By Karen Rowan
MyHealthNewsDaily

On an August morning last year, 53 people aboard a commercial airplane from Wisconsin were potentially exposed to the rabies virus when a bat flew through the cabin soon after takeoff, according to a government report of the incident released today.

After the plane returned to the airport the bat escaped, so officials could not be determine whether it was carrying the deadly virus, but health officials found no infected passengers.

Still, in the wake of the incident, the researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say health officials should be prepared to deal with such events.

"Although a bat, or any wildlife, aboard a commercial airliner is unlikely, public health practitioners should be prepared to respond to potential exposures to rabies and other infectious agents, including during air travel," the researchers wrote.

Bat on a plane

The report recounted the incident aboard the Atlanta-bound flight from Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis. "Shortly after takeoff, a bat flew from the rear of the aircraft through the cabin several times before being trapped in the lavatory," the report said.

After the plane returned to the airport and the passengers got off, maintenance crew members removed the bat. But the creature eluded them and flew out the cabin door, through the airport terminal, and was last seen exiting the building through automatic doors.

Story: It's a bird! No, it's a bat on a plane

After a search of the cabin turned up no additional bats, 15 of the passengers reboarded the aircraft; the others made other travel arrangements. As for the possibility of other bats at the airport, the CDC researchers said it had in place a "rigorous animal-control and incident documentation program, and no evidence of bat infestation."

 Bats & rabies

The most common way for people to get rabies in the U.S. is through contact with a bat. Most bats don't have rabies, but the ones that are seen during the day, when bats are not normally active, or are encountered where they are not usually seen (such as in economy-class seating) "just might be rabid," according to the CDC's website.

Three cases of rabies were reported in the U.S. last year, and none so far this year, according to the CDC.

Simply seeing a bat doesn't put a person at risk of rabies, but people who wake to find a bat in their home should seek medical attention because they may not know they have been bitten: Bat bites can be small and signs of them can disappear quickly, the CDC says.

Even people possibly exposed to bat saliva can become infected with the rabies virus, which attacks brain and nervous system cells, and should receive the rabies vaccine, a series of shots given over the two weeks after exposure to prevent infection, the CDC says. Rabies infections are usually deadly.

The CDC report said that while none of the Wisconsin airline passengers who were interviewed afterward needed to get the vaccine, five could not be tracked down — the flight's original passenger list was voided and replaced after the reboarding.

More from MHND:

8 Strange Signs You're Having an Allergic Reaction

9 Creatures That Could Save Your Life

Exotic Pets Are Dangerous to Health

Cynthia Wilson James

Cynthia Wilson James, 52, of Columbia, S.C., got married at 40 and had two girls in quick succession. More older moms are having more than one child, a new study finds.

Cynthia Wilson James was always sure about two things: She wanted a husband who shared her spiritual beliefs, and she wanted to have more than one child with him.

And just because she didn’t reach that first goal until she was 40 didn’t mean the second one was out of reach.

The Columbia, S.C., woman, now 52, conceived her first daughter, who just turned 10, around her first wedding anniversary. Daughter number two, who turned 8 in January, was conceived less than two years later.

“I think most moms want someone to be there for that child, to have another brother or sister,” says James, who grew up with four siblings. “I think I might have had one other child if I were younger.”

It turns out that James is part of a trend. An increasing proportion of women who have their first baby at age 35 or older aren’t stopping with one child, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Among all women whose first birth occurred between age 35 and 44, nearly 40 percent had at least two children in 2006-2010, up from 26 percent recorded in 1995.

According to government statistics, about 7,500 women gave birth at age 45 or over in 2008, so the percentage of moms who’ve had two or more after age 34 is probably even higher, says demographer Gladys Martinez, lead author of the new report.

And, like James, they’re likely to have their kids fairly close together.

“The women who start off later know they can’t wait physically for much longer,” Martinez says.

Among women ages 30 to 44 with at least two children, 16 percent delivered their first and second babies 13 to 24 months apart, while about 17 percent delivered them 25 to 36 months apart. (Pregnancies resulting in multiple births were counted as one delivery.)

Only about 6 percent of those older moms delivered their first two babies more than four years apart, compared to about 17 percent of women ages 25 to 29.

While fertility treatments in older mothers have contributed to an all-time high twin birth rate in the United States, Martinez says, her “gut instinct” is that’s not the main reason for the rise in older moms with more than one child.

Instead, she and her coauthors believe that it’s part of a trend toward later childbearing, especially among white women with higher education. Ideally, the researchers say, they’d like to compare older mothers over time within education and income groups, but first births beyond age 35, especially in 1995, were simply too rare to break down.

James, a college graduate who conceived her daughters naturally, knows she’s even rarer, because she’s an older mom who also happens to be black.

Frustrated with a lack of information for older pregnant women, James became a childbirth educator, launched a website, www.inseasonmom.org, and writes a blog about the joys and challenges of having a child at an “advanced maternal age,” as doctors refer to having a baby at 35 or older.

James’ website features a “mom of the month” to inspire other first-time mothers older than 35, and, she says, they almost always have more than one child.

She gets tired sometimes caring for two kids, James says, but so do the 20- and 30-something moms she knows. And like many older parents of young children, she says “I do the numbers in my head: I’ll be this old, I’ll be that old” when they hit age milestones.

But, she figures, with or without kids, “I’m going to be that old anyway.” 

Related stories:

Birth control shots tied to breast cancer risk, study finds

Obese moms may be more likely to have autistic child, small study suggests

Nursing moms' caffeine doesn't wake babies, study finds

 OK, now it's official: Everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas -- even your alcohol-infused headache and upchucking tummy.

A mobile, hangover treatment center – a bus adorned with plush sofas, a well-coiffed doctor and special IV bags – is set to roll out Saturday, trolling the Las Vegas strip from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., vowing to quickly flush last night’s fun overdose from your wilted body.

Hangover Heaven is the brainchild of Dr. Jason Burke, a board-certified anesthesiologist who trained at Duke University and who –- if his venture pops the financial cork -- hopes soon to quit his day job as a hospital anesthetist.

Hangover Heaven

A board-certified anesthesiologist has created a mobile hangover treatment center to rid Vegas revelers of their day-after symptoms.

For $90 to as much as $200 (if you also choose his IV vitamin mix), Burke will pick you up, offer a cushy seat, plug an intravenous line into your vein and cleanse that post-party pain with a blend of fluids containing electrolytes and other solutions to cure dehydration, the anti-nausea drug Ondansetron, and the anti-inflammatory drug Ketorolac. The treatment takes about 45 minutes.

Burke’s first-ever patient: himself.

“In the recovery room, I treat people who have nausea, aches and pains, disoriented feelings. I treat that all the time with intravenous anti-nausea medications, anti-inflammatories and IV fluids. And I thought: this would treat a hangover,” said Burke, who earned a medical diploma at the University of North Carolina in 1996, msnbc.com confirmed.

“One day I had a bad hangover. I put in an IV with these medications and I was absolutely amazed at how well it worked.”

Across the medical community, reaction to Burke’s enterprise is some smirks and concern about potential risks.

“We always think of hydration as a way to treat a lot of problems," said Dr. Mark F. Newman, chair of the department of anesthesiology at Duke University Medical Center, who knows Burke. "And obviously, we treat people post-operatively all the time with [anti-nausea] drugs ... and anti-inflammatories. On their own, they’re all safe,”

But Newman cautions, "in the way that Jason’s using (these drugs) in Las Vegas, we don’t have any data that would say, in that environment, it would be safe or efficacious."

Just because a treatment is safe in one environment doesn't mean that it would be in a different one, Newman explains. “You’re in a situation where you’re potentially giving medications that can have side effects. Are you able to respond appropriately?”

Besides, hangovers are nature’s little wrist slap, added Michael Roy, executive director of Clearview Treatment Programs in Los Angeles.

“It’s helpful for people to experience the negative effects of their drinking so they do not repeat excessive drinking episodes,” Roy said.

Then there’s the damage alcohol can do to people with heart problems or other high-risk conditions, said Art Caplan, Ph.D, director the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

“The hangover bus doc is flying in dangerous territory,” Caplan said via email. “What if he deals with diabetics or epileptics or someone with some other high risk disease? If (that client) croaks, he is losing his license no matter what consent they sign.”

