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A new study shows adding olive oil or nuts to that healthy diet can protect your brain.

It might seem against all logic, but adding a little olive oil or a handful of nuts to your diet each day may help keep your mind clear, researchers reported on Monday. It’s the same diet that’s also been shown to reduce deaths from heart attacks and strokes.

The researchers found that people who ate these healthy fats were less likely to show the early signs of  dementia than those who stuck to a more traditional diet.  And this was done in Spain -- where people are already eating a so-called Mediterranean diet.

“Our findings support increasing evidence on the protective effects of the Mediterranean Diet on cognitive function,” Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez of the University of Navarra in Spain and colleagues reported in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

The findings come from a large and well-publicized trial that showed the Mediterranean diet rich in fruits, vegetables, olive oil and a little wine can cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes by 30 percent. Martinez and colleagues took a part data on 500 volunteers from their own study center, who were followed for more than six and a half years after starting the diet.

A Mediterranean diet includes lots of salad, fruit, vegetables, nuts, a little fish, a little lean meat, a small amount of cheese and olive oil.  Wine is also served at meals. In the main study, 7,400 volunteers got extra counseling, and either a weekly supply of extra-virgin olive oil or mixed nuts -- walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts.

The volunteers, aged 55 to 80, were all at high risk of heart disease because of diabetes, a family history of the disease, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels -- or they were overweight or smokers. They were randomly assigned to either add more extra-virgin olive oil to their daily diets, a daily handful of the mixed nuts, or just a standard diet with advice to cut fat.

Such “randomized” studies are considered more powerful, because people don’t choose which diet to adopt -- and so other outside factors don’t interfere with the results. For instance, people who choose to eat nuts might also dislike meat, or they might like sweets, or they might exercise more or less than people who don’t think much about eating nuts.

Six years after starting on the diet, the 500 Navarra volunteers took two standardized tests for dementia and the confused thinking, called cognitive impairment, that often leads to dementia.

The researchers found that 60 volunteers had developed mild cognitive impairment. Eighteen had been told to eat more olive oil, 19 had been on the diet with added mixed nuts and 23 of them had been advised to eat a low-fat diet. And 35 people developed dementia: 12 on the added olive oil diet; six who got nuts and 17 on the low-fat diet.

There are several ways that adding olive oil or nuts to the diet might protect the brain, the researchers said. Olive oil and nuts contain monounsaturated fats, which are better for artery health than the saturated fats found in butter, meat and lard. These foods are also high in fiber and vitamin E, as well as minerals. Walnuts are rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

The diet could reduce damaging inflammation, Martinez says. And some studies have suggested that virgin olive oil -- which is cold-pressed and unrefined -- might fight the beta amyloid "plaques" found clogging the brains of Alzheimer's patients. "A third mechanism may be that an improvement in vascular health leads to better brain blood flow," Martinez said by e-mail.

These nutrients protect against the oxidative damage that can cause heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. Various studies have shown little benefit from taking vitamins alone, but this study shows the combination of the factors in a healthful diet does seem to have an effect.

Groups like the Alzheimer’s Association have been warning that the U.S. will have to cope with a tsunami of Alzheimer’s disease as the population ages, with projections that the number of patients with this untreatable form of dementia will triple in the next 40 years, to 13.8 million in 2050.

“Currently, there is no effective therapy to delay the onset or halt the progression of dementia,” the researchers noted.

Related:

• Tasty diet cuts heart disease
• Alzheimer’s rates accelerating
• Alzheimer's fastest-growing health threat
• Healthy diet may delay Alzheimer's

By Jason McLure
Reuters

Vermont on Monday became the fourth U.S. state to end legal penalties for doctors who prescribe medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their own lives. 

The law, which includes a number of safeguards over the next three years as the state adapts, marked the first time a U.S. state has used the legislative process to make assisted suicide legal. Oregon and Washington have similar laws passed through ballot measures and a Montana court authorized the practice in 2009.

"Vermonters who face terminal illness and are in excruciating pain at the end of their lives now have control over their destinies. This is the right thing to do," said Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, who signed the law on Monday.

Supporters of the practice are hoping Vermont's law will lend momentum in other states, such as Connecticut and New Jersey, that have considered similar legislation. A bill legalizing the practice failed in Massachusetts last year.

The law allows physicians to prescribe death-inducing medications, which terminally ill patients wishing to commit suicide could then administer to themselves. It limits the prescriptions to residents of the state.

"Vermont's law reflects another normalization of the practice of aid in dying in the practice of medicine," said Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs at Compassion and Choices, a group that backed the Vermont law. "Support for patients to be empowered and choose aid and dying is growing. So I think this is an important step in moving that forward."

