Study Raises Questions About Osteoporosis Drugs And Esophageal Cancer
Taking drugs like Fosamax to fight brittle bones isn’t a lot of fun. The directions sternly say you’ve got to swallow them first thing in the morning, before you eat or drink a thing. You can only wash the medicine down with a lot of water (no coffee!) and then must sit or stand upright [...]
In Weight-Loss Struggle, Americans Are Leery Of Pills
Have you taken a pill or supplement to lose weight? Would you? With several drugmakers working on new medicines to help overweight people shed pounds, we wondered how Americans view the idea these days. A bunch of previous medicines, most notably the two-drug combination known as fen-phen, have been tripped up by side effects. In [...]
Diet Pill Meridia Raises Risks For Strokes, Heart Attacks
Thirteen years ago the Food and Drug Administration approved a diet pill called Meridia. Now, finally, we’re finding out details on exactly how much the daily appetite suppressant increases the odds for heart attacks and strokes. And the findings led top editors at the New England Journal of Medicine to label Meridia “another flawed diet [...]
Allergan Settles Charges It Went Too Far Marketing Botox
When you hear about Botox, the temporary wrinkle remover, you might think about Hollywood stars or even how the local doctor, dentist’s office or spa has begun offering shots of the stuff, too. But the selling of Botox has gone far beyond cosmetics. And Allergan, the drug’s maker, has just agreed to settle federal charges [...]
About A Third of Births, Even For First-Time Moms, Are Now By Cesarean
If there’s ever going to be progress in reducing the frequency of cesarean sections in this country, it sure will take a while. The latest snapshot of how women give birth in the United States is sobering. Almost a third of women giving birth for the first time have C-sections. In the late ’90s, about [...]
How Veterinarians Help Predatory Lenders
Up in New York, Democratic Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Andrew Cuomo has started looking into predatory lending practices by dentists, chiropractors and other health care practitioners whose services often aren’t covered by insurance. Among the health care providers Cuomo claims are preying on vulnerable patients are some you might not expect: veterinarians. As anyone [...]
Manure Piles, Rodents And Swarming Flies Found At Egg Farms
If you’ve never read reports written by Food and Drug Administration inspectors after they swoop down on a factory, warehouse or farm, then you might want to start with the two from the egg producers at the center of the massive egg recalls due to salmonella risks. Then again, skip them — and this post [...]
5 Worries Parents Should Drop, And 5 They Shouldn’t
Shoomp shoomp shoomp. Hear that? That’s the sound of helicopter parents hovering over their children, worrying every second of the day that terrorists could strike Johnny’s school or a stranger will snatch Jane from the bus stop. Scary stuff. But it turns out most parents are worrying about all the wrong things. “These worries that [...]
Genetic Tests Get Mixed Results For Blood Thinners
When it comes to genetic testing, one of the long-heralded promises for patients is that a quick look at their genes will help doctors decide which medicines will work best for all sort of illnesses. So far, the biggest payoff has probably come for cancer patients. The genetic fingerprint of a breast tumor can determine [...]
What Does It Feel Like To Be 75? Say Goodbye To Spry
While reporting my recent series on Aging At Home, I came across a special suit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab. It’s meant to help 20-something engineers feel the aches and limitations of an average 75-year-old so they can design better products for them. Think of it as working like those outfits Superheroes put [...]
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