Scientists have long assumed that fading memories are just a normal part of aging. But a new study suggests that certain 80-somethings can remember every bit as well as people much younger.

Researchers from Northwestern University found that these mentally sharp octogenarians, dubbed SuperAgers, also have brains that look very much like those of people in middle-age, according to the study published in the Journal of International Neuropsychological Society.

For the new study, researchers used MRIs to look at the thickness of the outer layer of the brain, a region called the cortex, in SuperAgers, normally aging 80-somethings, and healthy 50- to 65-year-olds.

What they found was intriguing – the SuperAgers had brains that looked very much like those of the younger people in the study and in some ways looked even healthier. 

"We were very surprised at that," says study co-author Emily Rogalski, an assistant research professor at the cognitive neurology and Alzheimer's disease center at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

"When we looked at cortical thickness, we were very shocked to see that even with a 20- to 30-year age gap, there was seemingly no difference in the cortical thickness," she says. "In normally aging 80-year-olds, you see quite a bit of cortical thinning, even among those who are still performing normally for their age."

The cortex is key since it's involved in memory, attention, and complex thinking, also known as executive function.

Rogalski and her colleagues tested the memories and cognitive skills of 12 Chicago-area SuperAgers and 14 middle-aged volunteers. They then scanned all 26 with a 3D MRI machine and compared both groups of scans to images from normally aging 80-somethings that came from a national data bank.

Finding a group of SuperAgers was no easy task, however.

While plenty of 80-somethings showed up at the lab saying their memories were great, most didn’t remember as well as healthy middle-aged people do.

"We weren't even sure if we would be able to find any SuperAgers since we set the bar so high," says Rogalski. "They had to be as good as 50- to 65-year olds. We screened 300 people who thought they had good memories and found 30 SuperAgers."

And the MRIs showed why the 30 SuperAgers were so mentally sharp.

Rogalski found the SuperAgers' cortexes were as thick as those in people 20 to 30 years younger.

Experts believe that shrinking cortexes are a sign that cells are shriveling and dying with age - sometimes killed off by the same abnormal proteins as you see in Alzheimer's brains. One finding that really surprised Rogalski and her colleagues: a region deep in the brain, called the anterior cingulate was actually larger in SuperAgers than it was in middle-aged folks.

The anterior cingulate is very important for attention. Studies have shown that one of the reasons memory fails as we age is that we can't focus as well as we did when we were younger.

"If I were to tell you ten things you need to pick up at the grocery store and then the phone rang and you got distracted talking to your best friend you'd probably find it hard to remember those ten things when you got to the store," Rogalski explains. "That wouldn't mean your memory was bad, but rather, that you weren't able to focus on the task."

Rogalski hopes the new research on SuperAgers may help scientists unlock the secrets of these "youthful brains" and find ways to protect us against from age-related damage.

"This is the first step in a new way of looking at this - a road less traveled in aging research," she says. "Instead of looking at what is going wrong with the brain, we want to know what is going right."

As for why some people are SuperAgers and some aren't, the research team can't provide any answers at this point. It could be all related to genetics or a combination of genes and the environment: no clues popped up during the SuperAger's interviews that set them apart from people who had aged normally.

But the question of whether there's something we can do to keep mentally sharp is something Rogalski is hoping she'll be able to answer as she continues to study the SuperAger phenomenon.

Related: 

• Seniors say they sleep better than young adults
• Real 'Benjamin Button'? Stem cells reverse aging in mice

By MyHealthDailyNews.com

Since the vaccine against chickenpox became available in the United States, the country is seeing a lot less of the disease.

Between 2000 and 2010, the incidence of chickenpox declined nearly 80 percent, from 43 cases per 100,000 people, to nine cases per 100,000 people, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report included information from 31 states.

The biggest declines were seen in children ages 5 to 9, the CDC says.

In 2010, four people died from chickenpox, none of whom had been vaccinated.

The chickenpox vaccine was introduced in 1996, and for 10 years, just one dose of the vaccine was used. In 2006, children were recommended to receive two doses, one between ages 12 and 15 months, and a second between 4 and 6 years old.

The declines in chickenpox cases were greatest after the introduction of this second dose. Between 2000 and 2005, the incidence of chickenpox declined 43 percent, compared with 72 percent between 2006 and 2010.

Further declines in chickenpox are expected as more people get vaccinated with two doses, the CDC said.

To continue monitoring the impact of the two-dose chickenpox vaccine, a strengthened surveillance system and participation from all states is needed, the CDC says.

• 5 Dangerous Vaccination Myths
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A new report on teen sex contradicts a popular notion that teens are turning to oral sex as a way to delay “real” intercourse. The government study shows fewer teenage girls are having oral sex, compared to a few years ago.

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 6,300 young men and women aged 15 to 24, shows two-thirds in that age group have had oral sex, and just about the same proportion have had vaginal intercourse. But just about 42 percent of 15 to 19-year-old girls have given or received oral sex, down from 45 percent when the last survey was done in 2006-2008.

This is good news, the researchers say, because the earlier young people start any sexual activity at all, the more likely they are to get a sexually transmitted disease or to get pregnant.

