Vivus Obesity Drug Not FDA Approved – On Thursday it was announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration has rejected an obesity drug brought to their attention by Vivus Inc. The drug, Qnexa, is not the first obesity drug to be rejected this week, as the drug Lorcaserin was also rejected. According to Vivus Inc. the US Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to them saying that they could not approve the Qnexa drug in its current form. According to reports, the drug is made up of two different drugs which were banned in the nineteen nineties because they caused heart problems...

Barbers who offer BP checks help customers beat hypertension, study finds TUESDAY, Oct. 26 (HealthDay News) — Offering black men blood pressure checks while they’re having their hair cut could help them keep hypertension at bay, a new study finds. This could be a new way to help reduce rates of uncontrolled high blood pressure, one of the leading causes of premature disability and death among black men in the United States. “Compared with black women, men have less frequent physician contact for preventive care and thus substantially lower rates of hypertension detection, medical...

A birth control gel that is applied to the skin could offer woman an alternative to the Pill, say experts presenting latest trial data. Used once daily, it delivers hormones to prevent a pregnancy in the same way as oral contraceptives do. Early studies show the gel is effective and well tolerated, with none of the typical side effects associated with the Pill, like weight gain and acne. The Nestorone gel is being developed with drug firm Antares Pharma. Researchers told the American Society for Reproductive Medicine how they hope to bring the product to market if clinical trial results continue...

A woman’s ability to conceive in early middle age may be influenced by her blood type, according to research. The US study of 560 women undergoing fertility treatment found that those with type “O” blood had chemical signs linked to low egg numbers. There is no clear explanation for the results, presented to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine conference in Denver. Approximately 44% of the UK population has type “O” blood. The researchers, from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and Yale University, looked at the levels of a chemical called...

Scans appear to show differences in brain functioning in women with persistently low sex drives, claim researchers. The US scientists behind the study suggest it provides solid evidence that the problem can have a physical origin. They measured brain activity as the women watched erotic videos. But a spokesman for the charity Relate said the study simply demonstrated low libido at work in the brain, rather than exposing its cause. Sex drive In recent years, a diagnosis of “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” (HSDD) in women has become more accepted by science. However, there remains...

An agency nurse working for the NHS was filmed switching off her patient’s life support machine by mistake. Watch Video….

To combat the spread of cervical cancer in Saskatchewan, around two-third of the eligible school-aged girls are being covered under the vaccination program initiated to immune girls against the human papillomavirus (HPV). The vaccination program was started in schools in the beginning of the 2008-09 and till now, 61% of the girls studying in class 6th and 7th have got the shots. The health officials had targeted to cover 60% school age girls under the vaccination program in the initial years, which was overachieved, as stated by Dr. Moira McKinnon, the Chief Medical Health Officer for the provincial...

Haiti’s President Rene Preval said on Friday an outbreak of cholera had killed at least 138 people in the quake-hit country’s central region and his government was taking measures to try to stop the disease spreading. I can confirm it is cholera, Preval told, as Haitian and international health officials confronted the poor Caribbean nation’s biggest medical crisis since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

London, Oct 22 (IANS) A plane crash in Democratic Republic of Congo that killed 20 people on board was caused by a crocodile hidden in a bag on the flight, a media report said here Friday. British co-pilot Chris Wilson was among 20 people who died in the crash when passengers ran into the cockpit to escape a crocodile, the Daily Mail reported. Wilson died alongside Belgian pilot Danny Philemotte when the twin-engined plane crashed Aug 25 into a house a few hundred metres from its destination in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A lone survivor apparently told investigators that the small plane...

According to this report, Marty Hoffman of Grand Ledge, Mich. was preparing a meal for the family dog (who’s on a special diet) when she opened a store-brand bag of frozen veggies. Inside she found not just the expected mix of vegetables but also a bonus, of sorts: a small frog. As the bag had been left out of the freezer a while, the critter was, like the vegetables, partly thawed, its little mouth slightly open. Hoffman’s husband Tim says he was concerned that the frozen frog might have been part of a more widespread problem requiring broader attention. He says he alerted the FDA’s...