The Vermont bill is more sweeping than the initiatives passed in Oregon or Washington. As in those two states, it provides a number of safeguards - though the Vermont bill calls for these to expire in 2016.

During the first three years, the law requires ailing patients to make three requests for death-inducing drugs. Both the patient's primary physician and a consulting doctor must agree the patient is suffering from a terminal illness and is capable of making an informed decision to request death-inducing drugs.

After July 1, 2016, the practice of prescribing life-ending medication will be overseen by professional practice standards that govern physician conduct in other aspects of medicine.

The two-tiered approach was instituted as a compromise between legislators who preferred Oregon's model of legal safeguards and others who objected to what they saw as government interference in end-of-life decisions.

Advocates of assisted suicide say the practice can save years of suffering for patients of painful terminal illnesses, such as bone cancer. Opponents warn that measures allowing it may encourage people to take their own lives at the behest of potential heirs or because they fear they are imposing a burden on family.

True Dignity Vermont, a group that opposed the Vermont law, said it would work with a network of health care providers to help support alternatives to the terminally ill.

"We now have state-sanctioned suicide in Vermont," said Edward Mahoney, president of the group, in a statement. "If the state won't protect Vermonters, we will try."

The dangers of texting while driving gets more headlines and drunk driving remains one of the main causes of automobile accidents, but a large, new study published Monday helps explain why so many teens and young adults are involved in motor accidents.

Indiana State Police/AP

Motor Carrier Inspector Master Trooper Mike Probasco, left, looks over the remains of a box truck with its driver Dagoberto Perez, of Cicero, Ill. in November 2010. Perez, who said he fell asleep and veered off the road, was cited for being a fatigued driver. Both drivers received non-life threatening injuries.

They're sleepy.

Report after report shows it -- sleepy drivers cause car crashes. In the new study, researchers at The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia suggest that a long-term lack of sleep may not only cause immediate drowsiness at the wheel, but may affect a young driver’s judgment over time.

“Less sleep per night significantly increased the risk for crash for young drivers,” the researchers wrote in the American Medical Association journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Alexandra Martiniuk and colleagues studied the driving records of more than 19,000 young men and women, aged 17 to 24, who had just received their driver’s licenses. These new drivers had filled out questionnaires that included specific details about how many hours sleep they got each night in the previous month.

Then the researchers went through police records on road crashes for the next two years after the drivers were licensed.

 “Those who reported sleeping six or fewer hours per night had an increased risk for crash compared with those who reported sleeping more than six hours,” they wrote. The people who slept the least were 21 percent more likely to have been involved in a crash than those who got more sleep, Martiniuk’s team found.

On the weekends, the risk rose even more. Those who got six hours or less sleep on the weekend were 55 percent more likely to be in a crash than those who slept more.

It’s a global problem affecting not only young drivers, they noted. “For drivers of all ages, estimates in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia report that between 5 percent and 30 percent of crashes are attributed to fatigue,” the researchers noted. “Not only are they more likely to have sleep-related crashes; these crashes are more likely to be fatal compared with other crash causes.”

 The AAA Foundation published a survey last year that found one in seven licensed drivers ages 16-24 admits they had fallen sleep at least once while driving in the past year and that 10 percent of all drivers say they’ve dozed off at the wheel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 5 percent of adults aged 18 to 44 admitted to nodding off at the wheel.

One in six crashes with a fatality was caused by a drowsy driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The NHTSA says sleepy driving is involved in 100,000 crashes serious enough to generate a police report each year. Such crashes have killed more than 1,500 Americans and injured 71,000.

Sabrina Birch was one of those victims. According to the Daily Oklahoman and other media reports, Birch, 17, was thrown out of the pickup truck when her boyfriend, Colby Ruthardt, also 17, fell asleep at the wheel and crashed last November.  The Gracemont, Okla. teen died from her injuries.

Martiniuk’s team found some suggestion that a lack of sleep may affect other behaviors, too.

“Risky driving, sensation seeking, self harm ... and greater drug and alcohol intake were reported more often by individuals who obtained less sleep,” they reported. It’s not clear whether a lack of sleep was a cause or a symptom, but they said the finding  points the way to doctors, parents and others trying to help.

They also noted direct measures that can help prevent crashes caused by sleepy drivers. “Changes to road design (eg, tactile road edges and divided highways), as well as education campaigns, may help reduce crash risk,” they wrote.

“Using a rest stop, drinking coffee, and playing the radio while driving have been shown to be significantly protective against crashes, at least in the short term,” they added.