The bad news is that teenagers and young adults are still highly likely to get sexually transmitted infections or STIs. “Despite the decline in the percentage of teenagers who ever had vaginal intercourse and increases in condom use, the rate of STIs has not decreased, particularly among teenagers 15–19 and young adults aged 20–24 years,” says the report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

“In 2010, about one-half of all new STIs occurred among people aged 15–24.”

The report shows that only 7 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 had had oral sex without ever having had vaginal intercourse. By age 22 to 24, just 2.7 percent of young women said they had given or received oral sex but not had vaginal intercourse.

“This new CDC analysis debunks many myths about when young people are initiating oral sex, and underscores the need for the kind of sex education that Planned Parenthood provides, which emphasizes not only pregnancy prevention, but sexually transmitted disease prevention as well,” said Leslie Kantor, vice president for education for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“Although there has never been data to support it, there has been the perception that many teens engage in oral sex as a ‘risk-free’ alternative to intercourse. But the CDC analysis shows that sexually active young people are likely to engage in both activities.”

Planned Parenthood advocates for comprehensive sex education, and the Obama administration does too. The CDC researchers who did the study declined to comment on what it might mean, policy-wise, and said they were simply gathering statistics.

But the researchers also noted that teenagers often don’t understand the risks associated with sexual activity. “Research suggests that adolescents perceive fewer health-related risks for oral sex compared with vaginal intercourse. However, young people, particularly those who have oral sex before their first vaginal intercourse, may still be placing themselves at risk of STIs or HIV before they are ever at risk of pregnancy,” they wrote.

 “The risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is lower for oral sex than for vaginal intercourse or anal sex,” the report adds. “However, several studies have documented that oral sex can transmit certain STIs, including chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis. Teenagers and young adults engaging in sexual activity are at increased risk of STIs or HIV.”

Kantor said this calls for more sex education. “We need to make sure that young people have the skills to negotiate what they do and don’t want to do in sexual relationships, as well as education about and access to condoms and birth control so that they can protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy and remain healthy,” she said.

The study, based on hour-long, in-person interviews done from 2007 to 2010, also demonstrates racial disparities. Black girls and women aged 15 to 24 were far more likely than similar white girls to have had intercourse. The survey found that 74 percent of African-American females had vaginal intercourse at least once, compared to 68 percent of Hispanic females and 66 percent of whites.

And the study, meant to shed light on sexual practices, suggests that different types of sexual contact go together. “Among females aged 15–24 years, 26 percent had first oral sex before first vaginal intercourse; 27 percent had oral sex after first intercourse; 7.4 percent had oral sex on the same occasion as first intercourse; and 5.1 percent had oral sex, but no vaginal intercourse,” says the report.

But fewer girls were having oral sex than before. “About the same percentage of girls aged 15–19 years reported giving or receiving oral sex (41 percent and 43 percent, respectively),” the report says. This compares to 45 percent in 2006-2008.

“A higher percentage of  boys aged 15–19 years had oral sex (49 percent) than had vaginal intercourse (44 percent),” it adds. This was about the same as 2006-2008.

Related links:

Sex a taboo subject for Latinas

Giving credit to sex education

More teens are using condoms

By Susan E. Matthews, MyHealthNewsDaily

People with type AB blood may have a higher risk of heart disease compared with those whose blood type is O, according to a new study.

Researchers reviewed two studies that tracked nearly 90,000 people for more than 20 years and found that coronary heart disease risk varied with participants' blood types. People with type O blood had the lowest incidence of coronary heart disease, and compared with them, those with type AB blood were 23 percent more likely to have heart disease, while those with type B blood were 11 percent more likely, and people with type A were 5 percent more likely.

“While people cannot change their blood type, our findings may help physicians better understand who is at risk for developing heart disease,” said study author Dr. Lu Qi, assistant professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

The researchers considered two Harvard studies, one that tracked 62,000 women over 26 years, and one that tracked 27,400 men over 24 years. In total, more than 2,500 people were diagnosed with heart disease.

The association with blood type held even after the researchers took into account variables that affect people's risk of heart disease, such as cholesterol levels, diabetes and hypertension.

The results are "totally surprising," said Dr. Richard Stein, a cardiologist and spokesperson for the American Heart Association. While other smaller studies have suggested such a correlation, this is the first large-scale study to support the connection, he noted.

Stein said that while further research is needed, blood type could be added to the list of factors that are considered when a doctor assesses a patient for risk of heart disease, particularly because blood tests to determine it are inexpensive and have no side effects.

In order to reduce heart disease risk, people should exercise, eat right and keep their weight and cholesterol in check, Stein said.

Knowing that one's blood type puts them at higher risk may increase people's motivation to "take care of themselves and stop their bad habits," Qi said.

The researchers found a correlation between blood type and heart disease risk, not a cause-and-effect link. Other research has suggested mechanisms that may explain the link, such as a link between type A blood and one type of cholesterol, and a link between type AB blood and heightened inflammation. 

But these links were found in very small studies, Stein said, so explaining the correlation requires further research, he said.

In the United States, 45 percent of people have type O blood, making it the most common blood type. Only 4 percent of the U.S. population has type AB blood, while about 40 percent has type A and about 11 percent has type B.

