Novel Shingles Vaccine Effective in Older Adults

New form of vaccine also effective in persons with immunosuppression. http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/Vaccines/51269?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-04-30&eun=g721819d0r&userid=721819&mu_id=5883165

What urine reveals about obesity

To glean that insight, researchers sifted through the urine samples of 2,195 men and women (ages 40 to 59) who ranged across the weight spectrum for the telltale metabolites of obesity. In all, they found 29 chemical metabolites -- the by-products of physiological processes that proceed unseen inside the body -- whose levels variously rose and fell with people's BMI. The result is a "network map" which could serve as a "metabolic signature" for the modern obesity epidemic, the authors said. To the uninitiated, the network map looks like an air traffic controller's worst nightmare: a tangle of hundreds of chemicals that interact with one another in myriad ways. But to those devising ways to protect the obese from the health consequences of their condition, any of those overlapping nodes could contain the secret passageway to success. Among the most notable metabolites they found linked to obesity were those produced by bacteria that colonize the gut, the latest in a flurry of research findings that implicate the gut's microbiome to in obesity and metabolic disease. Other metabolites suggest that the skeletal muscle of obese people uses energy differently than does that of people of normal healthy weight. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-urine-obesity-20150429-story.html

Americas Region Becomes First To Eliminate Rubella (German Measles).

points out that the rubella “virus is usually mild, but it can cause birth defects and miscarriages when women are infected during pregnancy.” But, even though German measles has now been “eliminated in the Americas, it’s still prevalent in other regions in the world.” Yesterday, Dr. Susan E. Reef, the team leader for rubella in the [CDC’s] Global Immunization Division, said, “Now that we have achieved this goal” of eliminating rubella in the Americas, “the next step is to maintain it.” reports that WHO “officials said it has been more than five years since there’s been a German measles case that originated in the Americas.” In other words, “the only cases in the region are imported from other parts of the world.” Five years represent “enough time to certify German measles as the third infectious disease to be eliminated from the Americas, they said,” following the elimination of smallpox “in 1971 and polio in 1994.” http://time.com/3840211/americas-eliminate-rubella/

Doctors to parents: Don't let kids with lice bug you. Send them to school!

Students with lice don't need to stay home from school, according to an updated set of doctor guidelines that may have some parents scratching their heads. Lice are definitely nuisances, but they don't pose a health threat or justify keeping a child from getting an education, the American Academy of Pediatrics said in an updated report published in the journal Pediatrics. http://www.today.com/health/should-children-lice-go-school-doctors-say-yes-t17936

Donated Breast Milk May Pose Possible Dangers.

reports on “peer-to-peer” breast “milk donation networks like Eats on Feets and Human Milk 4 Human Babies (HM4HB), informal communities that connect mothers who make a surplus of milk to mothers in need.” Responding “to the growing popularity of milk-sharing, the Food and Drug Administration released a statement in late 2010 that listed the possible dangers of shared milk, including exposure to infections like HIV, chemical contaminants such as illegal drugs, and a number of prescription drugs that doctors recommend mothers avoid while breastfeeding.” What’s more, “improper storage or handling of breast milk can...introduce environmental contaminants and bacteria.” http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/one-womans-baby-another-womans-breast-milk/391098/

Massachusetts Confirms This Year’s First Case Of Measles.

officials with the Massachusetts Department of Health “consider the disease unlikely to spread” because most people in the state are vaccinated. Nevertheless, “because the measles virus is airborne and highly infectious — it can linger in the air for up to two hours — health authorities are investigating the immunization status of all those known to have had contact with the student while he was infectious.” In addition, “officials have provided a list of public places where the student went while infectious and urged those who were there to check their immunization status and learn the symptoms of measles.” http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/28/massachusetts-reports-first-case-measles-this-year/ePbGNEAf0qKBLfOw0Kdn0L/story.html

Tyson Foods Will End Use Of Human Antibiotics In Chicken By 2017.

that beyond chicken, Tyson “said in a news release that it would begin meeting with groups of farmers who produce pork, turkey and beef for” the company “under contract to come up with a plan for eliminating antibiotic use in their programs.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/business/tyson-to-end-use-of-human-antibiotics-in-its-chickens-by-2017.html?_r=0