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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - US children are substantially more likely to be prescribed drugs for mental conditions than their peers in the Netherlands and Germany, new research shows. The findings raise questions about treatment of mental health issues among US children that should be answered, Dr. Julie M. Zito of the University of Maryland in Baltimore, the study's lead author, told...

WASHINGTON - Talk about going out with a win. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has spent years fighting for legislation that would require insurance plans to treat mental health patients on par with those who have physical ailments. No more higher copays or deductibles for the mental health treatments. No more limits on visits to the doctor that differ from the caps for other patients. ...

FRIDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- A simple urine test could one day be an effective way to screen for breast cancer, a new study suggests. The notion of a so-called "dipstick" test envisions a high-tech sifting through just a few drops of urine in the search for elevated levels of two particular biomarkers, MMP-9 and ADAM-12, which can sometimes indicate the earliest stages of tumor ...

FRIDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- A simple test of saliva proteins may one day help doctors detect oral cancer, according to a new study in the Oct. 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. For their study, part of the U.S. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research's Human Saliva Proteome Project, researchers collected saliva samples from 64 people with oral squamous cell ...

FRIDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- The standard test for checking the vision of young children cannot be completely trusted, Johns Hopkins University researchers report. The test, called fixation preference test (FPT), is used to evaluate visual acuity, which is the ability of the eyes to focus images on the macula, the part of the eye that handles detailed vision. "Current methods of...

When doctors urge overweight kids to pick up more activities, reading probably isn't what they have in mind. Yet a new study by obesity researchers at Duke University finds that the simple act of reading - depending on the choice of material - can spur weight loss in tween-age girls. The study's experimental group included 31 obese girls aged 9 to 13, who were enrolled in the Healthy ...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy seems more effective in treating complex psychiatric problems than short-term treatments focused more on medications, a meta-analysis has found. Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (LTPP) stresses psychological support and intervention for the patient based on his specific needs. "In this meta-analysis, LTPP was significantly...

MONTERREY, Mexico - When critically obese, bedridden Jose Luis Garza pleaded for help in shedding a few hundred pounds, he landed the world's biggest weight watcher. Garza is getting diet advice from Manuel Uribe, a fellow Mexican who has been fighting to lose his title as the world's heaviest man. Both men live around the Monterrey area in Mexico. Neither can get out of bed. ...

WASHINGTON - The government is urging consumers to thoroughly cook frozen chicken dinners after 32 people in 12 states were sickened with salmonella poisoning. The health warning by the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited frozen dishes in which the chicken is raw, but breaded or pre-browned, giving the appearance of being cooked. They include "chicken cordon bleu," "chicken Kiev," or...

BEIJING - Hong Kong said Sunday it found two Cadbury chocolate products contained considerably more of the industrial chemical melamine than the city's legal limit in a growing scandal over tainted food made in China. Iran banned imports of all dairy products from China because of the contamination concerns, state radio reported. In China, the food safety watchdog said no traces of ...

MONDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- In children and teens, individual and group cognitive behavioral therapy helps reduce depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma symptoms, say U.S. researchers who reviewed of dozens of studies on the subject. However, despite the proven effectiveness of cognitive therapy, many mental health professionals use unproven...

MONTERREY, Mexico - When critically obese, bedridden Jose Luis Garza pleaded for help in shedding a few hundred pounds, he landed the world's biggest weight watcher. Garza is getting diet advice from Manuel Uribe, a fellow Mexican who has been fighting to lose his title as the world's heaviest man. Both men live around the Monterrey area in Mexico. Neither can get out of bed. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two hugely popular supplements used to fight arthritis and joint pain, glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate, do not seem to work any better than placebo to slow the loss of knee cartilage in osteoarthritis, researchers reported on Monday. But the researchers said some of their findings were confusing and said more study was needed. "At two years, no treatment ...

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - If it sounds far-fetched for a man without lower legs to become one of the fastest runners on the planet, how about typing by just thinking the words or staying sporty well into old age? Such prospects motivate work at Ossur, the Icelandic group behind the prosthetics that vaulted double-amputee Oscar Pistorius into the limelight with his bid to compete in the ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - It's not just the elderly who vulnerable to the ill effects of air pollution, new research suggests. In a study of 2.7 million deaths across 48 U.S. cities, researchers found that death rates tended to rise on days when ozone pollution increased -- with the older adults being most at risk. However, while age was the strongest risk factor, there was also ...

MONDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Elderly Americans who live in low-income ZIP codes are more likely to die after surgery than those who live in higher-income ZIP codes, according to new research. The study analyzed death rates among more than one million older adults who had one of six common high-risk heart or cancer surgeries between 1999 and 2003. The risk of death was between ...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's contaminated milk products scandal, which have landed thousands of children in hospital in China this month with kidney illnesses, has reignited calls from medical experts for a return to breastfeeding. Apart from expounding the various merits of breastmilk, they warned Asian countries, which have been consuming more dairy products in recent decades, of a...

TUESDAY, Sept. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Children vaccinated against hepatitis B probably are not at an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) unless they were inoculated with a particular brand of the vaccine, according to a new study. The French study found that children with MS were almost twice as likely to have received the vaccine called Engerix B three or more years ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Up to 80 percent of cancer patients who undergo radiation treatment do not take medications to combat pain, a new study indicates. Many of the patients cited fears of addiction as well as cost as their reasons for saying no to painkillers. However, the most common reason given was that their healthcare provider had not recommended medication, according to ...

LONDON (Reuters) - A Chinese herbal remedy called horny goat weed is a promising alternative to Viagra for impotent men, Italian researchers said on Monday. The herb has long held a reputation as a natural aphrodisiac. The lab experiments, which did not look at whether the plant actually increases desire, could lead to new drugs to help men get erections, said Mario Dell'Agli, a ...