Daily Health News News and Articles

A large British study indicates that individuals with severe mental illnesses are significantly more likely to die from coronary heart disease and stroke, but not cancer, than those without mental illnesses, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. [click link for full article] Read more…

President Bush on Monday released a $2.8 trillion fiscal year 2008 budget proposal that includes $101.5 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid over five years, the New York Times reports. The budget includes more than $78.6 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings, and, according to the New York Times, it also includes revisions to federal regulations for an additional $22. [click link for full article] Read more…

Most pediatricians support both reporting medical errors to hospitals and disclosing them to patients' families, but believe formal error reporting systems are inadequate and struggle with personal disclosure, according to survey results published in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. [click link for full article] Read more…

The American Cancer Society has launched a task force of epidemiologists, radiologists and other health experts to investigate why a decreasing number of women in New Jersey are receiving mammograms, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. In New Jersey, women ages 40 and older who reported receiving a mammogram declined from 76.7% in 2000 to 74.9% in 2005, the Star-Ledger reports. [click link for full article] Read more…

Teens who talk to strangers online are more likely to become victims of online harassment than those who share their personal information on the Internet, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. [click link for full article] Read more…

The president of the not-for-profit Smaller Business Association of New England, Robert Baker, said that Massachusetts' new health insurance law does not require employers to contribute a large enough percentage toward employee health insurance premiums, the Boston Globe reports. Baker said most of the association's 700 members already contribute more than the 33% required by the law. [click link for full article] Read more…

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first of a new kind of genetic test that predicts the likelihood of breast cancer returning up to ten years after it has been diagnosed for the first time. The news was released on the FDA website and in press conferences. [click link for full article] Read more…

Wielding a palette of chromosome paints, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have taken a step closer to understanding the relationship between aging and cancer by visualizing chromosomes of cells from patients with a heritable premature aging disease known as Werner Syndrome. [click link for full article] Read more…

The Atlanta-based Names Project Foundation -- which is involved in a lawsuit over the AIDS Memorial Quilt with Cleve Jones, who started the quilt in 1987 and served as its spokesperson for 15 years -- should "let go" of the quilt and "assist in displaying it in its entirety" to raise the profile and understanding of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. [click link for full article] Read more…

Lonely individuals may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer's disease in late life as those who are not lonely, according to a study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. The study is published in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. [click link for full article] Read more…