In response, Burke said he won’t treat anyone who is “visibly intoxicated” or anyone who informs him they have “complex medical problems.” He called his anti-hangover medley “mainstays of the anesthetic regimen” used “thousands of times a day all over the world,” thus making the risk of complications “just not that high, especially for a single dose.”

From his ethical vantage point, however, Caplan just doesn’t see how a physician can endorse – even tacitly –  vacationers getting tanked.

“I know this is Vegas, but, come on … Docs should not tell you to get blind, stinking drunk and then offer to wash you out,” Caplan said.

More from Vitals:

Out-of-whack sleep habits can cause diabetes

Drive safely: Deadly car crashes spike on tax day

Are doctors responsible for painkiller abuse?

 By Robert Bazell
Chief Science and Medical Correspondent
NBC News

How hard is shift work on a worker's body? 

Research out Wednesday from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston demonstrates very precisely the way fighting the body's natural sleep patterns can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.

More than 21 million Americans are “shift workers,” according to U.S. Census figures. That is, they labor during the hours that most of us set aside for rest or sleep, either all or part of the time. That number is increasing 3 percent a year because of the nature of our service economy and the need for ever more people to take whatever work they can.

The sleep research team at Brigham and Women’s, under the direction of Dr. Charles Czeisler, has spent decades documenting how shift work can lead to increased obesity, heart disease, diabetes and many other health problems. In this latest research in their sleep lab they show how one mechanism creates the risk.

Twenty-one healthy volunteers were subjected to varying hours of sleeping and waking, light and dark, all designed to disrupt the body’s natural internal clock (the circadian rhythm.)

Within a few days, when the subjects ate a normal meal, their bodies did not respond in a normal way.

“Glucose levels went much higher and stayed that way for several hours,” said neuroscientist Orfeu Buxton, Ph. D., the study's lead author. “This was because of decreased insulin released from the pancreas. Together these reflect an increased risk of diabetes.”

The stress was so severe that during the three-week experiment three of the healthy volunteers became pre-diabetic. Fortunately, after nine days of normal sleep and waking, all symptoms disappeared.

Still, the experiment clearly demonstrates that shift work can make people diabetic. For people who already have diabetes or are pre-diabetic, it can make the conditions worse.

The advice from the scientists for those who perform shift work -- either out of necessity or choice:

• Try to make your daily clock as normal as possible.
• Get good sleep during the day -- finding, if you can, a quiet, very dark room. 
• Don’t eat big meals at a time when you feel your body clock is out of whack.

Sound advice, experts would agree.  But anyone who works odd hours knows how challenging such simple routines can be in the demands of a normal family and social life. This latest research is further evidence out-of-whack sleep’s harm to our health.

The research is published in Science Translational Medicine.  You can read an abstract here: 

http://stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.3003200

 Robert Bazell is NBC's chief science and medical correspondent. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter @RobertBazellNBC

More from Robert Bazell:

Dental X-rays linked to brain tumor risk

"False positive" mammogram can signal future cancer

Study: Most early cancer research is wrong

Regular prostate screening can reduce deaths. Now what?

Dr. Charles Humphrey, CDC

Sapovirus, previously regarded as rare, is showing up more often as the nasty culprit between outbreaks gastrointestinal illness in nursing homes.

For sheer misery, few germs can cause the chaos of norovirus in a nursing home.  The gut bug can spread rapidly through food, on surfaces or person-to-person, afflicting victims with violent diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain.

About 20 million people suffer from acute norovirus infections in the U.S. each year, health officials say, but new research suggests that the nasty germ has an equally cruddy but little-known cousin: sapovirus.

Health researchers in Oregon and Minnesota have discovered that once-rare sapovirus may be more common than thought and, worse, on the rise, particularly in nursing homes and long-term care centers.

“It’s an up-and-coming bug,” said Lore Elizabeth Lee, an Oregon public health epidemiologist and author of a new study on sapovirus in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

A review of2,161 gastrointestinal outbreaks in the two states yielded some surprising results. Sure, more than half of the outbreaks were caused by norovirus, and nearly a quarter were caused by bacteria, parasites or other agents, as expected.

But among 142 non-norovirus outbreaks that remained a mystery, scientists tested samples from 93 and found that nearly a quarter were caused by the new culprit,sapovirus, Lee said.

“It means we have another virus circulating that we need to study,” she explained.

The virus operates about the same as norovirus, mostly causing diarrhea, vomiting and, in some cases, fever. It appears to spread in the same ways: person-to-person, on surfaces and through food.

Of the 21 sapovirus outbreaks detected by Lee and her colleagues, 66 percent occurred in long-term care centers, another 10 percent occurred in schools and the rest occurred in familiar norovirus venues: a prison, a large psychiatric hospital, a restaurant and a cruise ship.

That means that sapovirus, once regarded as a sporadic illness in children, may be spreading its gastrointestinal misery in a similar pattern as norovirus, including in nursing homes and beyond. “It’s probably circulating in a lot of other settings as well,” Lee said.

Part of the same family of Caliciviridae viruses, norovirus and sapovirus are separate bugs. Sapovirus was first detected in 1977 at a home for infants in Sapporo, Japan, where it got its name.

It appeared mostly to lie low for a quarter-century, until 2002, when scientists developed a new test for the virus and suddenly found it showing up in more places. “The reason we’re seeing it now is we’re actively testing for it,” Lee said.

All of that is important because of the potential harm of a gut bug like this. Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne disease outbreaks in the United States, and a similar bug could be responsible for more of those illnesses as well.

In most people, it’s a miserable but brief bout. But in children, the elderly or people with weakened immune systems, it can lead to hospitalization or even death.

Being able to identify the virus behind disabling outbreaks is important, Lee said.

Minnesota is testing for sapovirus and Oregon will soon begin, Lee said, with other states following in the future, perhaps.

In the meantime, the same steps that prevent norovirus will knock down sapovirus as well. That means good hand hygiene, careful food preparation and scrupulous attention to environmental cleanliness.

“Bleach,” said Lee. “Strong bleach.”

Related stories:

'Pink slime' in your meat? Labels to tell you

FDA officials probe pet jerky treats in China

100 may now be sick from salmonella in sushi

Nothing may be certain but death and taxes, but new research warns that a higher risk of fatal car crashes on the day of the IRS deadline might be one way the two get combined.

Matt Rourke / AP file

A taxpayer hands off his return at a drive-up postal drop in 2006. New research suggests that the risk of fatal car crashes jumps by 6 percent on the day of the IRS deadline.

More people die in auto accidents on income tax day in the U.S. than on other comparable days -- about 13 more per day, in fact, according to Canadian researchers who studied 30 years of data.

The pressure of the looming Internal Revenue Service tax deadline -- and the fact that about 20 percent of all taxpayers wait until the last minute to file -- may contribute to a 6 percent higher risk of dying as a driver, passenger or even a pedestrian on tax day, which this year is next Tuesday, April 17.

“All of a sudden there’s one source of stress that’s onerous, synchronized, repeated and applies to a huge community,” said Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier, an internist and researcher at the University of Toronto known for reporting the risk of auto crash deaths tied to cell phones, the Super Bowl and U.S. election days, among other topics.

In the new study, Redelmeier and his colleague, Christopher B. Yarnell, both of Sunnybrook Research Institute, reviewed U.S. tax and traffic fatality data from 1980 to 2009.

No question, tax time is stressful for many of those who file 141 million individual returns, according to IRS figures. Elaine Smith, a “master tax adviser” for H&R Block, a leading tax preparation firm, says there’s no shortage of tense taxpayers in early April.

“I just met this morning with two very frantic people,” she said Monday. “My schedule is packed the rest of the day with frantic people.”

The most pressure comes from simply putting off the chore until the last minute, Smith says. Other folks are frazzled because of changes in their tax situation -- a new house, retirement, a child leaves home.

“They’ve always been getting a refund and they’re afraid this year that they’re going to owe,” she said.

Apparently, that stress translates into more traffic accidents, according to Redelmeier’s research, published in a research letter in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

His team compared traffic deaths on 30 tax days with fatal accidents on control days in the same years, both one week before and one week after the IRS deadline. Of some 19,541 crashes, there were 404 deaths during the three decades.

“We indirectly minimize for differences in gas prices, vehicle technology, prevailing laws, health care access and other confounding contributors,” Redelmeier explained.

