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In Memphis, black Medicare beneficiaries are nearly six times as likely as whites to have a leg amputated, a complication stemming from vascular disease and diabetes.
In Mississippi, 57 percent of women aged 65-69 got mammograms in a two-year period versus 74 percent in Maine.
And, in Alaska, 71 percent of Medicare patients with diabetes got an important annual test for blood sugar...

Silver-colored metal dental fillings contain mercury that may cause health problems in pregnant women, children and fetuses, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday after settling a related lawsuit.
As part of the settlement with several consumer advocacy groups, the FDA agreed to alert consumers about the potential risks on its website and to issue a...

Injecting human stem cells into the brains of mice helped them recover almost fully from a neurological condition similar to a group of childhood diseases in people, researchers said on Wednesday.
Some, but not all, of the mice in the study made major improvements after a one-time injection of stem cells, leading the scientists to express hope that the same approach might...

WASHINGTON - Silver-colored metal dental fillings contain mercury that may cause health problems in pregnant women, children and fetuses, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday after settling a related lawsuit.
As part of the settlement with several consumer advocacy groups, the FDA agreed to alert consumers about the potential risks on its website and to issue a more specific rule...

U.S. health officials are investigating whether drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease are linked to cancers in children and young adults, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday.
The prescription drugs, members of a family called TNF blockers, include Johnson & Johnson's Remicade, Abbott Laboratories Inc's Humira, and Amgen Inc and Wyeth's Enbrel.
The FDA said it was probing about 30 reports of cancer in children and...

BOSTON - Three months of extra treatment with the drug nevirapine helps babies ward off the AIDS virus longer, and infected women do not need to rush to wean their infants, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Separate studies in two African nations address a pressing problem in developing countries, where 200,000 children each year pick up HIV through their mother's breast milk.
Doctors are...

In a study of elderly nursing home patients, those who took medications for dementia called cholinesterase inhibitors and medications for incontinence called anticholinergics at the same time had a 50 percent faster decline in function than those who were being treated only for dementia.
"Over a year's time, the decline would represent a resident going from requiring only limited assistance in an activity to being completely dependent, or from...

WEDNESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Cooling the brain after a traumatic brain injury may not help improve neurological outcomes and might even increase mortality.

That's the conclusion of a randomized trial of 225 children with brain injuries, but the authors and other experts suspect that by changing the cooling and re-warming protocol, other researchers may have more success with this therapy.

"Our hypothesis was that hypothermia would...

In a study of pathological gamblers, the urge to gamble and gambling-related behaviors diminished among those who took naltrexone -- a drug frequently prescribed for the treatment of alcoholism and drug dependence.
Nearly 40 percent of the pathological gamblers who took naltrexone were able to abstain from all gambling for at least one month. Similar abstention occurred among just 10.5 percent of...

Fewer U.S. high school students are having sex or using drugs and alcohol compared to the 1990s, but Latinos are not sharing in many areas of progress, health officials said on Wednesday.
For the students overall, just under half have had sex, 75 percent have tried alcohol and 20 percent smoke, the government survey found.
The Centers for...

WEDNESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Your nerves, rather than your eating habits, may have a more direct role in whether you are fat or thin, according to new research.

A study on worms shows that serotonin levels in the nervous system influence feeding and fat. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, also acts independently to control eating and what your body does with those calories once they've been...

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators are investigating whether a group of best-selling arthritis drugs made by Abbott Laboratories, Schering-Plough Corp. and other companies heighten the risk of cancer in youngsters.
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it has received 30 reports of children and young adults developing cancer while taking the drugs over the last 10 years. Roughly half the cases were...

Parents of overweight teens who recognize that their kids are too fat don't take steps to help them to eat more healthily or to be more active, but they do push them to diet -- and this pressure is likely to backfire, a new study shows.
Parents who are concerned about their child's weight should do more and talk less, Dr. Dianne...

WEDNESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. health officials have started a safety review of a class of drugs known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers, which are widely prescribed to treat autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease.

The announcement did not come as a surprise, as experts have long debated the risk-benefit profile of the drugs without coming to any consensus.

Among...

Children who are exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke early in life are at greater risk of being hospitalized for infections than those brought up in a smoke-free environment, researchers from Hong Kong report.
The risk of being hospitalized was greatest among babies 6 months old and younger, but the increased risk persisted up until the children were 8 years old, Dr. M. K. Kwok of the University of...