SanLuisObispo.com: Health

British girl's heart heals itself after transplant

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:45 PDT

By By MARIA CHENG -- British doctors designed a radical solution to save a girl with major heart problems in 1995: they implanted a donor heart directly onto her own failing heart.

After 10 years with two blood pumping organs, Hannah Clark's faulty one did what many experts had thought impossible: it healed itself enough so that doctors could remove the donated heart.

But she also had a price to pay: the drugs Clark took to prevent her body from rejecting the donated heart led to malignant cancer that required chemotherapy.

Study: 7 key genes predict brain cancer survival

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:45 PDT

By By CARLA K. JOHNSON -- Scientists have found seven key genes in the type of brain tumor affecting Sen. Edward Kennedy that together can predict how aggressive a patient's cancer will be.

The findings, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, may eventually lead to tests that predict patient survival and drugs that target the culprit genes.

While hundreds of gene mutations may contribute to brain cancers, the researchers decided to search for the problem genes at the center of the interplay driving a tumor's growth.

NASA aiming for Wednesday shuttle launch, try 6

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:29 PDT

By By MARCIA DUNN -- NASA is hoping the weather finally cooperates for its sixth launch attempt for space shuttle Endeavour.

Endeavour is poised to take off for the international space station early Wednesday evening, along with seven astronauts. Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 60 percent.

Thunderstorms have delayed the mission three times and hydrogen gas leaks have caused two delays. Endeavour holds the final piece of Japan's space lab, which should have flown last month.

Ala. doctor could bring attention to moribund post

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:47 PDT

By By MIKE STOBBE -- The U.S. Surgeon General has been described as "the nation's doctor," a "national nanny" and the person who puts warning labels on cigarette packs. But lately, the position has been mostly called something else: invisible.

Once the government's leading voice on health issues, the surgeon general faded into relative obscurity in recent years. When asked to name a surgeon general, many people can only recall Dr. C. Everett Koop - the famous Reagan appointee with the look and bearing of a biblical prophet.

Some thought that would change under the Obama administration, which early on considered popular CNN medical reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta for the job.

British girl's heart heals itself after transplant

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:47 PDT

By By MARIA CHENG -- British doctors designed a radical solution to save a girl with major heart problems in 1995: they implanted a donor heart directly onto her own failing heart.

After 10 years with two blood pumping organs, Hannah Clark's faulty one did what many experts had thought impossible: it healed itself enough so that doctors could remove the donated heart.

But she also had a price to pay: the drugs Clark took to prevent her body from rejecting the donated heart led to malignant cancer that required chemotherapy.

Hunting best buys when eating healthy costs more

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:22 PDT

By By LAURAN NEERGAARD -- Has the recession cut heart-healthy seafood and leafy greens out of your budget? Are you squeezing boxed meals or fast food between two jobs?

Obesity experts say the lousy economy threatens to worsen Americans' already bulging waistlines because bad-for-you food happens to be the cheapest. But there are healthy cheap eats, and new research aims to show how to eke the most nutrition out of every buck.

"We wanted to make sure every calorie counted," says Dr. Adam Drewnowski, who directs the University of Washington Center for Public Health Nutrition and is pushing for the federal government to put more affordability into the calculation when it issues new dietary guidelines next year.

Walking, biking to work linked with better fitness

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:07 PDT

By By CARLA K. JOHNSON -- Walking or biking to work, even part way, is linked with fitness, but very few Americans do it, according to a study of more than 2,000 middle-aged city dwellers.

In what may be the first large U.S. study of health and commuting, the researchers found only about 17 percent of workers walked or bicycled any portion of their commute.

Those active commuters did better on treadmill tests of fitness, even when researchers accounted for their leisure-time physical activity levels, suggesting commuter choices do make a difference.

WHO: No licensed swine flu vaccine til end of year

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:19 PDT

By By MARIA CHENG -- A fully licensed swine flu vaccine might not be available until the end of the year, a top official at the World Health Organization said Monday, in a report that could affect many countries' vaccination plans.

But countries could use emergency provisions to get the vaccines out quicker if they decide their populations need them, Marie-Paule Kieny, director of WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research, said during a news conference.

The swine flu viruses currently being used to develop a vaccine aren't producing enough of the ingredient needed for the vaccine, and WHO has asked its laboratory network to produce a new set of viruses as soon as possible.

