http://www.kentucky.com/148/index.xml News, sports, and entertainment from Kentucky.com en-us Copyright 2008 Kentucky.com Medicine 60 Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:21:18 EST http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss McClatchy Interactive's Workbench webmaster@kentucky.com http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596183.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596183.html Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:39 EST
WASHINGTON . Scientists are baffled by one of humankind's most annoying problems, itching, an almost universal misery for which there is, as yet, no adequate explanation or treatment.

"Why we can't stop scratching remains a big puzzle for researchers," said Zhou-Feng Chen, a neuroscientist at Washington University, St. Louis.

"Itch can be devastating to patients and lead to extensive loss of quality of life," said Matthias Ringkamp, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "Unfortunately, the treatment of itch is often unsatisfactory."

The recent discovery of an "itchy gene," however, might offer hope for better treatments, Chen said. A drug to block that gene might relieve the distress of itching. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596182.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596182.html Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:39 EST
WASHINGTON . What was left of Dan Sivia's ankle simply didn't work. He limped through his 30s by sheer force of will, one foot almost completely immobile from repeated broken bones and surgeries.

Then a doctor offered his last hope: an ankle replacement.

A what? Sivia knew about hip, knee, even shoulder replacements. But ankles?

His confusion is understandable: The first ankle replacements of the 1970s were abandoned when they couldn't withstand the pounding of daily life. A second generation in the '90s lasted longer but never became really popular. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596124.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596124.html Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:38 EST
WASHINGTON . An American subjected to several years of intense FBI scrutiny and questioning about links to terrorism has been held without charges, access to a lawyer or contact with his family for nearly three months by the security services of the United Arab Emirates.

The case of Naji Hamdan raises the question of whether the Bush administration has asked other nations to hold Americans suspected of terrorism links whom U.S. officials lack the evidence to charge.

That allegation is central to a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union was planning to file Tuesday against President Bush, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

"If the U.S. government is responsible for this detention, and we believe it is, this is clearly illegal because our government can't contract away the Constitution by enlisting the aid of other governments that do not adhere to the Constitution's requirements," said Ahilan Arulanantham of the ACLU's Southern California office. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596119.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/596119.html Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:38 EST
CHICAGO . Babies born to couples who rely on medical technology to become pregnant have much higher rates of certain birth defects, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Human Reproduction.

The report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found these infants have twice as many heart defects and cleft lips and nearly four times as many gastrointestinal defects as those conceived without technological interventions.

Still, the overall rate of the defects was low and the majority of babies born to couples using assisted reproduction were normal, said Jennita Reehfuis, a CDC epidemiologist and lead author of the report.

Independent experts noted the study establishes an association, not a causal connection, between birth defects and two procedures: in vitro fertilization and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection. (With IVF, a man's sperm and a woman's egg are merged outside the body. ICSI involves injecting a single sperm into an egg. In both cases, resulting embryos are then implanted in a woman.) ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/595052.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/595052.html Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:48 EST
WASHINGTON . Growing old isn't for sissies, the saying goes. The passage of years usually brings physical frailty, failing memory, cancer and other diseases.

As more people live longer, scientists are stepping up their efforts to understand the biological process. Recent research is changing their views on how and why we age.

For half a century, much of the deterioration that comes over time has been blamed on "free radicals." These are toxic, unstable molecules of oxygen running amok in the cells of your body.

This is called the "oxygen paradox," since oxygen is both necessary for . and dangerous to . living organisms. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/595027.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/595027.html Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:42 EST
What's the healthiest city in America? It appears to be Burlington, Vt.

Vermont's largest city is tops among U.S. metropolitan areas by having the largest proportion of people . 92 percent . who say they are in good or great health.

Burlington also is among the best in exercise, and it's among the lowest in obesity, diabetes and other measures of ill health, according to a recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The New England city of 40,000, on the shores of Lake Champlain, is in some ways similar to the unhealthiest city . Huntington, W.Va. Both are out-of-the-way college towns with populations that are overwhelmingly white people of English, German or Irish ancestry. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/594052.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/594052.html Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:57 EST
DENVER . Decades ago, as a high school student thumbing through a popular ladies' magazine, Pat McAlister stumbled upon an article that seemed to predict her impending demise.

