Acetaminophen, asthma link
Children given acetaminophen during the first year of life to reduce fever are 46 percent more likely to develop asthma when they reach age 6 or 7, a new study finds.
“If this association is causative, it would suggest that acetaminophen use is a risk factor for asthma,” said lead researcher Dr. Richard Beasley, from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in Wellington. His study collected data on 205,487 children from 31 countries.
Beasley said that young children should still be treated with acetaminophen, but that it should be reserved for high fevers.
Dr. Geoffrey Chupp, director of the Yale Asthma Clinic, thinks the association may be a sign of something else. “Children who are taking acetaminophen may be getting sick more often and getting more respiratory viruses, and they are getting asthma for other reasons,” Chupp said.
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Needles puncture side effects
Lifesaving treatments for breast cancer come at a cost; many women experience hot flashes, fatigue, night sweats and more. A small study suggests that acupuncture may help ease some of these side effects and may be more effective than antidepressants.
“We were also able to show that the effect of acupuncture was longer lasting,” said study author Dr. Eleanor M. Walker of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. “After about two weeks of stopping drug therapy, women started having symptoms. With acupuncture, it was 15 weeks.”
Researchers compared acupuncture with the use of the antidepressant Effexor in 47 women with breast cancer. After 12 weeks, both groups reported similar improvements in menopausal symptoms. No side effects were reported in the acupuncture group.
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Reflux tied to recurrent croup
Children who have continuing recurrence of croup could be suffering from stomach acid reflux problems, University of Utah researchers report.
The researchers evaluated the airways of 80 children with recurrent croup. Thirty-three percent of the children had narrowing of the airway, and 19 of those had gastroesophageal reflux disease.