They found that there were 213 fatal crashes on the average control days -- but 226 crashes on tax days.

What’s more, Redelmeier says that although the data focused on deaths associated with the higher risk, the fallout likely extends to non-fatal accidents and property damage as well.

“The average crash causes about $8,000 worth of damage,” Redelmeier said. “The 6 percent increase in risk would amount to about $40 million in societal costs due solely to the surge of crashes on tax day.”

That’s equal to the average tax burden of about 5,000 Americans, he added.

The study found that the higher risk was most apparent during the past two decades and in people younger than 65. While one might have expected the advent of electronic filing to lower the risk in recent years because taxpayers didn’t have to drive to the post office to mail returns, that didn’t happen, Redelmeier said.

“Electronic filing is not making this go away,” he said. “And we don’t think it’s due to increased amounts of driving.”

Instead, the researchers speculate that it’s the overall stress of the day, perhaps combined with lack of sleep and what he called “less tolerance of hassles.”

“Stressful deadlines lead to driver distraction and human error,” he said.

A spokesman for the IRS says the agency is sympathetic to the plight of harried taxpayers and offers tools and advice on a federal website to help.

“We do everything we can to make it less stressful,” said Anthony Burke, an agency spokesman.

Still, that’s small comfort, even for people who’ve already filed their 1040s. Redelmeier notes that it’s hard to escape the extra risk of fatal crashes. Even if you’re not worked up over taxes, the guy in the next lane might be.

The solution, he offered, is for all harried taxpayers to take a deep breath before they hit the road on April 17.

Buckle seatbelts, slow down, pay attention to driving -- not to distracting thoughts about how much you might owe Uncle Sam.

“Almost all of these fatalities could have been prevented with a small change in driver behavior,” Redelmeier said. “There is no way to avoid stress, but there are countless ways to make a stressful situation worse.”

Related stories:

All that stress is shrinking your brain, study finds

Suicide risk spikes in the week after cancer diagnosis

Drinking and driving increases risk for young women, study finds

Last June 19, four people died in a brutal massacre in a drugstore on Long Island. After getting a 911 emergency call, Suffolk County homicide detectives found four people shot dead at Haven Drugs in Medford, 60 miles east of New York City. Addiction to prescription painkillers played a key role in this horrible event. 

Now the family of one of those killed is calling the doctors who prescribed drugs for the convicted murderer to account. Antonia Mejia, mother of the youngest victim, 17-year-old Jennifer Mejia, has filed a lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of Stan Li, Eric Jacobson and Mark Kaufman, all doctors who allegedly wrote pain med prescriptions for the killer.

She is right to pursue this novel legal strategy.

Jennifer, who worked at the store, pharmacist Raymond Ferguson, 45, and two customers, Jaime Taccetta, 33, and Bryon Sheffield, 71, were shot dead by David Laffer.  He walked into the drug store last Father’s Day, minutes after it opened, and rapidly shot the pharmacist, Jennifer and the two customers at close range. He then filled up a backpack with 10,000 prescription painkillers and fled. All of this was caught on the store’s video recorder.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said, “In all my law enforcement experience and in the experience of the police that are involved in this investigation, this is one of the most heinous, brutal crimes we have ever encountered.”

Laffer was quickly caught and convicted.  It became clear during his trial that he had a long history of addiction to painkillers and an equally long history of doctors prescribing drugs to him.

The abuse of pain medication in the U.S. is out of control. While illegal street drug use has declined, abuse of prescription medications, especially painkillers, has been increasing. Emergency department visits for nonmedical use of opioid analgesics climbed by 111 percent between 2004 and 2008, and jumped nearly 30 percent between 2007 and 2008 alone, according to a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

Who is partly to blame for this mess? Certainly some doctors should be. The key source of painkiller abuse is the medical establishment. A few bad apples prescribe painkillers to anyone who comes in the door, often giving them multiple prescriptions.

Jennifer’s mother has no doubt about the role played by doctors in feeding the drug habit of Laffer. She told the Long Island newspaper Newsday, "The main reason we came to this point [filing a lawsuit] is because the doctors fed his [Laffer's] addiction -- they know what they are creating when they write these prescriptions."

There will be an impassioned defense by the doctors named in the lawsuit. It may turn out that they did nothing wrong in prescribing for Laffer. But there are reports of docs who write scripts for cash for pain pill addicts, though those are, admittedly, rare. It may also turn out that Laffer is partly a creation of bad medicine.

Not so long ago, the world focused in on the role played by Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after giving Jackson the dangerous and powerful anesthetic propofol to help him sleep. 

It is long past time to move past the odd celebrity physician case and hold doctors accountable for the damage they do in misprescribing far less exotic drugs than propofol. 

If we can all spend so much time and energy worrying about and hoping for justice for the Conrad Murrays of the world, shouldn’t we create a public policy and legal doctrine that hold accountable those doctors who prescribe these potent painkillers indiscriminately?

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

Related stories:

Cheney too old for transplant? Bioethicist weighs in

In praise of germs: Why common bugs are good for kids

Regulate sugar like cigarettes and booze? Maybe

By Robert Bazell
Chief Science and Medical Correspondent
NBC News

Dental X-rays could double the risk for the most common brain tumor, according to a study released Tuesday from scientists and doctors at Yale, Harvard and other prestigious institutions published in Cancer, a scientific journal of the American Cancer Society.

It sounds frightening -- and there is no question it invokes a serious warning -- but even those who carried out the research urge people not to overreact. 

"Our take home message is don’t panic. Don’t stop going to the dentist," said the lead author of the study Dr. Elizabeth Claus, a neurological surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Yale School of Public Health.

But people "should have a conversation with their dentist" about the need to use X-rays as little as possible to keep teeth healthy, Claus says.  That’s a conclusion few would dispute, with or without the new study.

Getty Images

Ask your dentist to use X-rays as little as possible.

The tumor studied is meningioma, a type that is usually not malignant, meaning it can grow but not spread. To be sure, it can cause severe problems in some patients. But people with meningiomas often live long, healthy lives with no treatment, dying of some other cause. Doctors diagnose about 5,000 cases a year in the United States, about three times as often in women as in men.

Significantly, the study is the weakest type of epidemiology, a so-called “case control” study. The researchers interviewed 1,433 people diagnosed with meningioma and compared them with 1,350 people with no such diagnosis. The two groups were matched for age, gender, race, income and places of residence. In a tiny portion of the cases the researchers actually looked at dental records.  But, most often, they asked the study subjects – whose average age was 57 -- to recall their history of dental X-rays going back to childhood.

The increased tumor risk increased in people who reported receiving bitewing exams, which use X-ray film held in place by a tab between the teeth, on a yearly or more frequent basis. There was also a greater risk from the panorex dental exam which uses an x-ray outside the mouth to get an image of all the teeth. Adults who had this type of dental X-ray when they were younger than 10 years had a five times greater risk of developing meningioma.

The well-known pitfall of case control studies is “recall bias.” People with a tumor or any other unwanted health outcome are far more likely to remember that they had X-rays, air pollution or pesticide exposure, cell phone use or anything else that might be suspected of causing the problem.

Dr. Otis W. Brawley, scientific director of the American Cancer Society, told me “the strongest thing you can say about this study is that there is a suggestion of a link between dental X-rays and meningioma.”

In  guidelines published in 2006, the American Dental Association declared X-rays should not be used for "detecting disease before clinical examination." If the dentist thinks X-rays are warranted, they should be administrated with "the ALARA Principle (As Low as Reasonably Achievable) to minimize the patient’s exposure," the guidelines say.

It is also comforting that the dose for most dental X-rays has dropped hundred of times in recent decades.

"Our study," Claus told me, "refers to exposures in the past rather than exposures that people are receiving in this day and age."

Still, the ALARA principle is wise advice for all medical and dental procedures that submit a patient to radiation. This latest study is yet another reason why.

 Robert Bazell is NBC's chief science and medical correspondent. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter @RobertBazellNBC

 More from Robert Bazell:

"False positive" mammogram can signal future cancer

Study: Most early cancer research is wrong

Regular prostate screening can reduce deaths. Now what?

Women who are obese when pregnant may have a higher risk of having a baby with autism, a new study indicates.

Researchers found that the risk of autism increased by nearly 70 percent when moms were obese during their pregnancies, while the risk of a having a baby with some other neurodevelopmental disorder doubled, according to the study published early online Monday in Pediatrics.

