Such hormone-targeting therapy is a key focus in breast-cancer research, in part because it avoids the toxic effects of chemotherapy, Gralow said. However, she cautioned, these first results need to be repeated and verified by other researchers and may only apply to a subgroup of women with this type of breast cancer.
- Seattle Times
Need help resisting late-night temptation to raid the fridge? There's an app for that
Thanks to such Web applications as FitDay and My Weight Loss Coach, posting weight-loss goals and seeking dieting support online is nothing new. But a novel gadget released this month by Meta Real, a Brazilian "diet reeducation program," takes the tactic to a whole new level.
The Virtual Fridge Lock is a giant red magnet that users sync with their social networks and stick on the fridge to ward off late-night fridge raids. Open the refrigerator door while the lock is activated, and the device will send an alert to all your social networks. Your buddies can then offer words of advice - or shame you into putting back that piece of pie.
The Virtual Fridge Lock is available only to Meta Real clients, but there's a similarly humiliating app available to the general public: Aherk! offers a "self-blackmailing service" that posts an unflattering picture to Facebook if you fail to meet your goals.
Apparently, public shaming is the key to weight-loss success.
- Washington Post
FDA advised to approve existing drug for new use in treating diabetes-related blindness
The drug Lucentis won the backing of U.S. regulatory advisers for expanded use to treat a leading cause of blindness associated with diabetes.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted Tuesday to recommend that the agency approve a 0.5 milligram and 0.3 milligram dose of Lucentis to treat diabetic macular edema.
If approved, it would be the first drug cleared for diabetic macular edema. More than 500,000 people in the United States have the disease.
The existing option for patients is to receive laser therapy. Roche's cancer drug Avastin also is a treatment doctors commonly use to treat wet age-related macular degeneration, even though it doesn't have FDA approval for the disease.
The FDA plans to decide whether to approve wider use of Lucentis next month and doesn't have to follow the panel's advice.
Lucentis is made by Roche Holding AG.
- Bloomberg
Emergency rooms see dramatic increase in injuries to electronically distracted walkers
About 1,152 people were treated in hospital emergency rooms in the United States last year for injuries suffered while walking and using a cellphone or some other electronic device, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Reports of injuries to distracted walkers treated at hospital emergency rooms have more than quadrupled in the last seven years.
There has also been a spike in pedestrians killed and injured in traffic accidents, but there are no reliable data on how many were distracted by electronics.
The consumer safety agency receives annual data from 100 emergency rooms and extrapolates the information into a national estimate. But that's likely an underestimate because patients may not mention they were using a cellphone or other device when they were injured, or the information may not appear in the medical report.
"We are where we were with cellphone use in cars 10 years or so ago. We knew it was a problem, but we didn't have the data," said Jonathan Akins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association.
A study conducted by Jack Nasar, an Ohio State University professor and expert on environmental psychology, found that people talking on cellphones were significantly more likely to walk in front of cars than pedestrians not using phones.
Psychological studies that show most people can't focus on two things at once. Rather, their attention shifts rapidly back and forth between tasks, and performance suffers.
- Associated Press
