by Maureen Salamon
MyHealthNewsDaily

"Am I pretty enough? Am I doing this right? Should I be going to yoga?"

These kinds of anxious, self-judgmental thoughts often run through some women's minds as they have sex, experts say. But a new study says "mindfulness meditation" training — which teaches how to bring one's thoughts into the present moment — can quiet the mental chatter that prevents these women from fully feeling sexual stimuli.

"Rather than feeling it, they get caught up in their heads," said the study's lead author, Gina Silverstein, who was a student at Brown University in Rhode Island at the time of the study. "It's impressive how mindful meditation can increase self-compassion, decrease anxiety and improve attention."

Silverstein and her colleagues studied 44 college students, 30 of whom were women, and about half of whom took a 12-week meditation course. All participants were shown a series of photos, some of them erotic, to gauge their reaction time in feeling "calm," "excited" or "aroused." The participants also completed questionnaires that reported aspects such as such as self-acceptance and psychological well-being.

At the study's start, women in both groups took longer to report how sexual slides made them feel, compared with how long it took men. But women who took the mindful meditation course became significantly faster at registering their body's responses — called "interoceptive awareness" — to sexual stimuli.

This increase in interoceptive awareness was also linked to improvements in self-reported measures of attention, self-judgment, anxiety and depression.

"It's interesting, the women who took longer (to register feelings of sexual arousal ) at baseline were also the ones who were the harshest self-judgers," Silverstein said. "So it's definitely a correlated effect."

What's on women's minds?

While scant research data exists on the mental chatter that seems to occupy many women's brains during sex, Dr. Elizabeth Kavaler, a urologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said anecdotal evidence is abundant.

"The best part of this study is that it validates that the biggest part of sexuality in women is emotional and mental," Kavaler said. "The vagina is like the least important part of a woman's sexuality. It's true that sex for women is not necessarily the same as sex for men."

But the study's weakness was its exclusive use of college students, ages 18 to 22, most of whom hadn't experienced sexual dysfunction, said Jennifer Fariello, a certified nurse practitioner in women's health at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Arousal disorder is really hard to define," said Fariello, who also specializes in sexual health and urogynecology at the Pelvic and Sexual Health Institute at Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia. "So many factors go into female sexual dysfunction — is it because of depression and anxiety, or low libido because they don't feel good about themselves, or are they not be aroused [physically]? And who knows what's going on relationally."

Distractions and judgment

As for mental chatter during sex, Silverstein said "a huge range" exists, from women who think of other things during sex without it impeding their arousal, to others who can't function sexually if a stray thought crosses their mind.

She recommended meditation classes, which are available across the country, to anyone who feels their sex life may benefit from a greater focus on the here and now.

"We need to let go of so much of the self-judgment we have in our daily lives," Silverstein said. "There are so many people who are so hard on [themselves], or are dealing with depression. It's great how introducing mindfulness meditation can help with so many issues across the board."

The study is published in the November/December issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

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A first-ever national representative sample of hearing loss in the United States finds that 48 million Americans have significant hearing loss in one or both ears.

Nearly one in five Americans has significant hearing loss, far more than previously estimated, a first-ever national analysis finds.

That means more than 48 million people across the United States have impairments so severe that it’s impossible for them to make out what a companion is saying over the din of a crowded restaurant,  said Dr. Frank Lin, author of a new study published in the latest issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“It’s pretty jaw-dropping how big it is,” said Lin, an assistant professor of otolaryngology and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Previous estimates had pegged the number affected by hearing loss at between 21 million and 29 million.

Lin and other researchers were surprised at the magnitude of the problem, but the significance of the findings goes beyond the “wow” factor, he said.

That’s because other studies have shown that hearing decline is often accompanied by losses in cognition and memory. Further, Lin said, some studies have associated hearing loss with a greater risk of dementia.

Lin’s study is the first to look at the hearing loss in a national sample of Americans aged 12 and older who have actually had their hearing tested. Earlier studies were smaller or depended on people’s self-reports of hearing loss.

For the new study, Lin and his colleagues analyzed data collected as part of the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys (NHANES), a research program that has periodically gathered information from thousands of Americans since 1971.

Using the World Health Organization’s definition for hearing loss as not being able to hear sounds of 25 decibels or less in the frequencies for speaking, the researchers found that about 30 million Americans, or nearly 13 percent of the population, had hearing loss in both ears.

That number jumped to about 48 million, or more than 20 percent of the population, by adding people with loss in just one ear.

Many people begin to lose their hearing in their 50s, Lin said. And the process is so gradual that they barely notice. That’s one of the reasons earlier studies found lower numbers of people with hearing loss, Lin said.

“Young people will come in with hearing loss from an infection and they feel so impaired that they can’t do their jobs,” Lin said. “But a lot of times, their hearing loss isn’t as bad as what we see in someone in their 60s who has learned to live with it.”

Because of the association with memory problems, loss of cognition and dementia, Lin would like to see more middle-aged people and seniors getting tested -- and treated -- for hearing loss. Now, the problem is often ignored, he said.

“If a 10-year-old has mild-to-moderate hearing loss, universally clinicians, insurers, and society say we’ve got to treat it,” Lin said. “But if you have the same hearing loss in someone who is 60, universally you get a shrug. That person still has to go to board meetings and hear people over dinner. But we don’t think it’s important for him to get treated.”

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“People who are more empathetic seem to be better at affirming you,” Kogan says. “They are more understanding and they smile. They are going to have more open body posture; their arms are going to be out more, signaling ‘I’m here for you.’ Some, you are going to judge as more empathetic.”

Kogan and his team made this determination when they asked 116 University of Toronto students to watch a short, silent video clip of people with varying oxytocin receptors genes listening to their romantic partners tell them about a time of suffering. The ethnically diverse students -- average age 19 -- were asked to identify which people were more trustworthy, compassionate and cooperative.

After only 20 seconds, the people who watched the video could easily point out which listening partners had the double G genotype and were more empathetic because of their caring body language compared to people who did have this particular empathy gene.

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U.S. Food and Drug Administration

A package of recalled Kotex tampons is seen in an undated handout photo.

Kimberly-Clark is recalling about 1,400 cases of Kotex tampons because of plastic tubing that may be contaminated with bacteria that could cause dangerous infections, a spokesman for the Dallas-based firm said Monday.

The recall applies to limited lots of Kotex Natural Balance Security Unscented Tampons Regular Absorbency distributed to Walmart, Fry's and Smith's stores in eight states. They were sold in 18-count and 36-count boxes with SKU numbers of 15063 and 15068.

The tampons were recalled after company tests detected the bacterium Enterobacter sakazakii, which could cause health problems, including vaginal infections, urinary tract infections, pelvic inflammatory disease or other, potentially life-threatening infections. Women with existing health problems, including cancer, HIV or compromised immune systems, are at higher risk for infection.

Kimberly-Clark has received no reports of illness linked to the products, said Bob Brand, the company's spokesman.

A single plastic tube was found to be contaminated with the microbe, sparking the company's action, Brand told msnbc.com.

The plastic tubes supplied with the tampons were manufactured for Kimberly-Clark by a third party, which Brand declined to identify. "This is our responsiblity," he said.

Nearly all of the recalled product has been recovered and is off store shelves, Brand said. The products were shipped between Oct. 29 and Nov. 2. They went to Walmart stores in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas; to some Fry's stores in Arizona; and to some Smith's stores in Utah and Arizona.

For a list of specific lots recalled, click here.

