- FRIDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) — Skin patches that contain the
drug rotigotine help relieve restless legs syndrome (RLS), according to a
German study.

Dopaminergic drugs — which stimulate the body's dopamine system — are
currently used as a first-line treatment for RLS, and rotigotine is
already used to treat Parkinson's disease. This study of 458 people [...]

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles hospital provided liver transplants to four Japanese gang figures, including one of Japan’s most powerful gang bosses, over a period when several hundred area patients died while awaiting transplants, according to a published report.
The surgeries were performed at UCLA Medical Center by world-renowned liver surgeon Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
U.S. patients who use certain asthma
inhalers made with ozone-depleting propellants should talk to
their doctors now about alternatives ahead of a ban that starts
in January, health officials said on Friday.
Albuterol inhalers that use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to
propel the medicine into the lungs will no longer be sold in
the United States after this year because CFCs [...]

WASHINGTON - Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said Friday a blood-clotting drug from GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. is effective for short-term use, despite reservations by FDA scientists.
A panel of 16 outside advisers voted unanimously in favor of Promacta at a meeting held in Chicago, said FDA spokeswoman Karen Riley. The drug [...]

A scientist inspects a sample under a microscope. European doctors said Friday they had identified a genetic characteristic that strongly worsens survival chances for women with breast cancer who are treated with a common form of chemotherapy.(AFP/File/Saul Loeb)

PARIS (AFP) -
European doctors said Friday they had identified a genetic characteristic that strongly worsens survival chances for [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Protein accumulations, or
plaques, characteristic of Alzheimer's disease can be
eliminated from the brains of mice, researchers report, by
encouraging scavenger immune cells called macrophages to do
their work.
The activity of macrophages is damped down by a naturally
occurring compound called TGF-beta, to stop runaway reactions,
and prior research has shown that brain levels of TGF-beta are
increased [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
A new analysis of current
research provides “the strongest evidence to date” that giving
small children supplemental vitamin D will help prevent them
from developing type 1 diabetes later on, according to the
review's co-author.
“This is just another reason why current recommendations
regarding vitamin D supplementation should be rigorously
adhered to,” Dr. Christos S. Zipitis told Reuters [...]

Branding and logos on cigarette packets could be banned under Government proposals to cut smoking.

Controls including plain packaging, minimum pack sizes of 20 to prevent teenagers who can only afford packs of 10 buying cigarettes, and a ban on the advertising of cigarette papers are all under consideration by the Department of Health.
It has released [...]

A Filipino teenager puffs a cigarette in Manila street. Half a billion young Asians are at risk from diseases associated with nicotine, a senior World Health Organisation official said Friday, denouncing advertising directed at teenagers.(AFP/File/Romeo Gacad)

MANILA (AFP) -
Half a billion young Asians are at risk from diseases associated with nicotine, a senior World Health Organisation [...]

LONDON (Reuters) - The government launched a three-month public consultation on Saturday on how to cut the number of people smoking in Britain.

Removing branding and logos from cigarette packets, making retailers sell cigarettes from under the counter and banning the advertising of smoking paraphernalia, such as cigarette papers, are some of the measures proposed by [...]