Diabetics, she read, generally didn't live beyond age 25. She would discover later that her parents, and later still, her husband, privately had been resigned to the likelihood that her time would be short.

"I never felt like that," says McAlister, "and I wasn't going to believe it."

Now, 61 years after her diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes . originally called juvenile or childhood diabetes . she teaches college, remains active in her church and spends after-school hours with her 9-year-old granddaughter. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/592894.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/592894.html Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:48 EST
ATLANTA . The lives of nearly 8,000 black Americans could be saved each year if doctors could figure out a way to bring their average blood pressure down to the average level of whites, a surprising new study found.

The gap between the races in controlling blood pressure is well-known, but the resulting number of lives lost startled some scientists.

"We expected it to be big, but it was even larger than we anticipated," said lead author Dr. Kevin Fiscella of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

The study, released Monday in the Annals of Family Medicine, is being called the first to calculate the lives lost due to racial disparities in blood pressure control. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/591577.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/591577.html Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:42 EST
WASHINGTON . Robert Clark describes himself as a bit of a tightwad. So he's a little perplexed about the news from his Medicare drug plan. His monthly premium will rise from $25 a month to $41 a month next year. His wife, June, will face the same increase.

Clark, of Cumming, Ga., emphasized he just wants to be treated fairly. "I've always been careful about my money," he said. "I don't understand why it has to double."

While the increase falls short of a doubling, it's clear the Clarks, as well as millions of other seniors and the disabled, face hefty premium increases next year for prescription drug coverage.

Among the top 10 drug plans in terms of enrollment, the average monthly premium will increase anywhere from 8 percent to 63.7 percent, according to an analysis from Avalere Health, a management consulting firm. At the same time, those plans are reducing the number of medicines that they'll cover by about 9 percent. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/591549.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/591549.html Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:42 EST
LONDON . If you think they're out to get you, you're not alone.

Paranoia, once assumed to afflict only schizophrenics, might be a lot more common than previously thought.

According to British psychologist Daniel Freeman, nearly one in four Londoners regularly has paranoid thoughts. Freeman is a paranoia expert at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College and the author of a book on the subject.

Experts say there is a wide spectrum of paranoia, from the dangerous delusions that drive schizophrenics to violence, to the irrational fears many people have daily. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/591548.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/591548.html Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:42 EST
ATLANTA . For the first time, an expensive vaccine aimed at preventing cervical cancer in women has proven successful at preventing a disease in men, according to a study released Thursday by the vaccine's maker.

The disease is genital warts . sexually transmitted, embarrassing and uncomfortable, but not life-threatening.

Still, the results are expected to bolster a likely bid by the vaccine's manufacturer, Merck . Co. Inc., to begin marketing the vaccine to boys, experts said. Merck plans to ask the government for that approval later this year.

"This opens the door to a wonderful opportunity to prevent illness," said Anna Giuliano, a researcher at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., who worked on the Merck study. The research results were being presented Thursday at a medical conference in Europe. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590632.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590632.html Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:49 EST
Issues surrounding hospital-acquired infections and other medical events "that should never happen" will highlight a health care conference in Lexington next week.

The second Conference for Healthcare Transparency and Patient Advocacy will be Nov. 20 at the Four Points Sheraton in Lexington. Health Watch USA, Consumers Union, Kentucky Watch and the Laurel County and Pulaski County medical societies will sponsor the daylong event.

It follows a similar session last year.

The sponsors think Kentuckians could get better health care and save money by shopping for low prices and high quality . if the health care system were transparent enough to make such information widely available. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590218.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590218.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:44 EST
WASHINGTON . The odds of having a premature baby are lowest in Vermont and highest in Mississippi.

The March of Dimes mapped stark state-by-state disparities in what it called a "report card" on prematurity Wednesday.

There's not much chance of meeting that goal by the original 2010 deadline, if the "D" grade the charity bestowed on the nation is any indication.

More than half a million U.S. babies . one in every eight . are born premature each year, a toll that's risen steadily for two decades. The government's goal: No more than 7.6 percent of babies born before completion of the 37th week of pregnancy. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590217.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590217.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:44 EST
NEW ORLEANS . New research finds that heart transplant patients have better odds of survival and a lower risk of rejection if they get organs from donors of the same sex.