Consumers who have the products should stop using them and contact Kimberly-Clark's consumer office at 1-800-335-6839. Anyone who has been using the products and experiences unusual vaginal discharge, headache, rash, fever, vomiting or abdominal pains, should contact a doctor.

No other Kotex products are affected by the recall and Natural Balance Security Tampons that don't contain the listed SKU numbers or lots are safe to use, the company said.

VATICAN CITY -- I had a front-row seat this week for one of the pressing ethical discussions of our time: Can religion and science ever get along? Specifically, can stem cell research proceed with the blessing of religion?

In an unprecedented and truly startling move, the Catholic Church has answered yes. The Vatican this week reiterated that it has entered into an unusual partnership aimed at boosting use of adult stem cells to treat disease, rather than focusing on research into embryonic stem cells.

Church leaders explicitly endorsed the work of New York-based NeoStem Inc. as part of the Vatican’s recently announced $1 million, five-year initiative to direct research toward adult stem cell therapies and away from embryonic stem cell use.

But do cardinals in red caps and men in collars trained in canon law and biblical study know best about how scientists should seek to find cures for damaged hearts, severed spinal cords, arthritic knees, lupus, peripheral artery disease and diabetes?

Will the scientific or investment community in America or around the world take the suggestions of the pious and devout -- but scientifically rather undistinguished -- seriously?

The leaders of the church have made it clear time and again that they oppose the destruction of embryos as a way to get stem cells.  No news there. In fact, the scientific status of embryonic stem cell research never got a spot in the three-day conference, which ended Saturday with an audience with the Pope. 

The point of this meeting, at which I was an invited speaker, was partly to reemphasize Rome’s implacable opposition to any research involving embryo destruction.

The meeting I went to was sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Culture, one of a number of advisory groups that meet regularly inside the Vatican.  There, church leaders sought to soften a tough ethical spot: intractable opposition to the use of embryonic stem cells that could hold cures for a long list of awful diseases.

The point of the meeting was to crack the dilemma by making it clear to the world that the Vatican is aware of the need to find solutions. 

But the Vatican’s earnest desire to offer hope without compromising a core moral stance led to way too much enthusiasm about the prospects for current research in adult stem cell research.

While some top-tier science was presented at the conference, there was too much time given to claims of cure that had little to support them but patient testimonials, small studies with no long-term follow-up, and, to be blunt, some science that has nothing but the backing of a single very optimistic scientist looking to attract a grant or an investor.

The church is not yet very good at picking the wheat out of the biomedical chaff. In its enthusiasm to be seen as wanting to help people worldwide suffering from chronic and miserable incurable diseases, the Vatican is far too enamored of every claim of cure involving non-embryonic stem cells. 

Adult stem cell research holds promise for many diseases. But the Vatican needs to realize that it has its own pitfalls, including a lack of adequate international regulatory oversight, companies rushing to hype their work to attract investment, an absence of standardized registries to evaluate claims of cure, and not a few outright scammers looking to make a quick buck off of the desperate. 

Pushing for adult stem cell research means pushing for it to be ethical in all regards, not just because no embryos are destroyed.

It remains to be seen how this campaign for moral stem cell science plays out. Many researchers pursuing embryonic and cloned stem cell research will pay no attention to the church’s message. Politicians representing nations with large numbers of Catholic voters are likely to press harder for funding for adult stem cell work.

My own view is that the Vatican still has a ways to go in distinguishing sound science from hype and insisting on good science as the basis for what the church wants to promote as moral.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Related commentary:
Human rights for embryos? Initiative at odds with science

Teen athletes at risk for sudden cardiac death may be falling through the cracks because doctors are skipping parts of screening exams, a new study shows.

In pre-season physicals for high school sports, fewer than 6 percent of doctors followed the potentially life-saving screening guidelines suggested by the American Heart Association, according to a report presented at the Heart Association’s annual meeting.

While doctors typically listen to young athletes’ hearts and record blood pressures, they often fail to ask important questions designed to ferret out heart disease risk. For example, 67 percent of surveyed doctors said they didn’t always ask teens whether any family members suffered from heart problems.

Even more alarming – barely half of the physicians were even aware that the AHA guidelines existed.

More than 7 million teens play high school sports, according to Dr. Nicolas Madsen, a cardiology fellow at Seattle Children’s Hospital of the University of Washington. Studies show that sudden death occurs at a rate of one in 30,000 to 40,000. That translates into 175 to 233 deaths each year among high school athletes. 

Perfect season ends in tragedy: High schooler dies after game-winning shot

Recently, there’s been a push to add more tests, such as electrocardiograms, to the standard student-athlete physical, said Madsen, the study’s lead author. But we can’t know whether those additional tests are necessary until all physicians are following current guidelines to the letter, Madsen added.

For the new study Madsen and his colleagues sent out surveys to every family practice doctor and every pediatrician in Washington State. The response was high with 72 percent of pediatricians and 56 percent of family practitioners returning surveys.

Doctors did most poorly when it came to asking about the heart health of teens and their families.

• 28 percent didn’t always ask if a teen had chest pain during exercise
• 22 percent didn’t always ask if the teen ever experienced unexplained fainting
• 26 percent didn’t always ask about a family history of early deaths
• 67 percent didn’t always ask about a family history of heart disease.

While it’s heartening to see that most doctors did remember to ask about sudden deaths in a teen’s family, it’s distressing to see that more than two thirds of doctors weren’t always asking about a family history of heart disease in their exams, Madsen said.

That means that doctors could be missing families in which there were recognized heart problems, but no one had died.

For Dr. Gaurav Arora the biggest surprise in the new study was the number of physicians who said they didn’t always ask about chest pain or fainting.

“Those are red flags in young athletes,” said Arora, associate director of electrophysiology at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh.

One explanation for the new findings is that there is no single form being used by doctors doing pre-season physicals for student athletes, Arora said. Things would be a lot simpler if everyone used the same screening criteria.

Beyond that, Arora said, “we need better education across the board for all providers doing screening.”

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The number of people showing up in hospital ERs because of intentional poisoning appeared to soar between 2008 and 2009, a new federal study has found, but researchers say the increase may be due to increased reporting by hospitals, not necessarily an actual increase in poisonings.

"That’s a pretty significant jump, and we’re not sure why,” explains researcher Peter Delany, Ph.D. Improved reporting, rather that drastic changes in behavior, could be one factor. It’s too soon to tell whether the 2008-2009 jump is the beginning of a trend, Delany says, noting that 2010 data about intentional drug poisoning are expected shortly.

Slightly more than a quarter of the patients who showed up at ERs for this type of poisoning were under age 21.

A wide range of substances were involved in the ER visits, including pharmaceutical and illicit drugs, including "date rape" drugs such as Rohypnol, the report from the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, shows. Illegal drugs such as marijuana, stimulants, cocaine and Ecstasy were involved in 30 percent of the emergency room visits. Prescription medications, such as drugs for insomnia, anxiety and pain, were linked to 21 percent of the poisonings. Alcohol was a factor in in 60 percent of the intentional poisonings, with alcohol combined with other drugs almost half of the time.

“When you mix alcohol and another drug, they tend to amplify each other,” says researcher It's unclear why the numbers jumped in 2009, although Delaney believes hospital emergency departments and the government agency are getting better at determining intentional poisonings. SAMHSA's role is to track trends and incidents of substance abuse.

However, that doesn’t explain why women are targeted disproportionately. Increased awareness of "date rape" drugs, such as Rohypnol, could be a possibility, Delany suggests.

"You have to be thinking in some cases men are giving something intentionally to women…with the intention of taking advantage of them," he says. According to the new SAMHSA report, an estimated 3 million American women have experienced drug-related rape in their lifetime.