Happy or hungry? Cat purrs send different messages

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:18 PDT

By By MALCOLM RITTER -- A cat's purr normally says, "I'm happy." But a new study suggests some purrs send cat owners a much different message: "Feed me!"

Researchers found that purrs of hungry cats included a higher-pitched sound, somewhat like a cry or meow. They played recordings of these purrs from 10 cats to 50 human volunteers. Even people who'd never owned a cat found them to be more urgent and less pleasant than contented purrs from the same animals.

These food-seeking purrs may exploit the way humans naturally respond to a baby's cry, the researchers suggest. Not all cats use this strategy, but some apparently learn to turn it on when they see it's effective in getting a human to feed them, Karen McComb of the University of Sussex in England said in a statement.

Thunderstorms cause 5th delay for space shuttle

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:27 PDT

By By MARCIA DUNN -- Thunderstorms once again forced NASA to call off the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Monday, the fifth delay for the space station construction mission.

NASA said it would try again early Wednesday evening, after taking a one-day break.

In a scene nearly identical to Sunday, launch managers halted the countdown just minutes before Endeavour and seven astronauts were supposed to blast off in the early evening.

Study: 1918 flu survivors seem immune to swine flu

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:42 PDT

By By SETH BORENSTEIN -- The way swine flu multiplies in the respiratory system is more severe than ordinary winter flu, a new study in animals finds.

Tests in monkeys, mice and ferrets show that the swine flu thrives in greater numbers all over the respiratory system, including the lungs, and causes lesions, instead of staying in the nose and throat like seasonal flu.

In addition, blood tests show that many people who were born before the 1918 flu pandemic seem to have immunity to the current swine flu, but not to the seasonal flu that hits every year.

Study: Clozapine may have saved schizophrenics

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:10 PDT

By By MARIA CHENG -- Thousands of people with schizophrenia worldwide could have been saved if doctors had prescribed them the anti-psychotic drug clozapine, a new study says.

Clozapine was introduced in the 1970s, but was banned for about a decade because of a rare but potentially deadly side effect: up to 2 percent of patients lose their white blood cells while taking the drug.

It was brought back to the market in the 1980s with warnings about its use, and is sold generically as Clozaril, Leponex, Denzapine, Fazaclo, among other names.

Weather big question as NASA fuels Endeavour

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:55 PDT

By By MARCIA DUNN -- NASA has starting loading 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen into space shuttle Endeavour, but the weather forecast is not good.

If the weather cooperates, launch is scheduled for 6:51 p.m. EDT Monday.

NASA predicts just a 40 percent chance of weather being acceptable for launch. Showers and thunderstorms with lightning are the main concerns.

Scrub tech causes major hepatitis scare in Colo.

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:19 PDT

By By P. SOLOMON BANDA -- Kimberly Spencer's 9-year-old son went to Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center last month for what was supposed to be a routine surgery. The rambunctious child stuck a BB in his ear and doctors had to operate to remove it.

What happened next shocked the family. They were notified that their son is one of 6,000 patients who may have been exposed to hepatitis C by a painkiller-addicted technician who had the disease and allegedly passed on dirty syringes to patients.

The technician has been jailed, thousands of rattled patients have been getting hepatitis C tests, and two medical facilities where she worked have been bombarded with questions about how they let it happen. Ten cases of hepatitis C have been linked to Rose Medical Center, where Kristen Diane Parker worked until April.

Space companies eye HI as potential new frontier

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:39 PDT

By By MARK NIESSE -- Tourists coming to Hawaii for high-end getaways could someday be launched from the sand to the stars, taking island-hopping to new heights. Hawaii could even be the first state where space travelers use rocket planes to get from one place to another. Rather than launching and landing in the same spot, planners envision the planes taking off in one place, traveling through space, then coming down in another, going from the Big Island to Oahu. Within a decade, space travelers could island hop from Hawaii to Japan in 45 minutes.

And promoters promise a unique perspective during the Hawaii flight.

"Flying down the Hawaii island chain, it's a completely different view of the planet than you'll see when you launch from landlocked states," said Chuck Lauer, vice president of business development for Oklahoma City-based Rocketplane Global. "It's the blue planet view of the world."

Searchers shovel Northwest dirt seeking giant worm

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:50 PDT

By By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS -- The giant Palouse earthworm has taken on mythic qualities in this vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle - its very name evoking the fictional sandworms from "Dune" or those vicious creatures from the movie "Tremors."

The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have been only a handful of sightings.

But scientists hope to change that this summer with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species, even though little research has been done on it.