Health

PARIS: Two former managers of French meat-processing firm Spanghero and two Dutch meat traders go on trial in Paris on Monday accused of passing off cheap horse meat as pricier beef in ready-made meals and burgers that were sold in countries across Europe.The scandal stems from the discovery by Irish authorities in early 2013 of horse meat in frozen burgers labeled "pure beef". Investigations widened when British frozen foods group Findus found horse meat in lasagna made by the Luxembourg unit of frozen food specialist Comigel, Tavola.Investigations to determine how horsemeat ended up in ready meals sold across Europe homed in on Spanghero, which supplied the meat used in the lasagnas from abattoirs in Romania via two companies based in Cyprus and the Netherlands.France's consumer protection agency has said the fraud involved 540 tonnes of horse meat sold on to Tavola and 200 tonnes used by Spanghero itself in Merguez sausages. The meat was used in 4.5 million ready meals that were … [Read more...] about France holds trial of firms accused of selling horse meat as beef

(Reuters Health) - Older adults who have exercised regularly for at least a year may be less likely to experience falls or related injuries than their less active peers, a research review suggests.Researchers analyzed data from 40 clinical trials with a total of 21,868 adults who were 73 years old on average. All of the smaller trials randomly assigned some participants to do a variety of exercise programs for at least 48 weeks while others joined a comparison group that didn't exercise or, more often, an "active control" group that might exercise outside the context of the workouts being tested.Participants assigned to the tested exercise programs for at least one year were 12 percent less likely to fall and 26 percent less likely to sustain injuries if they did fall than people who were not part of exercise interventions, the analysis found.Exercise programs were also associated with a 16 percent lower risk of fractures."Exercising continuously in time brings health benefits even in … [Read more...] about Long-term exercise by older adults tied to lower risk of falls

(Reuters Health) - In many cases, veterans get a first appointment at VA hospitals quicker than the general public gets first appointments with health care providers, government researchers report.The researchers, all from the VA, compared wait times there for new patients to those for new patients in the private sector as determined by an outside company that used "secret shoppers" to investigate how long it would take to get a first appointment with various types of doctors."The VA is seeing more patients than ever and, at the same time, more quickly than ever," said study coauthor Dr. Steven Lieberman, acting Principle Under Secretary for Health at the Veterans Health Administration. "And, veterans are becoming more satisfied with the wait times than previously."Since the publication of a critical report by the VA's inspector general and a public uproar about veterans' deaths potentially due to long wait times at the Phoenix facility - news reports listed the average wait time there … [Read more...] about Shorter waits for new patients at VA than in private sector, US study finds

(Reuters Health) - Women going through menopause may have fewer symptoms of depression when they get treatment for insomnia than when they don't, a recent experiment suggests.Researchers recruited 117 menopausal women with insomnia for the study and randomly assigned them to three groups. One group received cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Another group received a component of CBT known as sleep restriction therapy. The third group only received education on so-called sleep hygiene, or habits that can make it easier to fall and remain asleep.Overall, 4.3 percent of the women had moderately severe depression. Both forms of insomnia treatment helped ease depression symptoms for these women, but sleep hygiene education did not."We can add targeted cognitive behavioral treatment of insomnia to the current arsenal of treatments available to alleviate menopausal associated insomnia and with this treatment we have the added benefit of reductions in depressive symptoms which frequently … [Read more...] about Insomnia treatment may help ease depression during menopause

REUTERS: AbbVie Inc said on Friday its cancer treatment in combination with chemotherapy agents failed to meet the main goal in a late-stage study of patients with a form of pancreatic cancer.The treatment, ibrutinib, failed to show statistically significant improvement, compared to placebo, in progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients.(Reporting by Aakash Jagadeesh Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel) … [Read more...] about AbbVie’s cancer drug fails to meet main goal in late-stage study