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Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
State/Federal Partnership Has Reduced Illegal Tobacco Sales To Minors To An All-time Low A new report on the Synar Amendment program - a federal and state partnership aimed at ending illegal tobacco sales to minors - shows that all the states and the District of Columbia have continued to meet their goals of curtailing sales of tobacco to underage youth (those under 18).	28 June 2011
Cocaine Being Mixed With Animal Drug Can Scar For Life Cocaine is one of the most used illegal substances. So much so that cocaine "cut" with byproducts is rampant and in a new report, it seems that cocaine is now being diluted from its pure form with levamisole, a cheap and widely available drug used to deworm livestock.	28 June 2011
Implications For Safety As 1 In 20 Australian Workers Confess To Drinking At Work A national survey has found that more than one in twenty Australian workers report using alcohol while at work or just before work, and more than one in fifty report taking drugs during or just before work.	28 June 2011
Pharmacoeconomic Value Of Addiction Treatments, Including VIVITROL(R), Published In Leading Healthcare Policy Journal Alkermes, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS) today announced the publication of two new studies in the June issue of The American Journal of Managed Care1,2 evaluating pharmacoeconomic data on addiction treatments, including VIVITROL® (naltrexone for extended-release injectable suspension), with the endpoint of total healthcare costs.	28 June 2011
Young Adult Binge-Drinkers May Be Damaging Their Brains It's considered a rite of passage among young people - acting out their independence through heavy, episodic drinking. But a new University of Cincinnati study, the first of its kind nationally, is showing how binge drinking among adolescents and young adults could be causing serious damage to a brain that's still under development at this age.	28 June 2011
The Risks And Benefits Of Alcohol Drinking In The Elderly The Royal College of Psychiatrists of London has published a report related primarily to problems of unrecognized alcohol misuse among the elderly. The report provides guidelines for psychiatrists and family physicians on how to find and how to treat elderly people with misuse of alcohol and drugs.	28 June 2011
Two Talks With Teens Leads To Less Marijuana Use For At Least A Year Marijuana is the most prevalent illicit drug used by teenagers and adults around the world. Nearly a third of high school students in the United States report smoking it, and most high schoolers say they have access to the drug.	28 June 2011
Study Reveals Possible Brain Damage In Young Adult Binge-Drinkers It's considered a rite of passage among young people acting out their independence through heavy, episodic drinking. But a new University of Cincinnati study, the first of its kind nationally, is showing how binge drinking among adolescents and young adults could be causing serious damage to a brain that's still under development at this age.	28 June 2011

Alzheimer's / Dementia News
EnVivo Announces Initiation Of Gamma Secretase Modulator Clinical Program In Alzheimer's Disease EnVivo Pharmaceuticals, a company dedicated to developing a broad range of novel central nervous system (CNS) therapies, announced today that it recently initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial of EVP-0962, its potent and selective gamma secretase modulator (GSM), in healthy volunteers.	28 June 2011
Route Map Gives New Priority To Dementia Research, UK Up to £20 million will be spent on four National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Units over the next five years, Paul Burstow, Care Services Minister announced today.	28 June 2011
Cinnamon Extract Inhibits Progression Of Alzheimer's Disease Alzheimer's, the degenerative brain disorder that disrupts memory, thought and behavior, is devastating to both patients and loved ones. According to the Alzheimer's Association, one in eight Americans over the age of 65 suffers from the disease.	28 June 2011
Brain Rhythm Associated With Learning Also Linked To Running Speed, UCLA Study Shows Rhythms in the brain that are associated with learning become stronger as the body moves faster, UCLA neurophysicists report in a new study.The research team, led by professor Mayank Mehta, used specialized microelectrodes to monitor an electrical signal known as the gamma rhythm in the brains of mice.	28 June 2011
Study Helps Explain 'Sundowning,' An Anxiety Syndrome In Elderly Dementia Patients New research provides the best evidence to date that the late-day anxiety and agitation sometimes seen in older institutionalized adults, especially those with dementia, has a biological basis in the brain.	28 June 2011

Autism News
Who's Happy? How Long We Look At Happy Faces Is In Our Genes All of us read other people's faces and we all depend on it particularly to identify them and to understand how they feel. A new study shows that how we look at each others' faces may be controlled by our genetic makeup, especially the cannabinoid receptor (CNR1) gene.	28 June 2011