Related:

• Automakers look to curb drowsy driving
• One in 24 admits to nodding off at the wheel
• The dangers of drowsy teen drivers

Federal health regulators say an experimental insomnia drug from Merck can help patients fall asleep, but it also carries worrisome side effects, including daytime drowsiness and suicidal thinking.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday released its review of the company's sleep aid, suvorexant, ahead of a public meeting on Wednesday. The pill works by temporarily blocking chemical messengers that keep people awake.

The FDA said company trials show suvorexant is better than placebo at helping people fall asleep and stay asleep. And regulators said the drug's effectiveness was consistent across several doses tested by Merck & Co. Inc.

But patients taking the higher doses of the drug showed an eight-fold increase in daytime drowsiness, which sometimes interfered with driving the next morning. Patients taking 20 milligrams and 40 milligrams of suvorexant had trouble staying in their driving lanes when tested by company researchers. FDA notes that four women actually had to stop the driving test due to excessive sleepiness.

The FDA review also notes that suvorexant was associated with increased risk of suicidal thinking. Over 12 months, there were eight cases of suicidal thinking or behavior reported among patients taking the drug, compared with no cases among patients given placebo.

Merck has proposed a starting dose of 15 milligrams for seniors and 20 milligrams for non-seniors. Doctors would gradually raise these doses to 30 milligrams and 40 milligrams, respectively, or until the patient's insomnia has been successfully treated.

On Wednesday the FDA will ask a panel of outside experts to vote on questions of the drug's safety and effectiveness. The agency appears to favor eliminating most of the higher doses of the drug tested by Merck.

The FDA says Merck data suggest that a 10 milligram dose may be safer, while still being effective.

"Indeed, if a dosage strength lower than 15 milligrams is unavailable, we would need to consider if the drug could be marketed safely at all, if we believe that a substantial proportion of the indicated population needs a lower dose," the agency states in its review.

The agency plans to ask its advisers whether there is enough data to support a 10 milligram dose, according to draft questions posted online.

ISI Group analyst Mark Schoenebaum called the FDA's review "tough."

"The high dose is deemed unsafe, and the FDA wonders if there is enough data at the safer low dose to draw firm safety conclusions," Schoenebaum said in a note to investors. He says it could take Merck 18 months to resubmit its drug, if FDA requires another study of low-dose suvorexant. The potential impact on Merck's revenue is relatively small, since the drug is only expected to generate peak sales of $650 million by 2018.

In January, the FDA required drugmakers of Ambien and similar sleeping pills to lower the dosage of their drugs, based on studies suggesting a link to drowsiness-related injuries. The agency cited research showing that the drugs remain in the bloodstream at levels high enough to interfere with driving.

More than a decade ago, British parents refused to give measles shots to at least a million children because of a vaccine scare that raised the specter of autism. Now, health officials are scrambling to catch up and stop a growing epidemic of the highly contagious measles virus.

This year, the U.K. has had more than 1,200 cases of measles, after a record number of nearly 2,000 cases last year. The country once recorded only several dozen cases every year. It now ranks second in Europe, behind only Romania.

Last month, emergency vaccination clinics were held every weekend in Wales, the epicenter of the outbreak. Immunization drives have also started elsewhere in the country, with officials aiming to reach 1 million children aged 10 to 16.

"This is the legacy of the Wakefield scare," said Dr. David Elliman, spokesman for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He’s referring to a study published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues.

That work suggested a link between autism and the combined childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, called the MMR vaccine.

Several large scientific studies failed to find any connection, the theory was rejected by at least a dozen major U.K. medical groups and the paper was eventually retracted by the journal that published it.

Britain's top medical board stripped Wakefield of the right to practice medicine in the U.K., ruling that he and two of his colleagues showed a "callous disregard" for the children in the study. Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party, paying them about 5 pounds each ($7.60) and later joked about the incident.

Still, MMR immunization rates plummeted across the U.K. as fearful parents abandoned the vaccine — from rates of over 90 percent to 54 percent. Wakefield has won support from parents suspicious of vaccines, including Hollywood celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, who has an autistic son.

Nearly 15 years later, the rumors about MMR are still having an impact. Now there's "this group of older children who have never been immunized who are a large pool of infections," Elliman said.

The majority of those getting sick in the U.K. — including a significant number of older children and teens — had never been vaccinated. Almost 20 of the more than 100 seriously ill children have been hospitalized and 15 have suffered complications including pneumonia and meningitis. One adult with measles has died, though it's unclear if it was the infection that killed him.

The first measles vaccines were introduced in the 1960s. They dramatically cut cases of the virus, which causes a distinctive rash. Since 2001, measles deaths have dropped by about 70 percent worldwide; Cambodia recently went more than a year without a single case.