Intentional poisoning doesn’t necessarily mean someone is trying to kill the victim. In the report released Thursday, SAMHSA defines it as "a direct attempt to hurt someone or an attempt to render that person defenseless against other types of crime."

Intentional poisoning represents only a tiny fraction of the 4.6 million drug-related emergency room visits in 2009, according to SAMHSA. But the new report notes, intentional poisoning probably is underestimated. Drugs commonly used to do it may leave the body too quickly to be detected, and some people who’ve been intentionally drugged might not seek immediate medical attention. Plus, Delany says, even if they do, they might not remember how they got sick.

Delany advises women, particularly young women, to be extra careful of their surroundings. He cautions, "Do you really want to take a drink from a guy you don’t know?"

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Nursing a latte for hours could culminate in tooth decay, at least according to a Seattle dentist who says she's seen an uptick in cavtities among coffee drinkers.

If your last trip to the dentist revealed a crop of new cavities, look no farther than your coffee cup.

The culprit may be lurking in your latte, according to Seattle dentist Heidi Hackett, who says her conversations with patients have led her to believe that the popular coffee drinks are causing an uptick in adult tooth decay.

"We found that the majority of the patients are spending many hours a day working at the computer and 'nursing' either lattes or coffee with milk," says Hackett. "The constant exposure to the lactose or milk sugar is giving the bacteria in the mouth a flood of raw fuel or 'food' to metabolize."

According to Hackett, the type of bacteria most responsible for tooth decay is Streptococcus mutans, which metabolizes carbohydrates and sugars into acid. The acid then eats away at the tooth enamel until -- voila! -- a cavity is born.

Over the past five to seven years, Hackett says she's seen a definite rise in tooth decay in people who haven't had a high rate of cavities in the past. Now, though, the common denominator seems to be that they're all sipping on lattes or other milk-laden beverages or snacking at their desks throughout the day.

"There are a tremendous number of workers in our area who spend endless hours in front of a computer screen and drink coffee and snack for a fair number of those hours," she says.

Drinking your latte in 15 minutes is fine, says Hackett. But nursing it all day long like an adult baby bottle is where you get into trouble.

David Volk, a 47-year-old Seattle author and stay-at-home dad, says he's definitely a slow sipper when it comes to his morning mocha.

"I'll drink it as I remember," he says. "It'll be sitting on the desk and it'll get cold, so I'll put it in the microwave and then forget about it and then find it later and then start drinking it again. There are just days when you really need that mocha. It's like liquid therapy. I don't want to stuff my face, but I just need something. It's kind of a moment."

Unfortunately, stretching that moment out to several hours gives the bacteria a chance to go to town on your teeth.

Lattes should be considered snacks because of their high milk sugar content, Hackett says. And sippers should take appropriate steps to protect their teeth.  

"If you're going to drink a latte or coffee with milk, you can drink water after to help neutralize the acid, or chew sugar-free gum to stimulate salivary flow to help rinse the acids and neutralize," she advises.

Fluoride rinse, she says, is another great way to keep your teeth healthy, especially if you drink a lot of beverages with milk, sugar, honey or if you constantly snack throughout the day.

Cleveland dentist Matthew Messina, a consumer spokesperson for the American Dental Association, agrees that sugar exposure is definitely a culprit -- even for adults.

 "Whether someone's sipping a latte all day or sipping a carbonated soda all day or a baby is going to bed with apple juice in a bottle, the cause of the decay is still the same," he says.

As for a national trend in "adult baby bottle mouth," he says he's not aware of it.

"Maybe it's a Seattle thing," he says.

A database of disciplinary action against doctors and other medical professionals that was closed in September has been restored, but with new restrictions intended to prevent reporters from using it to “out” individual doctors with troubled track records.

As detailed almost two months ago in Open Channel, the Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, eliminated access to the National Practitioner Data Bank after discovering that reporters had managed to link the data, which masks identifying information, to local malpractice cases and disciplinary cases.

The New York Times reported Thursday that it was taken down “in response to a doctor’s complaint,” and ProPublica published this account.

In any case, HRSA on Wednesday restored the database, but with a new requirement that anyone who uses it agrees not to cross-check it against other public information, such as court files, to put names to the numbers.

Related story: Secretive lawsuit could limit access to safety warnings

In a statement accompanying the restoration, HRSA Administrator Mary K. Wakefield said that the database remains an important tool “to protect patients from incompetent, unprofessional, and often dangerous health care practitioners.” But noting that federal law restricts the confidential information identifying individual doctors, she said that if the agency discovers a journalist or other individual has used the public version in combination with other sources to identify a problem doctor, “HRSA will ask for the data to be returned.”

Her statement provided no details on how such a demand would work, but it presumably it would occur only after publication of a story linking the data to an individual doctor.

The Times quoted Charles Ornstein, president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and a reporter with the nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica, as saying that's one reason the rule appears to lack teeth.

“It’s troubling that a federal agency is telling reporters what they can or can’t do,” he told the newspaper. “And how are they going to enforce this?”

Doctors have struggled for decades to understand why thousands of children a year in the U.S. get Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that can cause serious heart damage if untreated, but is often mistaken for an everyday virus.

Now, a team of international scientists has announced the surprising finding that the answer may be blowing in the wind. The team’s leader, Dr. Jane C. Burns, professor of pediatrics and director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California San Diego, says cases of the disease are linked to large-scale wind currents whipping throughout Asia and around the North Pacific.

“We’ve always tried to find the cause of Kawasaki disease. There was this mysterious disease and nobody knew where it came from,” says Burns, also a pediatrician at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. “We realized that there was a very pronounced seasonality to it. As a pediatrician and scientist, that said to me there must be something related to climate, and we sought the help of climatologists.”

Researchers discovered the number of Kawasaki disease cases increased in Japan when the wind blew in a southwesterly direction, and were lower when winds shifted, blowing from the south. They also discovered the numbers of cases peaked from November to March when air from Central Asia blew over Japan and reached as far as Hawaii and San Diego.

Scientists still don’t know what’s in the air that might be causing the rise in cases. In March, the team sent up a research aircraft five or six miles above Japan, to collect air samples. The team is hoping to get funding to  do additional research, including sending up many more aircraft to collect dust and analyze its genetic material for fungus, bacteria or viruses.

“We don’t know what’s in there; no one’s done this before,” Burns says. “But we’ll find out.”

Parents or pediatricians may not be as concerned about what’s in the samples as much as what Kawasaki disease looks like and what to do about it.

Story: How Facebook saved my son's life

The disease causes a prolonged fever, blood-shot eyes, red lips, red tongue, and also red, swollen hands and feet with peeling skin. Since early symptoms resemble those of the flu, it’s often misdiagnosed – and there isn’t a diagnostic test for it.

Last year, doctors were stumped by what was wrong with Deborah Copaken Kogan's son, Leo, who they initially thought had strep throat. When he was worse several days later, she posted a photo of him on Facebook and quickly heard from a friend who is a pediatrician and also a cousin who is a pediatric cardiologist. Both suspected Kawasaki disease. She rushed him to the hospital and he eventually recovered. She recounted her story on the TODAY show.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 5,000 to 6,000 American children get the disease each year, most under the age of 5, although it has also been known to strike young adults.

While any child can come down with Kawasaki disease, Asians and African Americans seem to be most susceptible, followed by Hispanics and Caucasians, Burns said.

Treatment for the disease is a high intravenous dose of immunoglobulin, or antibodies, but 10 to 20 percent of children who get care still wind up with coronary artery damage. It’s fatal for about 1 in 10,000.

