Health Highlights: June 30, 2009
July 1 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
U.S. Government to Seek Answers to Health-Care Questions
Should birth control pills be available over the counter? What's the best way to treat back pain? Should people with irregular heartbeats have surgery or take a drug?
The U.S. government plans to spend more than $1 billion to find the answers to questions such as those, according to an Associated Press report.
The money is part of the economic stimulus plan, specifically aimed at figuring out the so-called comparative effectiveness of various treatments, tests and strategies related to health care. The idea is to give doctors better information as to what's best for a particular patient and to give patients more ammunition to become active, informed participants in their health-care decisions, the AP said.
The questions released Tuesday came from the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, and included its top 100 priorities for study. The $1.1 billion set aside for the project would cover only a fraction of the research required to obtain answers, the AP reported.
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Many Factors Contribute to AMD: Study
A wide range of genetic and environmental factors contribute to the risk of developing the eye disease age-related macular degeneration (AMD), says a U.S. study.
Researchers followed more than 1,400 people for an average of 6.3 years and identified a number of risk factors that were used to develop a predictive and possibly diagnostic model, United Press International reported.
The factors include gene variants, age, smoking, body mass index, and ocular and environmental factors. All were independently associated with AMD.
"The determinants of the model can be assessed by completing a questionnaire and taking a blood test, and it is a tool which could be used to help guide prevention and treatments," lead author Dr. Johanna M. Seddon, of Tufts University School of Medicine, and director of the Ophthalmic Epidemiology and Genetics Service and Tufts Medical Center, said in a news release, UPI reported.