Globally, though, measles is still one of the leading causes of death in children under 5 and kills more than 150,000 people every year, mostly in developing countries. Measles is highly contagious and is spread by coughing, sneezing and close personal contact with infected people; symptoms include a fever, cough, and a rash on the face.

Across the U.K., about 90 percent of children under 5 are vaccinated against measles and have received the necessary two doses of the vaccine. But among children now aged 10 to 16, the vaccination rate is slightly below 50 percent in some regions.

To stop measles outbreaks, more than 95 percent of children need to be fully immunized. In some parts of the U.K., the rate is still below 80 percent.

Unlike in the United States, where most states require children to be vaccinated against measles before starting school, no such regulations exist in Britain. Parents are advised to have their children immunized, but Britain's Department of Health said it had no plans to consider introducing mandatory vaccination.

Last year, there were 55 reported cases of measles in the United States, where the measles vaccination rate is above 90 percent. So far this year, there have been 22 cases, including three that were traced to Britain. In previous years, the U.K. has sometimes exported more cases of measles to the U.S. than some countries in Africa.

Portia Ncube, a health worker at an East London clinic, said the struggle to convince parents to get the MMR shot is being helped by the measles epidemic in Wales.

"They see what's happening in Wales, so some of them are now sensible enough to come in and get their children vaccinated," she said.

Clinic patient Ellen Christensen, mother of an infant son, acknowledged she had previously had some "irrational qualms" about the MMR vaccine.

"But after reading more about it, I know now that immunization is not only good for your own child, it's good for everyone," she said.

Related:

• Vaccine refusals mean more measles
• Autism, measles vaccine link further debunked
• Nearly half of US children late receiving vaccines

A typical boy with ADHD can appear to be in perpetual motion, but that activity doesn’t guarantee a healthy weight when he grows up. A long-term study released Monday finds that men diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as children are twice as likely to be overweight or obese in adulthood as those who never had the disorder.

These findings, published in Pediatrics, may be surprising to parents because drugs such as Ritalin or Adderall used to treat ADHD can suppress appetite, said Dr. F. Xavier Castellanos, the study co-author and a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University.

Robert Bukaty / AP

Ritalin can suppress the appetite in children who take it for ADHD.

“It’s not uncommon for kids treated with ADHD medications to be fairly thin,” Castellanos said. Because parents often worry that thinner boys won't grow as tall, “sometimes [they] will encourage their boys to eat more.”

Instead, to help avert weight problems down the road, parents should be alert to poor eating habits. “If anything, you have to pay attention to how many times they’re having fast food, how many times they’re having fried food, whether they’re getting meals supersized," Castellanos said.

The study comes at a time when ADHD rates are rising. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that ADHD is the most common mental health issue in children ages 3-17, with nearly 7 percent of kids receiving a diagnosis.

The NYU researchers followed 222 boys -- 111 with ADHD and 111 without, for an average of 33 years -- hoping to better understand the disorder's effects on the brain. The boys with ADHD, all from middle-class, white families, were diagnosed between the ages of 6 and 12.

Decades later, when some of the men returned for brain scans, many of the now 40-something adults who had ADHD as children had gained so much weight they barely fit into the fMRI machine, Castellanos said.

The researchers then asked about the body-mass index of all 222 participants, discovering that men diagnosed with ADHD as children were significantly heavier than those without the disorder. The average BMI for the ADHD participants was 30.1, compared to 27.6 among those who never had the disorder. The obesity rate among the men who’d had an ADHD diagnosis was 41.4 percent, compared to 21.6 percent among those who never had the disorder.

An adult with a BMI of 25 or higher is considered overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Castellanos suggested the connection between obesity and an ADHD diagnosis may be explained by some of the disorder's common symptoms: lack of impulse control; difficulty paying attention to details; and poor planning skills. These symptoms could lead to problems such as unhealthy food choices and an irregular eating patterns that continue into adulthood, he said.

While the study was only of men, Castellanos suspects that the results would hold true for women as well. 

The new study “shows exactly what I would have expected,” said child psychiatrist Dr. James McGough, director of the UCLA ADHD clinic. “People with ADHD have a terrible time delaying gratification. They’re very impulsive and they don’t think about consequences. Their problems with organization may make it more difficult to stay on a regular eating schedule which leaves them more likely to binge eat.”

Obesity expert Dana Rofey says “sneak eating and aberrant eating patterns” are common among many of her young, male patients with the disorder.

“Once they start eating, they don’t stop,” said Rofey, an assistant professor of pediatric psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and weight management director at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Rofey hopes the study will prompt parents to help their sons develop healthful eating habits -- before they become a problem.

