Health Blog

Reuters - The United Nations on Monday urged countries across the world to expand screening of newborn infants exposed to the virus that causes AIDS, saying it could save the lives of countless children.

AP - Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse alcohol or drugs, researchers reported Monday in the most extensive study of its kind.

AP - Older people who are depressed are much more likely to develop a dangerous type of internal body fat — the kind that can lead to diabetes and heart disease — than people who are not depressed, a disturbing new study found.

HealthDay - MONDAY, Dec. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Women who have had their breasts augmented with implants and are later diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer may be treated successfully with a partial-breast radiation treatment known as brachytherapy, according to an Arizona physician and researcher.

AP - Last warning: Asthma inhalers go "green" on Dec. 31, forcing patients still using the old-fashioned kind to make a pricey and even confusing switch. The medicine inside these rescue inhalers — the albuterol that quickly opens airways during an asthma attack — isn't changing. But the chemicals used to puff that drug into your lungs are.

Reuters - The surgical repair of a congenital deformity of the chest called pectus excavatum, or funnel chest, can dramatically improve a child's body image as well as physical and psychosocial functioning, according to a report in the current issue of Pediatrics.

Reuters - The results of small study suggest that radiotherapy can be safely used to treat prostate cancer in HIV-infected men. Treatment appears to have no long-term effect on CD4+ cell count or viral load.

Research led by scientists in the UK has upturned a 50-year old theory that maintains antioxidants stop or slow aging by counteracting the oxidative stress on cells caused by free radicals, a finding that will undermine claims made by beauty and diet products that promote the anti-aging properties of antioxidants.

AFP - Youths in Myanmar are particularly at risk from HIV, with almost two thirds of the near quarter million people living with the virus in that country aged under 24, the UN Children's Fund said Monday.

AFP - Youths in Myanmar are particularly at risk from HIV, with almost two thirds of the near quarter million people living with the virus in that country aged under 24, the UN Children's Fund said Monday.