The key is for parents and doctors to recognize the signs, Burns says.

“Parents should seek medical attention and ask about Kawasaki disease if fever lasts beyond five days and is associated with rash, red eyes and lips.”

Health officials say 179 people have been sickened with salmonella food poisoning linked to broiled chicken liver products recalled by a New York food processor.

Between April 1 and Nov. 16, people in six states fell ill with Salmonella Heidelberg infections tied to chicken livers produced by Schreiber Processing Corp. of Maspeth, N.Y. The U.S. Department of Agriculture notified consumers that an undetermined amount of broiled products had been recalled because of contamination with the common strain of the foodborne pathogen. At the time, the agency said the products were linked to a cluster of illnesses in New York and New Jersey.

Illnesses include 99 in New York, 61 in New Jersey, 10 in Pennsylvania, six in Maryland, two in Ohio and one in Minnesota. Products linked to the outbreak were also sold in Rhode Island and Florida, though no cases have been reported there.

The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement that the products appeared to be ready to eat, but were actually only partially cooked. Illnesses were also linked to chopped liver made from the products, FSIS said.

FSIS officials said that the Salmonella Heidelberg strain linked to the chicken livers was not the same strain detected in ground turkey recalled earlier this year by meat giant Cargill Meat Solutions Corp.

The recalled products include 10-pound boxes of Meal Mart Broiled Chicken liver and 10 pound boxes of loose packed broiled chicken liver. Each box or bag of product bears the establishment number P-787 inside the USDA mark of inspection.

Salmonella infections typically cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within six to 72 hours of eating contaminated food. Additional symptoms might include chills, headache, nausea and vomiting that can last up to a week.

Elaine Thompson / AP

Jeaux Rinehart, president of the Washington State Emergency Nurses Association, said he's not surprised by a new survey that shows violence in the ER remains high, with more than half of nurses reporting verbal assaults and more than 1 in 10 experiencing physical attacks.
Rinehart was beaten in the head by a patient in 2007.

Tammy Mathews was working a late-night Sunday shift in an Alabama emergency department when a patient, drunk and high on drugs, grabbed her around the neck, choked her until she couldn’t breathe -- and then spat in her face.

Jeaux Rinehart was staffing a Seattle emergency room when a patient in a triage room, upset that he couldn’t get methadone, pulled a billy club out of a backpack and beat Rinehart in the back of the head and across the face, breaking his cheekbone.

So neither Mathews nor Rinehart was surprised to learn that an ongoing poll of nearly 7,200 emergency nurses finds that violence in the ER remains high, despite increased attention to a problem that leaves some health workers worried about danger every day.

“It’s so global,” said Rinehart, 51, president of the Washington State Emergency Nurses Association. “It’s actually getting worse.”

According to latest figures from the national Emergency Nurses Association, between January 2010 and January 2011, more than half of nurses in the ER -- 53.4 percent -- reported experiencing verbal abuse and about 13 percent said they had encountered physical violence at work in the previous week.

Being grabbed or pulled was the most common physical assault, while yelling and swearing were the most common kinds of verbal attack.

That’s about the same rate previously detected by the ongoing survey conducted by the ENA starting in May 2009. The Des Plaines, Ill., association surveys nurses at three-month intervals, partly to determine if the problem is getting any better, said AnnMarie Papa, the group’s president.

Frustrated, she admitted that it isn't.

“It’s upsetting to me that we can’t change the culture,” Papa said. “What is this with society that says it’s OK to do this to people who are trying to help them?”

Nurses on the front lines, like Mathews, 49, of Auburn, Ala., say that long waits, crowded conditions and growing numbers of mentally disturbed patients all exacerbate the stress of emergency department visits.

“Tempers kind of flare up and it just happens,” said Mathews, who was assaulted in 2005.

Both Mathews and Rinehart have worked in emergency departments for decades and they say they’ve come to expect vile treatment by patients and their families.

“I’ve been called things that, honestly, I have never even thought about putting those words together,” said Rinehart, who was attacked with the club in 2007.

The problem has received serious attention in recent years. At least 25 states have strengthened penalties for attacking health care workers and a growing number of hospitals have bolstered both physical security measures and staff training, according to the American Hospital Association.

At Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, the hospital where Rinehart works, a new emergency department opened just last week with greatly enhanced security features, among other amenities, according to spokesman John Gillespie.

But that progress hasn’t curbed the crisis, said Papa, who advocates a zero-tolerance policy to stop ER violence. Only about a third of nurses actually submit formal reports about physical violence and less than 15 percent report verbal assaults, the survey found. That might be because in almost half of cases of physical violence -- 46.7 percent -- no action was taken against the perpetrators. In nearly three-quarters of cases -- 71.8 percent -- nurses received no response from hospital officials about the assaults.

In Mathews’ case, she said the hospital wanted her to drop assault charges against her attacker, and that officials fired her when she refused. She works in the emergency department of a different hospital now and she says she's still wary of erratic patients. Rinehart said he has transferred out of the emergency department to focus instead on patient safety.

“I miss it, but I don’t miss being called every name in the book," said Rinehart, who worked in ERs for 32 years. "I miss it, but I’m not going back.” 

Determined to slim down, Calvin Gardner opted to put his money where his mouth was: He bet $300 that he could drop 50 pounds in six months.

It was a gamble, but the odds were good. If he succeeded, he’d more than triple his money. The only downside: he’d lose his cash if he didn’t lose the weight.

The unusual betting scheme Gardner chose is offered by the HealthyWage company, which essentially has become a bookmaker for the fat and  flabby.  Of course, like any good odds maker, the company seems to come out in the black.

Courtesy of Calvin Gardner

Calvin Gardner lost 50 pounds in six months after wagering $300.

Just 1 in 4 who place the bet actually end up collecting, the company’s founder, David Roddenberry allows.

Gardner was one of the lucky 25 percent. But that’s probably because the 25-year-old San Diego graduate student was highly motivated. His weight had crept up during a busy school year in which he’d gone from a trim 170 pounds to a stout 220. He stumbled upon HealthyWage online and immediately signed up. In less than six months, Gardner shed 50 pounds and turned $300 into $1,000.

Research shows that people vastly improve their odds of losing weight if there’s cold, hard cash involved, according to Dr. Kevin Volpp, a professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and director for health initiatives and behavioral economics at the Wharton School, both at the University of Pennsylvania.

“We as humans are really wired to focus on immediate gratification rather than delayed benefits,” Volpp explains. “And because any single indulgence doesn’t affect health that much, we can rationalize that we’re going to have an ice cream cone and some fries today and we’ll start dieting tomorrow -- or next week. Our focus is on the present.”

The idea behind monetary incentive programs is to nudge the equation we form in our brains a little bit more toward the long-term benefits. And that’s something that appeals to corporate America.

With health care costs skyrocketing, in part because of the fattening of the American population, some companies are using the “stick” approach  -- motivating employees to be healthier by raising their health insurance premiums if they smoke or are too fat.

The HealthyWage program is more about the “carrot” -- offering people a chance to win money by shedding pounds.

HealthyWage’s Roddenberry got into the weight-loss business because, he says, as an ex-hedge fund manager, he personally understood the power of money.  The company offers a variety of weight-loss programs to individuals and companies -- all with a financial incentive.  Dieting betters are required to verify their weight loss through a health club or a physician.

What works best, according to Roddenberry, are programs where participants put some of their own cash at risk. “You have to be more committed to put up your own money,” Roddenberry says.

