According to a new study, post-menopausal women are 35 percent more likely to suffer a hip fracture if they take indigestion drugs, or “proton pump inhibitors” (PPIs).
These drugs are the most common medicines used around the world and are often used to treat heartburn and acid reflex.
However, PPIs can inhibit the absorption of calcium, which leads to the increased risk of fractures.
Researchers looked at the association between PPIs and hip fractures in just under 80,000 post-menopausal women over an eight year period from 2000 to 2008.
The team found that women …

A 17-year-old British factory worker who ate little else but McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets and fries for 15 years was rushed to a hospital earlier this week when she collapsed at work struggling the breathe.
Stacey Irvine – who says she has never tasted fresh fruit or vegetables – arrived at the hospital so deficient in vitamins and nutrients that she had to be injected with them.  Her anemic condition had caused inflamed veins to develop on her tongue.
And while doctors have urged her to drastically change her diet, Irvine says she …

Attentiveness in kindergarten accurately predicts the development of “work-oriented” skills in school children, according to a new study published by Dr. Linda Pagani, a professor and researcher at the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine. Elementary school teachers made observations of attention skills in over a thousand kindergarten children. Then, from grades 1 to 6, homeroom teachers rated how well the children worked both autonomously and with fellow classmates, their levels of self-control and self-confidence, and their ability to follow directions and rules. “For children, the classroom is the workplace, …

According to a new study, oral infections with the human papillomavirus (HPV) are more common in men than women.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said that while the viruses can be found in saliva, HPV appears to be mostly spread through sex.
Study author Maura Gillison, a professor at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center said the virus can cause cancers at the back of the throat, tonsils and base of the tongue.  Patients infected with oral HPV type 16 have a 14 times higher …

There has been a large drop in the rate of leg and foot amputations among Americans aged 40 and over with diagnosed diabetes, according to a new study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in the February issue of Diabetes Care. The study reports that between 1996 and 2008 the rate of such amputations fell by 65%.
The authors suggest the most likely reason for this large drop in leg and foot amputations among people with diagnosed diabetes is improvements in blood sugar control, foot care …