Month: January 2014

Pope Francis has used Twitter to back an annual anti-abortion rally, the March for Life, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of activists to Washington on Wednesday. "I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable," he said on his Twitter account in a message that was quickly re-tweeted thousands of times. The Argentinian-born pontiff has some 11.5 million followers on his Twitter account in several languages, @pontifex.

Amag Pharmaceuticals Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected its application for wider use of its iron deficiency drug due to safety concerns and asked for more trial data, sending its shares down as much as 15 percent. In a "complete response letter" to Amag, the FDA suggested that the company generate additional safety data for the wider patient population and evaluate the dosing or administration of the drug, Feraheme. "The FDA did propose that the company conduct additional trials," Amag Chief Executive William Heiden told Reuters. "We do have existing safety data from our two large late-stage trials … certainly we would look to that data to support the safety profile of Feraheme." The FDA asked Amag to provide additional safety data related to serious hypersensitivity, cardiovascular events and deaths.

By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Men who participated in a community fitness program for obese fathers lost weight and increased their activity levels in a new study from Australia. The researchers’ main goal was to test the ‘Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids’ program in a real-world setting to see if it helped reduce obesity among the men participating – with the hope it would improve the eating habits and activity levels of their children too. “Internationally, obesity in men and obesity prevention in children are public health priorities,” Philip Morgan, who led the study, told Reuters Health in an email. “Fathers have a unique and important role in the lifestyle behaviours of their children, yet little is known about how best to engage them in lifestyle interventions,” Morgan said.

A spate of bird flu cases since the beginning of the year in China has experts watching closely as millions of people and poultry are on the move ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, the world's largest annual human migration.

“Most diet books and programs promise a quick fix for weight loss — for … “Health and wellness means a serious lifetime commitment to good nutrition and … Don't eat “dead food,” — food that is loaded with calories and offers little …