Emergency contraception isn t a secret anymore. An estimated 11 percent of sexually active girls and women aged 15 to 44 have used the morning-after pill at least once, a new federal report says.
That comes to 5.8 million women, about half of whom said they used the pill because they had unprotected sex. The other half worried that their birth control method had failed.

In what seemed to be an attempt to update the statistics on the risk of alcohol-linked cancer deaths in the U.S., a study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that alcohol can be blamed for 20,000 deaths per year.

Neurostimulation should likely be offered to patients with Parkinson s disease earlier than it is, a new study suggests. Neurostimulation is sometimes called deep brain stimulation. For Parkinson s patients, the process involves implanting tiny microelectrodes in the brain to deliver stimulation pulses to the tissue. Then, an electrical pulse generator (PG) generates stimulation pulses, which is connected to the electrodes via microwires.

Josh Bloom, US News and World Report 2/4/13, "Mandate the Flu Vaccine for Healthcare Workers"

A study published this week in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism presented compelling data showing that the consumption of neither high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), nor sucrose (table sugar) at levels consistent with average daily consumption increased liver or muscle fat in humans.

Those individuals with hearing loss may want to pay attention to this. Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has found a strong association between hearing loss and dementia. His first study, published in The Archives of Neurology in 2011, looked at 639 subjects, ages 36 to 90 who were followed for 18 years.

Here is some good news for those of you among the millions taking statins you may not need to take them daily. Statins may have the same cholesterol lowering effects when given every other day, supported by the fact that it takes several weeks for cholesterol levels to return to baseline after treatment with statins is stopped.

Women planning to become pregnant, or even possibly becoming pregnant without planning, have long been advised to take a daily folic acid supplement because folic acid reduces the risk of neural tube defects spina bifida, among other conditions in their newborns.

Yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo yet again delayed making a decision on whether to allow hydraulic fracturing fracking in the state of New York.
Fracking has been under review by state regulators since before Mr. Cuomo took office in January 2011.

Biomedical researchers have long used mice in the lab to learn about human diseases and to test treatments. Now, a new study strongly suggests that mice are poor models for studying trauma or infections in humans.