The five-year agreement signed on Christmas Day with the Ministry of Health of Kuwait calls for Hopkins to provide the hospitals training and advice on patient safety, preventive medicine, nursing and health care policy. Focus areas will be trauma, orthopedics, rehabilitation, diabetes and obstetrics, pediatrics and telemedicine. 

The hospitals they will work with are Amiri, Farwaniya, Jahra and Adan. The hospitals account for more than 40 percent of the public-sector beds in the country.

 Kuwait officials said they hope to raise the standard of health care delivery and to increase the number and expertise of local doctors, hospital managers, administrators and nurses.

The allergists say in an article published in January’s issue of Pediatrics that the tests should only be used to confirm suspicions based on symptoms and medical history. They should not be used to look for allergies.

In the case of a suspected food allergy, the children should undergo a food challenge, where they consume a small dose of the allergen under medical supervision.

The problem is that skin and blood tests detect antibodies from the immune system released in response to allergens, but not actual allergic reactions. That means they only detect sensitivity and can’t tell if there will be a reaction or how bad a reaction would be.

“Allergy tests can help a clinician in making a diagnosis but tests by themselves are not diagnostic magic bullets or foolproof predictors of clinical disease,” said Dr. Robert A. Wood, a Hopkins professor of pediatrics, in a statement. “Many children with positive tests results do not have allergic symptoms and some children with negative test results have allergies.”

They found their modified mosquitoes live as long and can compete for survival with the disease-transmitting mosquitoes.

“Malaria is one of world's most serious public health problems,” said George Dimopoulos, senior author of the study and associate professor in the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He notes that malaria afflicts more than 225 million people worldwide every year, and kills 800,000 of them. Many are children in Africa.

“Mosquitoes and the malaria parasite are becoming more resistant to insecticides and drugs, and new control methods are urgently needed,” he said. “We've taken a giant step toward the development of new mosquito strains that could be released to limit malaria transmission.”

He said more studies are needed to make sure the method is safe and fail-proof.

They say the supplements are good for people with high levels of triglycerides, fat that can clog arteries. They also may be good for those with heart disease.

They do note that the DHA and EPA do not have to come from pills. Consumers can eat fatty fish such as salmon or lake trout twice a week – something that’s recommended for the general population.

Plenty of other people take the supplements for high blood pressure, menstrual cramps and rheumatoid arthritis, ADHD, asthma, osteoporosis, kidney disease and Raynaud’s syndrome, though there isn’t a ton of science to lean on for these.

Consumer Reports also warns away those with diabetes, at risk of bleeding or on aspirin, chemotherapy drugs or blood pressure medicine. Also, don’t take the supplements if you have fish allergies or have an implanted defibrillator.

The University of Maryland Medical Center explains that the supplements may counteract or enhance the strength of medications because DHA can lower blood pressure and blood sugar levels and EPA can increase bleeding time. So, talk to your doctor if you have a condition or are taking medications.

Baltimore Sun file photo

The International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association, which represents thousands of mostly mom-and-pop cigar stres, said it is organizing in hopes of preventing the proposed tax on cigars and others tobacco products other than cigarettes from passing.

“Maryland voters are sick of increased taxes disguised to obscure government over-spending and they are tired of being told what to do and how to behave," Bill Spann, CEO of the IPCPR said in a statement.

Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative is pushing for the the new tax. They successfully pushed dime-a-drink tax on alcohol through the last General Assembly session.

The group published a recent telephone poll of more than 800 people that found that two-thirds of Maryland voters supported a cigar tax. The group said the poll by Opinion Works also found that about 72 percent of Maryland voters like the idea of taxing cigars and smokeless tobacco at the same rate as cigarettes.

The group believes increasing the tax will cut consumption and fund health care programs, especially among youth who have adopted the use of cigars, especially flavored ones.

As of 2010, 15.2 percent of adults and 14.1 percent of high school students in Maryland were smokers.

The cigar stores say the argument by health advocates is a misguided effort to prevent underage smoking. Youth can't afford cigars which cost $6 to $30 and they industry has strict policies against underage sales, Spann said.

He said a tax would hurt small businesses and kill jobs.

“The trick is to make it fun,” said Brian Sanders, chief operating officer of i9 Sports. “You can sneak exercise into your busy holiday activities and it won’t feel like hard work. You’re going through your same holiday routine but in much more creative and energetic ways.”