Dentistry News
ADA Hosts Conference To Help Dentists Improve And Enhance Their Quality Of Life The American Dental Association (ADA) is hosting the 2011 Conference on Dentist Health and Wellness to provide dentists and their staff with tips to maintain, improve or enhance their quality of life inside or outside of the office.	28 June 2011
Launch Of Nuromol A New Painkiller Combination, UK Stronger and Effective for Longer Versus Standard Paracetamol Tablets, as Shown in a Dental Pain Study[1]A new non-prescription painkiller is now available in pharmacies across the UK, heralding the first UK painkiller combination of ibuprofen and paracetamol in 'over-the-counter' pain relief.	28 June 2011
How Cavity-Causing Microbes Invade The Heart Scientists have discovered the tool that bacteria, normally found in our mouths, use to invade heart tissue, causing a dangerous and sometimes lethal infection of the heart known as endocarditis.	28 June 2011

Flu / Cold / SARS News
Biota Announces Preliminary Phase III Prophylaxis Trial Results For CS-8959 Dr Seizaburo Kashiwagi presented the preliminary data from an influenza Phase III prophylaxis study conducted during the 2009/2010 pandemic flu season in Japan. The SHIELD study (Study of Household Influenza prophylaxis Effect of Long-acting anti-influenza Drug) presentation was made at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Chemotherapy.	28 June 2011
Patients Treated With Sunitinib And Sorafenib Respond To Flu Vaccine Patients treated with sunitinib and sorafenib responded to the flu vaccine, which suggests the agents do not damage the immune system as much as previously feared, according to a study in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.	28 June 2011

Health Insurance / Medical Insurance News
Summer Travel: Do You Know What Your Health Insurance Covers If A Medical Emergency Occurs While You're On Vacation? Summer is here and it's time to get away. But while you are making vacation plans, take a few minutes to think about what you might do if an unexpected medical emergency should occur, especially if you are traveling away from home.	28 June 2011
New Study Notes A Surprising Drop In Physicians' Willingness To Accept Patients With Insurance As required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, millions of people will soon be added to the ranks of the insured. However, this rapid expansion of coverage is colliding with a different, potentially problematic trend that could end up hampering access to health care.	28 June 2011

Heart Disease News
New Procedure Treats Atrial Fibrillation Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are performing a new procedure to treat atrial fibrillation, a common irregular heartbeat.Available at only a handful of U.S. medical centers, this "hybrid" procedure combines minimally invasive surgical techniques with the latest advances in catheter ablation, a technique that applies scars to the heart's inner surface to block signals causing the heart to misfire.	28 June 2011
Peat Wildfire Smoke Linked To Heart Failure Risk In the summer of 2008, a lightning strike started a wildfire in eastern North Carolina that burned for weeks, blanketing nearby communities in smoke. An EPA study shows for the first time that smoke from this wildfire, which was fueled by peat (decayed vegetable matter found in swampy areas) can lead to an increase in emergency room visits for both respiratory and cardiovascular effects.	28 June 2011
Four Clinical Trials Document The On-X Heart Valve's Exceptional Clinical Performance On-X® Life Technologies, Inc. (On-X LTI) announced today that four clinical trial reports, documenting the On-X® Prosthetic Heart Valve's extraordinary performance, will be presented at the upcoming meeting of the Society for Heart Valve Disease in Barcelona, Spain being held June 25-28, 2011.	28 June 2011
Vejthani Hospital Announces 'Radial Artery Approach' The New Age Of Cardiac Catheterization Cardiac Catheterization through the wrist (radial artery): an easy and faster way to recovery. A new technique for patients who are afraid of Cardiac Catheterization through the groin area. Dr.	28 June 2011
Noel Bairey Merz, M.D., Calls For Programs Like Meditation To Reduce Heart Disease Deaths Stress management programs like Transcendental Meditation should be implemented to significantly reduce depression, heart attacks, strokes and deaths in coronary heart disease patients, according to a new editorial written by a Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute physician, C.	28 June 2011
How Cavity-Causing Microbes Invade The Heart Scientists have discovered the tool that bacteria, normally found in our mouths, use to invade heart tissue, causing a dangerous and sometimes lethal infection of the heart known as endocarditis.	28 June 2011
CT Angiography Improves Detection Of Heart Disease In African Americans Researchers may have discovered one reason that African Americans are at increased risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular events.According to a new study published online in the journal Radiology, African Americans have increased levels of non-calcified plaque, which consists of buildups of soft deposits deep in the walls of the arteries that are not detected by some cardiac tests.	28 June 2011
Experimental Heart Pump Saves Alabama Girl Nine-year-old Greer Underwood was healthy until February 2011. What seemingly began as sinusitis on a Tuesday became almost fatal by the weekend when her heart began to fail. Now, after a historic series of events at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she's the only child in the country to have used the experimental heart pump, Heartware, as a bridge to transplant.	28 June 2011