The paper is published today (Aug. 14) in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

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A North Carolina company that has recalled tens of thousands of cantaloupes because of potential food poisoning extended the recall to honeydew melons on Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

Burch Equipment LLC (Burch Farms) of Faison, N.C., is expanding its recall to include all of this growing season's cantaloupes and honeydew melons that may still be on the market.  “The honeydew melons involved in this recall expansion do not bear any identifying stickers but were packed in shipping cases labeled melons,” the FDA said in a statement.

“The cantaloupes and honeydew melons involved in this expanded recall were sold to distributors in the states of Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont and West Virginia, who may have further distributed them to other states,” the FDA said.

People who bought melons should ask the stores whether they got the fruit from Burch Farms.
 
The FDA said it found the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes (L. mono) on a honeydew melon grown and packed by Burch Farms.

Listeria can cause sometimes serious food poisoning, although no one has been confirmed sick from this particular recall, FDA said.  Symptoms of listeriosis include fever and muscle aches, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems. “The disease primarily affects older adults, pregnant women, newborns, and adults with weakened immune systems. However, rarely, persons without these risk factors can also be affected,” FDA says.

It can take anywhere from three days to more than two months to get sick after eating food contaminated with Listeria.

Earlier this month, Burch recalled 188,902 melons from stores. Food safety officials are especially wary of cantaloupes after one of the deadliest foodborne illness outbreaks in U.S. history last year, in which contaminated Colorado cantaloupes sickened at least 147 people, including at least 30 who died and one woman who had a miscarriage.

Related links:

NC company recalls cantaloupes

Salmonella in beef sickens 33 

Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images

Drought-stricken corn grows on the McIntosh farm in Missouri Valley, Iowa, on Monday, where President Barack Obama visited to inspect conditions.

By Jane J. Lee, LiveScience

Australian scientists have confirmed a disturbing association — the longer a drought drags on, the higher the risk of suicide.

The researchers, who detail their study online today (Aug. 13) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are not certain why bone-dry weather would be linked to suicide. However, they suggest several explanations, including the toll drought takes on farmers as well as on the human psyche. The drought-suicide link was found for rural men living in Australia.

The study results come amidst a historical drought hitting the United States, with many areas currently considered disaster zones.

In the new study, researchers analyzed suicide and drought statistics for the state of New South Wales between 1970 and 2007. Rural men ages 30 to 49 exhibited a 15 percent increase in suicide risk coinciding with longer and longer periods of drought. Younger men ages 10 to 29 living in rural areas also showed an increase in suicide risk, though not as high as the middle-age group.

Women living in rural areas actually exhibited a decreased suicide risk coinciding with increasing drought duration. This surprising finding contradicts a 2002 study that showed women living in rural areas in Australia were more at risk for suicides than rural men, although that study analyzed the time period between 1901 and 1998 and was primarily focused on the association between politics and suicide. [10 Easy Paths to Self Destruction]

Men and women living in urban areas of New South Wales, including Sydney, showed no such link between drought and suicide risk.

"The surprising result for women reinforces the view that suicide is a very complex problem," researcher Ivan Hanigan of the Australian National University in Canberra told LiveScience in an email.  And we're only just beginning to disentangle the various causes at work, he added.

There are several possible explanations for the link between drought and suicide risk, Hanigan and his co-authors note. For one, droughts increase the financial burden on farmers and farming communities due to failing crops. And the psychological toll of having to kill starving livestock or destroy ailing orchards or vineyards that may have taken generations to build should not be underestimated.

With the continental United States withering under the worst drought since 1956, recent heat waves have compounded bone-dry conditions, resulting in a dismal outlook for theU.S. corn and soybean crops. Though Australia is the only country, so far, with studies examining the link between suicide and drought, media reports from India have also speculated on the link between the two and what it means for their farmers.

Weather has long been known to have an effect on our moods, for better or worse. But seasonal affective disorder (SAD) — when depression sets in with the onset of winter — aside, studies on whether we are more or less irritable and prone to violence during hot weather are a mixed bag.

Sleep troubles, dehydration and lack of control over the weather can all contribute to lowering a person's mood or increasing violent behavior. Yet other studies have found that above a certain temperature, our aggressive tendencies tend to taper off.

However weather and drought affect our moods, Hanigan and his colleagues believe it's important to better understand this interaction. They hope their new findings will help public health officials with timing suicide prevention campaigns by pinpointing periods of greater risk throughout the year.

More from LiveScience: 

• Dry and Dying: Images of Drought
• The Worst Droughts in U.S. History
• 7 Common Summer Health Concerns

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• Baby's got cradle cap? Home remedy may worsen it
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Home remedies for cradle cap and dandruff may do more harm than good by feeding the little organisms that cause the condition, two doctors warned on Monday.

They said olive oil and other vegetable oil contain the very nutrients that feed the yeasts that cause dandruff and cradle cap. Mineral oil may be a better choice, they wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Cradle cap and dandruff, known medically as seborrheic dermatitis, are both often caused by Malassezia yeasts.

“Treatment of this condition has supported a billion dollar market for over the-counter treatments,” Dr. Elaine Siegfried of St. Louis University and her colleague Dr. Erica Glenn, wrote. These include shampoos and other products.

