Health bulletin
U.S. states are better prepared than in 2001 for a pandemic or biological attack but still lack trained staff and specialized facilities, according to a new federal report.
All the state health departments are now ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week to examine urgent health threat reports -- compared to just 12 states in 1999, the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
Memory loss slows in seniors
Older Americans are having less trouble with their memories, and it may be because they spent more time in school, U.S. researchers said.
Scientists found the rate of cognitive impairment -- which includes a range of ills from significant memory loss to Alzheimer's disease -- fell 3.5 percentage points among people 70 and older between 1993 and 2002.
New recipe for flu vaccine
It's time to write up the recipe for next year's flu vaccine -- and the nation's influenza experts are aiming for better protection than this year's shot wound up offering.
The flu vaccine must be reformulated every year to keep up with the fast-evolving influenza virus, and this year the government made a rare wrong bet on which strains would cause the most disease.
The Food and Drug Administration has brought together flu specialists for the annual rite of predicting what strains are most likely to strike next winter.
On the agenda: A complete overhaul, brewing next year's vaccine to protect against three strains not in this year's inoculation but that are circulating the globe now.
Progress on cream to prevent HIV
A cream designed to protect women from the AIDS virus did not prevent infection, but it was safe, raising hopes that it might be combined with drugs or other compounds to work better, researchers said.
The product, called Carraguard, is the first HIV cream to be tested in advanced trials in women and shown to be safe.
Advanced cancer and the uninsured
Uninsured Americans and those in a government health program for the poor are far more likely to have advanced diseases when diagnosed with cancer than those with private coverage, researchers said.
A major factor seems to be that many of these people are not getting routine screenings for various types of cancer that could detect the disease in its early stages when it is most treatable and least deadly, according to the researchers.
Laser potential for disease breath test
A new laser analyzer might be able to help doctors detect cancer, asthma or other diseases by sampling a patient's breath, U.S. researchers reported.
The device uses mirrors to bounce the laser's light back and forth until it has touched every molecule a patient exhales in a single breath, the team reported in the journal Optics Express.
This can help detect minute traces of compounds that can point to various diseases, including cancer, asthma, diabetes and kidney malfunction, they said.
Bad carbs may lead to poor eyesight
Preventing poor eyesight as you get older may be as simple as cutting more refined carbohydrates out of your diet. Among 3,977 women and men age 55 and older, those who ate above-average amounts of white bread, white rice and other foods with a high glycemic index were 17 percent more likely to develop age-related macular degeneration, reports the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.
To protect your eyes, cut back on soda and sugary sweets, advise the study authors, and stick to whole-wheat versions of pasta, bread and rice.