“That may mean tracking food intake or using a pedometer to keep track of activity, she said. “You want to encourage your child to do more outside with their friends, instead of spending hours texting or looking up their friends on Facebook.”

Related:

• New psychiatric manual stirs criticism

John Makely / NBC News

Sisters Cathy Balsamo, left, Patti Broccoli, center, and Cindy Lepore, right, have all tested positive for the BRCA1 genetic mutation that raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. All three sisters have had preventive surgery to have their breasts and ovaries removed. Two weeks after her surgery, Broccoli was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Actress Angelina Jolie’s revelation this week that she’d had both breasts removed to lower her elevated risk of cancer came as a bombshell to many -- but not to three sisters from Berkeley Heights, N.J.

The women -- Cathy Balsamo, Cindy Lepore and Patti Broccoli -- have spent most of the past year grappling with the very dilemma that Jolie faced: What to do when a genetic mutation means you’ve got a sky-high chance of breast or ovarian cancer?

“Rich, poor, famous, not famous -- it’s the same decision,” said Balsamo, 46, who was the first to learn last spring that she had a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which boosts the risk of both kinds of cancer.

“It doesn’t make it easier or harder.”

The family -- which includes the three sisters and a brother, Joseph Zichichi, 48 -- offers an extreme example of the issues now illuminated by Jolie’s spotlight. 

Like Jolie, all three women opted for preventive double mastectomies. Unlike Jolie, who’s 37, the 40-something sisters also all had concurrent operations to remove their ovaries. Jolie wrote in the New York Times that she plans to have that surgery later.

“The option of waiting and watching was never an option,” said Broccoli, a 49-year-old nurse. “Why would we wait for cancer?”

Though their mother, Patricia Zichichi, had always warned of a family history rife with cancer -- a grandmother and two great-aunts died young of what was then called “women’s cancer” -- the sisters didn’t know about their actual genetic risk until Balsamo asked her doctor to perform the BRCA test in April 2012.

“He was just so upset and said ‘I hate to have to tell you this,’” recalled Balsamo, who is an activity director at a nursing home. “Immediately, when he said BRCA1, breast and ovarian, I said, ‘I’m getting a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy.”

Within weeks, her sisters had the same test -- with the same results. It’s not surprising that all three women would turn up positive for BRCA mutations, said Dr. Larissa Korde, a breast cancer specialist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Washington. If one parent carries the defective gene, there’s 50 percent chance any child will get it.

“Sometimes you see it in families where everybody’s got it,” Korde said. “It’s just chance.”

A woman with a harmful BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation has a 60 percent chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime, about five times higher than the overall rate of 12 percent, cancer experts say. She has a 15 percent to 40 percent lifetime chance of getting ovarian cancer, compared with about 1.4 percent in the general population.

With those odds, the sisters opted for surgery within months of each other. Lepore, 42, a respiratory therapist who has type 1 diabetes, had her initial and reconstruction surgeries last October. Broccoli had her surgery in January and Balsamo followed in February.

Ironically, Broccoli’s preventive surgery actually may have saved her life. Two weeks after her double mastectomy in January, she was diagnosed with breast cancer -- but at such an early stage her chance of cure is very good. A mammogram and two MRIs before surgery had suggested strongly she was cancer-free, but doctors detected ductal disease after Broccoli's operation. 

“I consider it a blessing,” said Broccoli, who lost her hair to three rounds of chemotherapy. “I know what could have happened if it hadn’t been caught early.”

Rates of women opting for preventive mastectomies have risen by as much as 50 percent in recent years, cancer experts estimate. That's despite the small chance of getting cancer anyway, the risk of major surgery and the fact that there are alternatives, including drugs and careful monitoring. 

Still, some women who learn of BRCA mutations are devastated by the information -- and by the dilemma of whether to have surgery, Korde said. “I’ve definitely had women who were through childbearing and who feel emotionally conflicted about losing their breasts.”

But the New Jersey sisters aren’t among them. “For me, it was a no-brainer,” Balsamo said. “The good of it outweighed the bad. So I don’t have terrific boobs. I’ll never have nipples. I didn’t have that emotional thing.”

John Makely / NBC News

The sisters all live within a mile of each other in Berkeley Heights, N.J. They say they've supported each other through the ordeal.

What does make them emotional, the sisters said, is what the genetic legacy might mean for the rest of the family. Joe Zichichi is scheduled to be tested for BRCA mutations soon, too, the women said.

The results could have implications for him in the form of an increased risk of pancreatic, prostate or other cancers, doctors say.

“There’s more to BRCA genes than breast and ovary cancer,” said Dr. Eileen O’Reilly, a gastrointestinal cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “As much as 5 percent of pancreatic cancer risk might be related to BRCA mutations.”

