A new report from researchers with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy finds the majority of the previously reported increase in suicide in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010 is attributable to an increase in hanging/suffocation, which increased from 19 percent of all suicides in 2000 to 26 percent of all suicides in 2010. The largest increase in hanging/suffocation occurred among those aged 45-59 years (104 percent increase). The results are published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"Suicide recently exceeded motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of injury death in the U.S.; this report is the first to examine changes in the method of suicide, particularly by demographics such as age," said lead study author Susan P. Baker, MPH, a professor with and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "While suicide by firearm remains the predominant method in the U.S., the increase in hanging and suffocation particularly in middle-aged adults warrants immediate attention."

The researchers also found that the proportion of suicide by poisoning increased, from 16 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2010. Much like hanging/suffocation, dramatic increases were seen in certain age groups: the increase was 85 percent in those aged 60-69 years. Taken together, suicide by firearm, hanging/suffocation and poisoning make up 93 percent of all suicides in the U.S.

"In addition to age, detailed examination revealed important differences across gender and race," explained co-author Guoqing Hu, of Central South University, School of Public Health, China. "Suicide rates are increasing faster for women than for men, and faster in whites than in non-whites." The suicide rate increased the most among those aged 45-59 years of age (by 39 percent); in contrast, it dropped by 8 percent among those 70 and older.

Three years ago Dr Ann McKee gave riveting testimony to a congressional committee in the United States investigating head traumas among the elite of American Football playing in the NFL.

A former professor of neuropathology at Harvard University, Dr McKee, who now works for Boston University, had examined the brains of thousands of people after death to look for signs of neurological damage caused by blunt trauma.

She cited the example of a world champion boxer who had died at the age of 72 having being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at the age of 58. Instead of Alzheimer's disease, she found a massive build-up of neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) which occur in a condition called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, (CTE) which is usually found only in people who have been subject to repeated blows to the head.

"This individual, a former professional boxer, was clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease during life," she told the committee, "but the disease that actually caused his tragic 15-year decline in intellect and eventually killed him, was CTE, a disorder that would have been entirely prevented if he hadn't suffered repeated head injury in his younger years as a boxer."

Dr McKee also spoke of several NFL players who equally had suffered traumatic brain injury and found their latter years blighted by memory loss and personality disorders.

A drug commonly prescribed to help patients sleep in hospitals has been associated with an increased risk of falls, according to a study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

U.S. sleep specialists from the Mayo Clinic found that the fall rate among the 4,962 patients who took zolpidem during their hospital stay was more than four times as high as the 11,358 who did not take the drug.

They also found that the risk posed by the drug was greater than the risks posed by factors such as age, cognitive impairment, delirium or insomnia, regardless of the dosage used.

"Ensuring that people get enough sleep during their hospital stay is very important, but it can also prove very challenging," says the Clinic's Chief Patient Safety Officer Dr. Timothy I. Morgenthaler, who specializes in sleep disorders and pulmonary and critical care.

"Patient falls are also a significant patient safety issue in hospitals and one that has been quite difficult to tackle, despite considerable efforts. That is why it is one of the target aims of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Partnership for Patients project."

Following in the footsteps of women like Sharon Osbourne and others, a 24-year-old Miss America contestant who is set to represent Washington D.C. has announced that she will be removing both of her breasts through double masectomy in order to 'prevent' breast cancer that killed her mother. This trend, which is actually advocated by many doctors (gynecologists in particular, it seems), is considered 'heroic' by many mainstream media outlets that fail to mention the barbaric nature of the procedure and the powerful importance of nutrition and lifestyle when it comes to real cancer prevention.

Miss America contestant Allyn Rose says that she is genetically predisposed to breast cancer, and that she feels it is the only choice for her to stay alive because of it.

If Rose wins the pageant this year, she says she will undergo surgery later in January of 2014. If not, she will have the surgery performed as early as next June. According to her interview with the NY Daily News, Rose says she is 'choosing life over beauty'. She said:

"Breasts don't define your life. I'm choosing life over beauty. I'm choosing to remove something that's so iconic to my womanhood."

Rose's statements echo those of Sharon Osbourne and other women like Allison Gilbert who have decided that a double masectomy is the only way to truly prevent breast cancer from taking their lives. Gilbert explained to CNN, in fact, that her gynecologist had convinced her that the procedure was necessary to 'stay alive' for her children.

A nationwide drug shortage has left American hospital patients untreated and in pain. Manufacturing problems have left emergency care providers without some of the most crucial medicines, putting lives at risk.

More than 100 drugs were put on the shortage list this year, prompting Congressional hearings and leading to an executive order by President Barack Obama, which forces drug companies to publicize their shortages.

Health care workers have had no other option than to ration some medicines, giving it only to patients that need it most. Paul Davis, the chief of a rural ambulance squad in Ohio, told the New York Times that he was unable to give morphine to a woman with a broken leg because he was saving his last pills for patients he thought needed it more.

Elsewhere, desperate health care workers are treating patients with expired drugs and less effective medicine. Those with cancer have been hit particularly hard. About 80 percent of the drugs in short supply are generic medicines for injection, including the chemotherapy treatment drug Doxil, WFTV reports. Sodium bicarbonate injections, which are used to stabilize critically ill patients suffering from sepsis, heart attacks or other cardiac problems, are also in short supply.

