Expert & Industry Articles

November 19, 2008


HealthDay - (HealthDay News) -- Ear infections are common in children, and may occur for a variety of reasons.

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A compound that boosts growth hormone levels in Alzheimer's patients may not slow the disease, new research suggests.

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. researchers say they've developed a new long-term method of monitoring the location and survival of cancer-killing cells within the body.

Reuters - Banning fast-food advertising on television in the United States could reduce the number of overweight children by as much as 18 percent, researchers said on Wednesday.

AP - Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, a cardiac surgeon who performed the nation's first human heart transplant and who also developed lifesaving medical implants, has died. He was 90. Kantrowitz died Friday in Ann Arbor of complications from heart failure, said his wife, Jean Kantrowitz.

AP - D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart."

AP - The health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions — but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage.

The volume of shoppers is expected to decline sharply during the 2008 holidays due to such factors as the financial market meltdown and a shorter season, according to a retail industry survey released Wednesday.

The economy is suffering, but that doesn't mean you need to suffer when traveling this holiday season. Here are some unconventional ways to cut your lodging expenses.

Question: My wife and I are looking into getting some financial advice. Our bank says they offer free services through their financial adviser. This worries my wife because she thinks that the adviser will push the bank's agenda. Is it safer to go with an individual adviser, or is going with one with a bank just as easy? The Mole's Answer: I'm going to go with your wife on this one. But this doesn't mean that the individual unaffiliated adviser is going to do anything different. Every adviser, including yours truly, has an agenda to push.

November 18, 2008


HealthDay - TUESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) -- In the not-so-distant future, American seniors may turn to helpful, uncomplaining robots to fill the worrisome "care gap" that many face today.

HealthDay - SUNDAY, Nov. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Coming on the heels of two studies discounting the usefulness of vitamin B, folic acid, vitamin D and calcium supplements for cancer prevention, U.S. researchers report that vitamins C and E supplements won't help prevent cancer, either.

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Women whose mothers consumed canola oil during pregnancy and breast-feeding may be less likely to develop breast cancer than those whose mothers consumed corn oil, a new study suggests.

AP - Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.

AP - Cosmetic surgery patients who think facial fillers are a magical antidote to aging must be better informed of possible risks, government health advisers said Tuesday.

AP - The dietary supplement ginkgo, long promoted as an aid to memory, didn't help prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease in the longest and largest test of the extract in older Americans. "We don't think it has a future as a powerful anti-dementia drug," said Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who led the federally funded study.

Al Gore put global warming into the family dinner conversation; now David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller and the star of "I.O.U.S.A.," a documentary about our ballooning national debt, says that if we don't face up to our fiscal problems, the U.S. could go broke.

Investors who think shares of Sears Holdings are a bargain after plummeting 80% from their peak should think again.