Home remedies are all over the Internet – including a popular approach that recommends putting olive or vegetable oil on the head to loosen scales, brushing them off and then shampooing.

But the oils may feed Malassezia, which feeds on sebum, the oily stuff produced by pores and hair follicles.  And in fact, researchers who want to grow Malassezia yeast often grow it in olive oil. Sebum and vegetable oils are made up of both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids.  The yeast eats the saturated fatty acids. “Saturated fatty acids likely encourage Malassezia overgrowth and excess unsaturated fatty acids may induce inflammation and scaling,” Siegfried and Glenn wrote.

Mineral oil may be better, as it doesn’t contain digestible fatty acids.

“Based on the evidence currently available, it may be prudent to avoid organic oils, especially olive oil, when treating seborrheic dermatitis or other inflammatory skin diseases triggered by colonizing microflora,” Siegfried and Glenn concluded.

Related stories:

Scientists make dandruff gene map

The danger of detox diets

Home remedies for bad breath

Mona Reeder / Dallas Morning News

Whitney Mitchell, 20, of Dallas, lost her arms and legs nearly two years ago to a fast-moving bloodstream infection called sepsis. A new device just approved by the Food and Drug Administration is the first to allow rapid identification of specific bacteria that cause the infections.

Nearly two years after her teenage daughter lost all four limbs to a dangerous bloodstream infection, Patricia Kirven is stunned at how little most people know about sepsis.

“You can ask the average person on the street and they don’t know what it is,” said Kirven, mother of Whitney Mitchell, now 20. “I have a friend who says that sepsis is the killer you’ve never heard of.”

Only high-profile cases seem to attract attention, like Whitney Mitchell's disfiguring infection, or the recent death of a 12-year-old New York boy, Rory Staunton, who developed severe septic shock two days after a minor gym class cut.

That’s despite the fact that hospital stays for sepsis in the U.S. have more than doubled in recent years, accounting for about 1.6 million hospitalizations a year and requiring treatment for some 4,600 new patients every day, according to a 2011 report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 

The infection -- also known as septicemia or bacteremia -- can be sudden, capricious and difficult to identify, masquerading as a minor injury or illness that erupts into full-blown, whole-body organ failure within hours or days.

The mortality rate is alarming -- between 20 percent and 50 percent -- and largely depends on how quickly victims are diagnosed and treated with powerful antibiotics to battle the bacteria racing through their systems. Among those who live, amputations are common after the infection leads to tissue death in the limbs. 

In Whitney Mitchell’s case, a lawsuit accuses doctors at the Medical City Dallas Hospital of not giving her appropriate antibiotics for 38 hours after she showed up in the emergency room. In Rory Staunton’s case, his parents told the New York Times that critical medical information was ignored at NYU Langone Medical Center and that the signs of sepsis were disregarded. In both cases, critics said the victims were sent home from the emergency room before returning a day or so later in life-threatening condition.

“Getting a quick answer is a matter of life and death,” said Preeti Pancholi, an assistant professor of pathology and director of clinical microbiology at The Ohio State University Medical Center.

That’s why her hospital recently joined with five others across the country to test a device approved in June by the federal Food and Drug Administration that experts believe could drastically change the way sepsis infections are detected and managed.

About the size of a small microwave oven, the Verigene Gram-positive Blood Culture Nucleic Acid Test is the first system approved by the FDA to identify quickly certain bacteria responsible for bloodstream infections -- and whether some are resistant to the top drugs used against them.

Instead of the three days required for a traditional blood culture panel, results from the Verigene test come back within three hours, identifying up to a dozen specific bacteria known to cause sepsis, including strains of Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus and Listeria.

Plus, the test can tell whether the germs are Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus, or MRSA, or vancomycin-resistant Enterococci, or VRE, two of the toughest pathogens around.

“That’s a big change,” said Nathan Ledeboer, medical director of the clinical microbiology and molecular diagnostics laboratories at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “We don’t have to wait three days any more to get appropriate antibiotics on board.”

Ledeboer, like Pancholi, agreed to participate in a seven-month clinical trial of the device produced and manufactured by Nanosphere Inc., of Northbrook, Ill.

Two weeks ago, Ledeboer, who said he has no financial ties to the product, went live with the Verigene test.

“In those two weeks, we’re seeing that patients are in fact being treated more appropriately sooner,” he said.

The reason is this: When patients come in with signs of suspected sepsis, including fever, low blood pressure and a racing heartbeat, it can be difficult for doctors to be certain it's a bloodstream infection and not another problem. Once they do confirm sepsis, doctors need to treat the patients fast. A 2010 study in the journal Critical Care Medicine found that for every hour of delay in administering antibiotics, mortality rose by 7.6 percent.

To that end, they break out what Ledeboer calls the “big guns” of antibiotics, the broad-spectrum drugs that can treat many pathogens at once. The trouble is, many bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics, meaning the treatments would be either be useless against the infections -- or they’ll help create the next generation of even tougher bugs.

“What we’re seeing now is that if you present with sepsis or any Gram-negative infection in New York City, you run a 30 percent risk of a pan-resistant organism,” Ledeboer said.

