http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Non-communicable diseases (NCD) and mental disorders each constitute a huge portion of the worldwide health care burden, and often occur together, so they should be addressed together. These are the conclusions of the third article in a series published in PLOS Medicine that provides a global perspective on integrating mental health. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-mental-health-ncds.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 14 May 2013 17:24:30 EST news287771060 (HealthDay)—Many women choose to have labor induced or to have an elective Cesarean delivery before the full term of their pregnancy is up, but a new study suggests their child's development may suffer if they are born even a little early. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-babies-born-slightly-early-lag.html Pediatrics Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:46:58 EST news285392809 Everyday, news reports detail the impact of the deficiencies in the nation's mental health care services. Even more startling, a survey from the University of Michigan reveals that many adults across the U.S. believe children and teens have extremely limited or no access to appropriate mental health care services. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-access-mental-health-lacking-children.html Health Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:15:05 EST news284138062 Preventive cardiology is now on the political as well as clinical agenda. In 2011 a UN heads-of-state meeting agreed to reduce mortality from chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by 25% by 2025. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-heart-disease-requires-universal-approach.html Cardiology Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:21:23 EST news282918075 Canada needs to reform its patchwork system of prison health care that does not adequately care for prisoners' complex health care needs, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-prison-health-canada-cmaj-editorial.html Health Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:00:02 EST news281614706 When a child is born with a disorder of sex development, decisions regarding gender assignment and genital surgery are often made quickly and under pressure. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-u-m-parents-children-disorders-sex.html Health Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:38:25 EST news277573098 The head of the World Health Organization warned Thursday that infectious diseases will spread more easily in the future due to globalisation, changing lifestyles and rising population densities. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-diseases.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:54:23 EST news275208855 New York City's limit of a maximum 16-ounce size of sugar-sweetened drinks for sale in eating establishments is a positive public health move and should be replicated in Canada, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-rationing-soft-sizes-good-health.html Health Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:00:03 EST news274958892 Taxes on soft drinks and foods high in saturated fats and subsidies for fruit and vegetables could lead to beneficial dietary changes and potentially improve health, according to a study by experts from New Zealand published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-taxes-sugary-high-fat-foods.html Health Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:00:01 EST news274465345 Proposals designed to prevent non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as "fat taxes" will have wide-ranging effects on the economy and health but wider research is needed to avoid wasting resources on ineffective measures, according to an economist from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-non-communicable-diseases-important-life-death.html Health Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:00:25 EST news267367670 So-called lifestyle diseases are gaining ground with epidemic speed in low-income countries. The traditional health focus in these countries has been to combat communicable diseases such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. However, research from the University of Copenhagen suggests that dividing campaigns into combating either non-communicable or communicable diseases is ineffective and expensive. A new article by Danish scientists published in the well-reputed journal Science provides an overview. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-strategies-combat-disease-countries.html Health Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:00:14 EST news267368333 Parents of newborns with the sickle cell anemia trait were less likely to receive genetic counseling than parents whose babies are cystic fibrosis carriers, a new study from the University of Michigan shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-parents-babies-sickle-cell-trait.html Genetics Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:25:57 EST news266585146 Significantly more children get health insurance coverage after increases in federal matching funds to states for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), according to new research from the University of Michigan. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-federal-funds-states-boosts-enrollment.html Health Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:59:56 EST news263577488 Parents of infants who survive bacterial meningitis caused by group B Streptococcus might have to live with the effects of the disease on their children long after they're discharged from the hospital. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-group-streptococcal-meningitis-long-term-effects.html Pediatrics Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:15:36 EST news258740122 Funding pressures and the rise of chronic illnesses such as heart disease are the top "danger zones" for global health in 2012, the head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, said on Monday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-chan-funding.html Health Mon, 21 May 2012 12:49:53 EST news256823383 Taxes on unhealthy food and drinks would need to be at least 20% to have a significant effect on diet-related conditions such as obesity and heart disease, say experts in the British Medical Journal today. Ideally, this should be combined with subsidies on healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables, they add. