Cotton swabs: Major cause of eardrum perforations
From Newsmax A sampling of U.S. emergency department records confirms that sticking anything smaller than your elbow in your ear is a good way to puncture an eardrum.About 66 percent of patients treated for traumatic tympanic membrane perforations had hurt…
1 in 3 Americans prescribed opioids in 2015
From Newsmax The United States needs to curb excessive opioid prescribing and improve access to pain management techniques, suggests a new government study.Researchers found that more than one third of U.S. adults were prescribed the medications in 2015 and many…
Clearing clogged blood vessels can benefit some at age 90 and older
From Newsmax People in their nineties and older represent a tiny but growing fraction of patients who undergo a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to clear blocked blood vessels in the heart, new research shows. And while the rate…
Mental distress boosts heart patients’ death risk
From Newsmax People with heart disease are at risk of dying sooner when they suffer from chronic depression and anxiety, a recent study suggests. Researchers examined data on 950 people in Australia and New Zealand with stable coronary artery disease,…
Poor, minority neighborhoods have more tobacco-selling shops per capita
By Carolyn Crist From Reuters (Reuters Health) – Neighborhoods with a high proportion of black residents or high poverty tend to have the greatest density of stores selling cigarettes and tobacco products, U.S. researchers say. Poverty explained some of the…
The US healthcare sector emits more greenhouse gas than the entire UK
By Ronnie Cohen, Reuters From Business Insider If the U.S. healthcare sector were ranked as a nation, it would be the world’s 13th-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, more than all of the UK, a new study finds. “Unfortunately, in our…
Smokers may try to quit 30 times before it sticks
By Kathryn Doyle, Reuters From Business Insider Though conventional wisdom says it takes five to seven attempts for most smokers to quit, those estimates may be very low, a recent study suggests. Based on data for more than 1,200 adult…