Click here to read the study.

Milder versions of autism, such as Asperger's syndrome and related conditions, form a "spectrum" of autism-related disorders. In addition, impairments in any one of the autism-related cognitive skill areas are considered developmental delays.

To take a closer look at the impact of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure during pregnancy, the researchers compared medical histories of 315 typically developing children to those of 517 children with autism and 172 children with developmental disorders.

Moms with diabetes were slightly more likely to have a baby with autism, but the numbers weren’t large enough for the researchers to be sure that the association wasn’t just by chance. The association between a mom’s diabetes and some other neurodevelopmental disorder was stronger. In fact, diabetic moms were more than twice as likely to have a child later diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Researchers have been looking for preventable factors that contribute to the rise in the number of children with autism,  said Dr. Andrew W. Zimmerman, director of clinical trials at the Lurie Center for Autism at the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children who is also on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  “It’s very suggestive that this might be a real factor,” Zimmerman said.

That doesn’t mean that every obese woman is going to have a child with autism, he added. “But it’s one of the many things that goes into increasing the risk.”

Zimmerman would like to see more research on the topic. “Hopefully a larger one yet will be able to show what the effect of gestational diabetes is,” he said. “That’s a bigger question since a lot of women who don’t have any sign of diabetes develop gestational diabetes.”

It's unclear whether diabetes or obesity is actually impacting the growth of the fetus, but it’s always possible that these women have something else in common, said the study’s lead author Paula Krakowiak, a Ph. D. candidate at the University of California, Davis. But, said Krakowiak, “we’re seeing a rise in the rates of obesity and diabetes as well as a rise in autism.”

Krakowiak and her colleagues don’t yet know how obesity and diabetes might impact babies’ brain development, but they have some theories.

A possible culprit is the inflammatory proteins produced by the fat cells of an obese mom. “These same proteins are involved in the normal development of the brain,” Krakowiak said. “When the level of those immunological markers is higher or lower than the normal range it might affect how the brain develops in an adverse way. And at least one type has been shown to be able to cross over the placenta to the fetus.”

It’s also possible that the higher levels of blood glucose in obese and diabetic women could have a negative impact on the developing brain, since glucose can also cross over to the fetus, Krakowiak said. High levels of glucose could cause the baby to produce more insulin and also to grow faster, she added.

“When they’re growing at a faster rate, they require more oxygen and if the mom doesn’t provide enough oxygen then that could also cause some problems with brain development,” Krakowiak said.

Typically, a woman is considered obese when she's about 35 pounds overweight or more, or has a body-mass index of 25, experts say.

Krakowiak and her colleagues didn’t have information on inflammatory markers or insulin resistance in the moms in this study. That’s a subject for future research, she said.

Until researchers know more, obese moms might want to take the new findings as another reason to lose weight,  Krakowiak said.

“That’s the safest message,” she added. “It doesn’t hurt anybody to lose weight and it comes with other benefits to the mom. So losing weight not only will help you, but it also might potentially help your child to be healthier.”

Reuters contributed to this report

More from Vitals:

Outgrowing autism? Study looks at why some kids 'bloom'

Families of kids with autism earn less

Twins with autism: Parents wonder, did it have to happen?

Experts: Wide 'autism spectrum' may explain diagnosis surge

Amy Sancetta / AP

Mirlande Wilson may or may not have a Mega Millions lottery ticket entitling her to a piece of a $656 million dollar-pie, but there's no question she has the country pie-eyed, waiting to find out what's behind her ever-evolving story.

The 37-year-old mother of seven claims the winning ticket was purchased at a 7-Eleven store in Baltimore, after which she hid it at the McDonald's where she works. Now, Wilson says the ticket has been "misplaced"; meanwhile, an anonymous person in Kansas has just claimed a share of the prize.

While many have raised doubts about the veracity of Wilson's tale, one burning question stands out: Why would anyone lie about something so huge?

There's a tremendous amount of uncertainty regarding this particular story, says Monroe Friedman, emeritus professor of psychology at Eastern Michigan University currently living in Santa Monica, and we don't know that she's lying -- but, in general, people get caught up in escalating lies for a variety of reasons, he explains.

"It could be situational," he says. "You've had a down day or a down year. You've lost your job or your mate. For various reasons, you feel the need for attention."

But you don't need a bad day or a bad year to get caught up in a whopper, he says.

"Others just have a neediness," he says. "They feel unfulfilled, but it's been going on for a long time. It's more enduring. It's not a spur of the moment thing."

As an example, Friedman points to the many people who contact police departments to take credit for crimes they haven't committed.

"People often seek attention, and publicity and society has machinery to give them attention," he says. "Every time a murder occurs, people call the police and say they're the murderers. And they do this for a variety of reasons -- because they feel guilty or ashamed or needy or they're seeking attention."

One recent case of attention-seeking involves Tania Head, who claimed she escaped the South Tower on 9/11 (and lost her fiance in the North Tower), but whose story turned out to be a complete fabrication.

A new book and documentary entitled "The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception" looks at Head's escalating lie and the reasons behind it.

“I think it’s about acceptance," co-author Robin Gaby Fisher told Matt Lauer on TODAY Thursday. "Why else would she do it? When she was growing up she had a real craving, a real need for attention. And that just got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. She wanted celebrity.”

Friedman, an expert on cons, scams and swindles, points out that some situations are much more than just lies that have gotten out of control. Case in point: the story of the Balloon Boy.

"That was more of a hoax," says Friedman. "It goes beyond a lie. The balloon boy story required elaborate planning. Police will talk about short cons and long cons and the balloon boy would be a long con."

Could Mirlande Wilson's mysteriously missing lottery ticket be part of a con?

"If it is a con, it could be an opportunity for attention to be showered on her by the news media and may be an opportunity for her to receive attention, which might translate into financial benefit," he says. "But it's impossible to say. All we can do is point to possibilities and I don't like to point to the most unkind possibility."
 
Related:

Mega Millions winner in Kansas claims share of prize -- but will remain anonymous
 
 
 

Rick Santorum's daughter Bella was born with Trisomy 18, a chromosomal disorder.

At age 3, Rick Santorum’s daughter Bella, who has been hospitalized for the second time during his presidential campaign, has outlived the majority of children born with Trisomy 18, a relatively common chromosomal defect that occurs in one out of every 3,000 to 5,000 live births and is three times more common in girls than boys.

Children with Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards syndrome, have three copies of chromosome 18, instead of the normal two, in their cells. Many pregnancies with affected fetuses miscarry, and half of all affected babies who are carried to term will be stillborn, according to the Trisomy 18 Foundation. Most cases aren’t inherited but occur as a random error in cell division during the formation of eggs and sperm, according to the National Library of Medicine.

About 5 percent to 10 percent of children with Trisomy 18 survive the first year of life, and they often have severe intellectual disability, according to the library, part of the National Institutes of Health.

“They usually die from inability to breathe,” says Dr. Larry Fenton, director of pediatric palliative care at Sanford Children’s Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D. “The mechanism of the brain telling the lungs to expand frequently is defective.”

Still, “while the developmental disability in children with Trisomy 18 … is significant, it is important to recognize that children do advance to some degree in their milestones,” Dr. John Carey, a pediatric geneticist at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, writes on the Trisomy 18 Foundation’s website. “They can interact with their families, smile and acquire some skills, such as rolling over, self-feeding, etc., if they survive infancy.”

The reason for Bella's current hospitalization hasn't been released.

"Rick and his wife Karen have taken their daughter Bella to the hospital. The family requests prayers and privacy as Bella works her way to recovery," Santorum Communications Director Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

In January, she was rushed to a hospital in Virginia when she developed double pneumonia.

A small number of children with Trisomy 18, usually girls, live into their 20s and 30s, according to the foundation. However, the organization says, they have “significant developmental delays that do not allow them to live independently without assisted caregiving.”

Those who do survive beyond their first year usually can’t talk or walk and need some sort of a feeding tube in order to get nourishment, Fenton says. Although they are able to breathe, they’re likely to die eventually of pneumonia or other infections, he says. Largely it’s because they spend a lot of time in bed. "They don’t do the kinds of things that help clear the lungs, so they are much more vulnerable to infections.”

