Month: April 2015

This eating disorder is becoming more prevalent with the increase of interest in weight loss, as in Western countries, and in a rise in socioeconomic …
Go to Source

Villacorta likens his Peruvian superfood program to the Mediterranean diet, as both are packed with colorful fruits, vegetables and grains, along with …
Go to Source

NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit a new low last year while the popularity of electronic cigarettes and water pipes boomed, a government report shows.

Go to Source

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) – In what would be a significant and hard-fought victory for U.S. businesses, the Obama administration on Thursday said it will propose new rules for workplace wellness programs that would treat as voluntary programs that penalize workers thousands of dollars for not participating. The programs have expanded recently because President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law of 2010 allows employers to charge non-participants 30 percent more for health coverage, including premiums and deductibles, which can amount to thousands of dollars.
Go to Source

By Stella Dawson WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Ebola-stricken nations of West Africa are asking international donors to cancel their debts and give them $5-6 billion over two years to rebuild their economies, devastated by the deadly disease, Sierra Leone’s president said on Thursday. “Our social services are ruined, our economies have halted, and we need a real Marshall Plan to take us out of the woods,” President Ernest Bai Koroma said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The leaders of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia will unveil their regional reconstruction program at a meeting on Friday with the heads of the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. Koroma said he wants World Bank President Jim Yong Kim to deliver on his promise last year of regional reconstruction on the scale of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II. The three nations also need about $4 billion in debt forgiveness over and above the relief already provided, he said.
Go to Source

By Mary Wisniewski CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new strain of dog flu from Asia that started infecting pets in Chicago this January has spread to thousands of dogs in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana and killed six, animal health officials said. The canine influenza virus (CIV) currently affecting dogs in the Midwest is a strain known as H3N2, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University. Symptoms of the flu include a persistent cough, runny nose, lack of appetite and fever. It is not known how the H3N2 strain was introduced into Chicago but it could have been a dog from Asia who was a carrier and did not have active symptoms, said Keith Poulsen, diagnostic and case outreach coordinator with the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
Go to Source

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Electronic cigarette use among U.S. middle and high school students tripled in 2014 while cigarette use fell to record lows, according to provocative new data that is likely to intensify debate over whether e-cigarettes are a boon or bane to public health. Overall, tobacco use among high school students grew to 24.6 percent from 22.9 percent. "Nicotine exposure at a young age may cause lasting harm to brain development, promote addiction, and lead to sustained tobacco use," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a statement. Mitch Zeller, director of the Food and Drug Administration's tobacco division, said the data "forces us to confront the reality that the progress we have made in reducing youth cigarette smoking rates is being threatened." But e-cigarette proponents argue that the CDC data could equally suggest that smoking rates fell because young people took up e-cigarettes instead of traditional cigarettes.

Go to Source