Year: 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a roller-coaster sign-up season winds down, President Barack Obama's health care law has indeed managed to change the country.

By Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Diet drinks may increase the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other heart problems in postmenopausal women, according to an informal study that could take some fizz out of enjoyment of the popular beverages. Compared to women who never or seldom consume diet drinks, those who drank two or more a day were 30 percent more likely to suffer a cardiovascular event and 50 percent more likely to die from related disease, researchers found. The findings were gleaned from an analysis of diet drink intake and consequences among almost 60,000 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-running U.S. observational study of cardiovascular health trends among postmenopausal women. “Our findings are in line with and extend data from previous studies showing an association between diet drinks and metabolic syndrome,” said Dr. Ankur Vyas of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, lead investigator of the study.

High-Profile Case Linked Technique to Cancer Spread in Patient

U.S. Army Specialist Ricky Glenn Henderson flew back from Afghanistan in hopes of donating part of his liver to his dying grandfather. The soldier has been undergoing tests since Wednesday at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas to see whether he is a possible match,…

By Saliou Samb CONAKRY (Reuters) – Authorities in Guinea scrambled on Friday to halt the spread of Ebola in the capital as the Health Ministry identified another four suspected cases of a deadly virus outbreak that is estimated to have already killed 70. Officials said the previous day that five cases of Ebola had been detected in Conakry, a city of more than 2 million people, some 300 km (185 miles) from the previous infections in the West African country's remote southeast. Authorities in Guinea have launched an investigation into the movements of the infected men in Conakry and steps are being taken to deal with anyone who came into contact with them, the government said in a statement. In neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia, 11 more people have died from suspected Ebola, stirring concern that one of the most lethal infectious diseases known to man could be spreading in an impoverished region ill-equipped to cope.