Fewer Families Struggling to Pay Medical Bills: CDC

But some may be skipping needed care altogether, expert says

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- The proportion of families in the United States that can't keep up with their medical bills declined between 2011 and 2012, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the news might not necessarily be cause for celebration.

According to the report released Tuesday by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the share of people under age 65 in families struggling to pay their health care bills decreased from 21.7 percent in the first six months of 2011 to 20.3 percent in the first six months of 2012.

Despite this improvement, the families of more than 54 million Americans continue to carry health care debt they cannot manage. This particularly holds true for families who are poor or have restricted access to health coverage, said study author Robin Cohen, a CDC health statistician.

"During this time period, those who were uninsured or who had public coverage were about twice as likely as those with private coverage to have problems paying medical bills," Cohen said.

Fewer families may face overwhelming medical bills because some are foregoing health care coverage due to joblessness and other economic factors, an expert said.

The report draws its conclusions from data gathered during the CDC's annual National Health Interview Survey. It defines medical bills as bills for doctors, dentists, hospitals, therapists, medication, equipment, nursing homes or home care.

A drop in the number of families struggling with medical bills may seem like a positive development, but it likely results from darker economic trends, said Kathleen Stoll, director of health policy for Families USA, a nonprofit and nonpartisan health care advocacy group.

Stoll believes that fewer families are struggling with medical bills because chronic unemployment is causing many to skip needed health care.

"When people have insurance, they go to the doctor," she said. "When they lose their job, they often lose their health insurance coverage. Without insurance, they are reluctant to go to the doctor at all. Because of that, they have fewer medical bills."

Stoll said the decrease observed in the CDC study comes while the United States is slowly recovering from its economic downturn, and before the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act become active in 2014.

Health care reform, however, may have contributed to improvements in one area: the ability of the families of young people to manage medical bills.

Health care reform requires private insurers to cover children and young adults up to age 26 under their parents' health plan, regardless of preexisting conditions. This provision took effect in September 2010.

The CDC study found that among children up to 17 years old, the percentage of those who were in families having problems paying medical bills decreased from 23.7 percent in the first six months of 2011 to 21.8 percent in the first six months of 2012. That improvement slightly outpaced the overall improvement in families' ability to pay medical bills.

View the original article here

Thandie Newton at the Rogue TV series premiere

Thandie Newton wears a black Gathering Goddess striped dress and Rupert Sanderson silver sandals at the Rogue TV series premiere in LA - vote on celebrity fashion, style and red carpet looks in GLAMOUR.COM’s Dos and Don’ts

Continue reading...

View the original article here

Too Much TV May Make Kids Antisocial, Study Suggests

Title: Too Much TV May Make Kids Antisocial, Study Suggests
Category: Health News
Created: 3/26/2013 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 3/26/2013 12:00:00 AM

View the original article here

Stuck at same weight for 3 wks

I lost 13 lbs and the last 2 lbs will not come off.  I cut down my calories more than when I started and it just won't budge.  I still weigh too much for my height.  Is my body going into a survival mode because it does not want to loose any more fat?  This is frustrating.  I think I want to loose 5 more lbs and can't even loose the 2.  Any suggesgtions?

View the original article here

Kanye West confirms new single called I Am God

Kanye West is legendary for his inflated outbursts and confident sense of self, but it appears the rapper has reached new egotistical heights by calling his latest single I Am God.

Continue reading...

View the original article here

More Men Taking Testosterone, But Risks Unclear

Study finds upsurge in use among men worried about 'low T,' but research suggests the drug has hazards

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 3 (HealthDay News) -- Those late-night ads telling aging men that "low T" may be the reason they've lost the spring in their step appear to be reaching their audience. Use of testosterone therapy has increased dramatically over the past decade, according to a new study.

But experts worry that too many men may be taking the supplements without understanding the potential risks.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston pointed out that the development of new drugs, particularly topical gels, also likely played a role in this trend.

The study, published in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, involved more than 10 million men aged 40 years and older. The researchers found use of testosterone therapy was three times higher in 2011 than it was in 2001. Over the course of the decade, testosterone therapy increased from 0.81 percent to 2.91 percent.

The investigators noted that 2.29 percent of men in their 40s and 3.75 percent of men in their 60s were taking some form of testosterone therapy by 2011.

While sales may be booming, the risks involved with supplements of the powerful male hormone remain uncertain. One study presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association suggests that use of testosterone might be an underappreciated cause of male infertility.

