Healthy lifestyle

(Orlando) -- It's Friday night on a holiday weekend and you won't be able to talk to your doctor until Tuesday. But you can't wait that long -- you've got reason to be believe you may be pregnant. The situation describes the plight of many women seeking emergency contraception pills, sometimes known as "morning after" pills. Since they must be taken within 72 hours of Sexual intercourse in order to be effective -- the sooner the better -- ready access is critical; yet in most areas a prescription from a doctor is required, and in many areas pharmacies do not stock the drugs. This week, physicians at the meeting of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates approved motions designed to improve access to emergency contraception. Members of the policy-making body passed the recommendations of a report by the association's Council on Medical Service (CMS) calling on the AMA "to enhance efforts to expand access to emergency contraception, in...

(Washington) -- A congressional committee on Tuesday urged the maker of a popular acne drug to do a better job of highlighting the medication's potential association with depression and suicide. Although the committee did not advocate any further restrictions on the use of Accutane, it did urge the drugmaker to conduct additional studies into the medication's mood-altering effects. At a House of Representatives hearing, members of the Committee on Government reform asked Roche Pharmaceuticals to educate patients and families about the possible association between Accutane and depression and suicide. This education should take place on top of any previous actions taken to outline those concerns on the drug's label, the committee said. Accutane was approved in 1982 as a treatment for severe acne when other treatments have failed. It is the only drug currently on the U.S. market that has been shown to effectively control severe cystic acne, the most serious form of this skin d...

If you're like a lot of Americans, you probably could stand to lower your cholesterol. A new study shows that the choice to do so is up to you -- well, sort of. The researchers tell www.healthfamilyplus.xyz  that genes may have more power than sheer will in the fight against high cholesterol. "We were looking into why people differ in their response to cholesterol lowering diets," says study leader Margo A. Denke, MD, associate professor of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Some people try very, very hard on a diet, but can't even budge their cholesterol levels. We were trying to determine how much of that was due to genetics." Between 1997 and 1999, 56 families -- 92 adults and 134 children -- in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area followed two special diets. During the study, all members of a family got their fat -- 20-25% of total calories -- in the form of either saturated fat-laden butter or margarine with unsaturated fat...