Recently, Fenton says, he met a 30-year-old woman with Trisomy 18, the oldest person he’d ever met with the disorder. “I would have to say she was profoundly disabled on the one hand and beautiful on the other. She was impeccably dressed. She had makeup on. She clearly knew her mom and dad and could reach out to them.”

Santorum's ailing daughter taken to the hospital

Featurepics.com

At least 100 people are reported ill in an outbreak of salmonella Bareilly that may be tied to sushi or other raw seafood.

At least 100 people have now been sickened by an outbreak of salmonella possibly linked to sushi, government health officials said Friday. Nearly a quarter of them are from New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ten people have been hospitalized in the outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella Bareilly that has affected victims in 19 states and the District of Columbia. No deaths have been reported.

Victims have ranged in age from 4 to 78, and include people who reported illness between Jan. 28 and March 23. Illnesses that occurred after March 8 might not be known because of the lag time between when people get sick and when they report it.

No food source has been positively identified, a CDC report said. However, initial interviews with 51 sick people show that 69 percent ate sushi, sashimi or similar foods in the week before they became ill. That compares with only about 5 percent of people in a control group who ate sushi, sashimi or ceviche made with raw fish or shellfish in the week before being interviewed.

The investigation into specific types of sushi that may be implicated is ongoing. An internal memo from the Food and Drug Administration inadvertently released earlier this week suggested that spicy tuna roll sushi was “highly suspect.”

The largest number of illnesses has been reported in New York, where 23 people were sickened.

Others include 10 in Maryland; nine in Illinois and Wisconsin; seven in New Jersey; five in Virginia and Connecticut; four each inGeorgia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island; three in South Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvania; two each in Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina and the District of Columbia; and one each in Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi.

Salmonella Bareilly is a rare strain sometimes associated with bean sprouts. Salmonella infections can cause nausea, vomiting, cramping, fever, chills and headache. Symptoms usually last four to seven days and typically resolve on their own. In some cases, however, patients have to be hospitalized.

Are there foods you avoid for fear of getting sick? Tell us on Facebook.

Related story:

66 sickened in salmonella outbreak linked to turtles

By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Tim Boyle / Getty Images file

As cases of a disease decrease, people can start believing the risk from the vaccine is more than the threat of disease.

Vaccine scares, which lead portions of the population to forgo vaccination, could become more common as more diseases are eradicated, researchers say.

That's because, as cases of a disease decrease, people become complacent about their risk, and the threat of vaccines — whether imagined or real — seems greater than the threat of disease, said Chris Bauch, a professor in the department of mathematics and statistics at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

"High vaccine coverage is inherently unstable," Bauch said. Unless vaccination is mandatory, "I think we'll see more of this problem in the future," he said, referring to vaccine scares.

Vaccine scares are a problem because, when vaccination rates drop, preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough can make a comeback. However, there may be ways to soften the blow of these scares.

Bauch and colleagues have constructed a mathematical model to predict the course of vaccine scares, including when they will peak and how long they will last.

Such models could one day be used to test the effectiveness of public health campaigns that aim to increase vaccination rates, Bauch said. For instance, the model could determine what type of campaign will work best: one that emphasizes the safety of the vaccine, or the danger of the disease, Bauch said.

To test their model, Bauch and colleagues used real data from two vaccine scares in the United Kingdom — the whooping cough vaccine scare in the 1970s and the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine scare in the 1990s.

The researchers found their model could explain the rise and fall of vaccine coverage, and could also predict the vaccine scare outcomes.

One factor crucial to the success of the model was the inclusion of social learning, meaning the way in which people learn vaccinating behaviors from one another, Bauch said.

The model explained why it took four to five years after the start of the vaccine scares for vaccine coverage to reach its minimum. If threat of disease and the perceived threat of vaccines were the only factors that played into vaccination rates, one would expect vaccine coverage to dip significantly after people heard news reports questioning the safety of the vaccines.

However, because social learning plays a role, this was not the case. Declines in vaccine coverage take time because non-vaccinating behaviors have to "spread" from parent to parent, Bauch said.

The study will be published in the April issue of the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

More from MyHealthNewsDaily:

5 Dangerous Vaccination Myths

Beyond Vaccines: 5 Things that Might Really Cause Autism

Vaccines and Autism Timeline: How the Truth Unfolded

Karen Rowan
MyHealthNewsDaily

The best way for parents to reduce the amount of soft drinks their young children drink is to not serve it with meals, a new study suggests.

The findings from researchers in Belgium showed that children from higher-income families drank less than half — about 42 percent — as much soda as children from lower-income families. However, the vast majority of the difference between the income groups could be explained by three parenting practices: not offering soda at mealtimes, not letting kids drink soda whenever they want, and not keeping soda in the house, according to the study.

"Parents have a great influence through the food they make available and accessible to the child, their own nutritional behavior and by child-feeding practices," the researchers wrote in their study, published online April 1 in the journal Appetite.

Reducing the amount of soda kids drink is important, the researchers say, because sugary beverages have been linked with obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

What works, what doesn't
Researchers based their findings on questionnaires completed by 1,639 parents of children ages 2  to 7.

The practice of not offering soda at mealtimes explained about half of the difference in soda consumption seen between the high- and low-income families, according to the study. Not letting kids drink soda whenever they want explained about a third of the difference, and not having soda in the home explained 16 percent of the difference, according to the study.

"It makes sense that the home environment and home 'policies' or limits related to soft drinks will have the biggest impact," on soda consumption, said Kate Dickin, a nutritional science research at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. "Our behavior is very strongly influenced by our environments," Dickin said.

The study also revealed that telling children of this age that soda is unhealthy, and refraining from drinking soft drinks in front of them, are unlikely to make a difference.

"Although modeling and explaining why foods are unhealthy can be important, not having any soda in the house or on the table is clearly the most effective way to prevent consumption," Dickin said. If the soda is right there, it’s a lot harder to for parents — especially tired, stressed or distracted parents — to say "no," she said.

The study was limited in that it was conducted with a specific group of parents, and relied on their reports of their own behaviors and how much soda their kids drank.

How to make healthy choices appealing to kids
Dickin said it's helpful when parents understand how to create a home environment that offers kids healthy choices.

"Young kids respond well to simple ways to make a healthy beverage seem special — a pretty cup, a citrus slice, or a drinking straw. Healthy eating is enjoyable and can be presented that way — to parents and to children," she said. "Framing it in terms of restriction and deprivation gets us nowhere."

Dickin said that by looking only at soft drink consumption, the study might have missed part of the picture of what kids are drinking. "Replacing soda with other sugar-sweetened beverages doesn’t help, so it would have been useful to know about all sweetened drinks."

Still, "it’s great to have more evidence of the importance of shaping the home environment as a means for parents to influence child behaviors," Dickin said. Cornell offers an education program for lower-income families focused on learning to make healthier choices.

"We hear back from a lot of parents that these approaches are really effective," Dickin said.

4 Tips for Kicking Your Soda Habit

5 Experts Answer: Is Diet Soda Bad for You?

8 Tips for Fighting Sugar Cravings

By Joyce Ho
NBC News

Whooping cough has resurfaced this year at an alarming rate. In Washington State alone 640 cases have been reported and confirmed as of March 31st compared to 94 cases in the same period of time. Other cases have been reported in Oregon, Vermont, and certain areas of California.

Experts warn that lack of vaccinations and booster shots are behind this new epidemic. Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself from this nasty infection.

What is whooping cough?

Whooping cough is an airway infection caused by the Bordetella pertussis bacteria that results in significant illness and risk of death in children, especially those younger than one year old. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 20 to 40 million cases of whooping cough in the world per year, with 90 percent of those cases occurring in developing countries. In 2010, there were 27,550 reported cases of pertussis in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

What are the complications associated with whooping cough?

Infants less than six months of age are at highest risk for developing severe complications from pertussis. Pneumonia, rib fracture or hernias from violent coughing, seizures, and fainting can all arise from whooping cough. Because infants have less developed immune systems, these complications from pertussis can be life-threatening.

How is whooping cough spread?

Whooping cough is spread through droplets in the air during coughing or sneezing. The bacteria is breathed in through the nose and then travels throughout the airways. This disease is highly contagious.

What are the symptoms of whooping cough?