IT / Internet / E-mail News
Medtronic Introduces An Innovative Mobile Application For The CareLink(R) Network Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT) today announced the launch of Medtronic's first mobile application for use with implantable cardiac devices. As health care shifts care delivery from outpatient to home, Medtronic is leading the implantable cardiac device industry by offering cutting-edge technology designed to give physicians greater flexibility in monitoring patient data.	28 June 2011
Google Scraps Electronic Medical Health Record Solution; Now What? With the passing healthcare reform under the Obama administration, a big push and committed mandate was shared that required medical records to go electronic, not only in an effort to make information sharing easier, but also to save trees.	28 June 2011
Email Risk For Doctors Doctors risk a heavy fine and GMC censure if they fail to protect patients' personal information when sending emails. The use of email may be increasingly commonplace for healthcare professionals, but UK-wide medical defence organisation MDDUS is reminding doctors not to become complacent and to be aware of the pitfalls when sending patient data electronically.	28 June 2011
Nanoparticles Accurately Detected And Counted By Tiny Ring Laser A microlaser no bigger than a pinprick can accurately detect and count individual viruses, the particles that jumpstart cloud formation or those that contaminate the air we breathe.A tiny doughnut-shaped laser is the latest marvel of silicon microminiaturization, but instead of manipulating bits it detects very small particles.	28 June 2011
Researchers Validate Concerns With Internet Addiction Among College Students, And The Link Between Media Use And Sleep Problems Among Children In today's society where access to media is ever present, many parents worry about what is appropriate media usage for their children and how media consumption can potentially affect them. Two new studies led by Dr.	28 June 2011
3M Launches Web-Based ICD-10 Training As hospitals across the country prepare for the 2013 implementation of the ICD-10 coding standard, 3M Health Information Systems is helping facilities address the crucial need for staff training with the launch of the 3M ICD-10 Education Program.	28 June 2011
The Parent-Adolescent Relationship And Cell Phone Conversations The nature of cell phone communication between a parent and adolescent child can affect the quality of their relationship, and much depends on who initiates the call and the purpose and tone of the conversation, according to an illuminating study reported online in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.	28 June 2011
How Evolution Gets You To The Shop Safely Researchers at the UCL's Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST) are using Darwinian evolution to ensure that the software which controls much of our driving is tested as rigorously as possible.	28 June 2011
Low-Energy Wireless Sensor Networks For Greener Disaster Alerts New software allows wireless sensor networks to run at much lower energy, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Sensor Networks. The technology could improve efficiency for hurricane and other natural disaster warning systems.	28 June 2011
The Importance Of Dynamical Systems Theory Two new papers in the Journal of General Physiology demonstrate the successes of using bifurcation theory and dynamical systems approaches to solve biological puzzles. The articles appeared online on June 27.	28 June 2011

Mental Health News
Statement By HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Recognizing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day Today, on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day, we recognize the millions of Americans who suffer from this debilitating condition. PTSD affects a wide range of people, from new mothers to our country's service men and women.	28 June 2011

Pharmacy / Pharmacist News
ASHP House Of Delegates Approves Professional Policies The House of Delegates of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) considered a number of vital professional issues during its 63rd annual session, including support for the development of innovative residency models, pharmacists' leadership in the therapeutic applications of pharmacogenomics, and expanding the Food and Drug Administration's authority to regulate the promotion of off-label uses and require manufacturers to report drug shortages.	28 June 2011
ASHP Applauds Introduction Of Bipartisan Drug Shortages Legislation Legislation introduced recently by Reps. Diana L. DeGette (D-Colo.) and Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.) will take steps to help alleviate the serious public health threat caused by drug shortages, according to officials at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).	28 June 2011
Tool To Enhance Application Of National Competency Standards, Australia A consultation document on a customised tool to provide greater clarity to, and enhance the application of, the National Competency Standards put into effect last year has been released by the Advanced Pharmacy Practice Framework Steering Committee (APPFSC).	28 June 2011

Seniors / Aging News
The Risks And Benefits Of Alcohol Drinking In The Elderly The Royal College of Psychiatrists of London has published a report related primarily to problems of unrecognized alcohol misuse among the elderly. The report provides guidelines for psychiatrists and family physicians on how to find and how to treat elderly people with misuse of alcohol and drugs.	28 June 2011

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