In releasing his fiscal 2011 budget on Monday, President Barack Obama said his proposal includes funds to lay the groundwork for these reforms. Instead of dramatic action, the plan seeks to boost health information technology, cheaper generic drugs and certain Medicare payment changes.
Funding to fight diseases including parasites that cause disfiguring elephantiasis, hookworms and a blinding eye infection called trachoma, would more than double under the 2011 budget proposal, to $155 million from $65 million.
A report by the Geneva-based International Union Against Cancer (UICC) highlighted nine infections that can lead to cancer and urged health officials to drive home the importance of vaccines and lifestyle changes in fighting the disease.
A study by British scientists found that around half of those deaths could be averted if people ate healthier food and quit smoking, and experts warned there was no room for complacency when it came to heart health risks.
British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which is found in retroviruses like HIV and is a target for some of the newest HIV medicines.
The day after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address to the Congress, leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives said they would not abandon the bill despite sharp Democratic divisions on how to proceed.
A study of stimulant-deaths in Britain between 1997 and 2007 found that those who died after taking ecstasy were mainly younger and healthier than those who died after taking amphetamines.
The experiment could make it possible to someday take a sample of a patient's skin and turn the cells into a tailor-made transplant to treat brain diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, or heal damaged spinal cords.
Maikel Peppelenbosch of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands said tests showed that apigenin -- a common component of fruit and vegetables -- was able to halt the development of two kinds of cells in leukemia and cut their survival chances.
College students living in residency halls who wore the masks for a few hours a day and regularly used alcohol-based hand sanitizer cut their risk of coming down with flu-like illness by up to half, Dr. Allison E. Aiello of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her colleagues found.
In the study, overweight or obese individuals who went on a low-carb diet lost about the same amount of weight as those who cut down on their fat intake and took the weight-loss aid orlistat (sold as Xenical or Alli). However, the low-carb diet produced more favorable effects on blood pressure.
The scientists also found that people suffering from type 2 diabetes who used insulin to get blood sugar levels down to near normal were 50 percent more likely to die during the study period as those who used a combination of oral drugs, such as metformin and sulphonylurea.
This finding is potentially concerning, researchers say, given that data on the safety of herbal use during pregnancy is lacking. Furthermore, the prevalence of exposure was highest in the first 3 months of pregnancy, a critical period of development.
On December 14, 2009, Kourtney Kardashian gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Mason Dash Disick. She is quoted as saying that she gained 40 pounds - an entirely reasonable and typical amount for a normal, full term pregnancy.
But parents don't restrict their own energy intake, according to the report, which joins a growing body of work on the effects of menu labeling.
The overall teen pregnancy rate was up 3 percent in 2006, with a 4 percent rise in the rate of births and a 1 percent rise in the rate of abortions, according to the report by the Guttmacher Institute.
A vaccine additive made by Novartis and used in its European influenza shots can boost the body's immune response to a wide range of viruses, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
I won't stop fighting for you, he thundered in a campaign-style speech in economically sagging northeastern Ohio, remarks that provided a likely preview of the themes in his first State of the Union speech next Wednesday.
They also hope they can use the research to help tailor treatments for children, to spare them radiation and chemotherapy that may do them little good.
One in five American teens has unhealthy cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease in adults, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
The heavier teens were, the more likely they were to have high cholesterol but even 14 percent of teens with normal body weight were found to have unhealthy cholesterol levels, the CDC said.
The benefit to the U.S. population would be comparable to cutting smoking by 50 percent, significantly lowering obesity rates and giving cholesterol drugs to virtually everyone to prevent heart attacks, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues.
Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, also said the H1N1 pandemic appeared to be easing in the northern hemisphere but could still cause infections until winter ends in April. It was too soon to say what would happen once the southern hemisphere enters winter and the virus becomes more infectious.
A study by the European Healthcare Fraud and Corruption Network (EHFCN) and the Center for Counter Fraud Services (CCFS) at Britain's Portsmouth University found that 5.59 percent of annual global health spending is lost to mistakes or corruption.
Negotiators from the House of Representatives and Senate made solid progress in talks that stretched into the early morning on Friday, the White House said. Democrats hope to send the bill's major provisions to budget analysts within days.
A simple see and treat approach using a test costing $2 could help doctors prevent 100,000 cervical cancer deaths a year in women in poorer countries, British scientists said on Friday.
A study of atomic bomb survivors in Japan conducted over 53 years has found that they appear to suffer a far higher risk of heart disease and stroke because of their exposure to radiation.
The research suggests that while it is still rare to prescribe powerful psychiatric drugs to 2-year-olds, the practice is becoming more frequent.
The latest voluntary recall followed consumer reports of an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor that, in a small number of cases, was associated with temporary and non-serious gastrointestinal events, the company said. Such events included nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
In their first face-to-face talks on merging health bills in the Senate and House of Representatives, Democratic leaders worked through differences on how to pay for the overhaul, how to structure new insurance exchanges and a host of other issues.
