A new study suggests patients hospitalized with pneumonia may be at serious risk of new or worsening heart problems. The study is published in tClinical Infectious Diseases, currently available online.Researchers led by Daniel Musher, MD, studied the records of all 170 patients hospitalized with pneumococcal pneumonia at a Texas Veterans Affairs medical center from 2001 to 2005. They found that 19. [click link for full article]

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) speaking on Monday at a Baltimore community health clinic accused the Bush administration of not providing adequate dental care for low-income children, the Baltimore Sun reports. Cummings also spoke about legislation ( [click link for full article]

In the study, “Simple Models of Influenza Progression Within a Heterogeneous Population,” Dr. Richard C. Larson, a former president of INFORMS and a professor at MIT, discusses the importance of forecasting and ultimately limiting the spread of disease while taking into account the different infection rates among those who might contract the disease. [click link for full article]

The Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices sponsor this sixth show in the “Elements of State Health Reform” series on health coverage for children at 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday, June 19. [click link for full article]

In the fall of 2005, leading scientists from the National Cancer Institute announced the beginning of the cancer genome atlas project, a large-scale endeavor to map every gene implicated in cancer and the first step toward development of new therapies for treating this still baffling disease. [click link for full article]

Children and their teachers are already benefiting from online learning communities such as the Oracle Education Foundation’s Think.com, but there is a real opportunity for richer learning with such systems that is yet to be tapped. [click link for full article]

A new initiative from Columbia University Medical Center will be the first to target chronic oral health problems in sub-Saharan Africa, where the vast majority of chronic diseases are left undetected and untreated. The initiative is the result of an anonymous $1. [click link for full article]

A Canadian study has confirmed what parents have long suspected: dating, sexual activity and substance use seem to make teens feel older than they really are. And, as adolescents get older, the gap between their chronological age and their self-perceived age widens. [click link for full article]

The “real value” of recommendations released last week for identifying symptoms that could signal early stages of ovarian cancer might be to “raise awareness” of the disease among physicians and their patients, a New York Times editorial says (New York Times, 6/19).Experts from the [click link for full article]

In a paper published in The Journal of Physiology, Helge, Stallknecht, Richter, Galbo, and Keins from Copenhagen shed light on fat oxidation during exercise and physical activity. Their observations suggest that fat oxidation during exercise reflects a fine interplay between the cardiovascular, neurological, endocrine and muscle metabolic systems.During exercise and physical activity, the primary fuels used by muscles are carbohydrate and fat. [click link for full article]