The 1 in 4 payouts might seem like a bad deal, but Roddenberry argues that clients are still winning because they’ve stayed with a weight-loss program for six months to a year.

Gardner isn’t sure he’d have worked out most days, slashed calories and dropped the pounds without the promise of a big payout.

“It kind of set a deadline for me so I couldn’t procrastinate anymore,” he says. “And being a poor student, the idea that I could turn $300 to $1,000 was pretty motivating.”

Fertilized eggs could be granted human rights, depending on how Mississippi voters cast their ballots Tuesday on Initiative 26. The ballot measure, otherwise known as the "personhood" amendment, proposes to amend the state's constitution to redefine "person" to include "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof." Among other things, it could mean that couples who have turned to fertility clinics for help becoming parents won’t be allowed to ever destroy their unused fertilized eggs.

The polls say the anti-abortion referendum is likely to pass. 

First Read: Personhood measure divides conservative ranks

It shouldn’t.  

Not because passage would mean the end of all abortions, even for rape and incest. And not because its passage would create absurd public policy consequences: Do embryos get counted in the census? Could they inherit property? 

The reason this law makes for bad public policy is that it is completely at odds with what science knows to be true about embryos and fetuses.

Those who defend the amendment say they have science on their side. "The unborn child in the womb is scientifically proven to be a human being,” says Jennifer Mason, communications director for Personhood USA, the Arvada, Col.-based national advocacy group pushing for passage of Initiative 26. But Mason has no idea what she is talking about.

It is true that for centuries science has shown that all human beings begin as fertilized eggs.  But it is not true that all fertilized eggs can or do produce human beings.  In fact, it is so utterly wrong to say that every fertilized egg is a person, that to even suggest that science provides support for enacting the initiative is utterly absurd.

What are the odds of a fertilized egg becoming a person?

This is what we know: During the period of embryonic development that begins with fertilization and ends with successful implantation, about 50 percent of human conceptions fail to survive. The main reason for this high failure rate is the inability of huge numbers of fertilized eggs to implant.  

What science has found is that around half of all conceptions don't make it to implantation. Calling a fertilized egg a person flies in the face of this cruel biological reality. Half of all fertilized eggs cannot even become an embryo, much less a person.

Indeed, given the grim odds that face fertilized eggs, no one in science or medicine refers to a fertilized egg as an embryo unless it manages to implant. By talking about embryos and fertilized eggs as equivalent, supporters of Initiative 26 are not even using the correct scientific definition of an embryo.

First Read: Personhood measure divides conservative ranks

If the rest of the story of human reproduction -- as medicine and science know the facts to be -- is brought to bear, things only get worse for Initiative 26.

Sadly, all too many couples know about the high rate of spontaneous abortion and stillbirth that haunts embryonic and fetal development. Roughly, one in six embryos will spontaneously abort or produce fetuses that do not develop properly and die in utero. 

There are a huge number of embryos that are not properly genetically programmed for life. Nearly all of these completely lack the biological ability to develop into anything resembling a viable baby.  Legislation -- like that about to be voted on in Mississippi -- that declares fertilized eggs to be persons from the moment of conception simply ignores that the failure rate of human embryos is very high.  A considerable number of embryos and fetuses never have any chance of producing a baby. 

Medicine and science know very well what many millions of heart-broken would be parents around the world know first-hand: To call all embryos “persons” flies in the face of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth and fetal death.

In the push to declare fertilized eggs “persons” advocates claim science is on their side.  But it is only by ignoring what science has learned about the long odds that face fertilized eggs that anyone could even suggest that a fertilized egg is a person.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Acetaminophen may worsen asthma symptoms in both adults and children, a provocative new report suggests.

The report, which was published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, reviewed recent studies on the medication, which is also marketed as Tylenol. Those studies suggest that the drug may exacerbate asthma in children and adults who already have the condition and could even spark new cases.

Dr. John McBride says he wrote the report because he realized that few of his fellow pediatricians had ever heard of the studies linking acetaminophen with asthma – and therefore most parents hadn’t either.

“I decided … to do what I could to make sure pediatricians and other primary care physicians – as well as my own patients and their parents – realized that there is a possibility that simply avoiding acetaminophen in preference of some other equally effective treatment for fever or pain might make an important difference to a child’s asthma,” said McBride, director of the Robert T. Stone Respiratory Center at the Akron Children’s Hospital.

One of the more worrisome studies McBride cites looked at 520,000 children from 122 centers in 54 countries. In a report on that data published in The Lancet in 2008, researchers found that the risk of developing asthma jumped by 60 percent in 6- to 7-year-olds who had taken acetaminophen at least once a year but less than once a month. In children who took the medication at least once a month, the risk more than tripled.

 A second report using the same data was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critial Care Medicine in 2011. That report found that the risk of developing asthma jumped by 40 percent in 13- to 14-year olds who had taken acetaminophen at least once a year but less than once a month. In children of the same age group who took the medication at least once a month, the risk more than doubled. Other studies found acetaminophen associated with an increased risk of asthma in adults.

Asthma experts cautioned that the studies don’t absolutely prove that acetaminophen is the direct cause of asthma or its exacerbation – just that the drug is associated with an increased risk. The association could be due to something else that people who took acetaminophen had in common.

But, experts interviewed by msnbc.com said the studies at the very least underscore the need for parents to be cautious when dispensing any medication, regardless of whether it is sold over the counter.

“I think people get the false idea that because something is sold over the counter that means it is completely safe to use,” said Dr. Fernando Holguin, an assistant professor of medicine in the pulmonary, allergy and critical care division at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “That is not correct.”

Holguin was familiar with the studies cited in the Pediatrics paper. His 4-year-old son suffers from asthma and for that reason, Holguin chose to use ibuprofen rather than acetaminophen when his son is feverish and achy.

The new study reminds us that we always need to be cautious with children. 

“With children we need to think twice before giving any medication,” said Dr. Andrea Apter, a specialist in allergy and immunology and a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “This [new report] is worrisome. It raises our caution and concern. A prospective randomized controlled trial, if feasible, would be very important because randomization balances all the other factors, known and unknown, that may be related to taking acetaminophen and to having an asthma exacerbation.”

People need to remember that all drugs can have side effects, said Dr. Maria Garcia-Lloret, an assistant professor of allergy and immunology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “I always tell my patients that any medicine you don’t need is a bad medicine,” she said.

The new research may prompt more physicians to tell their patients about the possible risks associated with acetaminophen.

“The bottom line,” Holguin said, “is that acetaminophen may not be safe for children with asthma. If a child has asthma and no contraindications to medications like ibuprofen, I’d suggest one of those.”

At least one study that looked at the impact of ibuprofen and acetaminophen in children with asthma found that while acetaminophen appeared to increase airway problems, ibuprofen did not.  

Further, McBride points out, “in a double-blind study of acetaminophen versus ibuprofen in asthmatic children with fever that was published in 2002 in Pediatrics, children who were randomized to receive acetaminophen had twice the risk of treatment for an asthma exacerbation compared to the children randomized to ibuprofen.”

Still, Holguin said, “it’s harder to comment on everyone else. You don’t want to altogether block the use of a useful medication.”

Holguin and others interviewed by msnbc.com said they would tell their patients about the studies in the new report, along with the limitations of those studies – and then leave the decision up to the patients themselves.

As for McBride, “my partners and I now recommend that our patients avoid using acetaminophen if at all possible until there is convincing evidence that it is safe.”

By Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience

If asked how many friends you have, some may have trouble distinguishing between the lengthy list of Facebook friends and those close pals you confide in. Well, it turns out, Americans' lists of the close type has shrunk to two, down from three confidantes 25 years ago, a new study suggests.

