Here are some of the latest health and medical news
developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
In Mice, Drug Helps Heart Repair Itself
A drug designed to help the heart repair itself after a heart
attack proved successful in mice.
Researchers at University College London in the U.K. found that
the drug, thymosin beta 4, was able to "prime" the heart for repair
if it was given to mice before a heart attack,
BBC News reported.
The ability of the heart to pump out blood increased 25 percent
in the mice, scar tissue was reduced, and the walls of the heart
became thicker, according to the researchers.
The findings appear in the journal
Nature.
Currently, damage caused by a heart attack is considered
permanent. Heart self-repair is the "holy grail of heart research,"
but any such treatment in humans is years away, the British Heart
Foundation told
BBC News.
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All-Electronic, Home-Based Drug Study a First
Patients will use smartphones and computers to take part in a
new drug trial believed to be the first all-electronic, home-based
study of a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.
Pfizer Inc. said the findings from the study of the
overactive-bladder drug Detrol will be compared to a previous,
traditional study of the drug that included 600 patients, the
Wall Street Journal reported.
Patients for the new study are being recruited through Internet
ads and directed to the study's website.
If successful, the methods used in the all-electronic study
might eventually help reduce the high cost of getting new medicines
to market, a Pfizer official told the
Wall Street Journal.
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More Than 300 New E. Coli Cases in Germany
The number of people reported sick in a deadly E. coli outbreak
in Germany is rising, but government officials claim there is hope
the outbreak is abating.
On Wednesday, Germany's national disease control center told the
Associated Press that the number of reported cases increased
by more than 300 since Tuesday, to a total of 2,648. That tally
includes 700 people with a serious complication that can cause
kidney failure.
The Robert Koch Institute also said that another person had died
in Germany, bringing the death toll there to 24. In addition,
another E. coli death was reported in Sweden.
Despite the rise in reported cases, German Health Minister
Daniel Bahr noted there is often a delay in the reporting time and
the number of new infections "are clearly going down," the
AP reported.
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Many U.S. Employers May Cut Worker Health Insurance
Nearly one-third of U.S. employers could stop offering health
insurance to their workers after most of the new health care law
takes effect in 2014, suggests a new report.
McKinsey & Co. surveyed 1,300 employers earlier this year
and found that 30 percent would "definitely or probably" stop
offering employer coverage after 2014, according to the
Wall Street Journal.
That proportion increased to more than 50 percent among
employers with a high awareness of the Obama administration's
health overhaul.
Under the plan, Americans will have new insurance options
outside the workplace, and carriers will no longer be permitted to
deny people coverage because they have been sick. The survey found
that these factors reduced the moral obligation employers may feel
to provide coverage for their workers, the
Wall Street Journal reported.
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Appeals Court Hears Health Law Case
A challenge to the Obama administration's health care law is
scheduled to be heard Wednesday in a federal appeals court in
Georgia.
Similar challenges about the constitutionality of the Affordable
Care Act have been heard by appeals courts in Ohio and Virginia,
but this latest hearing is attracting increased attention because
of the number of states involved in the challenge (26) and because
it involves a lower court ruling that invalidated the entire law,
ABC News reported.
In January, Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of Florida ruled that Congress exceeded its
authority when it passed the law's mandate requiring nearly all
Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or face a tax
penalty.
Without that mandate, the rest of the law could not stand,
Vinson concluded. His ruling is on hold pending the outcome of the
appeal,
ABC News reported.
No appellate court has ruled on the health care law, but three
lower court judges have upheld the law and two others have ruled
against it.
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