Infant mortality rate drops, children more likely to have working parent, be read to
... the favorable trends for America's children was a drop in the infant mortality rate. In 1999, there were...s per 1000 live births in both 1997 and 1998. "The drop in infant mortality is very encouraging," said Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the National Insti...Medicare+Choice bills may stop exodus of plans, but are not likely to expand enrollment in HMOs
...ment Advisory Commission would cause enrollment to drop by 2 million, to 3.3 million, and current law would result in a 2005 enrollment of 4.1 million. The authors conclude that the program has been hampered by conflicting policy goals since passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Policymakers want M...Quick blood test for heart failure proves successful in multinational trial
...h signs of heart attack, and achieved a 40 percent drop in critical care admissions, and a 20 percent drop in overall hospital admissions. The multinational trial of the BNP test was conducted in the emerge...Worksite program to stop smoking among blue-collar workers yields notable success
...tly available on its website. "Despite an overall drop since the 1960s in the number of people who smoke, the rate of decline hasn't been equal for all groups," says the study's lead author, Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH, who is the director of Dana-Farber's Center for Community-Based Research. In 1997, th...Exercise therapy improves fibromyalgia
...e treatment is a considerable problem, giving high drop out rates, say the authors. Future strategies to increase the efficacy of exercise as an intervention should confront this issue, they conclude....Smoke-free workplaces protect non-smokers and encourage smokers to quit
...smoke-free, per capita cigarette consumption would drop by 4.5% in the United States and 7.6% in the United Kingdom, costing the tobacco industry $1.7 billion and 310 million annually in lost sales, they add. To achieve similar reductions, tax per pack would have to increase to $1.11 and 4.26. While produ...Annual study reveals 23 football players died during 2001 season
...juries in practices or in games. Mueller said. The drop in deaths directly attributable to football resulted from rule changes adopted in 1976 that prohibited using the head as the first point of contact while blocking and tackling. Shorter practices and non-contact drills during which players don't wear ...UCLA AIDS Institute scientists show antiretroviral drugs can eradicate AIDS epidemic
... of drug-resistant viral strains treatment-induced drop in viral load, reducing a patient's ability to inf...ffective drugs to reduce viral load. Even a slight drop in viral load would provide great benefit. Prevent drug resistance from developing in order to preve...Dog collars could prevent parasitic disease in children
...2% reduction in transmission to children and a 54% drop in infection in dogs. Collaring dogs offers an alternative to current control methods, such as dog culling and spraying houses with insecticide, both of which are logistically difficult to sustain and not completely effective. For example, in Brazil,...Study adds to knowledge of what it takes to stand up, walk
...egs. In most people, the body compensates for this drop in blood pressure by releasing norepinephrine, which triggers vasoconstriction, or blood vessel narrowing. Vasoconstriction revs up the pressure in the vessels and maintains adequate blood pressure. When a person stands and the vessels don't constric...Almonds have cholesterol benefits
...patients' cholesterol levels did not significantly drop after the muffin phase. Jenkins says that practitioners should encourage patients to eat almonds as part of a healthy balanced diet as long as they are natural or "dry roasted" without added oils or salts. Nuts do not have cholesterol and are a goo...Inflammation reduced after just two weeks on statin drug
...Heart Association."Simvastatin caused a tremendous drop in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in just seven days, as we had expected, and also significantly reduced highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) levels in 14 days. That finding was new," says Robert H. Eckel, M.D., professor of medici...Making individual health insurance market work
...ing average premiums so much that many lower risks drop out and effectively form a new underwriting class, causing the higher-risk plan to self-destruct. But the authors argue that likely consumer desertion of insurers who repeatedly engage in that practice will guard against such conduct by insurers....Pill-splitting can yield cost savings on common prescription drugs, Stanford researchers find
...tablets and splitting them, medication costs would drop to $180 annually. "As a cost-saving approach, pill-splitting has significant potential," said Stafford, who is an assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. He calculated that if pill-splitting were fully implemented within t...Study finds dramatic decline in physical activity among African-American and white girls
...y, the researchers conclude that the "precipitous" drop in activity levels during adolescence "should sound an alarm" for action. They suggest that the risk factors identified in this study could help prioritize education resources and guide prevention efforts. Eva Obarzanek, Ph.D., research nutritionis...Strong statin therapy reverses plaque build-up in arteries
...receiving pravastatin treatment had a 27.5 percent drop in their LDL cholesterol compared to a 48.5 percent reduction in LDL for people treated with the higher dose of atorvastatin. The pravastatin group's LDL was reduced to 110 mg/dL while the atorvastatin group's LDL level was 76 mg/dL. Researchers us...Web therapy may help tinnitus sufferers cope with problem
...e to a study advertisement may be just as quick to drop out when confronted with a demanding treatment regimen. Also, they say, Internet study patients should be monitored closely via telephone contact, and the treatment manual should be structured to include e-mail interactions between patient and thera...Remembering stressful events may lead to later heart disease
... making it take longer for their blood pressure to drop back to normal. "Delayed recovery may have been due to the fact that those who just experienced an emotionally involving episode were dwelling on this experience and this maintained elevated post-stress [blood pressure] levels," Glynn suggests. By co...Blood pressure drug shown to cut stroke, death risks in common form of hypertension
...the two groups. Both groups experienced a similar drop in blood pressure, and more than 40 percent of both groups were able to reduce their blood pressure to around 140/90 mm Hg. "This is the first demonstration that a treatment can reduce illness and death in ISH patients better than another treatment ......pants had abnormal heartbeats and/or a significant drop in blood pressure when tilt-tested for up to 45 minutes without drinking water. Only one person who drank water nearly fainted. Drinking water increased the time that test participants could tolerate remaining at a 60 degree angle to an average of ...