The word “pertussis” means “violent cough,” and that is the most striking symptom of this infection. The uncontrollable coughing spasms produce a distinctive “whooping” sound when patients try to breathe, and can lead to vomiting, loss of consciousness, and choking. Whooping cough begins with symptoms similar to the common cold – fever and runny nose. About a week later, patients start experiencing deep and violent coughing spells that make it hard to breathe. This cough usually lasts one to six weeks, but may persist up to 10 weeks.  

Click here to hear what whooping cough sounds like.

How do I protect myself against whooping cough?

The DTaP vaccine is a recommended childhood immunization that is given to children at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 15-18 months, and 4-6 years. The vaccine combination not only protects against whooping cough but also diphtheria and tetanus, which are other bacterial infections with severe health risks for patients. Because immunity against this bug goes down over time, booster shots are recommended in people ages 11-64. For more information visit the CDC's website.

What do I do if I have it?

Treatment includes antibiotics such as erythromycin if the infection is caught early enough. Babies with whooping cough are usually treated in the hospital because they are at higher risk for severe complications.

To prevent yourself from spreading whooping cough to others, wear a face mask or cover your mouth when coughing. Do not go near babies and young children because they are very susceptible to the disease. Make sure everyone in your household is vaccinated and protected against pertussis.

For more information, visit:

NIH: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002528/

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/

 By Robert Bazell
Chief Science and Medical Correspondent
NBC News

Women who have received a “false positive” on a mammogram may have new cause for worry, according to a study released Thursday.

A false positive occurs when a radiologist detects an abnormality in a mammogram – that is, there is some apparent growth that is checked out, usually with a needle biopsy -- but it is determined there is no cancer. The research from the University of Copenhagen found that women who have been given additional testing because of a false positive run a 67 percent greater risk of a breast cancer diagnosis in the future.  Experts say the result from the records of 58,000 women in Denmark is not cause for alarm.  But it is a warning for those who have gotten a false positive to be more vigilant.

False positives may just be an artifact that appears on the mammogram, but they also include abnormally growing cells classified as atypia, papilloma or lobular carcinoma in situ. These are not cancer and they don’t require treatment, but women with these growths “have a 25 to 33 percent lifetime chance of developing breast cancer versus 11 percent in the general population,”according to Dr. David Dershaw, head of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.  So, any woman who has a false positive should consider a conversation with her doctor about whether she needs more frequent checkups or screening with higher resolution technology such as MRI.

There were further questions about mammograms in a large study released Monday, where researchers followed the records of almost 40,000 women in Norway.  Because that country phased in regular mammography from 1996 to 2005, the researchers were able to look at the effects before and after regular screening.  The study leaves no doubt that the screening is saving lives.  But it found that between 15 and 25 percent of the women diagnosed with breast cancer would have lived to die of some other cause and thus did not need treatment.

Such “overdiagnosis,” as the study authors including some the Harvard School of Public Health characterize it, is inevitable with any cancer screening test. Some cancers can kill.  Others never do.  But as Dershaw puts it “until it is possible to differentiate which are bad and which are not, all need to be treated.”

The extent and potential harm of overdiagnosis make up almost all of the arguments about cancer screening tests.  For some tests such as colonoscopies or pap tests the removal of abnormal growths that could become cancer subjects the patient to relatively little risk or discomfort.  The PSA screening test for prostate leads so many men to harsh treatments they often do not need that many question its usefulness.

Most experts believe the overdiagnosis from mammography – especially for women 50 and older— is well worth it for the lives saved.

But one of the reasons why there is such continuing debate about the screening test is that it is far from ideal.  Not only does it find cancers that will never be dangerous it can often miss ones that go on to be life threatening. 

Many medical and activists groups have pushed hard to get more women screened with mammography.  That is a noble goal.  But it is a mistake to think that is the solution to the great public health threat of breast cancer

Some of the most hopeful breast cancer research is a search for a blood test or other reliable method of detecting breast cancer early, especially the life threatening forms.  MRIs find more but also are so expensive and find so many false, that most doctors say they should be reserved for women at very high risk.

Neither study is an argument for women to avoid regular mammograms. Until scientists achieve the goal of finding a more reliable and cost effective test, it is the best breast cancer screening tool available.  

Robert Bazell is NBC's chief science and medical correspondent. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter @RobertBazellNBC

More from Robert Bazell:

Study: Most early cancer research is wrong

Regular prostate screening can reduce deaths. Now what?

Seth Perlman / AP

A San Francisco judge has dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit that sought to stop McDonald's Corp. from using toys to market its meals to children in California.

Children in California will still be able to get toys with their Happy Meals.

A San Francisco judge has dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit that sought to stop McDonald's Corp. from using toys to market its meals to children in the Golden State. The suit had been filed in late 2010 by Monet Parham, a California mother of two, and The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The suit had claimed that the world's biggest hamburger chain was violating consumer protection laws and exploiting children's vulnerability by using toys to lure them to eat nutritionally unbalanced meals that can lead to obesity. The lawsuit did not seek damages.

McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said that the lawsuit was without merit and detracted from "the important issue of children's health and nutrition."

"We are proud of our Happy Meals and will vigorously defend our brand, our reputation and our food," Proud said in the statement. "We stand on our 30-year track record of providing a fun experience for kids and families at McDonald's."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a statement that it will discuss with Parham whether to appeal the case. The group called the use of toys to market food a "predatory practice that undermines parents, causes rifts in families and harms kids' health."

The suit, filed in the county of San Francisco, was dismissed by Judge Richard Kramer on Wednesday.

Recent use of the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera for at least a year was associated with a doubling of young women’s breast cancer risk, a new study has found.

However, users’ breast cancer risk dropped to that of non-users within several months of stopping Depo-Provera injections, researchers report in the journal Cancer Research.

Depo-Provera, injected every three months, was approved as a contraceptive in the United States 20 years ago. Convenient, highly effective and relatively inexpensive, Depo-Provera is used by about 1.2 million U.S. women, or 3.2 percent of those who practice contraception, according to the latest data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and education organization that focuses on reproductive health. 

The injectable birth control method is the only contraceptive in the United States that contains the same progestin, or synthetic hormone, as Prempro, the postmenopausal hormone therapy pill. A landmark government study called the Women’s Health Initiative found that Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin, increased women’s breast cancer risk by 24 percent, while Premarin, which contains only estrogen, did not increase risk.  

‘’Our hypothesis going into this study was that we did expect to see an increased risk of breast cancer associated with Depo-Provera,” says Dr. Christopher Li, a breast cancer epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and lead author of the new study.

Data on the relationship between Depo-Provera and breast cancer risk are limited, the researchers write. Li and his coauthors say theirs is the first large-scale U.S. study specifically designed to evaluate the relationship. Results from similar studies conducted in other countries have been mixed, they write.

Li’s team recruited 1,028 women who’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and 919 women who had not. All the women were 20 to 44 years of age and lived in the Seattle area. About 3 percent had used Depo-Provera within the last five years.

Compared to women who had never used Depo-Provera, those who had received injections within the previous five years were 2.2 times more likely to have been diagnosed with breast cancer, the scientists found. Family history, obesity, age and pregnancy history didn’t seem to make a difference.

Age is the main risk factor for breast cancer, so while a doubling of risk might sound alarming, Li emphasizes that the actual number of breast cancer cases in women in their 20s and 30s is very low.

“Breast cancer among young women is still a rare disease,” he says. According to the National Cancer Institute, women in their 30s have a 1 in 233 chance of being diagnosed with the disease. By comparison, the odds of being diagnosed with breast cancer for women in their 60s is 1 in 29.

“However,” Li and his coauthors write, “there are numerous contraceptive options, and so further clarifying the benefits and risks associated with each option is important as women consider what choices might be best for them.”

Joan Campion, spokewoman of Pfizer, the maker of Depo-Provera, said, "As part of the Depo-Provera label, physicians are already advised on benefits and risks of Depo-Provera, including the risk of breast cancer. Pfizer currently believes that changes to benefits and risk profile are not warranted as a result of this observational study."

Related: 

• Mammograms tied to overdiagnosis of breast cancer
• Childbirth takes 2 hours longer than 50 years ago
• 5 things you need to know about the birth control mandate

American College of Prosthodontists

Denture experts say a daily scrub with a stiff brush is vital to removing potentially dangerous biofilms from false teeth. New research also shows that microwaving or soaking in a germicide rinse can disinfect dentures for up to a week.