The study, from the University of Alabama, found that sperm production bounced back to healthier levels when some men being treated at fertility clinics stopped using testosterone supplements.

Another study published at the same meeting found that many online vendors of testosterone supplements accentuate supposed benefits from the drug, but minimize the risk.

The study, which looked at 70 websites from companies across the United States, found that just 27 percent of the online vendors described potential side effects, which experts say can include liver problems, male breast growth, increased male pattern baldness, possible harm to prostate health, raised risks for blood clots, congestive heart failure and a worsening of urinary symptoms.

One expert added that, due to these risks, men should be cautious before succumbing to "low T" advertisements. According to Dr. John Amory, professor of medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, the supplements -- which can cost between $75 to $300 per month -- are currently "being oversold to patients."

In the new study, hypogonadism -- a condition that affects a man's ability to produce normal levels of testosterone -- was diagnosed in about half of the men treated with testosterone therapy, the study indicated.

However, about one-quarter of the men given the hormonal treatment did not have their testosterone levels checked first. Of the remaining 75 percent of men who did have their hormone levels tested, it remains unclear what percentage had low testosterone levels.

"This trend has been driven, in large part, by direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns that have targeted middle-aged men and the expansion of clinics specializing in the treatment of low testosterone or 'low-T centers,'" the lead author of the study, Dr. Jacques Baillargeon, an associate professor in preventive medicine and community health at the University of Texas Medical Branch, said in a university news release.

View the original article here

Working While Pregnant Won't Harm the Baby, Study Finds

Title: Working While Pregnant Won't Harm the Baby, Study Finds
Category: Health News
Created: 3/25/2013 4:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/26/2013 12:00:00 AM

View the original article here

Experimental Drug May Work Against Hepatitis C

Miravirsen greatly reduced virus in patients in small study

By Maureen Salamon

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental therapy for hepatitis C -- a "silent killer" linked to liver cancer and cirrhosis -- has shown promise in tamping down virus levels in early trials.

Experts caution, however, that it's too soon to know if the injectable drug will someday gain a standing among emerging oral medications against the disease.

New research suggests that the drug, miravirsen, could potentially be part of a drug "cocktail" that manages the hepatitis C virus in much the same way as similar combinations have transformed HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic, manageable condition.

Miravirsen suppresses molecules the hepatitis C virus needs to reproduce. The drug decreased viral loads by about 500-fold at the highest doses used in a small, phase 2 study by an international group of researchers. Drug resistance, a common problem with other hepatitis C medications, did not develop among patients taking miravirsen.

A phase 2 trial evaluates a drug's effectiveness while continuing to assess its safety.

"This is the first real clinical study of this approach and the results are encouraging," said Dr. Judy Lieberman, chairwoman of cellular and molecular medicine at Boston Children's Hospital. "What's exciting to me is that there doesn't seem to be any drug resistance developing. If there's a way to develop a drug cocktail that doesn't require a half a year of treatment ... that would be really exciting, but it's too early to tell."

Lieberman was not involved in the research but co-wrote an editorial accompanying the new study in the March 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Hepatitis C is one form of liver disease and affects about 170 million people worldwide, according to study background information. It's transmitted by shared needles or, less frequently, through sex. Often symptomless, the infection is a major cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver.

Led by Dr. Harry Janssen, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, researchers split 36 patients with hepatitis C into four groups. Nine patients in each of the first three groups received a dose of either 3 milligrams (mg), 5 mg or 7 mg of miravirsen per kilogram of body weight for 29 days, while the last nine patients received a placebo. All were followed for 18 weeks.

The so-called viral load of patients receiving the highest dose decreased by about 500-fold, Lieberman said, and the hepatitis C virus was below detectable levels in four of nine patients. Meanwhile, the treatment caused no significant toxic effects in any patients, aside from mild injection-site reactions and a brief increase in liver enzyme levels.

Calling the study "interesting," Dr. David Bernstein, chief of the division of hepatology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., said that as an injectable drug, miravirsen would be less desirable among patients than other new drugs for hepatitis C that can be taken orally.

"It's a novel concept, but it's only 36 patients and a phase 2 study," Bernstein said. "It's impressive that their viral loads came down, but most suffered a recurrence of the virus."

