(HealthNewsDigest.com) – COVER GIRL: MALIN AKERMAN SAVES THE WORLD…ON THE BIG SCREEN, THAT IS, page 108: This month, Akerman hits the big screen as Silk Spectre, the femme fatale in Watchmen, the movie based on the popular graphic novel. Akerman sits down with Women’s Health and reveals how to get buff, beat the bad guys, and look good in latex.
COVER GIRL: CARLA GUGINO KNOWS NO LIMITS, page 36: Watchmen star Carla Gugino shares her no-fail strategies Read the rest of this entry »

-After sex, she wants to feel close to you. Tell her one specific thing you love about her.
-If she’s upset about work, do not (I repeat, do not) try to fix it. Instead, the key is to empathize with her situation.
-When she asks you how she looks, tell her whatever she’s wearing shows off (insert your favorite body part here). Tip from the pros: she doesn’t exactly care about what you’re saying, but rather how quickly and sincerely you respond.
Read the rest of this entry »

11-09-08, 9:17 am
15,000 physicians urge enactment of single-payer system
A group of over 15,000 U.S. physicians has called on President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress to “do the right thing” and enact a single-payer national health insurance plan, a system of public health care financing frequently characterized as “an improved Medicare for all.”
“Our country is hailing the remarkable and historic victory of Barack Obama and the mandate Read the rest of this entry »

LOS ANGELES, CA — Each year in the name of medical progress, scientists experiment with one-hundred million mice, rats, monkeys, fish and dogs. They expose the animals to medicines and therapies that could become the next cancer killer or depression fighter.
But are the tests a move forward or backward?
Inside the rooms, behind locked cages, 13 dogs, 13 pigs, 1,800 rats, 800 Zebrafish and 9,000 mice are all born for one purpose — medical research.
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The procedure does a good job of detecting early signs of disease on the left side of the colon, or large intestine, but is not as effective at spotting potential problems of the right side of the organ. This means a colonoscopy’s success at preventing colorectal cancer deaths seems to lie with its ability to uncover so-called “left-sided” problems.
“We did find that colonoscopies are effective — that’s the good news. It’s still one of the best Read the rest of this entry »

For nearly a century, Americans have been able to sue drug companies for deaths or injuries caused by medicines. Now the pharmaceutical industry and other big businesses are hoping the Supreme Court will sharply curb that right.
Wyeth v. Levine
, which the court will hear next week, a Vermont guitarist named Diana Levine lost an arm to gangrene caused by an improperly administered nausea drug. A Vermont jury awarded her $6.7 million in damages Read the rest of this entry »

On the same day last month that a federal judge in St. Paul threw out hundreds of lawsuits against the maker of a faulty heart device, a man entered a nearby hospital to have one of those flawed products surgically removed.
The risky operation went terribly wrong. As doctors extracted the device, a thin electronic cable, from the patient’s heart, a vessel was punctured, causing extensive bleeding. The 33-year-old patient, Mark Turnidge, died Read the rest of this entry »

While eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains didn’t necessarily prevent women with early stage breast cancer from later dying of the disease, the so-called prudent diet did seem to make them
over the course of an eight-year study than women who had a traditional Western diet. Research from Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that women who ate more fruits, vegetables, Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier surveys showed that students who spend a lot of time on the computer, watching TV or playing video games were more likely to engage in other unhealthful habits such as eating fast food, Ehlinger said. Now it’s clear that these activities cut significantly into their grades as well. Four or more hours of screen time a day resulted in an average GPA of 3.04 or less. Less than an hour a day bumped it up to 3.3 or better.
The same pattern held Read the rest of this entry »

The controversial rule empowers federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctors’ office or other entity if they do not accommodate employees who exercise their “right of conscience.” It would apply to more than 584,000 health care facilities.
“Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience,” Read the rest of this entry »