Here’s some bad news for the estimated 20 million people in the U.S. who wear full or partial dentures: There’s a good chance your choppers are covered with thin layers of icky, sticky bacteria known as biofilms.

Worse, some of the biofilm germs may be bad bugs such as MRSA, or drug-resistant staphylococcus aureus bacteria, which can lurk on the dentures until they’re breathed into the lungs, where experts fear they may cause nasty, hard-to-treat infections.

Fortunately, a team of scientists in Brazil has come up with two simple solutions that seem to work: Zap your dentures in the microwave for three minutes, or soak them in a solution of 2 percent chlorhexidine gluconate, a germicidal mouthwash, for 10 minutes.

Either method is enough to disinfect dentures coated with the toughest MRSA biofilms for up to a week, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Dental Association. A third option, soaking the dentures in sodium hypochlorite, was effective only in the short term.

But the microwave approach, which zaps dentures with 650 watts, may be novel, suggest the authors, led by Karen Tereza Altieri, a dentist at the Araraquara Dental School at the Universidade Estadual Paulista in Sao Paulo.

“To our knowledge, we are the first investigators to report the effectiveness of this method in killing MRSA,” they write.

The study, which tested methods for eliminating MRSA on 36 dentures, is a small one. But some experts in the U.S. say they may recommend the methods to improve the oral hygiene of their patients.

“We do know there are links between the bacteria in the mouth and systemic effects throughout the body,” said Victoria A. Vickers, a San Antonio prosthodontist, a dentist who specializes in the repair and replacement of teeth.

Concern about biofilms on dentures is growing as researchers continue to identify links between oral bacteria and heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, and respiratory diseases, including aspiration pneumonia.

The idea, experts say, is that bacteria form self-sustaining microbial communities bound together by a kind of polymer matrix that adheres tightly to surfaces. The biofilms are much more difficult to remove than single bugs. The dentures act as kind of a reservoir for the biofilms, allowing bacteria within them to multiply and thrive.

“Bacteria and yeast can embed themselves in the porous material,” of the acrylic dentures, said Vickers, who is also the public relations and communications director for the American College of Prosthodontists.  

When people get cuts or lesions in their mouths, the bacteria from the biofilms can migrate into those tiny wounds, leading to systemic illness.

About a quarter of people in the U.S. between the ages of 65 and 74 have no teeth, and many of those people wear full or partial dentures, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The trouble, Vickers said, is that many denture-wearers simply don’t clean their false teeth – or their mouths -- well enough.

“There are still a lot of patients who have gone 30 years wearing their old dentures,” she said. “They don’t clean them, they don’t scrub them well. They say, ‘I take them and I rinse them in the shower.'”

Instead, denture-wearers should wash their false teeth daily, with a stiff brush and soap and water, not toothpaste.

“The mechanical action works better,” she said. “You really need to scrub.”

Follow with a mouthwash rinse to make them taste better and swab of the inside of the mouth to remove bacteria there. Also, she said, be sure to brush your tongue.

Zapping dentures in the microwave or submerging them in the 2 percent chlorhexadine gluconate is a good disinfectant step, she said. But dentures that contain metal shouldn’t go in the microwave and the harsh chemical rinse might be too strong for daily use.

“I would microwave it or use the solution after being ill or after being hospitalized,” she said. “As dentists, we do recommend when someone has a cold or flu to replace their toothbrush.”

Related stories:

Bottled water may boost kids' tooth decay, dentists say

Cheney too old for transplant? Bioethicist weighs in

A trio of young Texans are beating back the symptoms of their early-onset Parkinson's disease, reports NBC affiliate station WBAL. 

Gary Schmitz, who was diagnosed with the disease 10 years ago, says that the boxing workout, coupled with a new diet, have helped him to quiet his symptoms. “I have cut my medication in half of what I used to take last year,” he says.

Their trainer is Paulie Ayala, a former boxer and two-time world champion. "They're fighting two battles, I mean, they're learning to box and then they're fighting the Parkinson's," Ayala says. "They're gaining confidence (in) themselves."

The risk of suicide spikes in the weeks immediately following a cancer diagnosis, a new study shows. Patients were almost 13 times more likely to commit suicide in the first week after learning they had cancer than they were prior to the diagnosis. Twelve weeks after the diagnosis they were still nearly 5 times as likely to commit suicide as they had been before, according to the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The risk dropped after that, but in the year following the diagnosis it still remained 3 times higher  than it was for people without a cancer diagnosis, an international team of researchers reported.

The study also found that the risk of death from heart attack or stroke also climbed - to almost six-fold  - after a cancer diagnosis. That elevated risk falls in line with other recent research showing that severe stressors, like losing a loved one, can pump up the risk of death from heart attack and stroke, said study co-author Dr. Murray Mittleman, an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The researchers hope that the new study will alert family members and health professionals of the heightened risk of dire outcomes after patients learn they have cancer.

“Our study primarily points to the severe stress experienced by newly diagnosed cancer patients," said the study’s lead author, Dr. Fang Fang, a researcher in the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “We believe it is important that cancer patients, families and caregivers are aware of the stress-related health risks after a cancer diagnosis.”

Psychologist Anne Coscarelli agreed.

“This study ought to bring to people’s attention that cancer is an extremely stressful diagnosis and that it’s important to address the psychological and psychosocial needs of patients and their families when a diagnosis is made,” said Coscarelli, a clinical professor in the department of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the Simms/Mann-UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

More research might help doctors find a better way to deliver the bad news, Fang said.

In the meantime, doctors should do their best to figure out which patients might be most at risk, Coscarelli said.

While suicide might be of concern in patients with a pre-existing mental health issue, “you can’t use just that one single criteria to assess by,” Coscarelli said. “One thing I frequently tell doctors is that you can’t assess the risk unless you spend time understanding other stressors in a patient’s life. Those other stressors might be exacerbated by this.  A patient might be going through a divorce or have some other family-related problems. One’s ability to tolerate stress becomes reduced when you add in multiple stressors. “

Young people tend to be more distressed by a cancer diagnosis, Coscarelli said. “They may be in the midst of career issues or have problems with financial security,” she explained. “They might have young children at home so now they’re worrying not just about themselves, but also about the children.”

Patients should be encouraged to join support groups, Coscarelli said. “I think many people do not think they want to participate in a support group because they think it will be more difficult to be around others with cancer. But sometimes they find it’s helpful to be with others who are going through the same processes and they can talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.”

To learn whether a diagnosis upped the risk of suicide and death from heart attack or stroke, Fang and her colleagues pored through data on 6,073,240 Swedes who were aged 30 or older. They identified 534,154 patients who were given a diagnosis of cancer, including 95,787 with prostate cancer, 74,977 with breast cancer and 62,619 with colorectal cancer.

The researchers found a striking increase in the risk of suicide after comparing the recently diagnosed to those who had no cancer diagnosis. And that was even after accounting for factors such as gender, relationship status (cohabiting or not), socioeconomic status and educational level.

Overall, there were 786 suicides among the patients diagnosed with cancer, including 29 people who killed themselves in the first week after learning they had the disease.

There were 48,991 deaths due to heart attack or stroke among patients who received a cancer diagnosis. The highest risk was in the first week after diagnosis.

Ultimately, the new study should be a heads up to everyone around a person getting a cancer diagnosis, Mittleman said.

"Friends and family members need to realize how devastating it is to receive this kind of news and that they need to be there for the person,” Mittleman said. “And the message to the medical team is to be thoughtful about how the news is delivered and to make sure that there is some sort of social support in place.” 

More from Vitals:

Half of all cancer survivors die from other diseases

Army program aims to predict soldiers' resiliency

Federal health officials have sent inspectors into Chinese plants that make chicken jerky pet treats to investigate potential links to illnesses and deaths in hundreds of dogs in the United States, two lawmakers say.

Staffers for Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, confirmed Wednesday that Food and Drug Administration officials were conducting the inspections.

“Based on our ongoing discussions with the FDA, we are expecting important new information soon,” Vic Edgerton, a spokesman for Kucinich said in an email to msnbc.com.

It’s not clear exactly how many inspectors are involved or which plants the officials will visit as they attempt to solve the mystery behind at least 600 reports of illnesses including abrupt kidney failure after dogs have been fed chicken jerky treats made in China.

