Blood pressure harder to control in winter months

For people with high blood pressure, the condition can prove tougher to control in the winter, researchers said.

Veterans treated in the winter were less likely to see their blood pressure levels come down to a healthy level than those treated in the summer, researchers told an American Heart Association meeting.

The five-year study focused on blood pressure readings for 443,632 U.S. military veterans with hypertension, or high blood pressure, in 15 cities, including such far-flung locales as chilly Anchorage, Alaska, and warm San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In each place, the researchers found, fewer of the veterans -- regardless or race or sex -- returned to normal blood pressure levels while treated in winter months compared to the summer.

Researchers have not figured out just what is causing this, but it did not seem to be changes in temperature or daylight that occur in the winter or the latitude of the city. Instead, the trend may be driven by weight gain, different eating habits and less exercise during winter.

U.S. kids get more diabetes drugs

The number of U.S. girls taking diabetes drugs more than doubled between 2002 and 2005, almost certainly because of rising obesity, researchers reported.

Children of all ages are increasingly taking drugs originally formulated to treat adults with illnesses often caused by years of eating too much and exercising too little, the researchers told a meeting of the American Public Health Association.

They saw a 166 percent increase in type-2 diabetes prescriptions among girls aged 10 to 14 and a 135 percent increase among teenage girls 15 and above.

More U.S. children and teens also used blood pressure, cholesterol, asthma and depression medications, the teams at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri and pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts Inc. said.

Sleepless? Maybe it's your statin

A popular drug used to keep cholesterol in check might be interfering with a good night's sleep, U.S. researchers said.

A large study looking at sleep patterns of people who took the statin drug Zocor or simvastatin found they had significantly worse sleep quality compared with people who took Pravachol or pravastatin, another cholesterol-lowering drug.

"The findings are significant because sleep problems can affect the quality of life and may have adverse health consequences, such as promoting weight gain and insulin resistance," Dr. Beatrice Golomb, of the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, said in a statement.

She presented her study at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Gardasil protects older women

Gardasil, Merck's vaccine for preventing cervical cancer in girls and women aged 9 to 26, may offer protection for women up to age 45, the company said. In a study of 3,800 women aged 24 to 45, the vaccine prevented 91 percent of cases of persistent infection, minor cervical abnormalities, pre-cancers and genital warts caused by four strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Breast-feeding helps cholesterol

The list of health benefits to children who were breast-fed as babies is growing, with research showing they are more likely as adults to have higher levels of "good" cholesterol.

A study presented at an American Heart Association meeting found that breast-fed babies are better off in two important heart disease risk factors as adults than bottle-fed babies -- levels of "good" HDL cholesterol and body mass index.

The study looked at 962 people, average age 41, taking part in the long-running Framingham Heart Study. About a quarter of the children were breast-fed for at least a month as babies.

Those who were breast-fed were 55 percent more likely to have high levels of high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, cholesterol as adults.

Those who were breast-fed on average had a lower body mass index as adults -- 26.1 compared to 26.9 for the bottle-fed counterparts. Adults with a BMI above 25 are considered overweight and at higher risk for heart disease.

Hide your old pills in poop, feds says

Got some leftover drugs -- the kind that someone else might want to use, such as painkillers or stimulants?

Wrap them up in used kitty litter or other pet droppings, the U.S. government advises.

A pilot program at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is looking at ways people can safely dispose of unused prescription drugs that are liable to be abused.