By Kaustubh Kulkarni MUMBAI | Mon Nov 26, 2012 10:35am EST MUMBAI (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Plc plans to spend more than $1 billion to raise stakes in its Indian and Nigerian consumer healthcare arms, as Britain's biggest drugmaker deepens its emerging markets and non-prescription consumer health footprint. The deals are the latest of several b...

By Natasha Baker TORONTO | Mon Nov 26, 2012 10:35am EST TORONTO (Reuters) - Trying to get fit or lose weight but lacking the motivation and willpower? A new app that acts like a digital personal coach monitors fitness, activity, sleep and diet and provides tips for health and productivity. The app called Larklife gathers data via a wristband and ...

By Tan Ee Lyn HONG KONG | Mon Nov 26, 2012 5:05am EST HONG KONG (Reuters) - A gene that keeps embryos alive appears to control the immune system and determine how it fights chronic diseases like hepatitis and HIV, and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, scientists said on Monday. Although the experts have only conducted studies on the ...

By Dorene Internicola NEW YORK | Mon Nov 26, 2012 5:04am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Although many people begin running as a practical path to weight loss or fitness, for many it becomes a love affair as the miles increase. Tom Holland, running coach and author of "The Marathon Method," tells his clients that running for 3 miles was horrible for him...

Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:52am EST (Reuters) - Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, India's top drugmaker by sales, said it has launched Absorica, a drug used to treat recalcitrant acne, in the United States. The drug is in-licensed from Cipher Pharmaceuticals Inc, said Ranbaxy, controlled by Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co, on Monday.(Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni in Mumbai)...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Mon Nov 26, 2012 12:17am EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The number of U.S. children hurt while using inflatable bouncers, such as bounce houses and moonwalks, is 15 times higher than in 1995, according to a new study. Researchers, who published their findings in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, said there are abou...

A poll of households by the National Statistics and Census Institute seems to indicate that poverty stubbornly refuses to go away in the country in crushing the hopes of one fifth of the population. Although the data looks good on paper, 20.6% in 2012 as opposed to 21.6% last year, the statisticians are quick to point out that the seeming change for the better is within the margin for error of ...

While motorcyclists continued to mount protests against the stiff rise in insurance premiums for next year, the National Insurance Institute (INS) revealed that accident claims by the government-owned company costs them eight billion colones per year in medical costs. In 2011, INS shelled out 53% of its medical expenses to treat motorcyclists of injuries connected with their means of transport....

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:44pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - With the help of a checklist, ambulance workers may be able to safely reroute drunk patients to detoxification centers instead of emergency rooms, according to a new study. Researchers in Colorado found no serious medical problems were reported after 138 people...

OTTAWA | Thu Nov 22, 2012 12:47pm EST OTTAWA (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc has cut the Canadian price of its Viagra erectile dysfunction drug after the Supreme Court of Canada opened the door to sales of generic versions of the drug, the company said on Thursday. "We are lowering original Viagra's price to be in line with generic versions because we are committ...

By Kathleen Raven NEW YORK | Thu Nov 22, 2012 12:11pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Results of a large new U.S. study confirm that sugary drinks are linked to a heightened risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, but shed little light on whether caffeine helps or hinders the process. Among more than 100,000 men and women followed for 22 years, those...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:50am EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study ties advertising for breast cancer drugs known as aromatase inhibitors to a slight increase in the total number of prescriptions for those medications. But the extra prescriptions were limited to women with a medical reason for taking those drugs. Th...

NEW DELHI | Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:15am EST NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Indian government approved on Thursday a new drug pricing policy, two ministers told reporters, a move that will regulate the prices of 348 drugs deemed essential. India's domestic drug market, the fourth largest in the world by volume, is valued at nearly $13 billion.(Reporting by Nigam P...

LONDON | Wed Nov 21, 2012 6:44pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Growing into a fully formed human being is a long process, and scientists have found that unborn babies not only hiccup, swallow and stretch in the womb, they yawn too. Researchers who studied 4D scans of 15 healthy fetuses also said they think yawning is a developmental process which could potentia...

BOSTON | Wed Nov 21, 2012 5:23pm EST BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday denied a motion to freeze the assets of the owners of the compounding pharmacy at the heart of the deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak, but said the company may not make extraordinary cash transfers or pay dividends or bonuses to the pharmacy's owners. Judge Dennis Saylor, o...

By Tim McLaughlin BOSTON | Wed Nov 21, 2012 2:28pm EST BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration took 684 days to issue a warning letter after uncovering infractions that could potentially harm patients at the pharmacy at the center of the deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak, newly released documents show. The New England Compounding C...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:47pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite a widespread belief that sex during the later stages of pregnancy can jumpstart labor, a new study from Malaysia found no differences in the timing of delivery between women who had sex near term and those who abstained. "We are a little disappointed that w...

By Kate Kelland LONDON | Wed Nov 21, 2012 4:03am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Europe is experiencing its first sustained transmission of dengue fever since the 1920s with more than 1,300 people infected with the mosquito-borne disease in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. In a rapid risk assessment, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Co...

Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:32pm EST (Reuters) - Xoma Corp said its experimental combination of two drugs met the main goal of lowering hypertension better than a treatment based on either of the drugs alone in a late-stage study, sending the biotechnology company's shares up 6 percent. The combination of perindopril arginine and amlodipine besylate showed statistically s...