The study also found that the number of us who have zero confidantes, or the socially isolated, has not increased over these decades, as scientists had suspected based on a 2006 study showing a near tripling of Americans' social isolation between 1985 and 2004.

Although this shrinking social network "makes us potentially more vulnerable," said Matthew Brashears, assistant professor of sociology at Cornell University, "we're not as socially isolated as scholars had feared." However, Brashears isn't confident in any of the numbers gathered for social isolation in past studies and the current one, suggesting better methods of getting true numbers are needed.

Brashears surveyed more than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older from the nationally representative Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) program. The Internet surveys were conducted between April 23 and May 5, 2010.

Participants were asked to list the names of people they had discussed "important matters" with over the previous six months. If respondents said "none," they asked whether this was because they didn't have any important matters to discuss or no one with whom to discuss them in the past six months.

About 48 percent of participants listed one name, 18 percent listed two, and roughly 29 percent listed more than two names for these close friends. On average, participants had 2.03 confidantes. And just over 4 percent of participants didn't list any names.

When Brashears looked closer at that number of socially isolated individuals, he found that 64 percent indicated that this was because they had no topic to discuss, while only about 36 percent had no one to talk to. Turns out, female participants and those who were educated were the least likely to report no names on their confidante list. [ 10 Things Every Man Should Know About a Woman's Brain ]

Shrinking support
Are we becoming hermits? Not quite, according to Brashears.

"Rather than our networks getting smaller overall, what I think may be happening is we're simply classifying a smaller proportion of our networks as suitable for important discussions," Brashears told LiveScience. "This is reassuring in that it suggests that we're not becoming less social."

In fact, research by University of Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman has shown we can be close to and rely on a number of people with whom we don't discuss important matters.

"But it may still be concerning," Brashears added. "Discussion partners provide both emotional support and ideas for how to solve problems, so a shrinking discussion network may lead to more stress and poorer outcomes."

And support does seem to be waning.

Brashears asked participants about a randomly selected friend they had listed, including the types of support that person could provide. Answers included: companionship, a loan of a significant amount of money, and a loan of a significant amount of non-monetary support, such as a place to crash for a while.

"Interestingly, among those respondents who reported only one discussion partner, a number of them reported that their associate would not provide any of these benefits," Brashears said. "This leads me to think that we should be less concerned about social isolation, or lacking any social contact, and more concerned about social poverty, or not having adequate support."

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USDA

Applesauce produced by Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., was recalled from the nation's schools earlier this year. Now, FDA officials say the company cannot ensure the safety of moldy applesauce reprocessed and packed in units such as this 106-ounce can.

A Washington state fruit processor that supplies the nation’s schools and a baby food maker is under scrutiny by federal health regulators for repackaging applesauce contaminated with several kinds of potentially dangerous, multi-colored molds, msnbc.com has learned.

Food and Drug Administration officials this week posted a warning letter to Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., saying the company cannot ensure the safety of moldy applesauce and fruit puree that has been reconditioned for human consumption.

“Your firm reprocesses moldy applesauce product … using a method that is not effective against all toxic metabolites,” read the FDA letter sent Oct. 20 to Jimmie L. Davis, Snokist’s president.  “Several foodborne molds may be hazardous to human health.”

Products recalled earlier this year by Snokist were blamed for illnesses of nine North Carolina children who became sick after eating applesauce at school.

The latest warning came after FDA officials said Snokist failed to adequately address problems identified during a June inspection in which regulators found large, laminated bags of fruit products that were supposed to be sealed and sterile, but instead were broken open and tainted with white, brown, blue, blue-green and black mold. Some of the compromised bags were bloated and one had “a strong fermented odor,” the report said.

The FDA’s letter identified at least eight instances last year in which Snokist had reprocessed the moldy applesauce into canned goods for human consumption.  The inspection report said Snokist documents showed the company had reprocessed mold-contaminated applesauce at least 13 times between January 2008 and May 2011, repackaging food into 15-ounce cans, 106-ounce-cans, 300-gallon bags and 4.2-ounce, single-serve cups.

It's not clear whether the mold-tainted applesauce went to schools. However, the June inspection followed a voluntary recall of more than 3,300 cases of canned Snokist applesauce in May after North Carolina schoolchildren became mildly ill after eating the fruit product. The recall was blamed on faulty seals on cans. The children have since recovered.

Snokist officials admit that they “rework” some moldy food for future use. But in an e-mail to msnbc.com, company officials said that the contaminated fruit represents only a fraction of the company’s products, that compromised product is typically separated and destroyed, and that any reprocessed food is heat-treated to kill toxins.

“If rework occurs, our thermal process is more than adequate to render the product commercially sterile,” Tina Moss, a company spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

The company said it has begun testing for patulin, a common toxin produced by mold in rotting fruit.

However, the FDA said the company's tests are not adequate and that officials must prove they're testing for other dangerous microbes: “Most mycotoxins are stable compounds that are not destroyed by heat treatment,” the letter said.

FDA regulations to allow companies to "recondition" food, but the final product must be free of contamination. Firms aren't required to notify the agency they've reprocessed food unless they're required to under terms of an inspection or other action, such as an injunction. In addition, rules prohibit mixing contaminated product with sound product to get to acceptable levels of filth, said Pat El-Hinnawy, an FDA spokeswoman.  

A 2009 consultant’s report showed that the types of molds in the Snokist fruit products included Alternaria, Fusarium and two types of Pennicillium, all of which can cause illness in people.

That report was commissioned by Snokist after a baby-food manufacturer returned dozens of bags of the company’s fruit product in 2009 because they were contaminated with “a large amount of mold,” according to the FDA inspection report.

In early 2010, the consultant recommended six steps that Snokist could take to fix the problems, but during the FDA’s June inspection, company officials said they’d implemented only two.

Snokist sold more than 3.3 million cases of processed fruit with sales of $53 million in 2010, according to the company’s annual report. That represents more than 50,000 tons of processed fruit.

In the past, Snokist has supplied applesauce to schools nationwide through federal nutrition programs, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A spokesman said he couldn’t comment directly on whether Snokist had been removed from the program, but added that no firm under investigation by the FDA would be allowed to participate.

Snokist officials said they were working to address all of the concerns raised by the FDA and were awaiting a new inspection to confirm progress. FDA officials said the company has 15 days to respond to the warning letter.

By Rachel Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Our culture of sitting may be responsible for 173,000 cases of cancer each year, according to new estimates.

Physical inactivity is linked to as many as 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer a year in the United States, said Christine Friedenreich, an epidemiologist at Alberta Health Services-Cancer Care in Canada.

Breast and colon cancer appear to be the cancers most influenced by physical activity, according to the research we have to date, Friedenreich said, in presenting her findings here today (Nov. 3) at the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) conference.

But her study also suggested that an estimated 37,200 cases of lung cancer, 30,600 cases of prostate cancer, 12,000 cases of endometrial cancer and 1,800 cases of ovarian cancer could be prevented if people were more physically active.

The findings add to a growing body of research indicating that prolonged sitting has lethal consequences, regardless of how active people are the rest of the day.

"It seems highly likely that the longer you sit, the higher your risk [of cancer]," said Neville Owen, head of behavioral epidemiology at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia, who also presented  findings at the meeting. Owen's study showed that U.S. adults, on average, sit 15.5 hours a day.

The amount of time we spend standing up and walking "makes up such a tiny sliver of a person's waking hours," Owen said.

