antibiotics

New Hospital Rules Could Save You From Deadly Infections

Posted on 05/30/2013 by | General News | Comments

Bulletin Today | health care | Personal Health | Your LifeBy Lindsey Tanner, Medical Writer, The Associated Press Infections in U.S. hospitals kill tens of thousands of people each year, and many institutions fight back by screening new patients to see if they carry a dangerous germ, and isolating those who do. But a big study suggests a far more effective approach: Decontaminating every patient in intensive care. Washing everyone with antiseptic wipes and giving them antibiotic nose ointment reduced bloodstream infections dramatically in the study at more than 40 …

Ground-Turkey Test Finds 90 Percent With Bacteria

Posted on 05/1/2013 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthA Consumer Reports lab analysis of ground-turkey products purchased nationwide found that 90 percent had potentially disease-causing bacteria, some of which were antibiotic-resistant. The consumer watchdog organization said its first investigation of this kind on ground turkey also showed that turkeys raised without antibiotics had much less antibiotic-resistant bacteria than did turkeys raised with antibiotics. The new report follows a February analysis of store-bought meat by Food and Drug Administration scientists that found antibiotic-resistant bacteria in 81 percent of raw …

Common Antibiotic Doesn’t Help Coughs, Bronchitis

Posted on 12/20/2012 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthIt’s the eighth most commonly prescribed drug in the U.S., with 52.3 million prescriptions written for it every year — many in winter for hacking coughs and suspected respiratory infections. But amoxicillin, and its inexpensive generic equivalents, has been so overprescribed for bronchitis, it’s apparently no longer effective, a new study finds. The study, published online this week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found amoxicillin (part of the penicillin family) no more helpful than a placebo in treating lower-respiratory-tract-infection symptoms — …

Why all that sanitizing is making us sicker…and chubbier, too.

Posted on 09/4/2012 by | AARP Blog Author | Comments

Personal HealthWho would have thought some of our best friends would be the 100 Trillion bacteria living in, and on, our bodies? Results of the Human Microbiome Project have caused us to re-examine the critical balance between these good bacteria, essential for human life, and the relatively few bad guys on which we’ve waged an all-out blitz!  Modern life has been altering that delicate balance in ways that have led to an increase in obesity, inflammatory disease and other chronic illnesses. In fact, it’s made us …

Antibiotic-Free Meat: What The Label Isn’t Telling You

Posted on 07/12/2012 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthThe label on the package of ground beef says “all-natural.” What the heck does that mean? Or how about the turkey tenderloin label that says the meat is “antibiotic-free” — can you trust it? While most consumers would like to be able to buy meat or poultry raised without antibiotics — and would even pay a little more for it, according to a new Consumer Reports survey — the problem is determining whether that “antibiotic-free” label really means what it …

The Probiotic Effect: Sexy, Slim Mice, Healthier Humans

Posted on 05/10/2012 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthMaybe we all should be stocking up on yogurt. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) studying probiotics and obesity found that mice who were fed vanilla yogurt were not only slimmer with silkier, shinier fur (the sleek little guy on the left in the photo), they were also more fertile. The male mice had bigger testicles and more attitude – ”swagger,” was how the MIT scientists described it — and the females gave birth to bigger litters and were better …

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