View the original article here

Drug Shows Promise Against Advanced Melanoma

In preliminary trial, nivolumab shrank tumors in 30 percent of tough-to-treat patients

By Alan Mozes

HealthDay Reporter

SATURDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly one-third of patients with advanced melanomas who received nivolumab, a new immune-based drug, experienced reductions in the size of their tumors, a preliminary study reveals.

Since these types of drugs have typically shrunk tumors in only 5 percent to 10 percent of patients in prior studies, the new results are a boost for immunotherapy generally, the researchers noted.

"I think nivolumab is a real breakthrough drug for patients with metastatic melanoma, and probably for other diseases, too," study author Dr. Mario Sznol, a professor of medical oncology at the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Conn., said in a news release.

"The high level of activity observed with this drug opens up a number of avenues for future research to understand and challenge the ways tumors evade the immune system. We're very excited that there is potential for even more activity in combination with other drugs," Sznol added.

One expert not connected to the study was also optimistic about the results.

"Nivolumab shows exciting promise for patients suffering from an otherwise fatal disease -- metastatic melanoma," said Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "The fact that 30 percent of patients showed improvement from this immunotherapy drug is remarkable since these patients had some of the worse disease."

The study was funded by drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and is scheduled for presentation Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago. Findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

According to the researchers, nivolumab works by honing in on PD-1 cellular receptors located on immune system T-cells. These receptors are known to function as immune system "gatekeepers," and by working to open such gates the patient's immune system is triggered into cancer-fighting action.

The new study involved 107 patients, all of whom had been previously treated with multiple forms of standard therapies that failed to halt their disease.

Following treatment with one of five different doses of nivolumab, the team found that 31 percent of the patients went on to experience a minimum tumor shrinkage of 30 percent across the various doses.

Forty-three percent of the patients are estimated to have survived two years after treatment, the researchers said, and average survival for patients across all treatment doses is now projected to be nearly 17 months.

In an ASCO news release, melanoma expert Dr. Lynn Schuchter called the results "truly remarkable."

The findings "confirm that 'revving' up the immune system is a powerful approach in shrinking melanoma," said Schuchter, who is also a spokeswoman for ASCO. "Melanoma patients are living longer and better with these new treatments."

View the original article here

Should Short Boys Take Growth Hormone?

If they're healthy, probably not, experts say

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- Parents often worry when their child, especially a son, is much shorter than average. But as long as there is no medical cause, parents can rest easy, experts say.

Writing in the March 28 New England Journal of Medicine, two pediatric endocrinologists describe a scenario pediatricians see all the time: Parents bring in their 11-year-old son because he's substantially shorter than his classmates, and his growth seems to have slowed in recent years.

Their concern is reasonable, said Dr. David Allen, co-author of the article and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.

In the vignette, Allen and Dr. Leona Cuttler describe a boy whose height was in the third percentile at age 9 years. (That means he was shorter than 97 percent of boys his age.) But his growth rate slowed further, so that he is now in the first percentile for height.

"When a child falls off the growth curve like that, it's appropriate for parents to be concerned and have him evaluated," Allen said.

The potential medical causes include growth hormone deficiency, certain genetic disorders or an underactive thyroid gland. Fortunately, though, most short kids are healthy.

The "conundrum," Allen said, is that parents are often still worried, especially when that child is a boy. And, in the United States, human growth hormone is approved to treat so-called idiopathic short stature -- that is, short stature with no known medical cause -- when a child is below the first percentile for height.

So parents may want costly treatment even if their child has a clean bill of health.

Dr. Patricia Vuguin, a pediatric endocrinologist at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., said some doctors will recommend doing nothing. And, "some will say, let's try growth hormone," she said.

But both Vuguin and Allen said it's important for parents to have realistic expectations of growth hormone. For short, healthy children, studies predict that growth hormone will deliver an extra 1 to 3 inches as an adult. And that's the average; other factors come into play.

If both parents are short, that limits what growth hormone therapy can do. "We can't modify your genetic potential," Vuguin said.

The fictional family in Allen's report fit that scenario. The mother was 5 feet tall, while the dad stood at 5 feet 6 inches. Their son's predicted height, with no intervention, was 5 feet 5 inches -- the lower end of "normal."

"You have to think, how important is an inch or two of extra height in the big picture?" Vuguin said. "Is the difference between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 6 inches that important?"