That is, an infection that virtually can’t be cured.

With the Verigene test, quick results mean doctors know faster exactly which bacteria they’re up against -- and whether the bugs are already resistant to top drugs.

“It means patients are going to get out of the hospital faster, out of the ICU faster and it increases their chances of surviving sepsis,” Ledeboer said.

The test works by mapping the genome of a particular bacterium and capturing it on a glass slide, said Bill Moffitt, president and chief executive of Nanosphere. If that bacterium is present in the blood sample, it will bind to the material on the slide. Then the test uses silver-coated gold nanoparticles to bind to the captured genetic sequence. When light is shined on the slide, if the spots light up, it means the bug is present in the sample.

In trials that compared the Verigene test to traditional cultures and then verified them at an independent laboratory, the new device had a very high rate of accuracy, at least above 95 percent said Pancholi.

FDA officials based their approval decision on a study of 1,642 patient blood samples that compared traditional methods with the Vergiene test, with accuracy ranging from 93 percent to 100 percent.

Since the FDA approval, more than 200 hospitals have expressed interest, Moffitt said. The Verigene units cost between $50,000 and $100,000 apiece. The test panels cost about $75 each.

But Moffitt and Ledeboer estimate that the tests could significantly reduce the current $20,000 cost of a single sepsis workup.

Independent infectious disease experts were quick to praise the new technology.

“This seems to be the first product from our molecular revolution,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. Quicker detection and treatment of sepsis may be the only way to start to cut the rising mortality caused by the insidious bacteria, he added.

“It’s a very exciting development," he said.

For victims already ravaged by sepsis, such progress is bittersweet. If there had been a quicker test to identify specific bacteria, perhaps doctors would have identified the source of Whitney Mitchell's infection, said Kervin, her mother. 

"They never could tell us exactly what it was," she said. 

Reached by phone at the Dallas home she shares with her mom, Whitney Mitchell said she was hospitalized for months after her amputations in 2010. She now spends her days going to physical therapy sessions, doing exercises at home to strengthen her shortened limbs and trying as best she can to resume her life. She's got a lively online presence and a supportive community. Although she has prostheses for her arms, including one set she calls her "pretty hands," she said she's gotten good at typing using a tough nub on her residual arm. 

"I'm always on the computer," said Mitchell. "I have a callus on the tip of it because I type so much."

Bob Bergert, the lawyer representing Medical City Dallas Hospital and the medical team involved said that they have "great empathy" for Mitchell and her family, but added that she received "appropriate care based on the facts and resources available to the healthcare providers."

Still, at age 20, Whitney Mitchell faces a lifetime of prosthetics and several additional surgeries. Kervin said she wishes there had been a test, a tool, anything that would have stopped the infection that raced through her daughter's body.

“It makes me happy and sad,” Kervin said. “Sad that it wasn’t there for my daughter, but glad that it will help other families from going through the pain we’re going through.”

More from Vitals: 

• Gym class cut leads to deadly infection in boy, 12
• Burned-out nurses linked to more infections
• Deadly MRSA infections on the decline

A pair of Wisconsin companies that made contaminated alcohol wipes blamed for the death of a toddler and several other people filed for bankruptcy this week after a flurry of lawsuits, their lawyers confirmed on Friday.

Triad Group and H&P Industries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help protect their assets from creditors, a provision that would let them stay in business.

“H&P and Triad filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late yesterday,” their lawyer, Steven Silton of Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP, said by email. "The litigation involving the alcohol prep pads has created somewhat of a feeding frenzy," Silton said later in a telephone interview. The companies' insurance has run out, he added. "Their goal is to restructure and come out of bankruptcy."

The companies listed more than $37 million in liabilities against assets of less than $11 million, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which first reported on the bankruptcy. Silton said it's not so clear-cut, as the assets include highly specialized equipment that would be worthless if the company went out of business, and the liabilities include lawsuits that the company is fighting.

The firms have been cited in nearly a dozen nationwide lawsuits alleging that the contaminated wipes or other products caused serious illnesses and death.

The family of a 2-year-old Houston boy, Harrison Kothari, alleged that he died after contracting an infection caused by Bacillus cereus, the bacteria detected in the H&P wipes. The boy’s parents, Sandra and Shanoop Kothari, settled their lawsuit with H&P Industries in April, according to court records and interviews.

Triad and H&P voluntarily recalled all their alcohol wipes and swabs in January. As of June, FDA officials said H&P Industries Inc. and the Triad Group of Hartland, Wis., remained closed under the terms of a federal consent decree that prohibits the firms from making or distributing products.

"We are going to, within 120 days, put a plan together that will show how we will pay creditors the maximum level we can," Silton said. 

Related links:

JoNel Aleccia's series on the tainted wipes

Feds seize products at wipe-maker

Tainted wipes pulled from market

Parents of dead toddler settle tainted wipes lawsuit

Wipes test positive for bacteria

A new study suggests that statin drugs, widely used to lower cholesterol, might lower people’s risk of cancer, too.

Many studies suggest that statins affect more than just cholesterol. For a while, it wasn’t clear whether the pills, which include Lipitor, Crestor and Zocor, raised or lowered the risk of cancer. But recent studies have pointed to the possibility that they may actually lower the risk of some cancers.

