Diseases/Conditions News

TUESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) -- A treatment that helps prevent one type of breast cancer in women with an evaluated risk of the disease also appears to help doctors make an earlier diagnosis of another form of breast cancer, a new study reports.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama battled over taxes and the best way to help struggling American workers on Tuesday during a sometimes tense presidential debate that highlighted a wide gap in their economic approaches.

LONDON (Reuters) - The herbal remedy St. John's Wort effectively treats symptoms of major depression, an analysis of previous studies found on Wednesday.

TUESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) -- A new analysis of existing research finds little evidence that circumcision protects gay men from infection with the AIDS virus, but the issue is still far from settled.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Circumcision, which has been found to reduce by about one-half the transmission of HIV between heterosexuals, appears to offer far less protection for men engaging in homosexual intercourse, according to a new study.

(HealthDay News) -- Some drugs cause unpleasant side effects in many people, including nausea, dizziness or fatigue.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Asthma patients who are black tend to have more severe disease than asthma patients who are white, leading to more asthma control problems, higher rates of emergency department visits, and overall worse quality of life. These findings point to genetic differences that lead to poor responses to drug therapy as the source of these racial disparities.

(HealthDay News) -- Having asthma doesn't necessarily mean an unhealthy pregnancy. The key is to control symptoms and prevent attacks.

THURSDAY, Oct. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Young children who wheeze when they have rhinovirus infection -- the most common cause of colds -- are at much greater risk of developing asthma later during childhood, a new study says.

SUNDAY, Oct. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Men who are overweight and who have high insulin levels when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer may be more likely to die from the disease, research shows.

WASHINGTON - Talk about going out with a win.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is not enough evidence to say circumcision protects men from getting the AIDS virus during sex with other men even as studies show it protects them when having sex with women, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

MONDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- A new technique may help doctors diagnose a rare form of leukemia in a matter of hours instead of weeks, researchers say.

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.

BUDUDA, Uganda (AFP) - Like many cultural events, a male circumcision ceremony in eastern Uganda has its share of governing rules: the "candidate" is not supposed to see the surgeon until seconds before the cutting and his mother cannot be present.

THURSDAY, Oct. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The inhaled steroids that are often used to treat asthma don't work as well in the overweight or obese, new research shows.

PHILADELPHIA - Most people over 75 should stop getting routine colon cancer tests, according to a government health task force that also rejected the latest X-ray screening technology.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 1 (HealthDay News) -- A new statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) emphasizes the need to screen heart patients for depression.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday writes a postscript to a bitter scientific dispute in the 1980s over who deserved credit for discovering HIV and the resulting test to screen blood for it.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Two Malaysians died and one was severely injured in a ritual designed to help a man overcome his chain-smoking habit and to rid his wife of her asthma and liver diseases.

A German scientist has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, for his discoveries about the family of viruses that cause cervical cancer.

WASHINGTON - People with mental illness would get better health insurance coverage as part of a a giant financial bailout the Senate passed Wednesday, but the legislation's fate remains uncertain.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - France's Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier shared the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their discovery of the HIV virus, along with a German scientist for his groundbreaking research into cervical cancer.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Lab experiments indicate that people with asthma who are overweight or obese have a reduced response to steroid treatment, compared with their lean counterparts.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - French and German scientists credited with the discovery of the viruses behind AIDS and cervical cancer won Monday the Nobel Medicine Prize, the first of the prestigious awards to be announced this year.

(Reuters) - Medical-device maker Cyberonics Inc said it could not get a partner for its brain stimulation treatment in the depression indication, sending its shares down as much as 10 percent.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new estimate of how many Americans have the AIDS virus puts the number at about 1.1 million, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

(HealthDay News) -- If you are allergic to one or more foods, dining out does include possible risks. But food allergies don't mean you have to stay home to stay safe.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who bucked conventional wisdom to find a virus that causes cervical cancer were awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday.