Health bulletin: Cutting doctors' hours doesn't help patients much

Cutting doctors' hours doesn't help patients much

Cutting the grueling work hours of doctors-in-training had little effect on reducing patient deaths, according to two large studies.

Death rates dropped in one group of patients in veterans' hospitals but not in three other groups, the researchers reported.

The results come from what the authors describe as the largest and most comprehensive national look at work-hour restrictions, which were implemented four years ago in an effort to reduce medical errors by tired physicians.

The studies appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The new rules limit doctors-in-training to 80-hour weeks. Before the rules, medical residents often worked 100-hour weeks.

The two studies included 318,000 VA patients and more than 8.5 million Medicare patients at hospitals nationwide. The researchers looked at death rates in the years before and after the rules took effect in 2003. They compared hospitals with a large number of residents and hospitals with few residents.

A study of VA patients found that two years after the rules were implemented, mortality improved by 11 percent to 14 percent in major teaching hospitals, compared with hospitals with few residents.

A parallel study of Medicare patients showed no significant changes in mortality for either medical or surgical patients in major teaching hospitals.

Dr. David Meltzer of the University of Chicago said the studies give the overall impression "that there just wasn't any big effect on mortality one way or the other."

"There may be much better solutions than the one we've come up with," said Meltzer, who has studied doctors' use of naps.

Two new genes found for arthritis

Two genetic mutations raise the risk of rheumatoid arthritis, one by as much as 87 percent, researchers reported in a discovery that sheds more light on a complex and baffling disease.

They said their findings also show a link between rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases caused when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue, such as lupus.

Researchers hope that if they can understand the genes involved in the disease, they can design better treatments.

Fears hamper kids' asthma therapy

If doctors hope to improve asthma symptoms in the 6 million U.S. children with the disease, they may first want to have a chat with their parents, U.S. researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

Parents' misperceptions about asthma medications may be a stumbling block to asthma control in children.

In a study of 622 parents, about one in six, or 17 percent, said their fears over the possible harm a drug might do outweighed their belief that the child needed the medication.

Another 6 percent were equally torn between the good the drugs might do and their fears of possible harm.

Researcher Kelly Conn of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York said a lot of parents' worry stems from a lack of understanding of newer drugs designed to prevent asthma attacks rather than treat immediate symptoms.

Just the mention of steroids scares some, who associate steroids with bulked-up athletes.

"This is not the scary steroid they may think it is, and it is really primarily being delivered into the lungs," Conn said.

Irish smoke ban

Ireland's rate of heart attacks fell by around a tenth in the year following the introduction of the world's first nationwide ban on workplace smoking, boosting the case for more similar bans, doctors said.

Edmond Cronin and colleagues at Cork University Hospital said an analysis of people admitted with heart attacks to public hospitals in southwest Ireland showed an 11 percent fall in the year after the ban came into effect in March 2004.

Rock stars more likely to die young

Rock stars -- notorious for their "crash and burn" lifestyles -- really are more likely than other people to die before reaching old age.

A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population.

Prescription drug abuse grows in U.S.

More young U.S. adults are abusing prescription medications, particularly painkillers, according to the government's annual report on substance abuse.

Overall, in 2006, 22.6 million people -- 9.2 percent of Americans ages 12 and up -- either abused or were addicted to drugs or alcohol in the prior year, according to estimates in the report from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Food additives may cause hyperactivity

Certain artificial food colorings and other additives can worsen hyperactive behaviors in children aged 3 to 9, British researchers reported.

Tests on more than 300 children showed significant differences in their behavior when they drank fruit drinks spiked with a mixture of food colorings and preservatives, Jim Stevenson and colleagues at the University of Southampton said.

The additives included several types of food coloring and sodium benzoate, a common preservative.