Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
New Heart Failure Guidelines Stress Early Diagnosis, Treatment
Patients at risk of heart failure can avoid or delay the deadly condition by being diagnosed earlier and undergoing modern treatments, according to new guidelines issued Tuesday by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.
Heart failure, which the groups said can stem from most any form of heart disease, leads to some 1 million hospital visits each year. The new guidelines say early recognition and control of risk factors including diabetes, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure can help people avoid the condition and improve their quality of life.
"For instance, the studies have shown controlling hypertension can reduce the incidence of heart failure by 50 percent," the groups said in a statement.
The guidelines recommend expanding the number of patients eligible for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), small devices that shock awkwardly beating hearts back into a normal rhythm. In cases where heart failure is likely to be fatal, the guidelines suggest that cardiologists broach the subject of hospice care, providing support and comfort for terminally ill people and their families.
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Coretta Scott King is Hospitalized
The widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was hospitalized Tuesday in Atlanta with an undisclosed ailment, the Associated Press reported.
Coretta Scott King, 78, was resting comfortably, according to Piedmont Hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis. She did not provide details of King's condition or the reason for her hospitalization, the wire service said.
King has canceled recent and upcoming public appearances, raising concerns about her health. At a June 30 ceremony paying tribute to her family at the Georgia State Capitol, King's son said his mother was "doing well" and was abiding by her doctor's orders to limit her activities, the AP reported.
Dr. King married Coretta Scott in 1953. They had four children.
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Oregon Anti-Meth Law Requires Prescriptions for Cold Meds
Oregon's governor signed legislation on Tuesday that makes the state the first to require prescriptions for cold and allergy medications that could be made into the street drug methamphetamine (meth), the Associated Press reported.
The legislation, signed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, applies to drugs containing the decongestant pseudoephedrine, including Sudafed and Claritin D. Drugs containing a similar ingredient that can't be converted to meth -- phenylephrine -- will remain readily available, the wire service said.
The law, which could be in place within three months, will allow people up to five refills within a six-month span, the AP reported.
Oregon and several other states now require people to show identification and sign a log before they can obtain drugs containing pseudoephedrine, the wire service said.
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U.S. Finds More Than 1,000 Mad-Cow Rule Violations
More than 1,000 violations of regulations meant to prevent the spread of mad cow disease to humans have been found by U.S. Agriculture Department inspectors, the Associated Press reported.
Over a 17-month period ending in May, the department cited beef slaughterhouses or processing plants 1,036 times for failing to comply with the rules, which require that brains, spinal cords and other nerve tissue that can carry the disease be removed when cows older than 30 months are slaughtered.
It's believed that infection levels of mad cow disease increase as the animals age.
Despite the infractions, no contaminated meat reached consumers, the Agriculture Department said. A spokesperson noted that the number of violations of mad cow prevention rules amounts to less than 1 percent of all citations at the plants, the AP reported.
The Agriculture Department released the information Monday in response to requests made by several groups under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
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Campaign Hopes to Stamp Out Lung Cancer in U.S. by 2015
In the wake of newscaster Peter Jennings' death from lung cancer last week and Dana Reeve's diagnosis with the disease, the National Cancer Institute has announced an aggressive plan to end lung cancer's "suffering and death" by 2015, Newsday reported.
The campaign will consist of three parts: more effective tobacco control; improving the likelihood of cure through early detection; and, relying on cutting-edge "targeted therapies" to more precisely treat the disease, the newspaper said.
NCI officials are also calling for an additional $40 million to supplement the $380 million currently allocated to lung cancer research.
Dr. Mark Clanton, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute, said his agency has been working on the program for more than a year. But the announcements concerning Jennings and Reeve, the widow of actor Christopher Reeve, should give the campaign added impetus, he said.
One of the keys to the campaign will be developing early detection and treatments that rely on nanotechnology. "Nanomedicine is about engineering particles or substances or devices on the order 100,000 times smaller than [the diameter of a] human hair," Clanton told the newspaper.
These microscopic particles can be designed to zero in on cancer cells, leaving healthy cells untouched, Newsday said.
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Doctors Act as Paid Consultants to Investors
Almost 10 percent of the 700,000 doctors in the United States are acting as paid consultants to companies that provide investors with access to professionals, experts and employees of major companies.
For a fee, investors can contact these doctors to get what may be inside information on clinical trials conducted by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, information that could be worth millions of dollars, The New York Times reported.
This raises potentially troubling questions and has prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to look into whether doctors taking part in clinical trials are accepting payments to discuss confidential test results with investors and analysts. This kind of activity could be regarded as a violation of insider trading law, according to the Times report.
The issue of growing contact between doctors and investment companies was the subject of an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in June. The article was co-authored by Dr. Eric J. Topol of the Cleveland Clinic.
"The frequency of physician contact, this matrix or extraordinary network of physicians that were at the disposal of investment firms, is a setup for trouble," Topol said.
