- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Interaction Between Cholesterol, Heart Meds
May Cause Muscle Damage

People who take the anti-cholesterol drugs Zocor (generic: simvastatin)
or Vytorin along with a medication to control irregular heartbeat are at
increased risk of severe muscle damage, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration warned Friday.

Zocor and Vytorin, which contains the active ingredient in Zocor, are
statins, and muscle damage is a known but rare side effect of the drugs.
The heart rhythm drug is called either Cordarone or Pacerone (generic:
amiodarone). The danger rises among those who take more than 20 milligrams
daily of the cholesterol drugs, according to the agency warning cited by
the Associated Press.

The FDA first warned in 2002 about an interaction between the two types
of medications, but that hasn't prevented the problem, the AP
reported. Over the past six years, the agency has gathered 52 reports of
serious muscle damage among people who took both medicines.

Most of those injuries required hospitalization, the wire service
said.

The FDA warned that people who are taking the heart rhythm drug should
switch to a different statin to control cholesterol.

—–

Pandemic Flu Biggest Threat to U.K.:
Report

The most serious danger facing the U.K. over the next five years is
pandemic flu, not terrorism, according to a national threat assessment
released Friday by Britain's Cabinet Office.

The document's authors assessed the level of risk posed by a number of
threats, including terrorism, extreme weather, climate change and pandemic
flu, the Associated Press reported.

The document doesn't actually rank the threats in order of seriousness,
but does say that pandemic flu is considered the most pressing concern,
according to a Cabinet Office spokeswoman.

Previous government assessments concluded that a pandemic flu outbreak
could kill as many as 750,000 people in Britain and that it could take as
long as several months to develop vaccines to deal with a specific strain
of the virus, the AP reported.

—–

Study Examines Possible Link Between
Gluten/Dairy Products and Autism

A study to investigate whether gluten or dairy products contribute to
autistic behavior is being conducted by researchers at the University of
Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston.

The double-blind clinical study will include 38 autistic children, ages
3 to 9. All of them will be taken off gluten (a protein in wheat) and
dairy products before the start of the four-week study. When the study
begins, half the children will be given gluten/milk powder and half will
be given a placebo powder, United Press International reported.

Some parents of autistic children believe casomorphin (a peptide in
milk) and gliadomorphin (a peptide in gluten) affect their children's
behavior.

“There's a lot of misinformation, so that's why this study is so import
ant. Hundreds and hundreds of parents think [changing diet] works but we
need serious evidence,” lead investigator Dr. Fernando Navarro said in a
news release cited by UPI.

—–

Fertility Treatments Offer Little Benefit For
Some Couples

The infertility drug clomifene citrate and artificial insemination do
little to help certain couples who can't have children naturally,
according to Scottish researchers.

Their study included 580 couples who had no obvious reasons for their
inability to conceive. The couples were divided into three groups and
received either the drug, artificial insemination, or no treatment. There
was little difference between the three groups in the numbers of women who
had babies, the Associated Press reported.

Women in the clomifene citrate group had 26 babies, compared to 32
babies in the no-treatment group and 43 babies in the artificial
insemination group. The findings appear in the British Medical
Journal.

“These treatments are a leap of faith,” said lead author Dr. Siladitya
Bhattacharya, a professor of reproductive medicine at the University of
Aberdeen, the AP reported. “None of the treatments studied had any
significant benefit over no treatment at all.”

—–

Circumcision May Reduce Risk of HIV Infection by 65
Percent

Circumcision may offer men greater protection against HIV than
previously thought, according to a study that included 2,784 Kenyan men
who were uncircumcised and HIV-free when they enrolled in the trial. HIV
is the virus that causes AIDS.

Half of the men were circumcised at the start of the study. After two
years, circumcised men were 60 percent less likely to contract HIV than
uncircumcised men, Agence France-Presse reported.

The protective benefit was deemed so great that, after two years, the
uncircumcised men were offered circumcision.

“The 60 percent protective effect against HIV acquisition … over the
first 24 months of the study, we now find to be sustained and possibly
strengthened to approximately 65 percent over three and half years of
follow-up,” said study author Robert Bailey, of the University of Illinois
at Chicago, AFP reported.

The findings were presented Thursday at the International AIDS
Conference in Mexico City.

—–

Gum Disease May Increase Risk of
Diabetes

Gum disease may be an independent risk factor for type 2 diabetes,
according to a Columbia University study that included more than 9,000
people who didn't have diabetes at the start of the study.

The researchers examined the risk of developing diabetes over 20 years
among participants with varying degrees of gum disease. They found that
people with higher degrees of gum disease were nearly twice as likely to
develop diabetes, United Press International reported.

That finding held true even after the researchers adjusted for other
diabetes-related factors such as age, smoking, obesity, diet and high
blood pressure. The study appears in the journal Diabetes Care.

“These data add a new twist to the association (between diabetes and
gum disease) and suggest that periodontal disease may be there before
diabetes,” lead author Ryan T. Demmer said in a news release, UPI
reported.