Gabriel Chodick and colleagues at Maccabi Healthcare Services, a big health maintenance organization in Israel, looked at the health records of everyone prescribed a statin between 1998 and 2006 – more than 200,000 people. They looked at their medical records from then until 2007.

People who took statins the most consistently and for the longest time had a considerably lower risk of cancer over the seven years studied, they reported. The risk was reduced by 31 percent for lymphomas, they report in Preventing Chronic Disease, a journal published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Our study demonstrated that persistent use of statins is associated with a lower overall cancer risk,” they wrote.  “In light of widespread statin consumption and increases in cancer incidence, the association between statins and cancer incidence may be relevant for cancer prevention.”

Over the time studied, 8,662 people were diagnosed with cancer. Those who took their prescribed statins 86 percent of the time or more were the least likely to be diagnosed with cancer over an average of five years.

It’s not the first study to show a lower cancer risk but it may be one of the largest. In December 2011 researchers found that men who died of prostate cancer were half as likely to have taken a statin than men who didn’t have prostate cancer. But to truly prove that statins reduced cancer risk, researchers would have to do what is known as a randomized study, randomly assigning people to take statins or not and then seeing which group developed more cancers over time.

Statins cut the risk of heart attack and stroke by reducing artery-clogging cholesterol. They also affect the lining of the arteries and lower inflammation. They’ve been shown to reduce the risk of death from influenza and pneumonia, as well, and may protect smokers.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs are the most commonly prescribed medication in the U.S. according to the  IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, with 255.4 million prescriptions written in 2010. Antidepressants came in No. 2, with 253.6 million prescriptions.

About a quarter of adults 45 and older take statins and some cardiologists have long joked about putting them in the U.S. water supply. But there are good reasons not to. They can cause muscle pain and, in about one in 10,000 patients, can cause a dangerous muscle-damaging condition called rhabdomyolysis. They can also affect the liver.

In February, the Food and Drug Administration warned that statins can cause memory loss and diabetes.

But on Thursday,a team at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reported in the Lancet medical journal that the benefits of statin therapy exceed the small diabetes risk.

“Our data indicate that the risk of developing diabetes while on statin therapy was limited almost entirely to people who had at least one major risk factor for diabetes prior to initiating statin therapy,” said Dr. Paul Ridker, who led the study.

Related links:

Benefits of statins outweigh diabetes risks

More Americans have chronic conditions

FDA beefs up statin warnings

(Updated Aug 11: CDC has raised the number of people confirmed infected to 153)

As many as 153 people have been infected this summer with a new pig flu virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week, although the disease does not appear to be any more serious than normal seasonal flu. Nine out of 10 of them are children, CDC says.

Most cases appear to be among people who were showing pigs, or people visiting fairs and other places where these pigs are, CDC says. This suggests they are catching the flu directly from infected pigs. So far everyone has gotten better on their own, Dr. Joseph Bresee, from the CDC's influenza division, told reporters on a telephone briefing Thursday.

“At this point there is no evidence of sustained, efficient human to human spread,” Bresee said. “This is not a pandemic situation.”

But Bresee cautioned that even seasonal flu can kill people and this is likely the case with the new form of flu, which is designated H3N2v.

The new strain of H3N2 was first seen last year, and three people were confirmed to have caught the bug from other people. So far it has not been any more serious than regular, seasonal flu, causing fever, a sore throat and achy muscles. Last year no one ended up in the hospital with the new flu. This year, two people have but they are fine now, Bresee said.

While the current flu vaccine does not protect against this new virus coming straight from pigs to people, patients can be treated with the two drugs that work against seasonal flu – Tamiflu and Relenza.

Most of the cases have been in Indiana, where 120 have been reported, the CDC said. There have also been 31 cases in Ohio, one case in Hawaii and one case in Illinois.

Flu viruses have eight genes, and this one is seven-eighths pig virus -- a virus designated H3N2 that’s been circulating among swine for years. But one single gene comes from the H1N1 swine flu virus that caused a new pandemic of influenza  among people in 2009 and which is now part of the human seasonal flu mix.

The names can be confusing because there's also an H3N2 virus that causes seasonal flu in people, and it's one of the three strains of flu virus that is included in the vaccine that's just arriving in doctor's offices and clinics now. "Get your flu vaccine," Bresee advised. "Everybody should get a flu vaccine this year in the U.S. because regular, seasonal flu will be here soon."

CDC stressed that only people who have contact with pigs are at any real risk of catching this flu. "This time of year is the time when you have state and county fairs…there’s thousands of them," Bresee said. CDC has some simple advice to prevent infection:

• Wash your hands after you've been near any live pigs
• Don't bring any food or drink into areas where live pigs are
• Stay away from swine if you are at high risk from flu, for instance if you are elderly or have a weakened immune system.

Swine flu vaccine may lead to broader flu protection

Swine flu outbreak 15 times deadlier than thought, study finds

Robert Bazell, NBC News

A cancer drug is turning out not to be the miraculous treatment for Alzheimer’s that many had hoped. Two papers out Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine warn families of Alzheimer’s victims not to seek treatment with Targretin (generic name: bexarotene). 

