Lack of sleep may not impact weight

Lack of sleep may not impact weight

Regularly getting five hours or less of shut-eye a night does not appear to have a considerable influence on body weight or waist size over time, according to findings from a long-term study of British workers.

While some past research has identified a relationship between obesity and a lack of sleep, this research could not affirm which came first -- the lack of sleep or the weight problem.

Therapy, support help smokers quit

Counseling and self-help programs can help people with heart disease quit smoking, according to a review of published studies. But these interventions must last longer than a month to be effective, Dr. Jurgen Barth of the University of Bern in Switzerland and colleagues conclude.

Cancer drug slows multiple sclerosis

Two infusions of the cancer drug Rituxan given two weeks apart slowed the progression of multiple sclerosis for nearly a year, researchers reported.

And Rituxan appears to be twice as effective as first-line treatments for MS, which reduce the number of relapses by about a third, the researchers said.

"It's quite remarkable that the effect was sustained for 48 weeks with just a single course of therapy," said Dr. Stephen Hauser of the University of California at San Francisco, who worked on the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Multiple sclerosis, which affects as many as 350,000 people in the United States and 2 million worldwide, is apparently caused when the immune system attacks and breaks down the insulation surrounding cells that make up the brain and spinal cord.

MS symptoms may include blurred vision, loss of balance, poor coordination, extreme fatigue, paralysis and blindness. There is no cure.

Anxiety's steep toll on your heart

It turns out that a chronic case of quiet anxiety may be as good a predictor of a coronary catastrophe as angry, hostile behavior is. Researchers analyzed the psychological tests, medical exams, and health habits of 735 men over 12 years and found as much as a 40 percent greater risk of heart attack in those with high scores on several anxiety scales.

The higher their anxiety, the more likely a heart attack. Anxiety can be successfully treated with cognitive behavioral therapy.

New warning about painkilling patches

Deaths caused by misuse of skin patches that deliver the potent painkiller fentanyl haven't ceased, prompting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue its second warning since 2005 about the drug. "For some reason, people aren't getting the message," says Bob Rappaport, the FDA's head of anesthesia and pain products. These fatalities are "very preventable," he adds.

Mishaps have resulted from both patient and doctor error, Rappaport says. Fentanyl patches are approved to treat chronic pain only in people already accustomed to opiods (a term for opiates and related substances) such as morphine, meaning the patient has used an opiod around the clock for a week or more. But the FDA has learned of cases where physicians improperly prescribed patches to ease short-lived ills -- post-surgical pain, for example, and headaches -- or to people who've never taken such narcotics.

Accidental overdoses have also been caused by too-frequent reapplication of patches, and by wearers allowing their patches to get too hot; heating pads, saunas, warm baths, or sunbathing can increase the delivery of the drug through the skin and lead to a build-up of fentanyl in the blood.