However, there's good news. It seems that long, uninterrupted periods of sitting are what is most unhealthy, and that by frequently breaking up long bouts of sitting with just a few minutes of light exercise, a person can lower his or her cancer risk. Owen's study found that one- to two-minute breaks from sitting can reduce levels of molecules in the body that are linked with cancer risk.

This research reveals that there's more to physical activity than working out on a treadmill. Alice Bender, a spokeswoman for AICR, noted that someone who exercises 30 minutes a day — the recommended amount of physical activity — is really only active for 3 percent of his or her day.

While getting to the gym or doing other regular exercise is still important, it is not the whole story, Bender said. The AICR recommends we take small breaks from sitting during our day to "infuse the remaining 97 percent of [our] day with short periods of activity that can protect against many cancers," she said.

Exercise and cancer

In Friedenreich's study, postmenopausal women who engaged in moderate to vigorous daily exercise had lower levels of  C-reactive protein in their bodies after one year compared with women who did not engage in this level of activity. Low levels of this protein have been linked to reduced breast cancer risk.

C-reactive protein is a marker of inflammation, an immune response that normally helps your body fight off infection. Chronically high levels of inflammation may damage cells and possibly increase cancer risk.

Using data from her study and previous work on cancer indicators, Friedenreich estimated that daily exercise reduced the risk of breast and colon cancer by 25 to 30 percent.

"For many of the most common cancers, it seems like something as simple as a brisk walk for 30 minutes a day can help reduce cancer risk," Friedenreich said.

Owen's study suggested that even very brief exercise may reduce cancer risk. In the study, the one- to two-minute breaks were associated with smaller waists, less insulin resistance (an early sign of diabetes) and lower levels of inflammation— all risk factors for cancer.

Get up and move

The American Institute for Cancer Research recommends the following tips for breaking up your sitting sessions:

• Set a timer on your computer to remind you every hour that it’s time to step away from your desk, and take a short walk down the hall.
• Instead of emailing a co-worker, chat with him or her over a walk.
• If possible, stand up and walk around during phone calls and meetings.
• Keep light hand weights in your office to use while reading email or talking on the phone.

Pass it on: Sitting down for prolonged periods may increase cancer risk, researchers say.

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Got a cold or the flu and feeling feverish? You may not want to be so quick to reach for a pill to get rid of it, a new study suggests.

Scientists have found more evidence that allowing your fever to burn out may actually help certain types of immune cells to work more efficiently. They say that a type of lymphocyte called CD8+Cytotoxic T-cell is capable of destroying virus-infected and tumor cells and low-grade fevers enhance them.

Researchers from the Department of Immunology at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N. Y. injected two groups of mice with an antigen and watched the T-cells activate. They raised the body temperature two degrees centigrade in half the mice, and the other half maintained a normal body temperature.

The warmed mice showed a greater number of the CD8 T-cells that were capable of destroying infected cells. Their findings were in the November 2011 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

Scientists have long known that a fever is the body’s protective response to fight off bacteria and viruses. If you can stand the discomfort until your fever reaches 102, Dr. Amesh A. Adalja says it’s fine to let the fever go away on its own – but not always.

“Once the body temperature reaches certain levels, it becomes dangerous because it can be toxic to brain cells, and can also precipitate seizures as well as increase your heart rate and basal metabolic rate, causing people to more likely become dehydrated,” says Adalja, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

It's probably best not to take the chance with a feverish child, or with an adult if the fever spikes higher than 102 degrees. A high fever in some children can result in seizures, he says. Adalja also warns it’s also not worth the risk to your own health if you have heart disease, have suffered a stroke or endure other medical complications.

“This is not a blanket recommendation,” he says. “Secondary consequences to the fever can cause other conditions in the patient to occur or worsen. If someone has a persistent fever of 104, it’s a sign of infection, and it’s not just some viral thing you are  going to get over.”

 Ouch! Does this year's flu shot hurt more?

Flu shot not as effective as thought (but get one anyway)

The toll from listeria-tainted cantaloupe climbed higher again on Wednesday, with 139 sickened and 29 dead in the outbreak that may be the deadliest in U.S. history, health officials reported.

In addition to the reported deaths, one pregnant woman had a miscarriage after becoming infected with any of four strains of listeria bacteria linked to whole, fresh cantaloupes from Jensen Farms of Holly, Colo. Reports of illness have been logged in 28 states.

The outbreak is the worst since a California listeria outbreak in 1985 in which contaminated Mexican-style fresh cheese caused 52 deaths, including many stillbirths, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By other accounts, the cantaloupe crisis may already have matched the adult deaths confirmed in that outbreak. In a New England Journal of Medicine analysis in 1988, investigators said the outbreak caused deaths of 28 adults and newborns and 20 stillbirths or miscarriages.

CDC officials weren't immediately available to comment on the trajectory of the outbreak, which was expected to continue to claim lives and cause illness through the fall. Listeria infections have a long incubation period, so people who ate tainted cantaloupe two months ago may only now be reporting illness, health officials said. The outbreak toll may be slowing, noted Bill Marler, a Seattle food poisoning lawyer who represents several clients sickened by the fruit. But it's still not over.

"I think the hopeful sign is that it's tapering off," he said. "But people are still in the hospital, some in critical condition. Will that number go up? Unfortunately, I think it will."

Dirty equipment, an unsanitary environment and poor storage practicescaused the outbreak at the packing site operated by Jensen Farms, the federal Food and Drug Administration found. It's not clear whether Jensen Farms officials will be required to testify in front of Congress. Members of the Energy and Commerce subcomittee had requested a hearing no later than Thursday, but no hearing has yet been scheduled.

Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries seemed like the most miserable couple on earth even before they were married, so their 72-day grudge match seems shocking only to Kim K’s mom, who has a business empire at stake.

But, asked UCLA psychologist Thomas Bradbury, and graduate student Justin Lavner, what about those who seem incredibly happy being married to each other? If people in very satisfying marriages still get divorced, is there hope for any of us?

Earlier research by others had found that so-called “low-distress” couples who later divorced had been married an average of over six years and that the marital happiness reported by the husbands was actually higher than husbands in marriages that lasted.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images file

Kris Humphries and his now-estranged wife, Kim Kardashian, looked reasonably happy when they appeared on the Tonight Show on Oct. 4, but Kardashian filed for divorce just weeks later.

To explain the paradox, some proposed that very satisfied couples who later divorced went into marriage with less commitment or viewed the prospect of divorce more optimistically.

But that’s not what Lavner and Bradbury found. They sampled 136 couples starting within six months of the weddings, and followed them for 10 years, including a series of laboratory interactions and written surveys completed by the partners in each couple. All the couples started out very satisfied with their marriages and happy.    

Yet 21 couples, or 15 percent, divorced during the ten years.

Lavner and Bradbury looked at a number of factors like personality, stress, verbal aggression, problem solving skills, affect (meaning the emotions displayed), support behaviors (how encouraging or negative partners were) and parenthood status to see if any of them could predict which couples would stay married and which ones would divorce.

Parenthood didn’t predict and neither did most of the other factors we usually think of. Rather, the most significant link was with personality types, and the way a partner’s personality affected communication.

“Low-distress marriages that eventuated in divorce were characterized by the display of more anger and contempt and by more negative skills (e.g., disagreement, blame, invalidation) during laboratory-based discussions of important relationship difficulties,” their study published on Monday in the Journal of Family Psychology, stated. Verbally aggressive husbands also tended to wind up divorced.

That may seem obvious, but these traits were present from the very beginning. Yet the couples said they were thrilled with each other back then. 

