French public health agencies are recommending that women who received breast implants from the now defunct Poly Implants Protheses (PIP) manufacturer receive an explant, or removal of the implant, following reports of excessive ruptures. For those who do not wish to undergo this preventive, non-emergency procedure, an ultrasound every six months to monitor the implants is advised.

Newer doesn t always mean better. At least that s the conclusion of a review published in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, which finds that newer hip and knee replacement designs (such as metal-on-metal hips) introduced from 2003 through 2007 are not any more durable than older models (largely comprised of metal and plastic).

After seeing countless health scares over the years, it is hard to surprise us here at ACSH with something new. But our jaws dropped upon seeing a report claiming that radiation from the meltdown of Japan s Fukushima nuclear reactor in March somehow caused 14,000 people in the U.S. to drop dead.

While it has long been known that a high resting heart rate can be a signal of poor general fitness, a recent study suggests that a higher heart rate while at rest may also be related to a increased risk of premature cardiovascular death. Researchers in Norway tracked almost 30,000 subjects, measuring their resting heart rates both at the start of the study and then again about 10 years later. After 12 years of follow-up, just over 10 percent of the group had died.

For individuals with knee osteoarthritis (OA), it had been thought that cartilage loss was mainly irreversible the best that sufferers and their doctors could hope for was to prevent further damage, and in recalcitrant cases, undergo knee-replacement surgery.

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that has long been shrouded in misunderstanding, and sufferers of this syndrome experience symptoms particularly chronic pain that can make daily life difficult. To shed some light on the nature of this disorder, a new, large study suggests that sleep problems are associated with developing fibromyalgia.

Nearly 70 percent of adult smokers want to quit, and 52 percent have attempted to do so in the past year, according to data collected by the CDC as part of the 2001 to 2010 National Health Interview Surveys. But what ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross found most shocking about the survey results, which were published in the CDC s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, was that fewer than half the smokers who visited a health professional in the past year had been advised to quit.

We ve often heard about the miraculous properties of certain vitamins and supplements, and vitamin D is quite commonly listed among them. But a new report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, finds little evidence to support those claims; it concludes that there is a paucity of evidence to suggest that vitamin D plays any role in preventing cancer or lowering the risk of heart disease.

Good news for patients with elevated systolic blood pressure. The results of a 22-year follow-up on a randomized trial show that the diuretic drug chlorthalidone improved all-cause mortality among patients with this condition. The new analysis of the trial data, which dated back to 1984, has found that chlorthalidone, used to treat high blood pressure, was especially effective at reducing the toll of cardiovascular events, including sudden death.

In the past year, much has been written about the shortage of critical generic drugs in this country. This has been accompanied by a whole lot of talk, including an executive order from President Obama, basically repeating the same message that previously came from the FDA and congress: That the government can require that companies report an impending shortage or planned cessation of the manufacture of a drug, but cannot force them to make any drug.