Month: July 2013

Women randomly assigned to take aspirin have a lower long-term risk of colorectal cancer, a large follow-up study finds. The women were cancer free (except non-melanoma skin cancers) when the study began. They were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group took low-dose aspirin every other day. The other group took placebo (fake) pills. The study lasted 10 years. By the end, the difference in colorectal cancer rates between the groups was small enough that it could have been caused by chance. But women were urged to continue their treatments. About 33,000 agreed to let researchers keep track of them long-term. That’s when researchers started seeing a difference. For the whole 18-year period, colorectal cancer rates were 20% lower in the aspirin group. But the difference for years 10 through 18 was 42%. Women who took aspirin did have more side effects.

If you watch a lot of TV, your kids will, too. That’s the main finding of a study published July 15. Researchers surveyed 1,550 parents with children up to 17 years old. They also surveyed their 629 older children who were ages 12 through 17. Generally, the study found that children watched more TV if their parents did. The journal Pediatrics published the study online. HealthDay News wrote about it July 15.

Men with high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids may have an increase in prostate cancer risk, a new study suggests. Many Americans eat oily fish or take fish oil pills because they contain omega-3s. These fats help fight body inflammation. Fish oil has been widely touted as good for heart health. But more recent research has raised questions about whether it has any effect. The new study suggests that taking omega-3s also could have drawbacks. Researchers used data from a large study that was designed to find out whether selenium or vitamin E could help prevent prostate cancer. (They didn’t.) The new study compared blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids in 800 men later diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,400 who did not develop the disease. Men with the highest levels of omega-3s were 43% more likely to develop prostate cancer than those with the lowest levels.

Hospital stays for pneumonia have dropped 10% in the decade since a pneumonia vaccine was introduced, a new study finds. The declines were even sharper among very young children and the elderly. These are the main target groups for the PCV7 vaccine. It protects against 7 strains of pneumococcal bacteria. The vaccine was approved in 2000. Researchers looked at hospital stays for 1997 through 1999. They compared these numbers to rates for 2007 through 2009. Annual hospital stays for pneumonia dropped by 168,000. The drop was steepest, 43%, among children under age 2. Among adults age 85 and older, the decrease was 23%. The pneumococcal vaccine is recommended mainly for babies, people age 65 or older and those with impaired immune systems. Hospital stays for pneumonia also fell for children ages 2 to 4 and for adults of all ages.