Health News

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A spray touted as the first potential treatment for premature ejaculation has proved effective in a second study, according to the company that developed it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spray that numbs the penis can help prevent premature ejaculation, doctors reported on Thursday, and drug maker Sciele Pharma Inc, a division of Japan's Shionogi, plans to file for U.S. approval next year.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Herpes, the sexually transmitted disease that causes genital lesions, never truly goes into a dormant state, new research suggests.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Past the security man and his pit bull and through a haze of eye-watering smoke, two youths load up a pipe next to a row of shiny glass jars with two dozen varieties of marijuana bud displayed like candy.

WASHINGTON - In a Nov. 17 story about drug interactions between heartburn medications and the blood thinner Plavix, The Associated Press misidentified Johnson & Johnson's Mylanta as part of the H-2 blocker drug family. Mylanta is an antacid.

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- People's genetic makeup has been shown to affect how they respond to asthma medications, but a new study finds that many people respond well to a particular combination treatment regardless of their genes.

PARIS (AFP) - Beaten or sexually abused children are more likely to show accelerated ageing of cells later in life, a condition linked to higher rates of cancer and heart disease, according to a study released Friday.

HANOI, Vietnam - Babies squirmed and wailed as needles plunged into their chubby thighs at a public health clinic on the outskirts of Hanoi on Friday. Like little ones everywhere, the reaction to the sting was never pretty.

Among the many reasons for the high preterm birth rate in the U.S.: lack of insurance, cigarette smoking and elective cesarean-section deliveries that are scheduled too early

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Seniors who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and who have good cognitive function are much less likely to die from heart disease than those who have poorer cognitive function and eat fewer fruits and vegetables, a new study has found.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to boost Medicare payments to physicians in a move that could help shore up support from doctors for a sweeping Democratic-backed healthcare overhaul.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Taking the B vitamin niacin offers no additional benefit to seniors with coronary artery disease who are already prescribed cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, U.S. researchers say.

WASHINGTON - The former director of the National Institutes of Health is advising women to ignore new guidelines that delay the start of routine mammogram testing for breast cancer.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is now recommending women begin cervical cancer screening at age 21, instead of 3 years after the onset of sexual activity, as was previously recommended by the group. ACOG has also modified its recommendations for how often women should be screened for cervical cancer, a disease that affected 11,270 US women in 2009, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who suffer from depression are much more likely to be prescribed powerful opioid painkillers like morphine and codeine and to stay on the drugs long-term, new research shows.

SATURDAY, Nov. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Sleep-deprived people may put themselves and others at risk when they need to make split-second decisions, U.S. researchers have found.

WASHINGTON - The former director of the National Institutes of Health is advising women to ignore new guidelines that delay the start of routine mammogram testing for breast cancer.

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A spray touted as the first potential treatment for premature ejaculation has proved effective in a second study, according to the company that developed it.