Health Glance
The New Jersey Assembly approved a measure on Monday that would make the state the first in the region and the 14th in the nation to legalize the use of marijuana for medical reasons.
The measure was to be voted on by the State Senate later in the afternoon, the final day of the legislative session. If passed, it would allow patients diagnosed with severe illnesses like cancer, AIDS, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis to have access to marijuana distributed through state-monitored dispensaries.
New Jersey Assembly Approves Medical Marijuana
Vitamin D deficiency increasingly common
To remedy the low vitamin D levels they are seeing, doctors are beginning to recommend supplements to their patients, and more of the vitamin than recommended by national guidelines. That is largely because research over the past decade has increasingly suggested that vitamin D plays a far bigger role in overall health than previously believed.
Aside from its well-known reputation for building and maintaining strong bones, vitamin D could be tied to cancer prevention and cardiovascular health, and some researchers are looking into a connection between vitamin D deficiency and gum disease, said Dr. Mark Ryder, chair of the division of periodontology at the UCSF School of Dentistry.
Popular Drugs May Help Only Severe Depression
Some widely prescribed drugs for depression provide relief in extreme cases but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients, according to a new analysis released Tuesday.
The new report, appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reviews data from previous trials on two types of drugs and finds that their effectiveness varies according to the severity of the depression being treated.
Solution to killer superbug found in Norway
There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.
Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway’s public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.
Senior-citizen volunteers fight Medicare fraud
The Senior Medicare Patrol is one of the least-known forces in the government's effort to eliminate such fraud, which drains billions of dollars a year. But it is seen as a valuable part of the Obama administration's bid to overhaul health care and bring down costs.
The 4,700 senior citizen volunteers who serve as the government's eyes and ears have been credited with saving taxpayers more than $100 million since 1997. The program relies on elderly people to apply a lifetime's worth of common sense and skepticism.
Breast cancer is not a single disease, scientists discover
Breast cancer is not a single disease but a collection of at least five separate conditions that differ in prognosis and response to treatment, a detailed genetic study has revealed.
This information could then be used by doctors to establish how aggressive the tumour will be, and which therapy is most likely to work.
Vitamin C 'could boost stem cell generation'
Vitamin C could play an essential role in the manufacture of stem cells for treating human diseases, new research suggests. The vitamin boosts the reprogramming of adult cells to give them the properties of embryonic stem cells.
Scientists who made the discovery believe it may help them overcome long-standing hurdles in the way of creating the reprogrammed cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). IPSCs offer a solution to the ethical problems involved in producing embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any kind of human tissue, from bone to brain.
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