Month: June 2011

More than 5 million people have received free preventive care now offered by Medicare, U.S. officials say. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 required these benefits. Officials released a report about their use on June 20. For Medicare, preventive care includes an annual wellness visit. It also includes tests such as screening for breast and colon cancer. These services require no copayments or deductibles. Officials say they want more people to use these benefits. They believe this could save money by preventing illness or catching and treating it early. Therefore, the government is launching a campaign to promote the benefits. HealthDay News and Reuters Health news service wrote about the announcement.

More than 200 U.S. children died from drowning in portable backyard pools from 2000 through 2009, a new study finds. Another 35 came close to drowning. The new study looked only at portable pools, not the in-ground type. The depth was up to 4 feet. But 41% of the cases where the pool depth was known occurred in “wading pools.” These pools are less than 18 inches deep. Almost half of the children who drowned were 1 year old. Nearly all were under 5. About 66% of children were supervised. But in 18% of these cases the attention lapsed. Most often this happened because the supervisor fell asleep, did chores or answered the phone. Researchers say keeping children away from the pool is the most important step. But they noted that many people may consider a fence not affordable for a portable pool.

The quit-smoking drug Chantix may slightly increase the risk of heart attack or related problems in people with heart disease, U.S. officials say. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the notice June 16. HealthDay News wrote about it. The notice was based on information from a new study. It included more than 700 smokers with heart disease. They were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group took varenicline tartrate (Chantix). The other group received fake pills (placebos). They took the pills for 12 weeks. Then researchers kept track of people for another 40 weeks. After all this time, 19% of the Chantix group still was not smoking, compared with 7% of the placebo group. During the study, more people taking Chantix had heart attacks than people taking a placebo. They were also more likely to need a procedure to open their arteries. The overall numbers were small.

Making liberal use of olive oil in your diet may reduce your risk of having a stroke, new research finds. The study looked at olive oil use by 7,625 French people. All of them were age 65 or older. About 37% used it in cooking and in salad dressing or on bread. Researchers called them “intensive” users. Other people used olive oil less (40%) or not at all (23%). During the 6 years of the study, 148 strokes occurred. About 1.5% of the “intensive” olive oil users had strokes, compared with 2.6% of the others. That’s equal to a 41% lower risk of stroke. The journal Neurology published the study. HealthDay News and Reuters Health news service wrote about it June 15.