It’s not really communication styles per se, or even chemistry, Bradbury explained, it’s basic, inbred, pre-existing personality. “There’s masking,” he theorized, stressing that he was extrapolating based on the study’s findings. Early on, if economic times, health, physical attraction are all positive, they can hide the way a negative personality eats away at the foundation. Then, when life’s inevitable troubles arrive, “the bottom drops out quickly,” Bradbury said.

“Our hunch is that being negative in general erodes the quality of the bond couples have. It’s who you are as a person.” The trouble might be there all along, it’s just that we’re often too blind to see it.   

Related content:

• Kim Kardashian's first interview: 'I'd never marry for money'
• Kim Kardashian's mom says wedding 'wasn't a sham'
• Slideshow: The Kardashian clan

Follow Brian Alexander on Twitter at @BrianRAlexander.

Kin Cheung / AP

By Rachel Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily 

Even as few as three alcoholic beverages per week may increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, a new study finds.

Women in the study who drank three to six glasses of wine per week were 15 percent more likely than those who did not drink to develop breast cancer, researchers found in reviewing data taken over a 28-year period.

The study adds to the growing body of evidence of a link between alcohol consumption and an increased risk of breast cancer. Drinking moderate to high amounts of alcohol has previously been linked with breast cancer risk, but the effects of consuming low amounts of alcohol had been unclear. Alcohol may be increasing breast cancer risk by altering levels of the sex hormone estrogen, the researchers said.

Still, while the increased risk found in this study is real, it is quite small. Women will need to weigh this slight increase in breast cancer risk with the beneficial effects alcohol is known to have on heart heath, said Dr. Wendy Chen, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Any woman's decision will likely factor in her risk of either disease, Chen said.

Chen noted that women who consumed fewer than three drinks per week had no increase in breast cancer risk.

"I don't think the take home message would be that women can't drink at all," Chen said.

Chen and colleagues examined information from 105,986 women who were followed from 1980 to 2008 as part of the Nurses Health Study. Women periodically answered questionnaires about their alcohol consumption and whether they had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

During the study period, 7,690 cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed.

The study found a rate of 333 cases of breast cancer per 100,000 women among those who drank three to six glasses of wine per week. There were 281 cases per 100,000 for women who drank no alcohol.

For those who consumed more than six glasses a week, the risk was higher. For women who consumed at least two drinks a day, the rate was 413 cases per 100,000 women — a 51 percent increase in breast cancer risk.

The study will be published tomorrow (Nov. 2) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It's not clear whether women could benefit from ceasing to drink alcohol by a certain age, wrote Dr. Steven Narod in an editorial accompanying the study. For instance, if alcohol exerted effects similar to hormone therapy (a treatment known to increase breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women), then women over 50 might benefit from cessation, said Narod, of the Women's College Research Institute in Toronto.

For some women, it seems the increase in risk of breast cancer may be substantial enough that cessation would be prudent. However, there are no data showing that giving up alcohol will reduce breast cancer risk, Narod said.

And it's possible that, for some, the benefit of drinking alcohol for the heart outweighs the risks of breast cancer, Narod said. Future research into alcohol's risks and benefits may provide women with more information to make a decision, Narod said.

Pass it on: Drinking three to six glasses of alcohol per week slightly increases breast cancer risk in women, a study suggests.

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• Want to live longer? Get happy, study shows

Nearly half of hospital rooms of patients infected with drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii are contaminated with the bacteria, a small new survey shows. Surfaces such as bedrails, drawer handles and touchpads are particularly prone to harboring the germ.

That could pose big problems for hospital staff and future patients if existing cleaning practices don’t get rid of one of the top 10 germs responsible for serious health care-acquired infections, said Dr. Kerri A. Thom, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

“Fairly frequently we find these important pathogens are inhabiting these high-touch surfaces,” said Thom, noting that previous studies have detected surface contamination with bugs responsible for worrisome MRSA and Clostridium difficile infections.

“This does reflect a potential source of transmission of bacteria from one patient to the next.”

Thom and her team analyzed rooms of 50 intensive care patients infected with multi-drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, a strain of bacteria increasingly responsible for hard-to-treat infections in soldiers returning from combat – and in hospital critical care units.

Testing of 10 sites in each room – door knobs, bedrails, ventilator touch pads, floors and more – found at least one area was colonized with A. baumannii bacteria in 48 percent of rooms.

Supply cart drawer handles were most commonly contaminated, with 20 percent testing positive, followed by floors, infusion pumps and touch pads. Ten percent of bedrails harbored the germs, according to the study published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.

Most of the strains of bacteria found in the rooms – 85 percent – matched the strains in the patients themselves, the study found.

While that raises chicken-and-egg questions about whether the contamination caused the infection or vice-versa, it also points to the importance of good hospital cleaning practices, said Russell Olmsted, an infection control expert and president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

“What looks clean might actually be contaminated,” said Olmsted, noting that more hospitals have increased efforts to double-check that all surfaces in patient rooms are thoroughly disinfected. "This is a tough bug."

Acinetobacter baumannii poses a particular problem because it’s a hardy strain that can survive for days, even months on inanimate surfaces, Olmsted said. Most hospital cleaners can disarm it, but crews must be careful to reach every spot -- especially those in high-traffic areas.

Patients worried about lingering bacteria in hospitals might be tempted to resort to do-it-yourself disinfection, but they should resist the urge, said Olmsted and Thom.

Bringing your own bleach spray or wipes could cause problems by clashing with other hospital cleaning products or interfering with some kinds of medical equipment.

Instead, patients or their family members can inspect a room before getting settled, making sure to look for obvious lapses in cleanliness. They can ask staff to verify that a room has been cleaned. And they can make sure to request that all health workers wash their hands before providing any kind of care.

“The message that we’re sending overall to patients is to be an advocate for their own care,” Thom said. “It’s OK to ask.”

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When Elvis crooned, “Are you lonesome tonight?,” he probably wasn’t thinking about sleep.

But a study out Tuesday suggests that people who feel lonely don’t sleep as soundly as other people, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference whether they’re sharing their bed with someone or not.

Previous research has found that lonely people are more likely to suffer health problems, such as heart disease and dementia, and the authors of the new study wondered if that might be due to its effect on sleep.

From an evolutionary perspective, the connection between loneliness and a poor night’s sleep makes sense, the authors write in the journal Sleep. “Humans must have relied on a safe social surround to survive and thrive,” the researchers say.

The University of Chicago scientists studied 95 adults between the ages of 19 and 84 who live in a farming town in South Dakota. Three out of four were married.

In interviews, they asked their subjects about loneliness, depression, anxiety and stress. Three questions focused on loneliness: How often did they feel they lacked companionship, felt left out and felt isolated from others? The researchers also asked the participants how well they slept and whether they felt sleepy during the day.

People tend to be pretty off-base when they recall how they slept. To get more accurate information, the researchers asked their subjects to strap on a wristwatch-like device called an actigraph, which records movements, for a week. When wearers are still, scientists can be pretty sure they’re sound asleep.

In both the married and unmarried participants, researchers found a link between loneliness and tossing and turning.

The South Dakota folks weren’t nearly as lonely as other groups that have been studied, so the scientists think the link between loneliness and poor sleep quality probably applies to a wide range of people, explained lead author Lianne Kurina, an assistant professor of epidemiology.

Surprisingly, “negative affect,” a combination of symptoms of depression and anxiety and feelings of stress, didn’t seem to play a role in how well or how long people slept. However, unlike the lonely people, the depressed, anxious or stressed-out participants were more likely to think they didn’t sleep well.

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