Health Highlights: Jan. 27, 2008
Mar. 23 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
2 Fatal N.Y. Meningitis Cases Not Linked, Officials Say
Two fatal cases of bacterial meningitis struck a high school guidance counselor and a 17-year-old high school senior over a 24-hour period and within a few miles of each other in New York, but the deaths are most likely coincidental, The New York Times reported.
Both incidents occurred on Long Island, one of them in the New York City borough of Queens and the other a few miles southeast in the town of Massapequa. The Queens case involved 27-year-old LeeAnne Burke of Bellerose, who became ill earlier in the week, was hospitalized and died Friday. The Massapequa meningitis illness struck Michael Gruber, 17, a senior at Massapequa High School, Wednesday afternoon after he took a state exam and began exhibiting flu-like symptoms, the newspaper reported.
Gruber was rushed to the hospital Thursday morning and died that afternoon.
"We have to recognize that this is a scary disease for people, but you have to put into perspective how rare it is," Dr. Don Weiss, director of surveillance for the New York City Department of Health's bureau of communicable disease, told the newspaper. "It's a freak situation when it gets communicated."
Dr. Abby Greenberg, acting commissioner for the Nassau County Department of Health, told the Times that all people who had been in close contact with Gruber had received antibiotics.
About 10 percent of the 3,000 to 4,000 cases of meningococcal meningitis reported in the United States each year are fatal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include a sore neck, headaches, flu-like symptoms and a high fever.
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Malnutrition in Early Pregnancy May Spawn Addictions in Offspring
What happened in the Netherlands more than 60 years ago has given researchers clues to an association between deprivation and addiction.
The food shortage that occurred in Holland at the end of World War II, known as the "winter hunger," had a special effect on pregnant women, researchers from the Dutch mental health care organization Bouman GGZ and Erasmus University Rotterdam found.
The severe food deprivation caused the offspring of these women to be more prone to addiction later in life, the scientists concluded in a study published in the latest issue of the journal Addiction.
According to a news release from the journal, the researchers studied men and women born in Rotterdam between 1944 and 1947, which is when the severest famine occurred. The Germans imposed a strict food ration on the Netherlands in retaliation for action by Dutch resistance fighters. Food supplies declined to extremely low levels between February and May 1945, resulting in starvation when average daily food consumption dropped to below 1,000 calories.
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