The Washington Post (11/24, Whoriskey) reported that in a review of articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “60 were funded by a pharmaceutical company, 50 were co-written by drug company employees and 37 had a lead author, typically an academic, who had previously accepted outside compensation from the sponsoring drug company in the form of consultant pay, grants or speaker fees.” One reason for that is that “since about the mid-1980s, research funding by pharmaceutical firms has exceeded what the National Institutes of Health spends.” The Post noted that in 2011, spending totals were $39 billion from industry and $31 billion from the NIH, and the Post adds that “over the past decade corporate interference has repeatedly muddled the nation’s drug science, sometimes with potentially lethal consequences.” As examples, the Post cites the “controversies over blockbuster drugs…erupted amid charges that the companies had shaped their research to obscure the dangerous side effects.”

Related Links:

— “As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias, ” Peter Whoriskey, The Washington Post, November 24, 2012.

USA Today (11/26, Lloyd) reports that “people who burn off the most energy have healthier, younger brains compared with adults who do less,” according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. After using magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 876 seniors, researchers found that “those who burned the most calories had 5% more gray matter.”

Related Links:

— “Burning energy may bulk up your brain cells, “Janice Lloyd, USA TODAY, November 23, 2012.

Medwire (11/24, McDermid) reported that according to a study published online Nov. 22 in the journal The Lancet Neurology, “the true incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is about sixfold higher than official figures state.” For the study, researchers “used sources including hospitals, brain imaging records, family doctors, prisons, traffic accident records, coroner and autopsy records, and accident records of schools and sports centers” to find that “the incidence of any TBI was 790 per 100,000 person-years, age-standardized to 811 per 100,000 person-years. From this, the team estimates that 54-60 million people worldwide have a TBI each year, with 2.2-3.6 million people having moderate or severe injury.”

Related Links:

— “Official stats underestimate brain injury, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, November 23,2012.

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, five major US airports with designated smoking areas do not have sufficient ventilation to mitigate the risks of second-hand smoke to non-smoking passengers.

USA Today (11/20, Koch, Today) reports that the new CDC report warns that “ventilation at five major US airports with designated smoking areas does not protect passengers from the health risks of secondhand smoke.” The report finds that “pollution levels adjacent (within a meter or 39 inches) to smoking areas are five times higher than levels at airports that entirely ban smoking.” Tim McAfee, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, explains that “These are unnecessary dangers for airport employees and passengers.” The airports named in the report are: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Denver International Airport and Salt Lake City International Airport.

HealthDay (11/21) reports that “in 2011, about 15 percent of all US air travel took place at these five airports, accounting for more than 110 million passenger boardings.”

Also covering the story are Reuters (11/21, Beasley), the Salt Lake (UT) Tribune, (11/21, Davidson) the Denver Post (11/21, Raabe), and the Las Vegas Sun (11/20).

Related Links:

— “CDC: Airports that allow smoking pose health risks, “Wendy Koch, USA TODAY, November 20, 2012.

The Washington Post (11/21, Vogel) “Federal Eye” blog reports that the US Army “has launched a ‘Hire a Veteran’ education campaign aimed at debunking myths about hiring veterans” with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The blog adds, “Recent research by the Society for Human Resource Management, which is partnering with the Army in the campaign, has shown some employers are concerned about the impact of PTSD and TBI on a veteran’s job performance, as well as the cost of accommodating these veterans in the workplace.” According to the blog, the “Hire a Veteran” campaign “includes a video and online employer toolkit that can be downloaded” here.

Related Links:

— “Army launches campaign to dispel myths about vets with PTSD and TBI, “Steve Vogel, The Washington Post, November 20, 2012.

Medwire (11/21, Grasmo) reports that “over half of all patients with bipolar disorder (BD) on prescribed medication show compliance issues, with most unable to attribute their deteriorating condition to this behavior,” according to a study published in the December issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders. “The 15-question survey designed to ascertain 2448 psychiatrists’ perceptions on the level and causes of non-adherence in eight European countries revealed that 57% of their BD patients had medication compliance issues.” What’s more, “one-fifth of psychiatrists estimated that most patients show, or have shown, a lack of awareness about their condition, with three in four psychiatrists reporting that most patients who deteriorated following medication discontinuation were unable to attribute this to non-compliance.”

Related Links:

— “Bipolar patients oblivious to medication non-adherence risks,”Ingrid Grasmo, MedwireNews, November 21, 2012.

The Wall Street Journal (11/20, Landro, Subscription Publication) reports in “The Informed Patient” that US medical centers are now developing programs to help better care for youngsters and adolescents who sustain concussions. Because young people’s brains are still growing, concussions may cause some serious long-term problems. The new programs are meant to inform parents, school nurses, athletic coaches and even pediatricians exactly how to care for a kid with a concussion and how to prevent further complications and damage. Researchers have also found a biomarker in the brain, which when combined with magnetic resonance imaging, may help physicians assess a patient’s long-term post-concussion prognosis. This past summer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put together a task force charged with developing guidelines on concussion to be shared with physicians and emergency departments in the near future.

Related Links:

— “Fresh Efforts to Improve Teens’ Concussion Care,”Laura Landro, Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2012.

USA Today (11/20, Hellmich) reports, “People who are jobless at some point during their lifetime because they were laid off, fired or quit may be at an increased risk of having a heart attack after age 50,” according to a study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The AP (11/20, Tanner) reports that investigators “analyzed data on more than 13,000 men and women aged 51 to 75 taking part in an ongoing health and retirement survey partly sponsored by the National Institute on Aging.” For the past 20 years, “participants have been interviewed every two years about their employment and health.” Altogether “there were 1,061 heart attacks during the study.”

The Los Angeles Times (11/19, Bardin) “Booster Shots” blog reports that the investigators “found that being unemployed was associated with a significantly increased risk of heart attack, with such subjects having heart attacks at 1.35 times the rate as people who were not unemployed.” The researchers also found that “each time somebody lost a job, their risk went up: People who had lost four jobs during the study had heart attacks at 1.63 times the rate of those who did not lose a job.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Unemployment may raise risk of heart attack,”Nanci Hellmich, USA Today, November 19, 2012.

The Washington Post (11/20, Kulkarni) reports that “for many of those who seek treatment for” eating disorders, “getting a full range of insurance coverage can be difficult.” Additionally, the article notes that “treatment of eating disorders is complicated because it often involves medical care, mental health services and nutritional therapy, requiring a team of specialists — often a” primary care physician, “a therapist, a psychiatrist and a dietitian.” According to the Post, “patients argue that insurers don’t adequately cover all those services, although estimates of how many patients receive coverage vary.”

Related Links:

— “Eating disorders often leave patients facing difficult insurance hurdles,”Shefali S. Kulkarni, The Washington Post, November 19, 2012.

The Los Angeles Times (11/16, Bardin) reported, “While the lion’s share of youth anti-smoking efforts has focused on cigarettes, a new report in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease suggests more needs to be done to reduce the number of teens smoking flavored tobacco from hookahs.”

A recent report said that “18.5% of 12th-grade students admitted to using a hookah in the previous year. And what’s particularly concerning to the study authors…is that many young people don’t seem to recognize that hookah use carries serious health risks: Hookah smoke contains many of the same toxins as cigarettes and has been associated with a similar laundry list of diseases such as lung cancer and respiratory illness.”

Related Links:

— “Teenage hookah smoking rates must be reduced, experts say,” Jon Bardin, Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2012.