JUAREZ, Mexico – A 450-kilogram (990-pound), bedridden man who had appealed on Mexican television for help tackling his weight problem died Tuesday of heart failure, his family said.
Emergency officials had to knock down Jose Luis Garza’s bedroom wall and put him in the back of a friend’s pickup truck to take him to a hospital as he fought for his life. The 47-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival.
Garza followed in the footsteps of the world’s fattest man, fellow Mexican Manuel Uribe of Monterrey, by taking his weight problem public. Garza lived about an hour away from Uribe in the northern town of Juarez.
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SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea plans to help obese children pay for health club membership and other activities that can help them lose weight, an official said on Wednesday.
Health ministry official Chun Myung-sook said the rate of childhood obesity had tripled over the past three years due to a changing diet higher in fatty foods and a more sedentary lifestyle.
Medical marijuana, a description of the illegal drug also known as “pot” that popped into general awareness around the same time that the almost everyone in the US became aware of the AIDS epidemic. Marijuana was advocated as valuable in treating severe weight loss associated with AIDS, and for relieving the nausea and vomiting which accompanied chemotherapy in most cancer patients.
In mid February of this year (2008) the American College of Physicians (ACP), the second largest doctors group in the United States, released a statement urging that the use of marijuana by patients with certain diseases be reconsidered by the U.S. Government.
Tea has long been used in China as a natural remedy, used by the British as a societal prerequisite, and the proliferation of tea brands and types at your local grocery attests to Americans current love of the brew. Sure, English Breakfast tea is delicious when paired with a scone, green tea can be sipped alongside sushi, and my favorite spiced Indian chai has become a staple with the latte lovers at Starbucks; but none of these compare to the herbal healing powers of chamomile, which new research concludes could soon help diabetes patients.
Chamomile is a mild tea with a fruit flavor many have likened to the scent and taste of apples. Ironically, the word chamomile is derived from the Greek word chamaimēlon, meaning “ground apple” or “earth apple” and is made by drying flowers of the plant Matricaria chamomilla L. and steeping them in water for a few minutes, providing the drinker with a multitude of antioxidants. Chamomile could be called the physician of teas with a variety of uses such as calming stress, soothing anxiety and nervous disorders, inducing sleep at night, relieving stomach cramps, inflammation, skin irritations and gout, while boosting the immune system. A new study followed chamomile’s progress in lowering certain conditions caused by diabetes.
One of a new class of diabetes drugs has done well in a trial conducted to help bring it to market, researchers report.
The drug, liraglutide, is a laboratory-made version of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a hormone produced by the body. Several members of the GLP-1 family are in clinical trials, and one already has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In a phase 3 trial, usually the last kind done before marketing approval is sought, liraglutide had greater benefits against type 2 diabetes, the kind that generally develops in the adult years, than a now-standard medication, glimepiride, said a report in the Sept. 25 online issue of The Lancet.
MEXICO CITY – Abraham Leon was getting a checkup when he found out he had high blood pressure and was at risk of developing diabetes.
On the spot, the 5-foot-6-inch, 240-pound lab researcher joined “Vamos Por Un Million de Kilos” (Let’s Lose a Million Kilos), a national campaign to get Mexicans to collectively trim about 2 million pounds.
The project is one of several new efforts to fight obesity in Mexico, which is on track to catch up with the United States within a decade as one of the world’s fattest countries, according to the Mexican government. Nearly half of Mexico’s 110 million people are overweight, and the number of fat children has climbed 8 percent a year over the last decade.
A vaccine that protects against the miserable symptoms of ragweed allergy for a longer period of time — and with fewer injections — could be available in the coming years.
Unlike traditional allergy vaccines that are given weekly for several months, new formulations would require only a few injections and would offer longer-lasting relief.
“What you would hope is that you would get fewer injections less often, less likelihood of an allergic reaction and the same or better improvement in your symptoms,” said Dr. William C. Howland III, an allergist and medical director of Lovelace Scientific Resources in Austin, Texas.
SHANGHAI, China – Snackers, beware: Your favorite chocolate or creamy treats might contain milk contaminated with melamine.
The list of companies facing potential recalls grew Friday as reports of foods tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which has been blamed in the deaths of four Chinese infants, spread to a widening range of products.
Food companies around the globe are rushing to assess their products and in some cases setting new strategies to prevent problems.
Premixed insulin, which combines short- and long-acting versions of the hormone, results in better blood-sugar control as compared with long-acting insulin alone or oral medications, a new study finds.
But it’s not clear that this tighter glycemic control translates into fewer complications and a lower mortality rate among people suffering from type 2 diabetes, researchers add.
And two types of premixed insulin — premixed human insulin and premixed insulin analogues (genetically engineered human insulin) — appeared to produce the same benefit.
In patients with coronary artery disease, angioplasty isn’t a cost-effective treatment, according to a U.S. study that assessed the costs of hospitalization and medication among 2,287 patients treated between 1999 and 2004.
The researchers analyzed data from the COURAGE trial and concluded that angioplasty may add $10,000 to treatment costs “without significant gain in life years or quality-adjusted life years.”
Some of the patients received balloon angioplasty (percutaneous coronary intervention — PCI) plus optimal medical therapy, while others received optimal medical therapy alone. The study found that 4.6 years after treatment, there was no difference in the two groups’ rates of death or heart attack, but patients who received PCI did have an improved quality of life.
