The ranks of obese Americans are expected to swell even further in the coming years, rising from 36% of the adult population today to 42% by 2030, experts said Monday. Kicking off a government-led conference on the public health ramifications of all those expanding waistlines, the authors of a new report estimated that the cost of treating those additional obese people for diabetes, heart disease and... (read more)
Pregnant women might now have one more good reason to watch their diet and exercise: A new study links autism and developmental delays in young children to metabolic conditions, like obesity and diabetes, in their mothers. The findings, published in Monday's edition of the journal Pediatrics, found that women who had diabetes or hypertension or were obese were 1.61 times as likely as healthy wo... (read more)
A malaria strain increasingly resistant to the most effective drug used to treat the disease has spread along the Thai-Myanmar border, a 10-year study published in The Lancet medical journal found, and may reach India and Africa unless ways are found to contain it. The findings in the U.K.-based publication released on Friday observed that patients at malaria clinics took longer to get better... (read more)
A person's mere presence in a room can add 37 million bacteria to the air every hour -- material largely left behind by previous occupants and stirred up from the floor -- according to new research by Yale University engineers. "We live in this microbial soup, and a big ingredient is our own microorganisms," said Jordan Peccia, associate professor of environmental ... (read more)
When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans — green as the day they were picked — may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adult... (read more)
Three new studies published on Wednesday added to growing scientific evidence suggesting that taking a daily dose of aspirin can help prevent, and possibly treat, cancer. Previous studies have found that daily aspirin reduces the long-term risk of death due to cancer, but until now the shorter-term effects have been less certain - as has the medicine's potential in patients already diagnosed with cance... (read more)
Twenty million Americans get sick from norovirus each year according to data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Often called vomiting illness, it can spread rapidly on cruise ships, and in dormitories and hospitals. Recent data from the CDC shows deaths from gastrointestinal infections have more than doubled and have become a particular threat to the elderly. The virus is she... (read more)
Coke and PepsiCo Inc. are adjusting the formula of their caramel colour across the U.S so they don’t have to label their products with a cancer warning to comply with California regulations. However, Coca Cola are not changing the drink ingredients in the UK because the manufacturing process complies with European safety rules. Pepsi have yet to comment. The changes ha... (read more)
Computerized patient records are unlikely to cut health care costs and may actually encourage doctors to order expensive tests more often, a study published on Monday concludes. Industry experts have said that electronic health records could generate huge savings — as much as $80 billion a year, according to a RAND Corporation estimate. The promise of cost savings has been a major justification for... (read more)
Prescription drugs to treat some of the most common chronic diseases, such as high cholesterol and diabetes, may become available over the counter under a plan being considered by U.S. regulators. In what would be a major shift in policy if finalized, the Food and Drug Administration is seeking public comment until Friday on a way to make these medications more readily available. It will also have a meet... (read more)
Health regulators are adding warnings to the labels of widely used cholesterol lowering drugs, such as Lipitor, to say they may raise levels of blood sugar and could cause memory loss. The Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday the changes to the safety information on the labels of statins such as Pfizer Inc's Lipitor, AstraZeneca's Crestor and Merck & Co's Zocor that are taken by tens of m... (read more)
A new study provides what independent researchers call the best evidence yet that colonoscopy — perhaps the most unloved cancer screening test — prevents deaths. Although many people have assumed that colonoscopy must save lives because it is so often recommended, strong evidence has been lacking until now. In patients tracked for as long as 20 years, the death rate from colorectal cancer was cut by 53 perce... (read more)
Livestock in the United States may be building resistance to deadly bacterial infections, and those superbugs may be easily transferrable to humans, according to a new study published in the journal, mBio. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is a strain of staph bacteria that does not respond to antibiotics used to treat staph infections. About two out of every 100 people carry... (read more)
States that allow raw milk sales have more than twice as many dairy-related disease outbreaks as states with prohibitions on such unpasteurized products, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showed. The rate of incidents caused by raw milk, cheese and yogurt was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk, according to the Atlanta-based CDC’s study, published today i... (read more)
Though researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the long-term effects of head injury, few studies have looked at the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in all age groups, including males and females, taking into account both mild and serious events. In a recent study published in Epidemiology, Mayo Clinic researchers applied a new, refined system for classifying injuries c... (read more)