But the family is especially concerned about possible future effects on their children. They all live within a mile of each other; there are 13 grandchildren in the family, including Joe Zichichi’s four daughters.

Two of the granddaughters are in their early 20s. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends BRCA testing only for women with a strong family history of cancer, about 2 percent of all women in the U.S. But for those with that high risk, testing can be done at age 25.

Whether such young women choose to be tested -- and what action they’ll take afterward -- is something serious to ponder, the sisters said. 

“We have a good four years to figure this out,” said Balsamo. “God willing there will be something in that period of time that helps our daughters deal with it.”

It’s not clear when Jolie learned of her genetic risk or how long it took to decide that surgery was the best option. Her decision has prompted a flood of calls and inquiries to cancer centers nationwide, including Korde’s, and to geneticists, said Dr. Michael Watson, executive director of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics.

The New Jersey sisters said they’re grateful for the awareness that Jolie’s decision brings to an issue that has become central to their daily lives.

“I was actually very happy,” said Lepore. “In this world, it takes someone like Angelina Jolie to get recognition of important things.”

What choice would you make if you had a BRCA mutation, dramatically raising your cancer risk? Talk about it on Facebook.

Related stories: 

• More women opting for preventive mastectomy -- but should they be?
• Angelina Jolie: I had a double mastectomy because of high breast cancer risk
• Doctors detail Angelina Jolie's breast cancer surgery

LONDON -- British fertility experts have devised a new IVF technique that takes thousands of snapshots of a developing embryo that they say can help doctors pick those most likely to implant successfully and develop into healthy babies.

At a briefing in London before publishing their results, the researchers said they are already using the technique to select "low risk" embryos that are the least likely to have chromosomal abnormalities that could hamper their development.

In their study, published in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online, the team's chances of producing a successful live birth after in-vitro fertilization (IVF) were increased by 56 percent using the new technique compared to the standard method of selecting embryos that look best through a microscope.

"In the 35 years I have been in this field, this is probably the most exciting and significant development that can be of value to all patients seeking IVF," said Simon Fishel, a leading fertility doctor and director at the IVF clinic operator CARE Fertility where the technique is being developed.

Independent scientists not involved in the work welcomed it as a significant advance but said full randomized controlled trials - the gold standard in medicine - should be conducted before it is adopted as mainstream practice.

"This paper is interesting because we really do need to make advances in selecting the best embryos created during IVF," said Allan Pacey of Sheffield University, chair of the British Fertility Society.

"The idea of monitoring embryo development more closely is being used increasingly in clinics around the world and so it is good to see the science involved submitted to peer review and publication," he added. "All too often, developments in IVF are trumpeted as advances when they remain unproven."

Experts say that today, as many as 1 to 2 percent of babies in the Western world are conceived through IVF. The standard methods of selecting embryos are based largely on what they look like through a microscope, and many IVF cycles fail because the embryo chosen and transferred to the womb fails to develop.

The scientists who led this study said that using time-lapse images, they had found that developmental delays in the embryo at crucial stages are good indicators of likely chromosomal abnormalities that could result in a failed pregnancy.

"In conventional IVF laboratories, embryo development will be checked up to six times over a 5-day period," said Alison Campbell, Care Fertility's embryology director and the lead researcher on the study being published.

"With time-lapse we have the ability to view more than 5,000 images over the same time period to observe and measure more closely each stage of division and growth."

Using this new knowledge, the team developed what they call morphokinetic algorithms to predict success (MAPS). By applying these MAPS to the selection of embryos, they predict they could reach a live birth rate for patients undergoing IVF of 78 percent - about three times the national average.

Fishel, whose CARE Fertility clinics are Britain's largest independent provider of assisted conception cycles, with around 3,500 a year, said he is charging around 750 pounds ($1,100) for IVF using the MAPS technique - compared to several thousand pounds for a standard IVF cycle.

But Sue Avery, head of the Women's Fertility Centre in Birmingham, said it was too soon for all clinics to adopt it.

"Until the new technique is compared to current practice we cannot know whether different embryos are being chosen," she said. "The IVF community needs a prospective randomized controlled trial to prove that the new approach delivers better results before it can be recommended to patients."

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's manual of mental disorders is finally out, offering the latest revision in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic bible used by individuals and agencies, insurers, schools and government bodies to navigate the mental health landscape.

But just as it’s birthed, the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders -- widely known as the DSM-5 -- is under attack by prominent critics, including the chairman of the task force that created the last version.

Dr. Allen Frances, who led efforts on the DSM-4, minces no words in describing the new 1,000-page tome that’s part guide, part dictionary for theorists and practitioners alike.