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-percent-fat-tax-population-health.html Health Tue, 15 May 2012 18:30:02 EST news256311732 Better estimates of infectious disease burden are needed for effective planning and prioritizing of limited public health resources. These are the conclusions of a new Policy Forum article in this week's PLoS Medicine, in which Mirjam Kretzschmar from the Centre for Infectious Disease Control, RIVM in Bilthoven, The Netherlands and colleagues describe the Burden of Communicable Diseases in Europe (BCoDE) study that uses a pathogen-based incidence approach to generate infectious disease burden estimates in Europe taking into full account all chronic and long-term sequelae that can be causally related to an infectious agent. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-methods-infectious-disease-burden.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:00:04 EST news253891063 When it comes to treating cystic fibrosis, the current standard of aggressive antibiotic treatments may not always be the best answer, a decade-long study led by researchers at the University of Michigan has found. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-decade-long-antibiotic-cystic-fibrosis.html Medical research Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:00:01 EST news251982787 Stroke is the leading cause of death in people over 65 in low- and middle-income countries, according to new research published this week. Deaths of people over 65 represent more than a third of all deaths in developing countries yet, until now, little research has focused on this group. The study was led by researchers King's College London and is published in PLoS Medicine. The study also finds that education and social protection are as important in prolonging people's lives as economic development. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-mortality-older-people-latin-america.html Health Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:00:01 EST news249670113 Sugar should be controlled like alcohol and tobacco to protect public health, according to a team of UCSF researchers, who maintain in a new report that sugar is fueling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-societal-sugar-essential-ease-health.html Health Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:00:09 EST news247322788 Indonesia on Friday reported its second human death from bird flu this year, with the death of a five-year-old girl who recently lost her relative to the deadly virus. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-indonesia-bird-flu-death-year.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:40:02 EST news246254824 A 24-year-old Indonesian man infected with bird flu died in the capital Jakarta, the health ministry said Tuesday, in the country's third fatal case in three months. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-dies-bird-flu-indonesia.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:16:16 EST news245394965 In response to a lawsuit after a college football player died from complications due to sickle cell trait (SCT) during a workout, the NCAA implemented mandatory SCT screening of all Division I student-athletes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-ncaa-mandatory-sickle-cell-screening.html Health Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:17:37 EST news242929050 Thailand's hundreds of thousands of flood victims are at risk of water-borne diseases and infections, the World Health Organisation said Saturday, though no major outbreaks have been reported yet. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-disease-flood-hit-thailand.html Health Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:43:19 EST news238513390 Researchers studying hand hygiene of healthcare workers in the emergency department found certain care situations, including bed location and type of healthcare worker performing care, resulted in poorer hand hygiene practice. The study was reported in the November issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-predictors-poor-hygiene-emergency-department.html Other Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:28:57 EST news236860131 By taking local biosurveillance data into account when assessing patients for communicable diseases, doctors may be able to make better diagnostic decisions, according to researchers at Children's Hospital Boston. For instance, in the case of strep throat, awareness of local epidemiology at the time of diagnosis could help more than 166,000 people avoid unnecessary antibiotic treatment in the United States every year and catch more than 62,000 missed cases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-locally-individually.html Health Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:06:49 EST news235673302 The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, created by the president as part of the first lady's "Let's Move" campaign, aims to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation, returning the country to a rate of 5 percent by 2030, which was the rate before childhood obesity first began to rise in the late 1970s. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-white-house-childhood-obesity-task.html Health Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:58:07 EST news234701870 Children with public insurance are 22 percent less likely to receive comprehensive primary care than those with private insurance, according to new research from the University of Michigan Medical School. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-children-health-comprehensive-primary.html Health Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:00:01 EST news229967143 (AP) -- The world's top emerging countries banded together Monday to help fight diseases in the poorest countries, pledging to explore the transfer of technologies to the developing world to enable poor nations to produce cheap and effective lifesaving medicines. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-brics-countries-vow-poor-nations.html Health Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:42:02 EST news229614109 People often talk about "boosting" their immunity to prevent and fight colds. Nutritional supplements, cold remedies and fortified foods claim to stave off colds by augmenting the immune system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-heightened-immunity-colds-asthma-flare-ups.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 16 Jun 2011 08:40:18 EST news227432395