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Young women with breast cancer don’t live as long if they delay treatment 6 weeks or more, a new study finds. These delays occur about twice as often for young women who are black, Hispanic, poor, on Medicaid or uninsured. About 6% of breast cancers occur in young women. These cancers are more likely to grow and spread quickly than breast cancers in older women. Researchers looked at medical records for 8,860 women, ages 15 to 39. About 8% of white women and 15% of black and Hispanic women received treatment at least 6 weeks after diagnosis. About 80% of those who delayed treatment lived at least 5 years. That compares with 90% survival for those treated within 2 weeks after diagnosis. Fewer than 10% of women with private insurance had delayed treatment, compared with 18% of those who had Medicaid or no insurance.

Some alternative treatments may slightly lower blood pressure, a new report says. But the only non-drug treatment with strong, proven benefit is aerobic exercise. Those are the conclusions of an American Heart Association (AHA) review of research. It found that transcendental meditation (TM), biofeedback and guided breathing may help some people. But the effects on blood pressure were small. Other types of meditation did not lower blood pressure. Neither did yoga or acupuncture. Aerobic exercise had the strongest research support. It also lowered blood pressure more than any treatment other than medicine. The AHA recommends aerobic exercise for most people with pre-hypertension or high blood pressure. Resistance exercise that involves movement also may lower blood pressure, the report says.