U.S. dermatologists say the tanning industry uses misleading ad tactics similar to those used by smoking advertisers. Dr. David Jones, in private practice in Newton, Mass., and colleagues report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology that their review of 2,000 advertisements from four large tobacco advertising image databases and 350 tanning advertisements found several shared strategies used. For instance, both tanning and smoking ads often mitigate health concerns. They sometimes recruit physicians as allies in reassuring the public that a particular brand had competitive heal ... Jump to full article >>

Although physicians still work long hours, the past decade has seen a sharp decline in the average number of hours they work each week, a new study finds. From 1976 through 1996, the average work week of doctors remained steady, but between 1996 and 2008, the average number of hours physicians spent at work dropped nearly four hours a week — from 54.9 to 51 hours a week. “After being stable at around 55 hours for decades, physicians’ hours have declined 7 percent in the past decade to around 51 hours a week,” said the study’s lead author, Douglas Staiger, professor of economics at D ... Jump to full article >>

Frank Skinner might have the fastest comedy mind of a generation, but he takes bloody ages to set a cribbage hand. They don’t tell you that on the tour posters. I’ve had a strange week. Making good on a New Year’s resolution to say yes to everything I would normally avoid through fear (like the Dice Man, but with less S&M sex and more determination finally to clean behind the loo), I agreed to be a guest on the new BBC topical quiz, The Bubble. As if it weren’t terrifying enough to be grilled about the news in front of an audience, this show has a twist: all contest ... Jump to full article >>

An $8.7 million California university program running out of money amid a fiscal crisis shows medical marijuana’s promise and should continue, researchers say. The state-funded program, which sponsored 14 University of California studies, showed cannabis can reduce muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis patients and pain caused by a damaged or abnormally functioning nervous system, the researchers said, citing studies published in and submitted to scientific journals. A University of California, San Francisco, study found 52 percent of HIV patients experienced significant pain relief after ... Jump to full article >>

Americans are smoking a bit less, about one-third have trouble sleeping, and almost 50 percent are taking some type of medication, U.S. health officials report. The federal government’s 33rd annual report to the president and Congress on the health of all Americans was prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics from data gathered by state and federal health agencies as well as ongoing national surveys. This year’s report found: Overall U.S. life expectancy in 2007 was 77.9 years. In 2007, 20 percent of U.S. adults were ... Jump to full article >>

Women who take aspirin regularly after their breast cancer goes into remission are about 50% less likely to suffer a recurrence or to die from the disease, according to new findings from the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study. The results, reported Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, are surprising because at least five large studies have shown that taking aspirin regularly has no effect on the risk of developing breast cancer in the first place. The study’s authors described the findings as surprising and worthy of follow-up, but even they cautioned that survivors shouldn’ ... Jump to full article >>