Health

From a Newsweek article by Jennifer Barrett on MSNBC:

At least 400,000 Americans have the neurological disease, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, but that's still a small sliver of the total population. And there's no "typical" patient. Multiple sclerosis-so named because the disease results in multiple scars (or scleroses) on the myelin sheath, which surrounds the body's neurons-affects the body's central nervous system. Symptoms and severity vary widely: from blurred vision to slurred speech to poor coordination and, in the worst cases, paralysis. In the last decade...at least half-a-dozen drugs have been approved that have helped many like Roehrich enjoy a relatively normal life. While new treatments still don't cure the disease, they are able to slow its progression and relieve the symptoms. Betaseron...requires an injection every other day, but he says it's become as habitual as brushing his teeth. Now 24, Roehrich says that, except for an occasional twitch in his eye or numbness, he is "virtually symptom free." Other drugs have since been approved-although not without some problems. Injections of Avonex, Rebif, and Copaxone reduce the frequency and severity of MS attacks by suppressing the immune system. (In cases of MS, patients' immune systems turn against their own bodies, attacking nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.) These drugs help limit the damage to the nerve cells. In addition, there's evidence that Avonex and Rebif may actually slow down the progression of physical disabilities. Another drug, Novantrone, has also been approved for people with a rapidly worsening form of MS. A chemotherapy drug, it's given intravenously and also helps to suppress the immune system so it stops attacking the cells. The drug may reduce new damage in the nerve cells; decrease relapses (or new attacks); and slow down the rate of disability. But it is not recommended for long-term use because heart damage is a potential side effect.

From a Reuters article on MSNBC:

Getting too little -- or too much -- sleep may increase a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, new research suggests. Dr. Henry Klar Yaggi from Yale University in New Haven, Conn. and two colleagues studied the long-term (15-year) impact of sleep duration on the development of diabetes in more than 1,100 middle-aged and elderly men who were free of diabetes in 1987-1989 and were followed until 2004. Men getting no more than 6 hours of sleep per night, as well as those getting more than 8 hours of shut eye per night, were at significantly increased risk for developing diabetes, compared to men getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night. The risk of diabetes was roughly twofold higher in men reporting short sleep duration and more than threefold higher in those reporting long sleep duration, compared with men sleeping 7 to 8 hours nightly.

From an AP article on MSNBC:

Over the past 10 years, more than a dozen countries have made it easier to get abortions, and women from Mexico to Ireland have mounted court challenges to get access to the procedure. The trend contrasts sharply with the United States, where this week South Dakota's governor signed legislation that would ban most abortions in the state, launching a bitter new battle that activists seem ready to take to the Supreme Court. Most European countries have legalized abortion, with limits, for years and the issue rarely makes news. Many Latin American countries ban abortion or severely limit it. In the Middle East, Islamic law forbids abortion, although most countries allow it if the mother's life is endangered. Asia is a mixed bag, with the procedure banned in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, but common in China and India. Nevertheless, the question is not entirely settled: Court cases in Mexico, Poland, Colombia, and Ireland have sought to broaden access to abortion. Each year, 46 million women worldwide have abortions, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank. About 60 percent live in countries where abortion is broadly permitted. Twenty-five percent live in nations where it is banned or allowed only to save a woman's life. The rest live in countries where abortion is allowed to protect a woman's life or health. On the other side, there are new Vatican-backed efforts to call into question Italy's liberal abortion law, and women's rights activists say they fear a new tightening of Poland's law, already one of Europe's strictest.

From a story by Sharon LaFraniere in the NY Times:

In Lesotho, as throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, children with AIDS were generally considered a lost cause. Treatment, to the extent it existed, was limited to adults, for whom antiretroviral therapy is cheaper and easier. Now, that is slowly changing. Through some charitable foundations, pediatric AIDS medication is available for as little as $200 a year, half of what it used to cost and only $60 more a year than adult medication. Governments, international agencies and private charities have begun to train the region's ragtag health care corps to treat children. Still, only a few children get help. Death comes swiftly for those who go without. Half of all untreated H.I.V.-positive infants die before the age of 2 for lack of medication that can produce transformations seemingly overnight. With medicine, some American infants infected since birth have survived into adulthood and become parents themselves. Specialized and costly tests are needed to determine whether a child under 18 months is infected, although treatment can begin based on symptoms alone. Children are also more complicated to treat, partly because their medication must be constantly adjusted as their height and weight change. And pediatric drugs cost more than adult medication - until recently, up to three times as much. In Lesotho, a nation of 1.8 million encircled by South Africa, more than one in four adults is believed to be infected with H.I.V., the third highest infection rate in the world. Treatment for adults began only in November 2004. Treatment for children followed last April. Caseloads have been swelling ever since. But with an average of one doctor for every 20,000 people, patients sit shoulder-to-shoulder, sometimes waiting more than a day to be seen at a hospital. Health care workers continue to leave for better-paying work in South Africa, Britain or elsewhere. Lesotho officials have yet to treat AIDS like the national emergency it is, said Tim Rwabuhemba, Lesotho director for the United Nations AIDS agency. But other experts praise the government's determination to battle the epidemic, and foundations and charities are beginning to flock here. The World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are pouring millions into the national budget for AIDS programs. The Clinton Foundation persuaded one pharmaceutical firm to halve its prices for pediatric AIDS medicines, and is donating the drugs to Lesotho and other nations.

From an AP article titled "Soda Targeted in Fight Against Obesity" by Marilynn Marchione on Yahoo News:

One of every five calories in the American diet is liquid. The nation's single biggest "food" is soda, and nutrition experts have long demonized it. Now they are escalating the fight. In reports to be published in science journals this week, two groups of researchers hope to add evidence to the theory that soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks don't just go hand-in-hand with obesity, but actually cause it. Not that these drinks are the only cause - genetics, exercise and other factors are involved - but that they are one cause, perhaps the leading cause.

The article goes on to describe how some folks are promoting a "fat tax" on soda and fast food and describes the debate regarding the "food police" and their "indictment of soda and its sugar-sweetened co-conspirators."