More bad news for soda lovers: in addition to obesity and heart disease, the sugary drinks may be tied to asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Australian researchers found. People who consumed at least a half a liter of soft drinks a day were more than twice as likely to develop either lung condition compared with those who didn't partake at all (OR 2.33, 95% CI 1.51 to 3.60), Zumin Shi, MD, of the Universi... (read more)
Drug addicts and their non-addicted siblings share certain features in the brain, suggesting a susceptibility to addiction is inherited but is also a flaw that can be overcome, scientists said on Thursday. Researchers who scanned the brains of 50 pairs of brothers and sisters of whom one was a cocaine addict found that both siblings had brain abnormalities that make it more difficult for them to exercise se... (read more)
There has been a large drop in the rate of leg and foot amputations among Americans aged 40 and over with diagnosed diabetes, according to a new study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in the February issue of Diabetes Care. The study reports that between 1996 and 2008 the rate of such amputations fell by 65%. The authors suggest the most likely reason for... (read more)
Morgellons disease - a creepy illness that leaves patients with painful lesions, gives them a feeling that bugs are crawling all over their body, and has them seeing colorful, threadlike fibers poking through their skin - isn't infectious and probably isn't caused by anything in the environment, according to the first government study of the condition. Rather, Morgellons is likely to be a mental illness and... (read more)
A British company is conducting landmark trials which could see medicines derived from or inspired by the cannabis plant itself making their way to American pharmacy shelves. GW Pharma is in advanced clinical trials for the world's first pharmaceutical developed from raw marijuana instead of synthetic equivalents - a mouth spray it hopes to market in the US as a treatment ... (read more)
Bone loss and osteoporosis develop so slowly in most women whose bones test normal at age 65 that many can safely wait as long as 15 years before having a second bone density test, researchers report in a new study. The study, published in today’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, is part of a broad rethinking of how to diagnose and treat the potentially debilitating bone disease that can lead to broken h... (read more)
People who take the recently approved blood-thinning medication dabigatran could have a slightly increased risk of heart attack compared with people who use the old standby drug warfarin, new research suggests. When dabigatran was approved in 2010, it became the first new medication for blood-clot prevention in about 50 years. Sold under the brand name Pradaxa, dabigatran has been taken by an estimated 500,... (read more)
Smokers who count on nicotine patches or gum to help them quit may want to reconsider: A new study finds that these and other nicotine replacement products aren't effective at preventing former smokers from relapsing in real-world conditions. Among 787 adults who had quit smoking within the previous two years, nearly a third reported having returned to using cigarettes, according to a study published... (read more)
Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have shown one way in which poor nutrition in the womb can put a person at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other age-related diseases in later life. This finding could lead to new ways of identifying people who are at a higher risk of developing these diseases and might open up targets ... (read more)
People with prehypertension had a lower risk of stroke when they took blood pressure-lowering medicines, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Prehypertension, which affects more than 50 million adults in the United States, is blood pressure ranging between 120/80 mm Hg and 139/89 mm Hg. Hypertension is 140/90 mm Hg or ... (read more)
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" (1920, C.E.A. Winslow). It is concerned with threats to health based on population health analysis. The population in question can be as small as a handful of people or as large as all the inhabitants of several continents (for instance, in the case of a pandemic). The dimensions of health can encompass "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity", as defined by the United Nations' World Health Organization. Public health incorporates the interdisciplinary approaches of epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Environmental health, community health, behavioral health, and occupational health are other important subfields.
The focus of public health intervention is to improve health and quality of life through the prevention and treatment of disease and other physical and mental health conditions, through surveillance of cases and the promotion of healthy behaviors. Promotion of hand washing and breastfeeding, delivery of vaccinations, and distribution of condoms to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases are examples of common public health measures.
Modern public health practice requires multidisciplinary teams of professionals including physicians specializing in public health/community medicine/infectious disease, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, public health nurses, medical microbiologists, environmental health officers, dental hygienists, dietitians and nutritionists, health inspectors, veterinarians, public health engineers, public health lawyers, sociologists, community development workers, communications officers, and others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health
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