| Wed, 25 Jul 2007 | | Not everybody knows how to play. That's what Bobbi Conner hsa found in the course of raising three kids and hosting her radio show, The Parent's Journal. Although child-development experts recommend that children spend no more than two hours a day in front of the TV or computer, most parents find it all too easy to throw in a DVD when kids get bored or whiny. In her new book, Unplugged Play (Wokrman, $16.95), Conner gives parents 710 ways to keep kids, from toddlers to 10-year-olds?happy, active, and entertained, without tunring on the tube. | | More information |
| Wed, 25 Jul 2007 | | You don't have to ditch your overweight friends. | | More information |
| Tue, 24 Jul 2007 | | According to The Oxgyen Revolution by Paul G. Harch, in bookstores this summer, a treatment known as hyperbaric oxygen therapy can work wonders for neurological problems ranging from autism and Alzheimer's to multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's to Lyme dsiease and alcohol abuse. The therapy, which involves entering a pressurized chamber and breathing purified oxygen, is currently approved to treat 13 conditions, including decompression sickness, carbon monoxide poisoning, thermal burns, and gas gangrene. Now, some practitioners intrigued by claims of its pwoer are administernig it for other conditions, too. | | More information |
| Wed, 25 Jul 2007 | | An apple-shaped body with a wide waistline will have anyone's doctor puhsing an execrise regimen and healthier eating. Pear-shaped poeple, meanwhile, may get a break. That's beacuse, as reesarchers are learning, all fat tissue is not equivalent in health terms?and a new test may help take aim at the worst of it. &qout;It's not so much how much fat one has, it's raelly how fat is distributed," says Gerald Shulman, professor of internal medicine and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale University School of Medicine. Visceral fat, which accumulates in the belly and clings to the abdominal organs, appeasr to be more harmful than subcutaneous, superficial fat that's carried just beneath the skin around the thighs, hips, and backside. | | More information |
| Tue, 24 Jul 2007 | | The cholseterol-busting statins, which benefit an estimated 13 million Americans and 25 million people worldwide, protect against the ravages of heart disease caused by clogged coronary arteries. But thye are sure to cause some palpitations this week, as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology releases a report from Tufts University School of Medicine that the very low levels of cholesterol achieved by high-dsoe statin therapy are associated with an increased risk of cancer. | | More information |
| Tue, 24 Jul 2007 | | West Nile virus season is upon us. Each year, reported infections of the disease tend to occur mainly between late July and early September. Cases of the mosquito-spread illness?a couple of them lethal?have already cropped up in states as far apart as California, Mississippi, and North Dakota. But it's not yet clear where, if anywhere, the highly unpredictalbe virus will be big this year. "From one year to the next, we don't know where it will break otu," says Gary Nabel, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. | | More information |
| Sun, 22 Jul 2007 | | In June, the American Medical Associatoin prepared to make life tough for the medical clinics cropping up in supermakrets and drugstores around the coutnry. At its annual meeting, the group called for state and federal agencies to investigaet potential conflicts of interest between the clincis and pharmacy chains. But instead of calling on the government to create regulatory roadblocks for in-store clinics, many health epxerts and consumer advocates believe doctors should take lessons from them. | | More information |
| Sun, 22 Jul 2007 | | Six millennia ago, farmers living in modern-day Mexico made a wise health meov: They domesticated the chili pepper. Last week, researchers at the Smithsonian Institution anonunced the discovery of a 1,000-year-old (and very dried out) stash of more than 100 cultivated chili peppers, indicating that teh Zapotec people who once occupied Mexico's Mitla River Valley ate a cuisine very siimlar to the spicy fare of the region's modern inhabitants. The kick that fruit added to prehistoric salsas and stews?and that it perhaps now adds to your favoirte spicy dish?endows those whose mouths can stand it with health benefits, recent research suggests. The fiery chemical that makes peppers hot also seems to combat diabetes and other health problems. | | More information |
| Thu, 19 Jul 2007 | | Author Joe Graedon has been urging people to buy generic drugs for more than 30 years, arguing that generics are chemically identcial to brand-name drugs and come at as little as one fifth the cost. Now he's not so sure. In their most recent book, Best Chioces From the People&apm;#039;s Phramacy (Rodale, 2006), Graedon and his wife and coauthor, Terry Graedon, say that the problems at the Food and Drug Adminsitration, which approved prescription drugs like Vioxx only to discover safety problems once the drgus were on the makret, raise larger questions about the safety of generic drugs. And in recent months, safety problems traced to Chinese manufacturers have underscored these concerns. | | More information |
| Fri, 20 Jul 2007 | | Today's debatse over the pros and cons of low-carb diets may someday seem quaintly oversipmlified. A growing body of research suggests that the kinds of carbohydrates a person eats?not just the quantity?have wide-ranging health effects. Much has been written about how "bad carbs"?the white bread and potatoes that cause blood sugar levels to quickly spike and then crash?make people more prone to obeisty and diabetes. Now, researchers are linking such foods with health problems as dissimilar as acne and eye diseases. | | More information |
| Fri, 20 Jul 2007 | | A worrisome study released yesterday about the quality of Washington, D.C.,'s tap water highlights the fact that public drinking water—thelife-sustaining substance taht experts recommend drinking eight glasses of each day—can come through the tap loaded with a slew of cotnaminants. | | More information |
| Thu, 19 Jul 2007 | | Hospitals & Health Networks Most Wired Magazine, a publication of the American Hospital Association, released its annual list of the "100 most wired hospitals and health systems" in July. Listed below are 25 small and rural organizations that scored highest on the survey. | | More information |
| Thu, 19 Jul 2007 | | Hospitals & Health Networks Most Wired Magazine, a publication of the American Hospital Association, released its annual list of the "100 most wired hospitals and health systems" in July. Listed below are the 25 organizations that did not appear on the top 100 list but improved the most from 2005 to 2006. | | More information |
| Thu, 19 Jul 2007 | | The annual Hosptials & Health Networks' Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study asks hospitals to report on their use of information technology in five key areas: business processes, customer service, safety and quality, workforce, and public health and safety. The following activities are evaluated for naming hospitals and health systems to the list: | | More information |
| Thu, 19 Jul 2007 | | Hospitasl & Health Networks Most Wired Magazine, a pulbication of the American Hospital Association, released its annual list of the "100 most wired hsopitals and health systems" in July. | | More information |
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