Tonsil surgery may not help bed wetting

Bedwetters don't get drier nights by having their tonsils removed, according to a small study. Unlikely as it sounds, many doctors say the surgery, when used to help kids who have breathing trouble at night, will also stop them from wetting the bed.

But in the new study, researchers found that although many kids who had their tonsils removed -- so-called tonsillectomy -- had stopped wetting the bed six months later, so had kids who underwent unrelated surgeries, such as hernia repair.

Given these results, "we don't recommend tonsillectomy as a treatment for bedwetting," study author Dr. Carmin Kalorin, a urologist at Capital Urological Associates in North Carolina, told Reuters Health.

Breathing trouble at night can lead to other symptoms as well -- such as difficulty concentrating in school -- but the study didn't look at those. About 15 percent of five-year-olds wet the bed at night. There are a number of possible reasons why, Kalorin explained, such as smaller bladders, more urine production at night, or trouble waking up when it's time to go. For some kids, "the signal from their bladder to their brain is not enough to arouse them."

Bedwetting may also stem from trouble breathing at night, which can trigger the release of hormones that increase urine production, some studies suggest.

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Lung-Cancer Deaths Less Likely With CT Screening, U.S. Researchers Find

Smokers who received computerized tomography scans were 20 percent less likely to die of lung cancer than smokers getting chest X-rays, a study found.

Researchers looked at 53,000 current and former smokers ages 55 to 74, half of whom received annual CT scans for three years while the others got X-rays instead, the National Institutes of Health said today in a statement. The trial found that 354 of the participants getting CT scans died of lung cancer, as did 442 of the patients getting X-rays. NIH’s National Cancer Institute sponsored the trial.

The eight-year study, known as the National Lung Screening Trial, is the first to provide “clear evidence” of a significant reduction in lung-cancer deaths with screening in a randomized controlled trial, Christine Berg, the cancer institute’s project officer for the study, said in the statement.

The CT approach may have “the potential to spare very significant numbers of people from the ravages of this disease,” NCI director Harold Varmus said in the statement. “But these findings should in no way distract us from continued efforts to curtail the use of tobacco, which will remain the major causative factor for lung cancer and several other diseases.”

Read the full article at Bloomberg - Click Here

American Medicine Chest Challenge

SAFE, Chesterfield County's substance abuse prevention coalition, will be coordinating the American Medicine Chest Challenge in Chesterfield County. The event also will take place in communities across the U.S. and will challenge residents to take the five-step American Medicine Chest Challenge:

1. Take inventory of their prescription and over-the-counter medicines

2. Lock their medicine chests

3. Dispose of unused, unwanted and expired medicines in their homes or at an American Medicine Chest Challenge disposal site

4. Take their medicines exactly as prescribed

5. Talk to their children about the dangers of prescription drug abuse

SAFE, in collaboration with Chesterfield County police, will host a medication-take-back event at Rockwood Park, 3401 Courthouse Road. A take-back event also will be held at the Colonial Heights Community Building, 157 Roanoke Ave., sponsored by the CADRE coalition and Colonial Heights police. Residents are encouraged to drop off any unneeded or expired prescription and over-the-counter medicines, including pet medicines, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The Virginia Poison Center, Regional Drug-Free Alliance, Chesterfield TRIAD and Richmond Family Magazine are also sponsors of the local American Medicine Chest Challenge. The abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs is a growing problem throughout the U.S. Seventy percent of people who abuse medicines get them from friends or family, often without their knowledge. Medicine disposal events help people rid their homes of these medications in an environmentally responsible way.

Read the full article at Progress Index - Click Here

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