Residents worry about health, property values after report finds elevated disease rates that could be linked to tainted water By Jared S. Hopkins, Tribune reporter Like many residents of Crestwood, Frank Caldario has been worried about the water he drank for years without knowing it was contaminated. Caldario’s concerns, however, were heightened when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer last year. The 30-year-old office worker said surgeons removed a gumball-size tumor and about 40 percent of his right kidney. Read More…

Frozen vegetables can often contain more nutrients than fresh vegetables, a report has claimed. Produce which is frozen soon after being picked have more nutrients sealed in, scientists from the Institute of Food Research claimed Up to 45 per cent of important nutrients are lost in fresh vegetable by the time they are consumed. It can take up to two weeks for fresh produce to reach the table from being picked although the survey found that 80 per cent of shoppers thought the fresh vegetables in supermarkets were less than four days old. Read More…

A little girl covered with painful blisters because of a rare skin disease has been cured by sessions on a sunbed. Stephanie Brown, two, is the youngest person in Britain to have the unusual treatment after being born with diffuse cutaneous mastocytosis. The condition, which affects only one in half-a-million people, causes severe blistering on the body. Stephanie, from Mirfield, West Yorks, was given 30 sessions of Psoralen UVA treatment between August and November 2009. Doctors were stunned with the results which cleared her skin of blisters in less than four months. Read More…

By RON WINSLOW SAN FRANCISCO—In the long-running debate over diets—low-fat or low-carb—Stanford University researchers reported Wednesday that a genetic test can help people choose which one works best for them. In a study involving 133 overweight women, those with a genetic predisposition to benefit from a low-carbohydrate diet lost 2 1/2 times as much weight as those on the same diet without the predisposition. Similarly, women with a genetic makeup that favored a low-fat diet lost substantially more weight than women who curbed fat calories without low-fat genes. The women were followed...

(Reuters) – Germs that make their home in the gut may help cause obesity and a range of health-threatening symptoms that go along with it, researchers reported on Thursday. It could be that certain bacteria cause inflammation that can affect appetite as well as inflammatory bowel conditions like Crohn’s disease and colitis, the researchers reported in the journal Science. In other words, the germs make you overeat, Andrew Gewirtz of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues reported. “Previous research has suggested that bacteria can influence how well energy is absorbed from...

By Peter Orszag and Nancy-Ann DeParle Health-insurance reform offers many benefits, such as common-sense rules of the road and basic consumer protections to keep insurance companies honest and prevent them from denying coverage to anyone because of a preexisting medical condition. But some critics complain that the administration has slipped in its commitment to fiscal responsibility in health reform. Read More…

By Clay Dillow According to both common sense and the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are two truths about hot dogs which neither science nor industry can afford to ignore: kids love hot dogs, and hot dogs are the perfect size and shape for a child to choke on. To wit: “If you were to take the best engineers in the world and asked them to design a perfect plug for a child’s airway, you couldn’t do better than a hot dog,” one AAP doctor said. Read More…

HIV has become the leading cause of death and disease among women of reproductive age worldwide, the UN programme on HIV/Aids says. At the start of a 10-day conference in New York, UNAids launched a five-year action plan addressing the gender issues which put women at risk. One of the key issues, it says, is that up to 70% of women worldwide have been forced to have unprotected sex. Read More…

Cost of Food-borne Illness Vastly Higher Than Previous Estimates By Daniel J. DeNoon March 3, 2010 — Food poisoning costs the U.S. $152 billion, kills 5,000 people, and sends 325,000 to the hospital each year, new calculations suggest. The figures come from a new study by former FDA economist Robert L. Scharff, PhD, JD, now an assistant professor at Ohio State University. “This study illustrates how serious food-borne illness is as a problem for our society,” Scharff said at a news teleconference announcing the findings. The study, underwritten by the Produce Safety Project at...

Millions of migraine sufferers could find relief from the condition thanks to an invention which delivers a magnetic pulse to the back of their head. By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor The findings have been hailed as a ‘major step forward’ in the treatment of migraine which strikes one in four women and one in 12 men in Britain. Researchers found that people who suffered from migraine ‘with aura’, when spots in front of the eyes or pins and needles precede the headache, can benefit from the treatment. Read More…