Study children and cellphones, US experts advise
Researchers should study more children and pregnant women in trying to figure out if cell phones or other wireless devices could damage health, the U.S. National Research Council advised on Thursday.
A few studies have indicated a possible link between mobile telephone use and brain tumors, although far more show no connection. But because wireless devices have become almost ubiquitous, researchers wants to ensure their safety.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked the National Research Council to recommend some future lines of study. The Council, which advises Congress and the federal government on scientific matters, held a meeting of experts including engineers and biologists and has now released the full report.
Diabetes narrows gender gap in heart disease death
Eighteen years of follow-up shows that men are twice as likely to die from heart disease as women. However, this gender gap is markedly reduced when only patients with diabetes are considered.
The reason? Diabetes is a stronger risk factor for heart disease death in women than in men.
In the European Heart Journal, Dr. Ane Cecilie Dale, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and colleagues report data from HUNT 1, a large study in which all adults of Trendelag County, Norway, were invited to participate.
High BP-obesity link varies among Africans: study
Excess fat may not be the only factor that increases the risk of high blood pressure (hypertension) among obese people of African descent, according to an international research team.
They found that while blood pressure increased with body weight in 13 different groups of Africans or people of African heritage living in the UK, United States, or the Caribbean, the degree to which blood pressure rose with body weight varied among the groups.
Evidence is strong that an increase in blood pressure as body mass index (BMI) rises is universal across the world’s populations, but there has been some research suggesting that the relationship might vary “in populations at the extremes of the BMI distribution,” Dr. Francesco P. Cappuccio of Warwick Medical School in Coventry, UK, and colleagues explain in the medical journal, Epidemiology.
Post-concussion depression more than emotional
Post-concussion symptoms of depression may stem from an underlying neurological abnormality caused by the concussion, results of a Canadian study suggest.
Depression after a blow to the head may not simply be the individual’s emotional or psychological reaction to the injury and their subsequent loss of playing time, as is commonly thought, investigators note in the medical journal, Archives of General Psychiatry.
“It seems there is a cerebral dysfunction caused by the injury,” Dr. Alain Ptito, of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University in Quebec, told Reuters Health. The injury manifests itself as symptoms of depression, he added.
Higher prostate cancer risk tied to severe acne
New research suggests a link between acne and prostate cancer, but the study’s authors urge caution in interpreting their findings.
Men who had taken tetracycline, an antibiotic used to treat severe acne, for 4 years or longer were 70 percent more likely than men who hadn’t used the drug, or had used it for a shorter time, to develop prostate cancer over a 10-year period, Dr. Siobhan Sutcliffe of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and colleagues found.
“Although intriguing, these findings should be interpreted cautiously,” Sutcliffe and her team say, pointing to the small number of people who had used tetracycline for at least 4 years (just 0.5 percent of the 34,629 men in the study), the indirect assessment of severe acne, and the fact that acne can have multiple, complex causes.
Ike Turner’s death ruled cocaine overdose
The late rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose, the San Diego County medical examiner said on Wednesday.
Turner, 76, was found dead on December 12 at his home in San Marcos near San Diego. He had a history of cocaine addiction stretching back more than 30 years.
The medical examiner said an autopsy showed that a long history of cardiovascular disease and emphysema contributed to Turner’s death.