The company has some “break the laziness” ideas, some of which may seem corny, but you get the idea:

+Bring a Football, basketball or Hoola Hoop on vacation and go play.
+Hand-deliver Christmas cards and cookies to neighbors.
+Have a contest to come up with fun exercises to do during TV commercials.
+Come up with holiday tradition such as taking a ski trip, going to cut a Christmas tree, going ice skating.
+Buy active gifts such as a jump rope, Twister or a Wii video game.
+Create your own winter Olympics competition with friends and neighbors.
+Walk around the neighborhood to look at holiday decorations.
+Walk the dogs around the neighborhood to see those decorations.
+Seek out indoor activity centers such as trampoline houses or playgrounds.
+Have a closet cleaning competition to see who can clean out the most stuff for donating.

The main treatments now for influenza are antiviral drugs, or flu shots to prevent infection.

The statins may be an effective additional treatment, according to the observational study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The data on more than 3,000 patients with lab-confirmed flu are from the 2007-2008 flu season and come from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

A third were given statins before or during hospitalization, and those not given the medications were almost twice as likely to die from the flu.

“Our study found that statins were associated with a decrease in odds of dying among cases hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza, when adjusted for age, race, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, renal disease, influenza vaccine receipt, and initiation of antivirals within 48 hours of admission,” wrote the authors, lead by Meredith L. Vandermeer, then with the Oregon Public Health Division in Portland.

There could be other factors not discovered by the researchers. They said randomized controlled trials are needed to fully assess the benefits and determine the best class of statins and the dose.

Protective eyewear was mandated at the youth, scholastic and collegiate levels in 2005. The study, funded by US Lacrosse and published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, shows that the rate of eye injury of injury dropped from .1 injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures in 2000-2003 to .016 in 2004-2009.

Head/face injuries also decreased and there was no change in overall body injuries, showing that players likely didn’t become more aggressive after the eyewear mandate. Concussions went up, but researchers believe that was because of increased awareness and diagnosis in more recent years.

“The findings suggest the mandated protective eyewear in girls’ lacrosse achieved the desired goals of reducing eye injury,” said Andrew E. Lincoln, from the MedStar Sports Medicine Research Center in Baltimore, a member of the US Lacrosse Sports Science and Safety Committee and coauthor of the study.

He said one of the “major concerns involved with introducing protective equipment,” increased aggressiveness, was also addressed.

The study looked at female scholastic lacrosse players in 25 public high schools in Fairfax County, Va., during the 2004-2009 spring seasons. The data was compared to earlier data from the same source.US Lacrosse said such studies help them establish and adjust safety policies.

 “The legislation will protect youth from melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer," MedChi CEO Gene Ransom said in a statement.

The group said that  millions of adolescents use indoor tanning facilities and nearly 25 percent of indoor tanning users ranged in age 13 to 19 years-old. 

Researchers have linked the use of tanning devices early in life  to an increased risk of the three most common skin cancers.

A large study from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston revealed that when compared with nonusers of tanning beds, the risk for basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma increased by 15 percent for every 4 visits made to a tanning salon per year, and the risk for melanoma increased by 11 percent.

A review of many studies estimates an overall 75 percent increased risk of developing melanoma associated with tanning bed use started before age 35, Medchi said.

Howard County passed local legislation prohibiting the use of tanning devices by minors under the age of 18 a number of years ago.

The United States also lags behind a number of other countries in Europe, by prohibiting use of tanning devices by minors, Medchi said.

The Environmental Working Group analyzed 84 cereals and found many contain as much or more sugar than many desserts. The worst culprit was Kellogg's Honey Smacks. A one-cup serving packs 20 grams of sugar, more than a Hostess Twinkie, which has 18 grams of sugar. Post Golden Crisps and General Mills Wheaties Fuel also have more sugar than a Twinkie, according to the analysis.

The group said sugary breakfast choices can be troublesome. It cited studies that have found that children who eat high sugar breakfasts have more problems at school. They become more frustrated and have a harder time working independently than kids who eat lower-sugar breakfasts. By lunchtime they have less energy, are hungrier, show attention defi cits and make more mistakes on their work.

Some laboratory studies have also found that sugar is habit-forming, stimulating the same brain responses as opiates, the Environmenal Working Group found.

These are the worst cereals, according to the analysis:

1	Kellogg's Honey Smacks	55.6%
2	Post Golden Crisp	51.9%
3	Kellogg's Froot Loops Marshmallow	48.3%
4	Quaker Oats Cap'n Crunch's OOPS! All Berries	46.9%
5	Quaker Oats Cap'n Crunch Original	44.4%
6	Quaker Oats Oh!s	44.4%
7	Kellogg's Smorz	43.3%
8	Kellogg's Apple Jacks	42.9%
9	Quaker Oats Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries	42.3%
10	Kellogg's Froot Loops Original	41.4%

The Environmental Working Group recommends nutritional breakfast alternatives, such as eggs, fruit smoothies or oatmeal. You can find recipes here.