“My advice for people is not to buy the DSM-5, not to use it, not to teach it,” Frances told NBC News. “I do not think it will be useful for those endeavors.”

He suggests that doctors and everyone else use the International Classification of Diseases instead.

The psychiatric society is releasing the manual early Friday in advance of a meeting in San Francisco. Its backers say it offers better organization and more precise diagnoses than its predecessors.

“The changes to the manual will help clinicians more precisely identify mental disorders and improve diagnosis while maintaining the continuity of care,” said Dr. David J. Kupfer, chair of the DSM-5 task force, in a statement. "We expect these changes to help clinicians better serve patients and to deepen our understanding of these disorders based on new research."

But Frances and other critics say the new manual too often turns normal reactions to life events into diagnosable mental conditions.

Earlier this week, Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute for Mental Health, declared that the DSM-5 lacked “validity” because its diagnoses lack objective standards and measures.

Grief is one of several examples, said Frances, who has written a book about his objections called “Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life.”  

“It staggers the imagination!” he said. “In two weeks after the loss of a person you love, if you are still feeling these symptoms: loss of interest, reduced appetite, trouble sleeping, less energy, it qualifies as major depressive disorder. Now it becomes a target of a drug company.”

Thanks to DSM-5, Frances said, a drug company representative could go to primary care doctors – who do the majority of psychotropic drug prescribing in the United States -- and market an anti-depressant based on this new DSM criteria and not be illegally marketing the drug off-label.

“This is the legalized conversion of a sacred ritual and an inherent part of being a mammal – mourning -- and turning it into a mental disorder,” he said. 

Others have criticized the new guide for turning extreme childhood temper tantrums into a diagnosable condition -- “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder” -- while removing Asperger’s disorder as a separate diagnosis, folding it into the overall “autism spectrum disorder.”

The APA strongly disagrees with Frances' criticisms. Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, APA’s president-elect and the chair of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University, said personal slights and self-interest are part of the motivation behind Frances’ position.

Leaders of DSM-5 “treated him disrespectfully” Lieberman said, “and it provoked him.”

Attacking DSM-5 gives Frances a “new platform to become the savior of normal – that’s his book -- saving society from those irresponsible psychiatrists and the DSM,” he added.

Medical diagnoses of all kinds have expanded over the last 100 years as science gained new knowledge, Lieberman argued, pointing out that in the 1800s, there were only two mental health diagnoses: idiocy and insanity. The new volume recognizes those advances.

Arthur Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, and a frequent contributor to NBC News, believes the controversy over new DSM criteria is misplaced.

Just because something is common, or natural, like acne and tooth decay, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be named as a condition. While Caplan agreed that there are abuses of diagnosis, medications and treatments, it’s not necessarily DSM’s fault. Even if something is diagnosable, he said, both doctors and patients are often too tempted to treat when doing nothing might be best.

The problem isn’t with the new manual, but with a culture that demands a quick fix, making it easy for general practitioners, who may not see the same patient week after week, to accede, said Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and TODAY Show contributor. That can lead to over-diagnosis and, worse, overtreatment.

What matters isn’t necessarily what the DSM says, but “are your symptoms impairing your functioning?” she explained.

“If ‘Internet Addiction’ is in the DSM matters less than if you are sitting in front of a computer eight hours every day, because then you’re not functioning.”

Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young Ph.D., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction," (www.TheChemistryBetweenUs.com), now on sale.

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Cynthia Goldsmith / Maureen Metc / CDC

Novel MERS coronavirus particles as seen by negative stain electron microscopy.

Every virus needs a catchy name, and now the new coronavirus linked to the Middle East that has infected 40 people and killed half of them has one: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus or (MERS-CoV).

Various scientists have been calling it MERS, but the Coronavirus Study Group, which groups experts from around the world, made it official on Thursday.

“This name is endorsed by the discoverers of the virus and other researchers that pioneered MERS-CoV studies, by the World Health Organization and by the Saudi Ministry of Health. We strongly recommend the use of this name in scientific and other communications,” the group, led by Raoul de Groot of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, wrote in the Journal of Virology.

The issue of naming viruses can be touchy. Usually, countries don’t want their names associated with diseases, and often geographical regions don’t either. That’s why names such as the “Hong Kong flu” aren’t used any more -- now influenza viruses carry genetic names such as H1N1 or H7N9.

The MERS coronavirus is clearly linked to the Middle East, however. All patients have either been in, or have traveled to, Jordan, Qatar or Saudi Arabia -- or they have been infected by travelers from those countries. Cases have been seen in France, Germany and Britain.

