Here are some of the latest health and medical news
developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Inhalable Caffeine Product to be Reviewed by FDA
The safety of an inhalable caffeine product called AeroShot will
be reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency
will also investigate whether the product can be labeled as a
dietary supplement.
Aeroshot is sold in lipstick-sized canisters. A person puts one
end of the canister in their mouth and inhales a fine powder that
dissolves almost instantly. Each container contains 100 milligrams
of caffeine powder, about equal to the amount in a large cup of
coffee, the
Associated Press reported.
New York U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer asked the FDA to review the
safety and legality of Aeroshot, which went on sale late last month
in New York and Massachusetts. It's also sold in France.
"I am worried about how a product like this impacts kids and teens, who are particularly vulnerable to overusing a product that allows one to take hit after hit after hit, in rapid succession," Schumer said, the AP reported.
AeroShot is safe and does not contain additives used to enhance
the caffeine effect in energy drinks, according to inventor David
Edwards, a Harvard biomedical engineering professor.
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First 'Test Tube' Meat to be Produced This Fall: Scientist
A Dutch scientist says the world's first "test tube" meat will
be produced this fall.
The meat will be a hamburger made from cow's stem cells, Mark
Post said Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science,
Agence France-Presse reported.
The ingredients for the hamburger are "still in the laboratory
phase," but by fall "we have committed ourselves to make a couple
of thousand of small tissues, and then assemble them into a
hamburger," said Post, chair of physiology at Maastricht
University.
His goal is to develop a method of producing skeletal muscle
tissue in the laboratory that exactly mimics meat, and use this
technology to eventually replace the meat-animal industry,
AFP reported.
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Big Danger in Tiny Pollution Particles: Scientists
Fine airborne pollution particles called secondary organic
aerosols are more dangerous than previously believed, according to
a new research.
These compounds' persistence in the atmosphere was
under-represented in older scientific models, according to a study
scheduled to be released on Tuesday,
The New York Times reported.
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of
California, Irvine and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in
Richland, Wash.
"If the authors' analysis is correct, the public is now facing a false sense of security in knowing whether the air they breathe is indeed safe," said Bill Becker, of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, The Times reported.