Vanderbilt researchers have discovered a rare, but important risk posed by the antibiotic azithromycin, commonly called a “Z-pack.” The study found a 2.5-fold higher risk of cardiovascular death in the first five days of taking azithromycin when compared with another common antibiotic or no antibiotics at all. Wayne A. Ray, Ph.D., professor of Preventive Medicine, and C. Michael Stein, M.B.Ch.B., the Dan May Chair in Medicine and professor of Pharmacology, collaborated on the research published in the May 17 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine…
Read the full story »Look for a fundamental shift in how scientists hunt ways to ward off the devastation of Alzheimer’s disease — by testing possible therapies in people who don’t yet show many symptoms, before too much of the brain is destroyed.

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Scientists hunt ways to stall Alzheimer’s earlier
Body mass index (BMI) may soon be replaced with a new tool for measuring body fat and associated health risks – waist-to-height ratio.
(HealthDay News) — Don’t become a couch potato just because your doctor’s prescription for physical therapy has run out.
TUESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) — A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended Tuesday approval of the first HIV test that would give people the results in the privacy of their own home.
(HealthDay News) — Washing your hands is among the best and easiest ways to prevent infection and the spread of germs.
Taking care of your skin might be the most important thing you do all summer. Skin cancer is now an epidemic with a record 2 million cases diagnosed each year in the U.S., according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. One in five Americans will develop…
The best time to do a little renovating is when everyone is out of the house — something homeowners know and something NASA appears to appreciate too. The space agency is experiencing empty-nest syndrome in a big way, with the shuttles heading for museum retirement and the next manned American space vehicle not scheduled to fly until 2016 — unless it’s 2018 or 2025 or who knows when?
The pliosaur, a prehistoric whale-like animal, may have been menacing to other creatures of the sea in the Jurassic Era, but at least one had a very modern-sounding malady. Judyth Sassoon, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in the UK, found that one…
One in three adults suffers from high blood pressure, a key cause of strokes and heart disease, according to World Health Organisation figures released on Wednesday.
LONDON (Reuters) – Health data released on Wednesday provided the clearest evidence to date of the spread of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease from developed nations to poorer regions such as Africa, as lifestyles and diets there change. The United Nations data showed one in three adults worldwide has raised blood pressure – the cause of around half of all deaths from stroke and heart disease – and the condition affects almost half the adult population in some countries in Africa. …
TUESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) — Black and Hispanic Americans are far more likely than whites to develop precancerous colorectal polyps, a new study finds.