- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Add increased suffering for people
with ragweed allergies to the list of problems caused by climate change, a
new study suggests.

Recent research indicates that increasing global temperatures and
carbon dioxide levels are causing longer ragweed seasons and more
concentrated pollen counts, says the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma
& Immunology, which [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Breast-feeding moms who take
medicines containing codeine may be unwittingly risking the health of
their infant, new Canadian research suggests.

The study indicates that a relatively rare genetic predisposition
causes some women to metabolize codeine-laced drugs into morphine far
faster than normal — possibly harming the infant's central nervous system
in the process.

In [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Undiagnosed infections may be
causing a significant number of premature births, researchers
reported on Monday after finding bacteria or fungi in 15
percent of the amniotic fluid samples taken from women in
pre-term labor.

The heavier the infection, the more likely the women were
to deliver younger, sicker infants, the team at Stanford
University in California found.

“If we [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Parents, teachers and school staff
need to take measures to ensure the safety of the more than 2.2 million
American students with food allergies, says the American Academy of
Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

“Open and frequent communication between parents and school staff is a
key ingredient to keeping food-allergic students out of [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Bloodletting is often
dismissed as a primitive form of medicine, in which early doctors
attempted to rid the body of bad humors by draining the life-sustaining
fluid.

But there's at least one disease left where bloodletting is still the
preferred means of treatment.

Hemochromatosis is an inherited disease in which the body becomes
overloaded [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Safety warnings slowed the use of
antipsychotic drugs in seniors with dementia. But the overall use of the
drugs in the elderly increased, a finding which suggests that warnings may
not be sufficient to protect patients, Canadian researchers say.

Between late 2002 and June 2005, Health Canada issued three warnings
that [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Low or high levels of LDL
cholesterol are associated with an increased risk of cancer in patients
with type 2 diabetes, according to a Chinese study that noted the
increasing evidence of an association between type 2 diabetes and cancer
risk.

The study included 6,107 diabetes patients. None of the patients were
taking [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — A new study identifies some
women — but not men — who might be able to stop taking blood-thinning
medication for the clotting condition called venous thromboembolism.

Current guidelines call for indefinite use of a clot-preventing drug,
most often warfarin (Coumadin), for many people with the condition. But
researchers report that they've [...]

- MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Uninsured Americans will
spend $30 billion out of pocket for health care, and receive $56 billion
in uncompensated care in 2008, new research shows.

Uncompensated care is defined as health care that is received but not
paid for by the uninsured or a health insurer.

In a report appearing in Monday's online [...]

The death toll from an outbreak linked to contaminated deli meats in Canada rose to 12 Monday, with several other people sickened, health officials said. “We fully expect that both the number of suspected and confirmed cases will increase as this investigation continues and samples continue to be tested,” Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Gerry Ritz, [...]