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Healthline
By Wire services
Published December 27, 2005
An immunization advistory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently expanded its recommendations for the pertussis (commonly known as whooping cough) vaccine to all adults. The vaccine is being added to the tetanus-diphtheria booster shot for adults and already has been recommended for adolescents. Pertussis immunization wears off about five to 10 years after children receive their last vaccine, between the ages of 4 and 6. About 60 percent of those infected with pertussis are teenagers or adults, researchers say. Though pertussis is usually not serious in adults, it can be fatal to infants who have not received the full course of five doses. About 26,000 cases of pertussis were reported in 2004, the highest total since 1959. Pertussis is difficult to diagnose because its initial symptoms - low-grade fever, runny nose and cough - mimic a cold, allergies or bronchitis. Research has indicated that nearly all cases may go undiagnosed.
A study called the Diabetes Prevention Program found that lifestyle changes can delay the onset of the disease and reduce the risk of getting it by 58 percent, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Facts about diabetes:
Americans with diabetes: 20.8-million
Americans at risk of getting diabetes: 41-million
95 percent of those with the disease have Type II diabetes, which generally develops in adulthood.
Symptoms:
Frequent urination
Excessive thirst
Extreme hunger
Unusual weight loss
Increased fatigue
Irritability
Blurry vision
At its worse, diabetes can lead to heart disease, blindness, nerve damage that requires limb amputations and kidney damage.
In The Patient From Hell: How I Worked With My Doctors to Get the Best of Modern Medicine and How You Can Too (DaCapo Press, $25), Stephen H. Schneider, a renowned climatologist and a professor of biological science, uses his own successful battle against a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma as a model for how patients can push back against the health care system's pressure to treat everyone as "the mythical average patient." Schneider is not a medical doctor and is not giving medical advice, a point he takes pains to make. The book is not antidoctor is not but rather an effort to encourage patients to work with their doctors to determine whether they might benefit from care that deviates from standard methods of diagnosis and treatment. Persistence is key for any patient, he says, insisting that every patient (or advocate) has the right to demand answers to three questions: What can happen? What are the odds of it happening? How do you know and how can you verify the answers to the first two questions?
[Last modified December 26, 2005, 11:37:47]
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