Last February a study from Case Western Reserve University reported that the drug rapidly cleared the clumps of protein known as beta-amyloid, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s, from the brains of mice with a version of the disease. Since the drug was already on the market, approved as a treatment for lymphoma, doctors could immediately prescribe it in so-called off-label use for Alzheimer’s. And thousands of families understandably asked.

But one mouse study does not prove that a drug is effective in humans. The drug is expensive – about $14,000 a year - and off-label use is often not covered by insurance. The drug can also bring on severe side-effects. In one paper in the Journal, Justin Lowenthal, Sara Hull and Steven Pearson of the National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital conclude that for this drug “even if the patients are willing to take the risks for the potential benefit, the physician's answer should be no.” In the second paper Frank LaFerla of the University of California, Irvine observes “the field has been down this road before, as successes in preclinical models have thus far not translated well into the clinic.”

But the reasons for disappointment with Targretin appear to be stronger than these theoretical concerns.  Word among Alzheimer’s scientists is that no one yet has independently replicated the Case Western results in mice. In science, a single study has little value until it is repeated. It could be just a fluke or a mistake. No funding agency would support a clinical trial in humans of a potential drug unless the mouse study were confirmed.

These are not good times for potential Alzheimer’s treatments. On Monday, Pfizer announced it was abandoning its efforts to market bapineuzumab, a drug that definitely cleared amyloid plaques in people, after a second, large clinical trial found it did not make the patients noticeably better. 

The reason for this failure -- and other recent similar ones -- could be new evidence that the brain changes leading to Alzheimer’s begin decades before symptoms appear. Treatment may have to start long before there is perceptible loss of memory or other mental function. "The impending tsunami of new cases and the time required for introducing a drug to the market increase the urgency of identifying new therapeutic targets and strategies," LaFerla writes. That presents a daunting challenge, but science cannot give up trying to prevent the misery and expense from Alzheimer’s that is beginning to overwhelm us and will only get worse as the population ages.

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

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Women who undergo fertility treatments may find the situation so distressing that they develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study says.

In the study, close to 50 percent of participants met the official criteria for PTSD, meaning they could be diagnosed with the condition.

That's about six times higher than the percentage of people in the general population who suffer from PTSD (8 percent.)

The findings suggest the definition of PTSD may need to be changed so that its causes include potentially traumatic experiences such as infertility, said study researcher Allyson Bradow, director of psychological services at Home of the Innocents, a nonprofit organization that helps families in need in Louisville, Ky.

Currently, the definition of PTSD says people must have experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event, or event that could cause serious injury.

"The definition of trauma should be expanded to include expectations of life," said Bradow, who went through fertility treatments herself, and conducted the study as a doctoral student at Spalding University in Louisville. "Having children, expanding your family, carrying on your genetic code — that's an instinctual drive that we have as human beings. And when that is being threatened, it's not necessarily your life being threatened, but your expectation of what your life can be or should be like," she said.

The finding also shows that a greater effort should be made to counsel those who go through fertility treatments, to help them cope with the emotional and psychological effects of the experience, Bradow said.

Coping with infertility
Bradow had her first child without any trouble at age 26. But when she and her husband tried to conceive a second child several years later, they were not able to. The couple was diagnosed with secondary infertility, which refers to infertility experienced after a couple has a child.

"The general diagnosis of infertility, or not being able to have a baby, is kind of this giant earthquake that rocks your world. And then, there's all the aftershocks," of fertility testing and treatment, Bradow said.

Bradow said the symptoms she experienced during fertility treatment went beyond those of depression and grief, conditions previously linked to fertility treatment. Others she spoke with felt the same.

To find out how widespread these feelings were, Bradow and colleagues surveyed 142 people who had undergone fertility treatments, and who visited online support groups for infertility. Survey participants — 97 percent of whom were women — completed an online survey to assess their symptoms of PTSD. They were asked to consider their infertility diagnosis and fertility treatment as their traumatic event.

About a third of participants had been trying to conceive for one to two years, and about 60 percent had undergone fertility treatments for more than a year.

Overall, 46 percent met the criteria for PTSD. Among this group, 75 to 80 percent said they felt upset at reminders of their infertility, such as seeing commercials for baby diapers. Other common symptoms included feeling distant or cut off from people, or feeling irritable. Many also said they felt hopeless, and had changes in their personality.

Need for counseling
During her treatment, Bradow said no one mentioned anything about how it would affect her emotionally or psychologically.

"They're focused on getting you pregnant…and that's their job," Bradow said. "But we also have to consider the psychological impact of what happens when you're getting medical interventions for this," Bradow said. She eventually became pregnant again, through artificial insemination, and had her second daughter at age 31.

Ideally, Bradow said, mental health counseling should be a required part of fertility treatment. However, this may be a long way off, partly because fertility treatment is not usually covered by health insurance, and doctors may be reluctant to give their clients an extra cost, Bradow said.

Bradow presented her findings last week at the American Psychological Association meeting in Orlando, Fla.

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"We found that different pollutants are harmful in different trimesters of pregnancy," said Dr. Ambarina Faiz, an instructor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. For example, exposure to a high level of nitrogen dioxide was particularly harmful during the first trimester, she said.