"When you can't treat basic things - cardiac arrest, pain management, seizures - you're in trouble. When you only have five tools in your toolbox and three of them are gone, what do you do?" Dr. Carol Cunningham, state medical director for the Ohio Department of Public Safety's emergency services division, told the Times.

You may think it unlikely that the government would have any real interest in exactly what is landing up on the plate of the average American, but in truth nothing could be more wrong. The lid has started to be lifted on the huge scale deception that has lead to the worst health epidemic that this country has ever seen. When you stop and think about it for just a few seconds, it really doesn't make sense that in this day and age, in one of the most developed countries in the world, with the best medical facilities and doctors; we have the worst state of public health ever seen. How could an affluent, forward thinking country have higher rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease and countless other problems that simply did not exist on this scale 50 years ago? It is no accident.

Who's Responsible?

The blame game could lead us down a number of avenues, all of which take us back to the same answers. Those who have money to be gained from illness and disease.
Now this is not some form of twisted joke, it is a real issue, and as hard as it may be to comprehend, the illnesses that we, our friends, families, and co-workers are all getting in such high numbers are largely avoidable simply by changing our diet. It is not down to one company, or group, but a huge industry that profits from packaging up chemicals and toxins and selling it as food, and another that profits from selling the drugs that are supposed to heal you. In truth, the best way to prevent illness is to stop eating all of the processed sugars, additives, preservatives and colorants, and return to a natural diet consisting mainly of fresh fruit and vegetables. There is a direct correlation between the amount of processed foods we are consuming and the amount of illness and disease in the country yet the government seems intent on covering it up to protect the interests of the industries that are profiting from it.

North Fayette - A local teenager is dealing with a sleep disorder called Kleine-Levin or Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.

Nicole Delien, 17, of North Fayette, slept 64 days in her longest sleeping episode.

Her mom, Vicki, says Nicole will sleep 18 or 19 hours a day, and when she does wake up to eat, she says Nicole is in a sleepwalking state which she doesn't remember.

It is coming; indeed, it is already here. It is a lethal strain of bacteria beyond the ability of modern antibiotics to treat. We see news stories of untreatable bacteria in hospitals, schools, cruise ships, hotels, and in our daily lives. We can do nothing about this, but we can devise new methods of treatment if we are to survive. We must rethink modern medicine if we are to live through the post-antibiotic age we now are living in.

Antibiotics themselves are a new treatment first begun with the creation of Penicillin in the 1940s from bread mold. The theory of bacteria only dates back to Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister in the 1860s. The concept of antiseptic technique, is even newer. The simple idea of medical providers washing their hands; creating a sterile atmosphere is one of the great medicinal advances of all time. Aseptic technique has saved more lives than all the drugs and modern medical treatments combined.

If you think back to an 1860 American Civil War scene, with filthy surgeon, unwashed hands, unwashed surgical tools, and a not germ-free operating room, you get my idea. Fortunately, whatever collapse comes our way we need not lose the knowledge of sterile techniques and medical practices. What we will lose is the ability to treat bacteria with antibiotics.

WASHINGTON DC - A public health proposal suggests that tobacco smokers should be required to apply and pay for a "smoker's license" in order to continue buying cigarettes.

In this week's PLOS Medicine medical journal, two leading tobacco control advocates debate the merits of the smoker's license. Simon Chapman, a professor at the University of Sydney, proposes that users would have to apply and pay for a mandatory license in the form of a smartcard that would be shown when buying cigarettes.

Dr. Chapman wrote that it could discourage young people from picking up the habit.

In a controversial move, the smartcard would allow the government to limit how many cigarettes a smoker could buy. Professor Chapman suggests 50 per day averaged over two weeks to accommodate heavy smokers. The anti-smoking activist told the Daily Mail that the sale of tobacco is currently subject to trivial controls compared to other dangerous products that threaten both public and personal safety.

A 2009 study from the Pew Research Center found that for the period of January through June 2008, the share of current smokers in the American adult population was 20.8 percent. According to statistics on the PLOS journal's website, tobacco continues to kill millions of people around the world each year and usage is even increasing in some countries.

Have the nerve-damaging properties of statin drugs now been confirmed? There are over 300 adverse health effects associated with the use of this chemical class of cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins, with myotoxicity (muscle-damaging) and neurotoxicity (nerve-damaging) top on the list. When will the FDA step in and warn the public, as proof of the problem in the biomedical literature reaches an alarming level of clarity?

The neurotoxicity of statin drugs are back in the news. Following on the heels of the FDA decision earlier this year to require statin drugs manufacturers to add "memory loss" as a side effect of this chemical class, a new study in published in the Journal of Diabetes reveals a clear association between statin use and peripheral neuropathy in a US population 40 years of age and older.

The study found "The prevalence of peripheral neuropathy was significantly higher among those who used statins compared to those who did not (23.5% vs. 13.5%; p < 0.01)," which is a 75% increase in relative risk.

Case reports of statin-induced peripheral neuropathy have existed in the medical literature for over 15 years.[i] Now, larger human studies are confirming that statin drugs do damage to the peripheral nerves. Moreover, much of the damage is occurring below the threshold of clinical surveillance, silently causing harm in unsuspecting patients.