By David Beasley ATLANTA | Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:17pm EST ATLANTA (Reuters) - Thanksgiving travelers who pass through the five major U.S. airports that still allow indoor smoking in designated public rooms face a hidden health hazard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday. A study by the federal health agency found that seco...

Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:16pm EST (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it approved a seasonal flu vaccine produced by Novartis using animal cell culture rather than the traditional manufacturing using chicken eggs - a speedier process that could help build stockpiles in the event of a pandemic. The vaccine, to be sold by the Swiss drugmaker...

By Susan Kelly Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:44pm EST (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has approved a heart pump made by HeartWare International Inc's that supports blood flow in people with failing hearts who are awaiting a transplant. The company's shares rose 9.2 percent.HeartWare's left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, is designed to ...

By David Morgan WASHINGTON | Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:40pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration on Tuesday proposed new health insurance rules aimed at ending discrimination against the sick and guaranteeing minimum benefits for millions of Americans who are expected to obtain coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law....

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:38pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A leading group of women's physicians is urging drug regulators to make birth control pills available over-the-counter. "We need to do something about the unintended pregnancy problem in the U.S. This is one way," said Dr. Kavita Nanda, one of the authors of the sta...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:24pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who had access to their medical records online also came into their doctor's office for more appointments and used the emergency room more often than those who didn't log on, in a new study from Colorado. One theory supporting online access to health reco...

By Tim McLaughlin BOSTON | Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:39pm EST BOSTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for New England Compounding Center's owners told a federal judge on Tuesday there is no evidence that any of them directly participated in the events that led to a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak. "Due process should not be washed away in a sea of newspaper articles...

By Kate Kelland LONDON | Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:13pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - An end to the worldwide AIDS epidemic is in sight, the United Nations says, mainly due to better access to drugs that can both treat and prevent the incurable human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the disease. Progress over the past decade has cut the death toll and ...

The long wait for surgical services at La Anexion Hospital in Nicoya will soon end. The two operating rooms will be ready on November 26th, when they have approval from the Ministry of Healthy. This was confirmed by Juan Jose Li Kam, director of the medical center, who indicated that the work done to the structures included repairing the ventilation ducts, which are necessary for the air cond...

By Steve Olafson OKLAHOMA CITY | Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:09pm EST OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday denied a legal challenge to President Barack Obama's signature health reforms, ruling that the owners of a $3 billion arts and crafts chain must provide emergency contraceptives in their group health care plan. The owners of Hobby Lob...

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK | Mon Nov 19, 2012 8:14pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - With 34 deaths and 474 cases of fungal meningitis linked to tainted steroids from a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy, blame has fallen on everyone from the pharmacy to state and federal regulators. Now a new potential culprit has emerged: Medicare, which reimburses for...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 8:06pm EST (Reuters) - Amid snarky comments and links to cat videos, some Twitter users turn to the social network to find and post information on health issues like cardiac arrest and CPR, according to a U.S. study. Over a month, researchers found 15,234 messages on Twitter that included specific information about resuscitation and cardiac arres...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Mon Nov 19, 2012 5:10pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Using a testosterone gel in addition to Viagra doesn't make the little blue pill work any better, according to a new study. The report's lead researcher said testosterone is typically prescribed to men who have both low testosterone levels and symptoms such as l...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Mon Nov 19, 2012 3:26pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children whose mothers took antibiotics while they were pregnant were slightly more likely than other kids to develop asthma in a new Danish study. The results don't prove that antibiotics caused the higher asthma ri...

By Toni Clarke Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:30pm EST (Reuters) - Celgene Corp's experimental cancer drug pomalidomide significantly improved survival in patients with multiple myeloma who had failed other therapies, according to a summary of data to be presented at a medical meeting next month. The trial tested pomalidomide plus a low dose of dexamethasone, a stand...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:30pm EST (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Plc said U.S. health regulators had approved its drug Promacta for the additional use of treating low platelet count in hepatitis C patients that will allow them to undergo a standard therapy for the liver disease. The drug, already approved as a treatment for idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura — low plate...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 8:58am EST (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc said on Monday a late-stage trial of a once-daily version of its drug Lyrica in patients with fibromyalgia, a pain condition affecting more than 5 million Americans, met its main goal. Patients taking once-daily Lyrica, also known as pregabalin, went for a significantly longer period of time before feeling pain c...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:20am EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - About five percent of middle and high school students have used anabolic steroids to put on muscle, according to a new study from Minnesota. In addition to steroid use, more than one-third of boys and one-fifth of girls in the study said they had used protein p...

In what is generally regarded as a change of position, the Catholic Episcopal Conference of bishops have decided to leave it up to parents whether to allow their children to attend sex education classes. The pronouncement comes four months before the Education Ministry mandated classes are to start in the nation's public schools. The Constitutional Court (Sala IV) has already ruled that parents...

ZURICH | Sat Nov 17, 2012 5:43pm EST ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche's cancer drug Avastin failed to make a statistically significant difference to survival rates of patients with a common form of brain cancer in a late-stage study, the company said on Saturday. The Phase III AVAglio study presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology congress in ...

By Conor Humphries DUBLIN | Sat Nov 17, 2012 5:12pm EST DUBLIN (Reuters) - At least 5,000 people marched to the offices of Ireland's socially conservative prime minister on Saturday to call for clearer guidelines on abortion following the death of a woman denied a termination. It was the largest of a wave of protests across Ireland in recent days...