or worse than usual. (This...

Your New Wonder Cure: Fecal Transplants

Patients with bacterial infection are good as new after treatment, says study

(Newser) - Gross-sounding, yes. But "fecal transplants" work like a charm for patients suffering bacterial ailments, according to new research. The Netherlands study found that people with the common Clostridium difficile infection, or CDI, were quickly cured after receiving the feces of a healthy donor. (It can be diluted and transferred...

Critics Pile on Coke's Anti-Obesity Ads

Campaign 'out of Damage Control 101,' critics say

(Newser) - Coca-Cola: Enemy of obesity? The soda giant calls for people to join together to fight obesity and hails its own efforts in a new ad campaign that began airing on major networks last night, the Los Angeles Times reports. "All calories count. No matter where they come from, including...

Flu Spreads to 47 States
 Flu Spreads to 47 States 
Jan 11, 2013 1:01 PM CST

Flu Spreads to 47 States

But it seems to decline in some places

(Newser) - The CDC rolled out a mix of good news/bad news on this year's flu outbreak today:
  • The bad: The number of states reporting widespread activity rose from 41 to 47 over the week. The far West (Arizona, California, Nevada, Guam, and Hawaii) has largely escaped the brunt of it
...

'Overweight Is OK' Study Shows You Can Trust CDC

Dr. Kent Sepkowitz praises the new study's honesty

(Newser) - Yesterday, the CDC released a study that flies in the face of the public health orthodoxy: Apparently, you can actually be too thin . That's staggering, given that for about a century now, fashion, cinema, and, yes, public health organs like the CDC have "made thin synonymous with beauty...

US Woefully Unprepared for New Tuberculosis Epidemic

Multidrug-resistant TB on the rise, and US is at risk: experts

(Newser) - Though multidrug-resistant tuberculosis was basically conquered in the US in the 1990s, it's now at epidemic levels in other parts of the world—and the US is not prepared, reports the Wall Street Journal in an extensive look at the disease. As TB strains get more drug-resistant abroad—a...

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