Researchers worried about what to name SARS when it broke out in 2003. It was first seen in China, but the World Health Organization finally settled on the name severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. At the time it was named, expert had not yet figured out precisely what type of virus it was.

The new MERS virus is a distant cousin of SARS. Coronaviruses are a big family and they usually cause common cold-like symptoms in people. MERS appears to have come from bats, de Groot’s group reports.

“The novel coronavirus seems most closely related to as yet unclassified viruses from insectivorous European and African bats in the Vespertilionidae and Nycteridae families, respectively,” they write.  It’s unlikely most patients were directly infected by bats, however, the Coronavirus Study Group said.  Bats have probably infected some other animal, which in turn is infecting humans, they said.

But the virus can transmit from person to person, especially in hospitals, and that worries health officials. SARS spread easily in hospitals when it flashed around the world, infecting close to 8,000 people and killing 775 of them, before it was stopped.

There’s no vaccine against MERS and antiviral drugs don’t appear to be of much use against it, either. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told U.S. hospitals to take strict precautions if someone shows up with symptoms and has recently traveled to the Middle East. Health care workers in contact with such patients should wear special face masks, gloves and gowns and follow other protocols to protect themselves and other patients.

The World Health Organization says there are more questions than answers about MERS. “We know this virus has infected people since 2012, but we don't know where this virus lives,” WHO says in a statement on its website.

“We know that when people get infected, many of them develop severe pneumonia. What we don't know is how often people might develop mild disease. We also know that most of the persons who have been infected so far have been older men, often with other medical conditions. We are not sure why we are seeing this pattern and if it will change over time,” WHO added.

“The greatest global concern, however, is about the potential for this new virus to spread.”

Related:

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Getty Images via CDC

CDC's most comprehensive look yet at mental health shows ADHD affects close to 7 percent of US kids.

The most comprehensive report on specific mental disorders in children shows attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed problem in kids aged 3-17, with close to 7 percent of kids having a diagnosis.

Another 3.5 percent have behavioral problems, 3 percent have anxiety and 1.1 percent have autism. For teenagers, addiction to drugs, alcohol and tobacco are the most common issues, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

These percentages translate into millions of children, said CDC’s Ruth Perou, who put the study together. She found that 6.8 percent of U.S. children have ADHD. “That’s about 4.18 million children,” Perou told NBC News.

“This first report of its kind documents that millions of children are living with depression, substance use disorders, ADHD and other mental health conditions,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement.

“No parent, grandparent, teacher or friend wants to see a child struggle with these issues. It concerns us all. We are working to both increase our understanding of these disorders and help scale up programs and strategies to prevent mental illness so that our children grow to lead productive, healthy lives.”

It adds up to a lot of kids. “It is estimated that 13 –20 percent of children living in the United States (up to 1 out of 5 children) experience a mental disorder in a given year and an estimated $247 billion is spent each year on childhood mental disorders,” the report reads.

The report takes data from many other surveys. The estimates on autism spectrum disorder might not be quite up to date. In March, CDC published a survey showing 2 percent of U.S. schoolkids – or about a million children – have been diagnosed with some sort of autism.

Thursday’s report was finished before that latest data came out, Perou said.

Behavioral disorders affect 2.1 million children, Perou says. “We are not looking at whether kids misbehave or are having a bad day,” she said. “What we are talking about is a child incapable of behaving well or playing well with others.”

Children with a diagnosed behavioral disorder, such as oppositional defiance disorder, have constant conflicts with authority that affect their ability to attend school. “They are having such challenges in how they are dealing with emotions or behavior that it impairs their ability to lead their day-to-day lives,” Perou said.

The survey confirms a lot of what experts already knew: autism, conduct disorders and ADHD are more common among boys; depression is more common among girls. More children were diagnosed as they got older.

The data on adolescents aged 12 to 17 show a million teenagers are drug or alcohol abusers, and more than 695,000 are addicted to tobacco. This doesn’t mean casual use or experimentation, but serious addiction, Perou said. “You are looking at something that is debilitating and really impairs their ability to function day to day,” she said.

The good news is that there are treatments for all the disorders, Perou said, and CDC is working to help come up with more approaches that work. “We can make a difference in their lives,” she said.

CDC has information for teachers and parents on spotting mental illness in kids.

The definitions for all the disorders come from the DSM-IV, the guide used by mental health professionals to diagnose and classify disease. A new version, the DSM-V, comes out Friday, and many of the changes have been widely leaked.

Thursday’s report will set a baseline, so that changes in classifying mental health issues that come from changes in the DSM-V can be tracked, Perou said.

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• Kids at risk of suicide can get guns
• Depressed kids earn less money later