View the original article here

Weather Doesn't Trigger Fibromyalgia Symptoms, Study Finds

But some patients still may be more sensitive than others

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Although some people with fibromyalgia are sensitive to changes in temperature, sunshine and precipitation, new research shows that weather conditions do not affect the pain or fatigue associated with this chronic condition.

"Our analyses provide more evidence against, than in support of, the daily influence of weather on fibromyalgia pain and fatigue," said study first author Ercolie Bossema from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

The study, published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, involved nearly 350 women with fibromyalgia, a chronic syndrome that causes unexplained pain, fatigue, headaches and sleep disturbances. The women were 47 years old, on average, and had been diagnosed almost two years earlier. They were asked about symptoms of pain and fatigue over the course of 28 days, during which time the researchers also recorded weather conditions, including outside temperature, sunshine duration, precipitation, atmospheric pressure and relative humidity, as reported by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

Changes in weather showed a significant but small effect on pain or fatigue symptoms for 10 percent of cases. Significant, small differences between patients' responses to weather also were found in 20 percent of cases.

The researchers said differences among the women's response to weather conditions did not appear linked to functional or mental health status, demographics or seasonal or weather-related variations.

In the United States, 5 million people have fibromyalgia, many more of them women than men. Although the cause of this chronic pain syndrome is unclear, previous studies have suggested some people with fibromyalgia are more sensitive to certain stimuli. Up to 92 percent of people with this condition report a worsening of symptoms because of weather conditions.

"Previous research has investigated weather conditions and changes in fibromyalgia symptoms, but an association remains unclear," Bossema said in a journal news release.

The study's authors said future research on this issue should include more patient characteristics, such as personality traits and beliefs about chronic pain, in order to explain individual differences in weather sensitivity.

View the original article here

Family Meals Nourish Teens' Mental Health: Study

Title: Family Meals Nourish Teens' Mental Health: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 3/25/2013 2:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/26/2013 12:00:00 AM

View the original article here

Can You Skip Antibiotics for Urinary Tract Infection?

In small study, UTI symptoms cleared on their own for most women, but an expert urges caution

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Some women with symptoms of a urinary tract infection may be able to skip the antibiotics typically prescribed and have their symptoms improve or clear, according to a new Dutch study.

"In healthy people, many mild infections can be cured spontaneously," said study leader Dr. Bart Knottnerus, a researcher at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam.

A U.S. expert, however, had a number of cautions about the findings, including the small number of women studied.

For the research, published May 31 in the journal BMC Family Practice, Knottnerus recruited women from 20 general medical practices in and around the Netherlands from 2006 to 2008. Women who had contacted their doctor complaining of frequent urination, painful urination or both were asked if they would be willing to delay antibiotics -- but only if their symptoms had been present for no longer than seven days.

Certain women were excluded, including those pregnant or breast-feeding or those whose immune systems were compromised.

In all, 176 women participated. Of those, 137 were asked to delay antibiotics and 51 agreed. All the women gave a urine sample to be analyzed and cultured. The women reported on their symptoms over the next week.

After a week, 28 of the 51 women willing to delay antibiotic use still had not used an antibiotic. Twenty of these women (71 percent) reported disappearance or improvement of their symptoms. Of these 20, more than a third had a positive culture result, indicating an infection. The researchers did not know the culture results at the start of the study.

Most of the women not willing to delay antibiotics had a positive culture.

The women who did agree to delay, Knottnerus said, might be aware of the bacterial resistance that can result from antibiotic use. "Furthermore," he said, "in the Netherlands, other mild infections -- like eye, ear, throat and respiratory infections -- are usually not treated with antibiotics. Therefore, people might be more receptive to delayed antibiotic prescriptions."

Antibiotics for urinary tract infections usually work within two or three days. How would an infection clear on its own? "Our defense mechanisms are strong and often do not need any help from antibiotics," Knottnerus said. He studied only uncomplicated infections of the bladder -- defined as those in healthy, non-pregnant women.

Dr. Jennifer Leighdon Wu, a gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, was cautious about the findings. "The number of women who agreed to delay was 51," she said. "Before changing my practice, I would like to see much larger numbers."

Checking in with your doctor might uncover some other problem, she said. "I can't tell you how many people have come in thinking it's a urinary tract infection and it's a yeast infection," she said.

View the original article here

Elle Macpherson and son Arpad arrive at No.3 Cromwell Road

The supermodel posed with her offspring, Arpad Busson, as they arrived for an event at No.3 Cromwell Road yesterday

Continue reading...

View the original article here