The study was published online July 18 in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

In their study, researchers used statewide birth data from 1998 through 2004. They compared live births with stillbirths, looking at mothers who lived within 10 kilometers (a little over 6 miles) of New Jersey's 25 pollutant-monitoring stations.

They also gathered data from those stations: 11 stations monitored nitrogen dioxide, 16 monitored sulfur dioxide and 16 monitored carbon monoxide.

Researchers compared the pollutant concentrations during a woman's three trimesters of pregnancy, and took into account factors known to affect stillbirth risk, including the mother's age, smoking, ethnicity and prenatal care.

What they found
Several trends emerged from the data. In general, stillbirths were rare, with fewer than 1,000 among the hundreds of thousands of births in any region where the researchers measured pollutants. For example, among the more than 207,000 women whose carbon monoxide exposure was estimated as being elevated during their first trimester, there were about 800 stillbirths. (Researchers defined a stillbirth as the death of a fetus after the 20th week of pregnancy.)

The stillbirth risk was elevated for mothers exposed to pollutants during certain times of pregnancy.

Results showed that throughout pregnancy, for every 10 parts per billion increase in nitrogen dioxide levels, risk of stillbirth increased 27 percent. For every increase of 10-ppb in the pollutant during the first trimester, the stillbirth risk increased by 16 percent.

For sulfur dioxide, the stillbirth risk increased 13 percent with every 3-ppb increase in the first trimester, and 26 percent for every 3-ppb increase in the third trimester.

Carbon monoxide was associated with a 14 percent increase in stillbirth risk in the second and third trimesters for every 400-ppb increase in concentration.

It remains unclear whether reducing pollution alone could prevent stillbirths, or how many could be avoided, Faiz said. "But it is a risk factor, and it should be looked at with more accurate [measurement] of exposure," she said.

Air pollution vs. smoking
The study was not as strong as it would have been had researchers been able to measure each woman's level of pollution exposure. But in following up on the few studies that have looked at air pollution and maternal health, it does contribute to a trend, experts said.

"Most air pollution studies are done to evaluate the health effects related to the respiratory system, [such as] asthma or COPD," said Dr. Youcheng Liu, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. "Relatively few studies…are related to reproductive health."

One problem is that it's still unclear how pollution might have such an effect. While pollutants present an obvious risk to the lungs, "Why to the fetus, across the placenta? In terms of mechanism, it still needs an explanation," Liu said.

Because of the way data were collected, the study gives information about the region where women live, but not necessarily their exact exposure, giving an extra variable that can skew results.

"People, during pregnancy, move around," Liu said. Among those who may not have traveled great distances, "even at home, the [exposure levels] can be affected by whether you open the window or not, whether you do cooking or not."

The most obvious hazard for mothers wanting to avoid air pollution exposure is smoking, the dangers of which far exceed those of the air pollutants looked at in the study, he said.

Liu added that concerned expectant mothers might monitor levels of smog, and run errands or travel outside during periods where smog or other pollution levels are expected to be lower.

But it remains clear that further work needs to be done to understand just how much extra caution about air pollution could be needed.

"It increases the risk, but how much and to what extent, I'm not sure about that," Faiz said.

Despite the great demand, very few Americans donate their organs when they die. But the reason for that may not be what you’d think -- it’s your relatives.

That’s what David Shaw, honorary lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, thinks the real problem is. In an article published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal, he writes that one of the biggest reasons more people don’t wind up donating is veto by their family.

Even when you have signed a donor card or checked off your driver’s license a family member can still object to your being an organ donor.  And some do -- at least 10 percent of the time or more, says Shaw. (That number may be even higher, according to other U.S. researchers.) Shaw says doctors ought to forget cousin Fred’s second-guessing or your sister’s distaste for donation  and ought to honor your written wishes and use you as a donor.

Interestingly enough, that’s actually the law in the U.S. In nearly every state, a signed driver’s license or organ donor card is fully adequate for allowing donation no matter what your brother-in-law or other family member thinks. But despite that, doctors are still swayed by the family’s wishes.

Shaw is up against some tough problems when he urges doctors to ignore family protests. Is it really realistic for organ and tissue procurement to proceed no matter how upset family members might be about it?

And even if doctors are willing to plow ahead no matter what kind of emotional chaos is occurring in the next room, which hospital wants to risk a headline that says, “Liver removed while widow wails; Doc says ‘But I had a signed driver’s license’”?

Shaw is right to urge doctors not to give up at the first sign of family discomfort. When you sign a card or your driver’s license, you should expect that you will be able to be a donor.

I would argue, however, that the problem with family objections is not fearful doctors backing down in the face of distressed or divided families. The problem is what you and I often fail to do when we sign those cards and licenses — tell others!

If you sign your driver’s license at motor vehicles it is not likely that the friendly employee you waited an hour to see is going to be there when you die. Your family and friends will be. You need to tell them while you are alive that you want to be an organ and tissue donor. That is the antidote for avoiding an outbreak of objections when your number is up and being a donor is the last way you can help those in need. If you make it clear while alive what your wishes are that is the most important step you can take to having them honored when you are not.

Arthur Caplan is the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

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