Month: February 2014

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Older men and women whose partners died within the past month are at an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, according to a new study from the UK. Researchers found the chance of having a heart attack or stroke doubled within the 30 days after people lost their significant other. “The period after death of a loved one is a time of increased vulnerability to a range of health problems, including heart attacks and strokes,” Dr. Sunil Shah said. “Although we know that the chance of dying of a heart attack or stroke increases after losing someone close, we had less information on the overall effect of bereavement (on) heart attacks and strokes,” including those that aren’t fatal, he wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

Sony is going from SmartWatch to SmartBand next month with the release of the Sony SmartBand SWR10. Product confirmation occurred at Mobile World Conference in Barcelona following the device's introduction at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January. "At CES 2014, I introduced SmartWear Experience as representing emotion as well as motion — moving, and being moved," said Kunimasa Suzuki, President and CEO, Sony Mobile Communications. The first device powered by Sony's new Core fitness tracking technology, the product will launch in 60 countries and features the Lifelog Android app.

Samsung has announced a new piece of wearable tech, the Gear Fit. A curved fitness tracker for the wrist, Gear Fit is a "more compact" option from Samsung's Galaxy Gear series, designed to keep users "physically active without sacrificing personal style or mobile connectivity."

By Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING (Reuters) – A man in a smog-ridden northern city has become the first person in China to sue the government for failing to curb air pollution, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday. China's north is suffering a pollution crisis, with the capital Beijing itself shrouded in acrid smog. Li Guixin, a resident of Shijiazhuang, capital of the northern province of Hebei, submitted his complaint to a district court asking the city's Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau to "perform its duty to control air pollution according to the law", the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily said.

For decades, surgeons have traveled to far-off hospitals to remove organs from brain-dead donors and then rushed back to transplant them. Now an experiment in the Midwest suggests there may be a better way: Bring the donors to the doctors instead.

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Hundreds of Syrian children who have fled to neighboring Lebanon to escape their country’s civil war are increasingly at risk of dying from malnutrition, international aid organizations said in a report on Tuesday. The assessment conducted by the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF and other agencies found that about 10,000 Syrians under five years old are suffering from acute malnutrition, including around 1,800 who are at risk of dying and require immediate treatment to survive. The study was based on a sample of about 9,000 refugees across Lebanon, where more than 935,000 Syrians have registered with the U.N. since Syria’s conflict began in 2011 – swelling the existing population of 4 million. UNICEF warned that the prevalence of malnutrition in some parts of Lebanon had almost doubled since 2012 and could deteriorate further.

Drugs used to treat low testosterone should carry strong warnings about the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said on Tuesday. Testosterone therapy is approved by the FDA for men who lack or have low testosterone in conjunction with an associated medical condition, such as a genetic failure of the testicles to produce testosterone. Symptoms of low testosterone can include loss of libido, depression, decreased muscle mass and fatigue.