Month: February 2014

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Simple at-home exercises could help seniors regain mobility and independence after recovering from a broken hip, according to a new study. Participants who followed the six-month home exercise program showed significant improvements in their ability to get up and around, climb stairs and attend to daily activities, compared to similar seniors who only had typical post-fracture rehab. A broken hip often marks the start of a rapid decline in older people’s health. However, research has also shown that months of intensive outpatient physical therapy improves function, mobility and other outcomes, she added.

After seeing Reddit post student finds he has testicular cancer.        

By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) – A Miami judge temporarily blocked media access to any more semi-clad video images of Justin Bieber filmed while the teenage pop singer was in police custody last month after his arrest for driving under the influence. Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield ordered that about 10 hours of police surveillance video not be released until he has been able to review them in his chambers. The footage included clips of Bieber giving a urine sample. "While in custody at the Miami Beach police station, the defendant was captured on videotape in various states of undress which show intimate personal parts of the defendant's body," according to a legal motion filed earlier this month in Miami-Dade County Court by Bieber's Miami law firm.

A ninth-grader died from a rare infection.        

Researchers have announced the development of a new biologic drug targeted to treat ovarian cancer. Scientists from the Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island have created a biologic drug that can halt the manufacture of a protein called HE4 that is present in women who suffer from ovarian cancer. According to ScienceDaily, this protein promotes the aggressive growth of ovarian cancer cells that are also resistant to treatment with chemotherapy. There are three main kinds of ovarian tumors, says the American Cancer Society.

It's just in fiction for now, but the "avatar doctor," a virtual physician which consults and diagnoses through a smartphone app, is coming, says the author of a new medical thriller. Robin Cook, a physician and best-selling author known for his books "Coma" and "Outbreak," says his new novel, "Cell," foretells a future where a good deal of medicine can come through an app which can draw from huge medical databases. "Just about every book I have written has come to pass," Cook told a symposium Wednesday at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington as part of his book launch. Cook, who has training in surgery and ophthalmology, said the virtual doctor can be superior in many ways to real-life medical practitioners by being able to sift through billions of studies and records to make a diagnosis and offer a solution.

A Chinese manufacturer has set the record for the world's thinnest latex condom with one measuring 0.036 millimetres, Guinness World Records said on Thursday.

By Paulo Prada RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Wanted: topless Carnival dancers. It sounds like a simple request in a city known for steamy nightclubs, Bacchanalian beach parties and Carnival parades featuring nude starlets donning only a "tapa-sexo," a leaf-sized patch of fabric that serves, literally, as a sex covering. The women wanted by Mocidade Independente Padre Miguel, one of Rio de Janeiro's best known Carnival troupes, had to be silicone-free. In salute to a bygone era, Mocidade wanted Carnival dancers without the globular breasts and "bumbum," or buttocks, that now dominate the annual spectacle, a week-long party meant to purge sin before the Catholic season of Lent.

By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Dr. Linda Quan lost count of the number of children she watched slowly die from drowning. That pain spurred the Seattle emergency room pediatrician to advocate for a Washington state law that now requires children 12 years and younger to wear life vests aboard small recreational boats. In a new study published in the journal Injury Prevention, Quan and her colleagues find that boaters mandated to wear life jackets were the most likely to wear them. More than 82 percent of them were not wearing life jackets.

Jury selection began on Thursday in the trial of Kerry Kennedy, daughter of assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the ex-wife of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was charged in 2012 after swerving her car into a tractor trailer and driving away. Kennedy, 54, is charged with one count of driving while impaired, a misdemeanor. No one was injured in the accident in a suburb of New York City. Kennedy initially said a partial seizure was to blame but a toxicology report showed that she had sleeping medication in her system.

Find out how an unlicensed doctor claimed to cure patients.        

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lobbyists for electronic cigarette companies have been beating a path to the White House, hoping to prevent the administration from imposing strict, and possibly costly, rules on the burgeoning $2 billion industry. In November and December, more than 35 organizations including e-cigarette companies, cigar and tobacco makers, trade associations, physician groups, lawyers, lobbyists and public health advocates trooped through the doors of the White House's Office of Management and Budget. OMB has been reviewing a rule proposed by the Food and Drug Administration that would bring e-cigarettes under its jurisdiction and could potentially require companies to register and pay fees, list the ingredients in their products, obtain prior approval for new products and restrict online sales and marketing to children. The OMB, which reviews proposed regulations to assess, among other things, their economic impact, has not given a date for when it will be finished with its review, but officials have not had a meeting with outsiders since January 17 according to public records, suggesting they have heard all they need, or are willing, to hear.