Efforts to improve the healthfulness of school lunches are increasingly evident, from upping kids portions of fruits and vegetables to (rather unfathomably) removing chocolate milk from the cafeteria. Still, a news story from Colorado reminds us that there is still a ways to go.

Adults nostalgic for the monkey bars and tall slides of their childhood may have trouble finding them when they take their own children to a nearby playground. Shorter structures with enclosed platforms, as well as rubber ground covers, are more likely what they ll see. This is because, as John Tierney reports in The New York Times, heightened concerns over child safety have dramatically changed the landscape of the playground.

A study just published in Clinical Cancer Research has confirmed that treating HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer with the drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) is as effective as chemotherapy or surgery. Of particular interest is that the drug can treat metastases involving the brain, often a problem with chemotherapy, since many drugs cannot penetrate the blood-brain barrier.

Typically, Alzheimer s disease is viewed as an affliction over which one has little control; researchers still aren t sure of its etiology and, for the most part, people simply cross their fingers and hope that a few forgetful incidents aren t a sign of worse to come.

Pediatricians may be missing out on opportunities to discuss diet and exercise with their overweight teenage patients, suggests new research published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Sadly, another study presented at Monday s Alzheimer s Association International Conference has found that antidepressants are ineffective for Alzheimer s patients. Led by Dr. Sube Banerjee of King s College London, the researchers randomized more than 300 depressed patients with dementia to receive either a placebo, mirtazapine (Remeron), or sertraline (Zoloft) and found that after 39 weeks of treatment, the antidepressant group exhibited the same decrease in symptoms as the placebo group.

A new study appears to headbutt the notion that only moderate or severe brain injuries can predispose people to dementia. In the largest study of brain injury and dementia risk to date, researchers found that even minor head injuries, such as concussions, may pose a threat. The study was led by by Dr.

Resistance to acknowledging one s age may be what s keeping many elderly folk from heeding heat warnings meant for older populations. According to a Kent State University study of those over the age of 65, 90 percent were aware of heat warnings issued for the elderly, yet only 15 percent took them personally.

A new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) commends three major movie studios (Comcast/Universal, Disney, and Time Warner/Warner Bros.) for eliminating the depiction of smoking in youth-rated films by 96 percent since 2005.

We ve said it before, and we ll say it again: consumers, not the government, will ultimately dictate the recipes used by food manufacturers, and in this case, the public has spoken: Campbell Soup Co. will now be adding some salt back into its 31 Select Harvest soups in order to improve their taste and increase sales. After reducing the soup s salt levels to approximately 480 mg from 700 to 800 mg per serving, the levels will now increase back up to 650 mg.