We d like to give a shout-out to Julia Seymour of the Business & Media Institute of the Virginia-based Media Research Center. Seymour recently conducted a content analysis of mainstream media (The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, and NBC news reports, among many others), identifying the scare tactics they've used to exacerbate the phobia so many people have of food-packaging chemicals specifically in her analysis, bisphenol A (BPA).

Pharmaceutical giant Roche just dropped a bomb: The company will be laying off 1,000 employees and shutting down its R&D center in Nutley, NJ, a facility where Valium and other breakthrough drugs were discovered over the past 80 years. Research activities will now instead be redistributed to other locations in Switzerland and Germany, although the number of new jobs will not come close to replacing the ones lost.

It seems that Americans aren't the only ones subjected to star-power misinformation posing as public health. In a recent blog post in The Wall Street Journal, Tom Wright has highlighted the latest pseudoscientific campaign in South Asia: Well-known Bollywood actor-turned-talk-show-host Aamir Khan appears to have joined the anti-pesticide crusade, claiming that such chemicals have a spectrum of toxic and carcinogenic effects on humans.

A new meta-analysis of 18 studies, published in Diabetes Care, examined the effect on blood sugar levels of fructose consumption among diabetics. The findings revealed that, contrary to popular wisdom, fructose significantly improved blood sugar control.

In addition to improving heart health and facilitating weight loss, a new study has added to a body of evidence suggesting that exercise may also help women stave off breast cancer.

Last week, we covered the latest announcement from the American Medical Association, which stated that if taxes on sodas were to be implemented, the revenues gained could be used toward funding anti-obesity programs. We were critical of the AMA for supporting the policy, observing not only that the statistical modeling the AMA used to support their position was flawed, but also that revenue from a soda tax is unlikely to actually go toward its intended use.

An estimated 26 million Americans suffer from type-2 diabetes, with about 1 million new cases diagnosed each year. This serious disease can lead to numerous adverse health effects, including cardiovascular disease, visual impairment, nerve damage, and kidney failure. That s why people with diabetes must be conscientious about taking their medications. However, a recent study has found that a certain class of long-used and widely prescribed diabetes drugs sulfonylureas is associated with a higher mortality risk.

Numerous studies have documented the benefits of statins, especially their use in preventing the recurrence of cardiovascular events. Yet most of the research on this widely prescribed class of drugs has focused primarily on its effects in men. Now, a new meta-analysis, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, has investigated whether statins are as effective in women as they are in men.

When I was in practice in the 1980s and 90s, the world was a simpler place. We internists had it figured out: Men had heart problems, often fatal, decades younger than their wives. It seemed obvious that a major factor in this advantage was the hormonal difference between the sexes. If not the estrogenic stew keeping women s hearts younger and healthier, what else could it be?

We try not to think too much about California's Proposition 65, the 1986 law that purports to protect individuals from knowingly touching anything that may be theoretically associated with cancer or developmental problems. It just raises our blood pressure. However, we'd be remiss not to point our readers toward Dr. Joe Schwarz's excellent take on this misguided law (which has now expanded to cover over 800 substances).