HLAC Health News

A coalition of the nation's largest food makers on Thursday unveiled a plan to set new nutrition standards for foods that can be advertised to children. The standards include reducing sugar, salt, calories and trans fat and saturated fat. According to Kolish, about one-third of products currently advertised to kids don't meet the new nutrition criteria. By Dec. 31, 2013, products must meet the new standards or they can't be advertised to kids.

Two new studies from the American Academy of Pediatrics look at how exposure to secondhand smoke affects American youths' learning behaviors and their attitudes toward smoking. The first found that children exposed to secondhand smoke in the home had a 50% increased risk of developing two or more childhood neurobehavioral disorders compared with children who were not exposed at home.

-The president of the American Psychiatric Association says he is "very open" to a request from the Army to come up with an alternative name for post-traumatic stress disorder so that troops returning from combat will feel less stigmatized and more encouraged to seek treatment.

Bacteria are finally overrunning our last defenses. Can we stop them? [collection of articles]

More than 50 countries look set to miss both millennium development goal targets for cutting mortality rates for young children and mothers by the 2015 deadline, according to a report

Link to study: http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e4026.pdf%2Bhtml

lorcaserin (Belviq)

Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant.

Pilot study shows 60 percent of children who received liver tissue from a parent can safely discontinue immunosuppression; larger study planned

Two new blood types

But industry and some health experts say the food may not be so dangerous.

Two women with untreatable eye diseases said they had dramatic improvements in their vision after injections of human embryonic stem cells, making it the first documented time these controversial cells have helped someone.

Check to see if information on virtual colonoscopy is in regular colonoscopy entry. Similar articles: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/acor-ccs021712.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/rson-vce021712.php

I've seen this thing reported elsewhere, so there must be something to it. It seems like an interesting idea--especially for me with my magnifying spectacles. But it also seems like a scam: $95 for the app for three months, then a monthly fee. Red flags.

Louis Van Oeyen / WRHS / Getty Images Researchers report they've discovered a common cause of all forms of the fatal neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. The findings, published in Nature, point to a possible new avenue for treatment.

WASHINGTON - Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government's latest attempt to protect the Earth's atmosphere. The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec.

Last updated at 11:57 AM on 29th September 2011 Far from making your sight worse, it seems that time spent staring at a computer or iPhone screen could soon improve vision. A brain-training app that gives middle-aged people the eyesight of those ten years younger will be available to download within months, developers say.

A parasitic infection normally transmitted by deer ticks has made its way into the U.S. blood supply, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday

The research found that if a mother's diet contains a certain group of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) - such as those found in fish, walnut oil or flaxseed - the baby's gut develops differently. The PUFAs are thought to improve how gut immune cells respond to bacteria and foreign substances, making the baby less likely to suffer from allergies.

If we do a book on public health, we should consider topics related to public health spending policy, like this one.