Health category, Page 132
100-year-old yoga instructor keeps moving, dancing
HARTSDALE, N.Y. — A 100-year-old yoga instructor has no plans to stop practicing and teaching. On a spring day in Hartsdale, a northern suburb of New York City where she leads her classes, Tao Porchon-Lynch said she first encountered the ancient practice at age 7 in her native India. Strolling...
Study finds diabetes drug may prevent, slow kidney disease
A drug that’s used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes has now been shown to help prevent or slow kidney disease, which causes millions of deaths each year and requires hundreds of thousands of people to use dialysis to stay alive. Doctors say it’s hard to overstate...
‘You could give life,’ Pittsburgh mayor says of organ donation month
Retired Pittsburgh Police Officer Brenda Tate said she couldn’t bear watching her brother deteriorate from kidney disease two years ago, so she became a chain organ donor allowing him to receive a new kidney. At 68, Tate of the Hill District donated her kidney to a man in Erie. The...
Swallowed toys, coins, batteries spark rise in child ER visits
CHICAGO — The number of young kids who went to U.S. emergency rooms because they swallowed toys, coins, batteries and other objects has nearly doubled, a new study says. In 2015, there were nearly 43,000 such visits among kids under 6, compared with 22,000 in 1995, according to the study...
New Western Psych president Deborah Brodine returns to where she started
UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital will have a new president in May. It will be a homecoming for Deborah Brodine, who started her career 25 years ago at the hospital in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. “I am very eager and honored to partner with the other members of this incredible and talented...
‘Burden of Genius’ tells story of transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl
Six months before Dr. Christiaan Barnard conducted the world’s first highly-publicized heart transplant in December of 1967, Dr. Thomas Starzl performed the world’s first successful liver transplant. Barnard received worldwide publicity and, after hitting the talk show circuit, became a household name. Starzl did not become as well known and,...
2 more die of flu complications in Allegheny County
Two more Allegheny County residents have died from flu-related complications, bringing the total deaths to 14 this season, officials said. A female in her upper 90s and a male in his mid-60s died, according to the Allegheny County Health Department. The county receives its data on flu-related deaths from the...
Mayo Clinic Q&A: Revealing the cause of fainting
Dear Mayo Clinic: I had a fainting spell the other day, which had never happened to me before in my 64 years. I don’t feel unwell, but a friend I was with at the time insists I should see my doctor. Is that necessary? What would they be looking for?...
Key to happiness? Get a dog
The well-respected survey that’s been a barometer of American politics, culture and behavior for more than four decades finally got around to the question that has bedeviled many a household. Dog or cat? In 2018, the General Social Survey for the first time included a battery of questions on pet...
Is 4 hours of sleep really enough?
“Sleep is overrated.” So proclaims Stephen Klasko, who throughout his life has taken pride in sleeping only four or five hours a night. Those extra few hours away from his pillow, he believes, have allowed him to write books, run marathons and achieve his lofty professional goals. An obstetrician and...
Health Happenings – Apr. 9, 2019
Blood drives • American Red Cross will host a blood drive 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. April 16 in Westmoreland County Community College Founders Hall, Youngwood campus, 145 Pavilion Lane, Hempfield. Appointments: 800-733-2767 or redcrossblood.org; walk-ins welcome • Vitalant, formerly Central Blood Bank, will host a blood drive 8 a.m.-2 p.m. April...
CDC finds 78 new measles cases as outbreak sprints to record
WASHINGTON — For the second week in a row, U.S. health officials added dozens of new reports to the year’s list of confirmed measles cases, bringing the total to 465 — already the highest number in the last five years. It’s another significant milepost on the road to what will...
Pitt study says doctors overprescribe meds to kids through telemedicine
As telemedicine visits increase, so do the chances of overprescribing of antibiotics to children, according to a new study. Children with acute respiratory infections were prescribed antibiotics more often during direct-to-consumer telemedicine visits than during in-person appointments or urgent care visits, according to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh research reported...
Q&A: Popular weed killer’s alleged link to cancer spreads concern
Clumps of dandelions have popped up in your yard, so you reach for a bottle of Roundup, the popular weed killer. It is known for being very effective, but its main ingredient, glyphosate, is getting a lot of attention because of lawsuits alleging links to cancer. In late March, a...
Smoking pot vs. tobacco: What science says about lighting up
NEW YORK — As more states make it legal to smoke marijuana, some government officials, researchers and others worry what that might mean for one of the country’s biggest public health successes : curbing cigarette smoking. Though there are notable differences in health research findings on tobacco and marijuana, the...
Vaccine wars: Social media battle outbreak of bogus claims
SAN FRANCISCO — Like health officials facing outbreaks of disease, internet companies are trying to contain vaccine-related misinformation they have long helped spread. So far, their efforts at quarantine are falling short. Searches of Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram turn up all sorts of bogus warnings about vaccines, including the soundly...
Canonsburg mother donates kidney to honor her late sonVideo
Laura Gillum of Canonsburg wanted to keep the memory of her son alive. In 2015, Gillum and her husband, Paul, lost their 2-year-old, Dean, in a swimming pool drowning accident. The couple donated Dean’s organs to help people in need. A few weeks ago, Laura Gillum, 46, became an altruistic...
Pennsylvania flu hospitalizations up 62% in 2018
The flu sent more than 8,600 Pennsylvanians to the hospital last season, a 62% increase over the previous season, a new report shows. Released last week by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, the report found a wide variation in admissions over the past several flu seasons. The 8,647...
Analysis: Why Americans shouldn’t feel grateful for $137 insulin
Last month, Eli Lilly and Co. announced with some fanfare that it was manufacturing a generic version of its own best-selling insulin brand, Humalog, which it would sell for half off — $137.35 versus about $275. David Ricks, the chief executive of Lilly, said the company was making this seemingly...
Study says unhealthy diets more lethal than cigarettes, high blood pressure
Unhealthy diets dominated by sugar, salt and trans fats were associated with one in five deaths and were more deadly than tobacco and high blood pressure, a new study says. Results of the study, published Wednesday in the British journal The Lancet, were reported in The New York Times and...
CVS expands same-day prescription deliveries to 36 states
CVS Health is expanding same-day prescription deliveries nationwide in the latest push by drugstores to keep customers who don’t want to wait and are doing more shopping online. The drugstore chain says it can deliver medications and other products within a few hours to homes or offices from 6,000 locations....
U.S. investigates seizure risk with electronic cigarettes
WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials are investigating whether electronic cigarettes may trigger seizures in some people who use the nicotine-vaping devices. The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it has reviewed 35 reports of seizures among e-cigarettes users, particularly young people. Regulators stressed it’s not yet clear whether vaping is...
128K kids in Tennessee cut from low-income Medicaid programs
NASHVILLE — At least 128,000 children in Tennessee have been cut from the state’s low-income health insurance programs over the past two years. The Tennessean reports that one in every eight children in TennCare were unenrolled between December 2016 and this January. State officials say the purge is due to...
CBD is getting buzz, but does it work? And is it legal?
With CBD showing up everywhere, U.S. regulators announced Tuesday they are exploring ways the marijuana extract could be used legally in foods, dietary supplements and cosmetics. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it will hold a public hearing May 31 to gather more information on the science, manufacturing and...
Trump puts off vote on health-care bill until after next year’s elections
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signaled Monday night that he will not press for a vote on a bill to replace the Affordable Care Act until after next year’s elections, apparently heeding warnings from fellow Republicans about the perils of such a fight during campaign season. In a series of...
