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As many as 2.3 million Americans have a condition called atrial fibrillation, the most common form of irregular heartbeat and a new study indicates the condition isn t as harmless as was once thought.

Can getting a routine, screening mammography, as recommended by most medical organizations, including the American Cancer Society, beginning at age 50 and then every one or two years thereafter, actually do more harm than good? Perhaps.

For many years, women have been urged, cajoled, brow-beaten even, to be sure to get their annual mammogram. Starting shortly after puberty s arrival and breast development, young women get the word: the annual mammogram is necessary to save your life!

Just in time for the approaching flu season, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first seasonal vaccine from Novartis manufactured by using animal cell cultures. All previous flu vaccines were produced by growing the virus in chicken eggs.

Who is really behind the articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine? A review by the Washington Post attempted to find out, and they decided to assess each study s funding sources to get an idea.

Women should be able to get birth control pills without a prescription, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended last week. Over-the-counter birth control availability has the potential to reduce unintended pregnancies which make up half of all pregnancies in the United States because lack of access to the pill is one of the main reasons that women fail to use contraception.

Medicare patients often receive repeated tests for which repetition is not routine, according to researchers who are worried that automatic or needless repeated tests not only sap finances from an already hard-pressed healthcare economy, but sometimes lead to adverse effects. Moreover, repetitive screening often finds abnormalities of no consequence but requiring yet further follow-up (over-diagnosis).

Putting patients medical records online may not be such a good way to cut down on unnecessary doctors visits and calls to the office. A new study published in Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that patients who have access to their medical records online and can email their doctor make more appointments and use the emergency room more often than those who don t log on.

As many as 1 in 14 surgery patients have post-discharge complications, most commonly involving infection of the surgical site, according to a new study published in Archives of Surgery.
Julie A. Sosa, M.D., of Yale University, and authors used a database to review records for 551,510 patients who had undergone inpatient surgery at 250 hospitals across the United States from 2005 to 2010. They found that one-sixth of all post-op patients sustained a post-discharge complication.

Based in Lyon, France, the International Agency for Research on Cancer is a widely respected body that produces assessments of carcinogens for use by regulators and researchers. But reputable scientists are now disassociating themselves from IARC and its research methods, a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine writes in Forbes.

What would you do if you had to decide whether to give a suffering patient morphine, but weren t sure whether there d be be enough left for the next patient, who might need the painkiller more? A nationwide drug shortage has forced health care workers into making these difficult decisions and some are even choosing to treat patients with less effective or expired drugs.

This may seem obvious to say, but stress can be detrimental to your body no matter the cause. Unemployment is certainly one such stressor and now those who are unemployed may have even more reason to stress out. A study led by Matthew Dupre at Duke University found that being unemployed may actually increase your risk of having a heart attack.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is recommending that all Americans aged 15 to 64 get tested for HIV at least once, regardless of their risk status. This sentiment has been echoed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, especially since CDC data suggests that fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

For people with high blood pressure, taking antihypertensive drugs can reduce their chances of heart attack and stroke but the medications pose a hidden risk for older patients. The drugs can cause dizziness and fainting that can sometimes lead to falls and hip fractures.

We had a little disagreement at our Dispatch meeting yesterday over whether Frito Lay is in- or out-of-bounds in its plans to sell a caffeinated version of Cracker Jacks (Cracker Jack d), and we asked you all to help settle it.
Here s what some of you had to say:

An estimated 1.3 million Americans suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammation of the joints that can leave patients disabled and suffering in severe pain, sometimes with terrible morning stiffness that can last for hours. But while older patients tend to have a more advanced form of the disease, it seems they are less likely to receive the latest, most effective and safer drug therapies than their younger peers, according to a study presented at the American College of Rheumatology meetings in Washington last week.

It s like adding insult to injury: Taking antibiotics for an infection, only to end up with a severe case of diarrhea. Now a new meta-analysis suggests that probiotics taken alongside antibiotics can dramatically cut one s risk of getting a bad case of diarrhea associated with a certain nasty type of bacteria, called Clostridium difficile or C.diff.

There s been a big rise in diabetes cases, especially in the South and Appalachian states, a disheartening new study reports. It s not much consolation, but at least we can also report that there s a new treatment on the horizon for diabetic retinopathy, one of the most common causes of visual impairment among American adults, and can lead to blindness.

Oh those crazy oxytocin researchers! German researchers have been doping men with the so-called cuddle hormone not to be confused with oxycodone, the addictive painkiller and introducing them to an attractive woman who moves closer and closer to them.

Maybe public health researchers should have to apply for a permit before spouting bad ideas? A professor in Australia has proposed requiring smoking licenses that would force addicted smokers to seek permission from the government and get educated about the dangers of smoking before they could legally buy cigarettes no more than 50 sticks a day.

It s the American Cancer Society-sponsored 37th annual Great American Smokeout today an appropriate day to take a moment to spare a thought for the 44 million Americans in the grip of a deadly addiction, ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross writes in the pages of the American Spectator. Over half of all smokers tried to quit last year, and an estimated 443,000 died from cigarette-related illness.

Josh Bloom, New Scientist Magazine 11/12/12
Beta blockers are busted what happens next?

Way back when say, in 2003 we thought we had all the information about risk factors for breast cancer that we needed, or at least that we were going to get. These included: early onset of menstruation, few (or no) full-term pregnancies, strong family history of the disease (especially those with the BRCA mutations), postmenopausal obesity, and advancing age, most prominently.

It s an odd coincidence that s good news for Alzheimer s research. Two groups of researchers using vastly different approaches have independently identified a genetic mutation that increases one s odds of developing the brain disease and perhaps foreshadows how drugs could one day be used to stave it off.

Lyme s disease is usually contracted through the bite of an infected deer tick during a summer stroll through the underbrush. It can last a week or a month, occasionally longer, causing fever, fatigue, arthritis and even neurological problems. It can be treated highly successfully with a combination of antibiotics for 3-6 weeks. Rarely, a second course of treatment is necessary.