Zoe Saldana at LAX Airport

Zoe Saldana wears a plaid scarf and faded denim jeans at LAX airport - vote on celebrity fashion, style and red carpet looks in GLAMOUR.COM’s Dos and Don’ts

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SPOILER: Downton Abbey series four details revealed!

Downton Abbey has revealed its new characters as filming begins on series four.

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1 in 8 Adults May Have Sensitive Teeth

Title: 1 in 8 Adults May Have Sensitive Teeth
Category: Health News
Created: 3/1/2013 12:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/4/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Kids, Seniors Prone to MRSA Infections Depending on Season: Study

Title: Kids, Seniors Prone to MRSA Infections Depending on Season: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 3/1/2013 12:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/4/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Combo Inhaler May Give Better Relief for Some With Asthma

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Asthma patients typically use two inhaled drugs -- one a fast-acting "rescue inhaler" to stem attacks and another long-lasting one to prevent them.

However, combining both in one inhaler may be best for some patients, two new studies suggest.

Patients with moderate to severe asthma who used a combination inhaler had fewer attacks than those on two separate inhalers, researchers report. Both studies tested the so-called SMART (single maintenance and reliever therapy) protocol.

"The SMART regime was more effective as a treatment for asthma than the conventional treatment, where you just use a inhaler at a fixed maintenance dose and a short-acting inhaler for the relief of symptoms," said Dr. Richard Beasley, director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in Wellington and lead researcher of one of the studies.

These drugs are a combination of a corticosteroid (such as budesonide or fluticasone) and a long-acting beta-2 agonist (such as salmeterol or formoterol) and are sold under various brand names including Seretide, Symbicort and Advair.

In asthma, treatment increases as the severity of the condition does, Beasley said. So, this combination therapy isn't the first choice. When the asthma is difficult to control with other methods, "we are now recommending the SMART regime," he said.

"You treat the patients according to their needs," Beasley said. "This is certainly not what you start them on -- it is something you would use on moderate to severe patients."

In the United States, use of these combination inhalers is also not considered first-line therapy for asthma, according to Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"Patients, however, are currently using these combination inhalers," he said. If the asthma is moderate to severe, then a combination inhaler is appropriate, said Horovitz, who was not involved with either new study.

The reports were published in the March issue of the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

One study was funded by Italian pharmaceutical company Chiesi Farmaceutici, whose products include asthma medications. The multi-center European study was led by Dr. Klaus Rabe, a professor of pulmonary medicine at the University of Kiel, in Germany.

The study included more than 1,700 patients with moderate asthma. Researchers found that participants using the single, combination inhaler had significantly fewer severe asthma attacks and were seen at a hospital or urgent medical facility less than those patients using the two inhalers.

Rabe and colleagues wrote that although drugs like Symbicort (the specific budesonide/formoterol combination used in the study) can be more expensive than separate inhalers, the ability to prevent asthma attacks and reduce hospital and emergency room visits may be cost-saving in the end.

In the second trial, funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand, Beasley's team randomly assigned 303 patients to the single-inhaler protocol or to usual care with two inhalers. Over six months, the researchers found that those using Symbicort had fewer severe asthma attacks.

One concern had been that patients using the combination inhaler would get overexposed to corticosteroid or would overuse the inhaler, Beasley said.

They found, however, that patients using the combination inhaler reduced their overuse of corticosteroid by 40 percent, compared to those using separate inhalers.

While those in the SMART program took in more corticosteroids a day, they had fewer asthma attacks so their overall exposure to corticosteroid was the same as for people in the two-inhaler group, the New Zealand researchers explained.

More information

For more about asthma, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Colonoscopy Cuts Advanced Cancer Risk by 70 Percent: Study

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that getting screening colonoscopies may reduce the risk of developing advanced colon cancer.

In average-risk people, screening colonoscopies were associated with a 70 percent reduction in risk for new, late-stage colon cancer, including hard-to-detect cancers on the right side of the colon. Advanced colon cancer is the least curable form.

Although colonoscopy is widely used as a screening test for colon cancer, there is little research that proves it is effective in reducing colon cancer deaths, according to the study authors. The researchers wanted to answer a simple question: If you ended up with late-stage cancer, were you more or less likely to have had a screening colonoscopy as many as 10 years before the disease was discovered?

The study authors also wanted to show whether a colonoscopy is able to evaluate the entire colon, including the right side, which is harder to adequately cleanse before the test, more difficult to reach, and often has pre-cancerous areas that are tougher to spot and identify.

"Colonoscopy has the ability to identify both left- and right-sided colon cancers before they have progressed to an advanced stage," said lead study author Dr. Chyke Doubeni, associate professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers also discovered that screening sigmoidoscopy, a less costly procedure that enables a physician to look at the part of the large intestine closest to the rectum, was linked to a significant reduction in late-stage disease in most of the large intestine, but not in the right colon.

However, the study does not show that colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy is better than the much easier, far less expensive "fecal occult blood test" (FOBT), which is done at home by swiping a tiny amount of stool onto a card for three days, said Doubeni. "There is strong evidence showing the effectiveness of the [fecal occult blood test] when done annually. There is no reason, based on the knowledge we currently have, that you should switch to a colonoscopy if you're getting a FOBT every year," said Doubeni.

If simpler tests are effective, why are patients encouraged to undergo a colonoscopy? "Let me just say there are other factors beyond the evidence that are driving the use of colonoscopy in the U.S.," said Doubeni. "No other country uses colonoscopy for screening purposes as much as the United States, although Germany comes close," he noted.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that people 50 to 75 years old be screened for colon cancer in one of three ways: a home fecal occult blood test every year; a sigmoidoscopy every five years combined with a home fecal occult blood test every three years; or a colonoscopy every 10 years.

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Prince Jackson on the set of 90210

Michael Jackson’s son, Prince Michael seemed perfectly at ease as he filmed a scene for 90210 - Get the latest in celebrity style and fashion from Glamour.com. Visit Glamour.com to get all the latest celebrity styles, fashion and gossip.

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