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-excerpt- All received steroid injections, mostly for back pain, a fairly typical treatment.

In a move that could alter the way that breast cancers are treated, researchers have redefined the disease into four main classes and determined that one type of breast cancer has more in common with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer than other breast cancers. The finding that a form of breast cancer may be genetically similar to a type of ovarian cancer underscores a new way thinking about cancer that moves away from defining cancers by the organ of origin. The findings are the result of the largest and most comprehensive study of the genetics of breast cancer to...

Witnesses described the 17-year-old boy as "shaking, growling, foaming at the mouth." According to police reports, Elijah Stai was at a McDonald's with his friend when he began to feel ill. Soon after, he "started to smash his head against the ground" and began acting "possessed," according to a witness. Two hours later, he had stopped breathing

The era of laptop medicine is now upon us. Make that, laptop-computer medicine. Visit your physician and odds are that he will enter the examining room with his shiny new laptop in hand. The push for electronic records in the name of medical record portability and efficient record keeping is documented in the press, and the potential advantages appear convincing.

Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation Not Associated With Lower Risk of Major Cardiovascular Disease Events In a study that included nearly 70,000 patients, supplementation with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids was not associated with a lower risk of all-cause death, cardiac death, sudden death, heart attack, or stroke, according to an analysis of previous studies published in the Sept. 12 issue of JAMA. "Treatment with marine-derived omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for the prevention of major cardiovascular adverse outcomes has been supported by a number of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and refuted by others. Although their mechanism of action is not clear,...

Cost-cutting moves by medical device companies have resulted in the loss of more than 2,000 jobs over the past 2 months. Medical device companies are molting at a reptilian rate, shedding more than 2,000 jobs over the past 2 months as they look to slash costs across the board. Several of the med-tech companies that are scrapping jobs say the 2.3% medical device excise tax in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, slated to begin in January 2013. Others deny that the tax is the sole cause of their moves, saying it's a factor but not determinative. Seven medical...

A deadly germ untreatable by most antibiotics has killed a seventh person at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland.

As a recently-retired physician who is married to a nurse-midwife, my preparedness group looks to us as the post-TEOTWAWKI hospital and medical staff. Medical progress has been exponential and even just the last decade of scientific breakthroughs can equal a century of improvement in medical treatments, surgical techniques and pharmaceuticals. However, in the years (months?) ahead, the crumbling of the infrastructure and devolution of society in general will very likely throw us back to a medical system that existed in the 19th Century. Let’s take an example: When the U.S. was a young nation, the average woman could expect to...

Ron Strang lay helpless in the dirt as the hole in his leg was packed with gauze and swathed in bandages. The Marine sergeant was on foot patrol in Afghanistan's Helmand Province when an improvised explosive device tore through his left thigh, shredding his muscle and draining half his blood. "I'm sure I would've died without the quick actions of my fellow Marines," said Strang, 28, who endured more than a dozen surgeries and painful skin grafts to close the gaping wound. Though his skin eventually healed, Strang was left with half the quadriceps he once had. "I had to...

Heart attack survivors using certain painkillers are more likely to die or suffer another event People who have survived a heart attack seem to increase their risk of having another one, or of dying, by taking common painkillers called NSAIDs, a popular class of drugs that includes ibuprofen. The unsettling link between non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and heart attack risk is not new. The American Heart Association released guidelines in 2007 discouraging the use of any NSAIDs among people with a history of cardiovascular disease. Researchers in Denmark now bolster that link with the largest study to date of NSAID use...

It’s not exactly earth-shaking news that there’s a lot of waste in the U.S. health care system, but this item we came across still managed to stagger us: A report by the Institute of Medicine estimates that as much as $750 billion is wasted in the U.S. health care system each year. Three quarters of a trillion dollars. Every year. As the Wall Street Journal notes, that’s bigger than the Pentagon budget, amounting to roughly 5 percent of GDP. The report offers a familiar laundry list of problems. Unnecessary services are the leading driver of waste, but administrative expenses and...

Cristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells because they grow faster than normal cell lines and thus are useful for research purposes. But the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana. Instead of gaining insight into how cells function, Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC. In 1998, she reported in a European biochemistry journal that THC “induces apoptosis [cell death] in C6 glioma cells,” an aggressive form of...

As the political season heats up this Fall, a new television ad campaign has been released to the airwaves by Americans For Prosperity. If you’re like me, you’ve heard the stories over the years of Canadian citizens coming in droves across our northern border for decent health care (legally, I might add). In the latest Americans For Prosperity video ad, we hear the story of one Shona Holmes, a Canadian citizen who relied on American healthcare for her own wellbeing. “The American system was there for me when I needed it,” said Shona. “It’s time for American’s to get engaged...

SHREWSBURY, Mass. — Ida Davidson is the first to admit her weight goes up and down, but the Shrewsbury resident said she was stunned when a new primary care physician said she could not become a patient because she weighed more than 200 pounds.

Scientists have discovered a chemical extract in green tea that can treat two types of skin cancer, without producing the harmful side effects associated with chemotherapy.While the epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg) compound is too weak to make an impact when consumed in tea, scientists were able to kill or shrink two-thirds of cancer cells within a month when they applied the extract to tumor cells in the lab. What's more, the chemical compound did not appear to affect any other healthy cells or tissues in the body.Researchers from the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow believe that their study is the first...

The prepper can take many lessons from the situation that developed in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. One lesson is that when the social order breaks down for a period of days or weeks, adequate medical care will disappear. So preparedness requires a medical kit. And no medical survival kit is complete without a good book or two on emergency medicine, anatomy, drug reference and medical terminology. Some good ones to choose from are:

There are 600,000 physicians in America who care for the 48 million seniors on Medicare. Of the $716 billion that the Affordable Care Act cuts from the program over the next ten years, the largest chunk—$415 billion—comes from slashing Medicare’s reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes. This significant reduction in fees is driving many doctors to stop accepting new Medicare patients, making it harder for seniors to gain access to needed care. Here are a few of their stories. Paul Wertsch is a primary physician in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1977, he and his two partners invested $500,000 of...

(CBS News) An ingredient used in artificial butter flavoring for popcorn may worsen the effects of an abnormal brain protein that's been linked to Alzheimer's disease. A new study in Chemical Research in Toxicology examined diacetyl (DA), an ingredient used to produce the buttery flavor and smell in microwave popcorn, margarine, candy, baked goods, and even pet food. It is also created naturally in fermented drinks like beer, and gives some chardonnay wines its buttery taste, according to the study. Scientists at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis conducted an analysis of DA, a chemical which previously has been linked...

One of the world's oldest vaccines now has a new use. Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, is an 80-year-old vaccine designed to tread tuberculosis. Bit it has now been found effective in treating long-term type 1 diabetes, which is on the rise worldwide. BCG has long been administered to children in developing countries to guard against tuberculosis. But in a recent clinical trial, researchers at Harvard Medical School found the vaccine was also able to increase insulin production in patients with type 1 diabetes. Dr. Denise Faustman, the lead researcher, says the team was able to cure type 1 diabetes in...