Size might be part of the explanation. Men's hearts are bigger than women's and have greater pumping capacity, and men who get men's hearts fare better. But doctors think differences in hormones or immune systems between the sexes might also play a role.

The study was paid for by the U.S. government and led by Dr. Eric Weiss, a cardiac surgery researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He presented his findings Wednesday at an American Heart Association conference.

Unfortunately for many patients, the findings won't make much difference. About 2,700 Americans are waiting for a heart, and only 2,200 heart transplants are done each year . some of them second operations for people whose first transplant failed, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the U.S. transplant system. The average wait for a heart is 108 days for women and 119 for men. Three-fourths of heart transplants are done in men, so by necessity, many must receive organs from the opposite sex. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590216.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/590216.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:44 EST
Key to breast cancer drug discovered

WASHINGTON . Scientists have pinpointed the molecular on-off switch that the powerful drug tamoxifen uses to attack breast cancer and which prevents it from working in some women.

That discovery should eventually help doctors test for resistance to the drug, the chief treatment for breast cancers that are estrogen-driven, researchers said. Tamoxifen doesn't work in about one-quarter to one-third of women who are treated with it.

A test for resistance based on the research, published in Thursday's editions of the journal Nature, is probably about five years away, said study co-author Jason Carroll, a cancer researcher at the Cambridge Research Institute in the United Kingdom. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/588902.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/588902.html Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:45 EST
NEW ORLEANS . A new study finds striking evidence that children who are obese or have high cholesterol show early warning signs of heart disease.

The study, presented Tuesday at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans, found that the thickness of artery walls of children and teenagers with obesity or high cholesterol resembled the thickness of artery walls of an average 45-year-old.

The study, not yet published, was small, involving 70 children ages 6 to 19, and several experts said the results would need to be replicated to be considered conclusive. But they said the method used to measure artery wall thickness was considered a reliable indicator of heart disease risk, usually more reliable than cholesterol levels or other measures. The method, which uses ultrasound, has been applied to children in other studies in the last few years, but experts said this appeared to be the first time that results had been correlated to adults.

"I think this is a red flag," said the lead author of the study, Dr. Geetha Raghuveer, a cardiologist and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. "These kids are more similar to middle-aged adults." ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/588876.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/588876.html Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:45 EST
SAN FRANCISCO . There is a new common symptom of the flu, in addition to the usual aches, coughs, fevers and sore throats. It turns out that a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases such as "flu symptoms" into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors.

That simple act, multiplied across millions of keyboards in homes around the country, has given rise to a new early-warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks, called Google Flu Trends.

Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company's philanthropic unit, suggest that it might be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In February, for example, the CDC reported that the flu cases had recently spiked in the mid-Atlantic states. But Google says its search data show a spike in queries about flu symptoms two weeks before that report was released. Its new service at google.org/flutrends analyzes those searches as they come in, creating graphs and maps of the country that, ideally, will show where the flu is spreading. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/588875.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/588875.html Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:45 EST http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/587229.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/587229.html Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:02 EST
The University of Kentucky plans to develop a new center to research and fight diabetes and obesity, thanks to millions of dollars in donations from Derby party hostess and UK alumna Patricia Barnstable-Brown of Louisville.

Barely a "kernel of an idea" only four or five months ago, the new Barnstable-Brown Diabetes and Obesity Center could be up and running within months, UK officials said.

The plan is for a "virtual center" . there would be no free-standing building . bringing together UK experts from various colleges and disciplines.

One goal would be to develop a statewide strategy to combat diabetes and obesity. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/587824.html http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/587824.html Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:43 EST
Age alone doesn't rule out heart surgery

Eighty-year-olds with clogged arteries or leaky heart valves used to be sent home with a pat on the arm from their doctors, and pills to ease their symptoms. Now more are getting open-heart surgery, with remarkable survival rates rivaling those of much younger people, new studies show.

Not every older person can undergo such a challenging operation, but the great results seen in the studies show that doctors have gotten good at figuring out who can. They were reported at an American Heart Association conference this week in New Orleans.

In a a study of 1,062 octogenarians who had heart bypass surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Fla., from 1989 through 2001,average survival was roughly six years . almost the same as that of similarly aged people who do not have heart disease. ]]>