Diseases/Conditions News

FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Blacks and the poor have worse outcomes when it comes to head and neck cancer, researchers say.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Baghdad's mentally ill people, their numbers swollen by the trauma of living under Saddam Hussein, remain sadly neglected despite many promises of help by US representatives.

FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- In a group of Medicare beneficiaries who have diabetes, being depressed was associated with a higher death rate, according to a new study.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A global AIDS vaccine conference this week will seek fresh strategies against the HIV virus, with experts weighing the value of basic laboratory research against large-scale human clinical trials after a string of disappointments.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Former National Basketball Association star Magic Johnson was outraged Friday after two Minnesota radio talk show hosts accused him of faking that he had contracted HIV, which can lead to AIDS.

NEW YORK (Reuter Health) - Inadvertent exposure to latex poses a "serious health risk to millions of Americans," Dr. Donald H. Beezhold, chair of the Latex Allergy Committee of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) warns in a statement issued this month.

(HealthDay News) -- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) describes a number of conditions that obstruct airflow in and out of the lungs. Examples include acute bronchitis, emphysema and asthmatic bronchitis.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Asthma control in over one in three children with asthma is not as good as it could be, and in many cases the suboptimal control relates to potentially modifiable beliefs of the parents, new research suggests.

(HealthDay News) -- Some drugs cause unpleasant side effects in many people, including nausea, dizziness or fatigue.

FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Patients coping with metabolic syndrome have a 75 percent higher risk for developing colorectal cancer sometime in their lives, a new study suggests.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government plans to invest directly in US banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday, expanding the focus of the government's 700-billion-dollar rescue plan.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Drug-resistant HIV strains are turning up in parts of China as the virus stretches beyond high-risk groups and gains a stronger foothold in the general population, a leading Chinese AIDS researcher said.

FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Liver transplant patients have a higher incidence of cancer than the general population, say researchers in Finland.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter said on Friday the "atrocious economic policies" of the Bush administration had caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

TUESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) -- A new analysis of existing research finds little evidence that circumcision protects gay men from infection with the AIDS virus, but the issue is still far from settled.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Asthma patients who are black tend to have more severe disease than asthma patients who are white, leading to more asthma control problems, higher rates of emergency department visits, and overall worse quality of life. These findings point to genetic differences that lead to poor responses to drug therapy as the source of these racial disparities.

American entrepreneur Jim Benson, founder of the aerospace firm SpaceDev that helped build the rocket engine that launched the world's first privately-built manned spaceship into suborbital space, died early Friday of a brain tumor, the company announced today.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a survey in Oregon suggest that the Death with Dignity Act enacted in the state in 1997 does not always prevent patients with depression, a treatable condition, from receiving a prescription for a lethal drug.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Circumcision, which has been found to reduce by about one-half the transmission of HIV between heterosexuals, appears to offer far less protection for men engaging in homosexual intercourse, according to a new study.

(HealthDay News) -- Having asthma doesn't necessarily mean an unhealthy pregnancy. The key is to control symptoms and prevent attacks.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who undergo liver transplantation, particularly children, are at increased risk for developing cancer, Finnish researchers report in the journal Liver Transplantation.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are already affected by mental problems such as depression and bi-polar disorders and the current market meltdown could exacerbate feelings of despair among people vulnerable to such illnesses.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is not enough evidence to say circumcision protects men from getting the AIDS virus during sex with other men even as studies show it protects them when having sex with women, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

THURSDAY, Oct. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Young children who wheeze when they have rhinovirus infection -- the most common cause of colds -- are at much greater risk of developing asthma later during childhood, a new study says.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Japanese investigators say that survival rates are better for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who never smoked than in NSCLC patients with a history of smoking. Other disease characteristics are different as well between the two populations.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law may not adequately protect the one in four terminally ill patients with clinical depression, a new study says.

BUDUDA, Uganda (AFP) - Like many cultural events, a male circumcision ceremony in eastern Uganda has its share of governing rules: the "candidate" is not supposed to see the surgeon until seconds before the cutting and his mother cannot be present.

THURSDAY, Oct. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The inhaled steroids that are often used to treat asthma don't work as well in the overweight or obese, new research shows.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many women don't know that obesity increases their risk of several types of cancer, a new survey published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology shows.