FDA officials declined to comment on the inspections.

Nati Harnik / AP file

A sample of lean finely textured beef, also known as 'pink slime,' is displayed at the Beef Products Inc. plant in South Sioux City, Neb., where the product is made. USDA officials say several meat producers have asked to indicate use of the product on package labels.

As consumers clamor for more transparency about the beef product dubbed “pink slime,” federal agriculture officials have agreed to allow several meat producers to list the stuff on package labels.

That means grocery shoppers soon could know whether some packages of ground beef contain the ammonia-treated meat that has been at the heart of a controversy that has shuttered plants, scuttled jobs and sparked uproar over the contents of the nation’s hamburgers.

Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety branch, said Tuesday he could not identify the firms that sought labeling changes, or even say how many were involved. He only confirmed that the agency has received voluntary requests from beef firms to change their labels to indicate it contains lean finely textured beef, or LFTB.

“We’ve determined that such requests will be approved,” Fillpot said.

At least one big beef maker, Cargill Inc., said that firm officials had requested the labeling changes, in part to address the groundswell of consumer concerns.   

“Voluntary labeling is one of the options we are looking at, although no final decision has been made to do this,” said Mike Martin, a Cargill spokesman. “We will also be working with our customers to gather their input to collectively reach mutually acceptable options.”

One advocate who helped launched the controversy said it’s about time consumers' wishes were considered.

“If the product had been labeled from the start, I doubt we’d see anything like the consumer backlash that the media has stirred up in the past few weeks,” said Bettina Elias Siegel, author of the blog “The Lunch Tray,” which helped force agriculture officials to allow schools to opt out of using the beef byproduct in school lunches.

At the heart of the controversy has been the use of an estimated 700 million to 800 million pounds of LFTB, which is added to about 10 billion pounds of ground beef consumed in the U.S. each year, according to the American Meat Institute.

It consists of lean beef carcass trimmings, which have been separated from fat and treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli O157 and salmonella, before being ground, compressed into blocks and quick-frozen. Cargill treats LFTB differently, using citric acid to change the acidity of the beef to make it inhospitable to pathogens.

Beef Products Inc., the South Dakota firm whose founder, Eldon Roth, created and patented the ammonia process, provided msnbc.com with records that they said showed that raising the pH of the beef from about 5.7, its natural level, to a pH of 8.5 reduces E. coli to undetectable levels.

But the product was dubbed “pink slime” in a 2002 email by a USDA microbiologist who found it distasteful. Concern was raised again recently when celebrity chef Jamie Oliver campaigned against the product being served in school lunches.

Combined with Siegel's quest to get the product out of schools, the current controversy led big U.S. supermarkets, including Safeway Inc., Kroger Co. and Supervalu Inc. to pledge to stop using the products.

It forced BPI to halt production at some of its plants last week, and this week forced another processor, AFA Foods, into bankruptcy.

That’s despite protests from governors of beef-producing states who say the LFTB has been maligned, and top food safety experts, who say that BPI’s product is safe.

“I think their process was validated pretty well,” said Gary Acuff, a microbiologist and director of the Center for Food Safety for Texas A&M college of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Some experts, such as Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a professor at the University of Minnesota, say LFTB may actually make ground beef a little better.

“If 750,000,000 pounds of relatively safe protein is going into hamburger, it’s got to beat having the same amount of raw product going in,” Osterholm said in an email to msnbc.com.

Much of the contention in scientific circles has centered on whether the ammonia-treated product should actually be considered meat, or whether it should be considered and identified as an additive, said Randall K. Phebus, a professor of food safety and defense at the Food Science Institute at Kansas State University.

Others have urged that labeling products with LFTB should be mandatory. It's not clear whether voluntary measures would provide consumers with adequate information, because some companies might choose to label their products while others would not, some experts suggested. The USDA agreement was first reported on the meat industry online site Meatingplace.com.

Fillpot, of the USDA, said he couldn’t discuss whether the agency was considering making it a requirement. Beef producers who received USDA approval could start changing the labels immediately, agency officials said.

Industry and government leaders have an obligation to help families make informed choices, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and a contributor to msnbc.com.

"If consumers want to know information about the food they or their children eat, then manufacturers and grocers ought to find ways to get that information to them," he said, noting it could come through labels, websites, toll-free numbers, pamphlets or even signs at stores. "I believe there is a fundamental right to know all you wish to know about what you eat."

The solution to current crisis will require extraordinary levels of transparency, noted both Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer, and Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University. Both have urged BPI and others to be as public as possible with their processes, even posting data online that describe how food is processed, produced and handled and the results of safety tests.

On Tuesday, BPI officials appeared to agree with at least part of that, saying that the voluntary labeling change could help rehabilitate the industry’s beleaguered image.

“[It] will be an important first step in restoring consumer confidence in their ground beef,” BPI spokesman Craig Letch wrote in an email to msnbc.com.

Taste tests consistently show that consumers prefer hamburger that contains BPI’s treated product, Letch added.

“We feel this development will allow more customers to provide options to consumers and pave the way for BPI’s lean beef to reestablish its place in the market.”

Related stories:

'Pink slime' panic grows online: Are we overreacting?

McDonald's drops use of gooey 'pink slime' in hamburger meat

By Joyce Ho and Dr. Nancy Snyderman
NBC News

The nation’s ever-growing obesity epidemic may be far worse than originally thought. New research demonstrates that even people with a healthy Body Mass Index, a commonly used scale to measure body fat, could actually be obese and at risk for a host of complications.

A study published Monday in the journal PloS One found that using BMI as an indicator of obesity actually misclassifies 39 percent of Americans as “overweight” rather than “obese.” And because BMI doesn’t distinguish between fat and muscle, some people with normal BMIs may have dangerously high amounts of fat in their bodies.

Without an accurate measurement of body fat, the researchers say, millions of people don’t know they are at high risk for a number of obesity-related diseases.

“The fat is what causes heart disease, cancer, menstrual problems, depression, anxiety, and a host of medical problems,” said Dr. Eric Braverman, a professor at Weill Cornell Medical School and co-author of the study. “So if you want to save society from a lot of illnesses …  you have to identify how much fat they have.”

More than one in three adults in the U.S. are obese, as defined by a BMI of 30 or higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Obesity measurement, however, has been a controversial topic for years, and the widely-used BMI calculation has been called outdated by experts.

BMI is calculated through a simple formula: weight divided by height squared. The ease of calculation made this formula popular, even though it’s nearly 200 years old. In Braverman’s study, researchers compared the BMI with a different measurement, the Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) scan. DXA scans, commonly done in women to check for osteoporosis, measure percentage of body fat, muscle mass, and bone density.

Of the 1,393 people studied, 26 percent were classified as obese when body fat was measured with BMI, whereas 64 percent of them were considered obese when measured with DXA. The misclassification was observed more often in women and increased with advancing age: 48 percent more women between the ages of 50 to 59 were classified as obese when measured with DXA instead of BMI, and among women ages 70 and above, 59 percent more were considered obese after getting a DXA scan. 

According to the authors, BMI is an inaccurate measure for obesity – but especially in this demographic, because as women age they lose more muscle to fat than men. BMI, which does not distinguish between muscle or fat, does not reflect this bodily change. 

“BMI doesn't tell you how much fat … you have,” said Braverman. “So without knowing how much fat you have, you can't really save people from illness. It is the number one predictor of who's going to live or die.”

Researchers also tracked blood levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that regulates hunger and energy expenditure. Increased blood leptin levels correlated well with DXA scan results, highlighting the potential for a simple leptin blood test to be a measurement for obesity.

Based on these findings, Braverman and his co-author Dr. Nirav Shah, the current New York state health commissioner, suggest lowering the BMI definition of obesity from 30 to 24 in women and down to 28 in males. Under these suggested guidelines, a woman who is 5’ 6” and 150 pounds would be considered obese. Under the current BMI standards, the same woman would be considered healthy.

“Fat is costing the country a fortune, by not measuring it,” said Braverman. “A dollar blood test and doing our bone density scans with body fat scans at the same time is going to save us an enormous medical cost in the end.”

NBC’s Stacey Naggiar, Chiara Sottile and Joo Lee contributed to this report.

Read more from msnbc.com:

• America’s fattest cities
• Size matters for obese cancer patients’ drug dose
• U.S. advisers back obesity pill