When human hearts are injured, as during a heart attack, healthy tissue normally can’t regrow. Researchers now demonstrate in rats that a sponge-like patch, soaked in a compound called periostin and placed over the injury, can not only get heart cells to begin dividing and making copies of themselves again, but also improves heart function. Their findings appear in Nature Medicine. [click link for full article]

Several newspapers recently published editorials and opinion pieces looking at former Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s testimony last week at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing. [click link for full article]

HIV-infected children may require repeat measles vaccination for protection, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and other institutions. The researchers found that only half of the HIV-infected children who survived without antiretroviral therapy maintained protective antibody levels 27 months after receiving measles vaccine. [click link for full article]

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Tuesday in a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote that a proposal to increase the federal cigarette tax to fund an SCHIP expansion “would increase taxes on low-income taxpayers,” the [click link for full article]

Orange juice, despite its high caloric load of sugars, appears to be a healthy food for diabetics due to its mother lode of flavonoids, a study by endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo has shown. The study appeared in Diabetes Care.Flavonoids suppress destructive oxygen free radicals — also known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS. [click link for full article]

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Monday ruled that the spouses of women from other countries, such as China, who were forced to undergo abortions or sterilizations do not automatically qualify for asylum, the AP/Staten Island Advance reports. [click link for full article]

A commentary in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) urges researchers to explore an intriguing approach to reduce the dose, and therefore the cost, of oral targeted cancer therapies. The commentary, by Mark Ratain, MD and Ezra Cohen, MD of the University of Chicago, examines recent pharmacologic research which found that taking the targeted therapy lapatinib (Tykerb) with food significantly increased the concentration of the drug in the body. [click link for full article]

The following highlights several recent developments concerning Medicare and CMS. Medicare Advantage: Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag, on Monday at a forum on Medicare Advantage payments held by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the [click link for full article]

Traditionally, PET, or positron emission tomography, has been used after radiation treatment for lung cancer to assess whether the tumor responded to treatment and whether the patients will have a chance of being cured. Using PET several weeks into treatment, researchers found a strong correlation between tumor responses during treatment and response three months after completion of the treatment. [click link for full article]

A specific genetic variation may be tied to an increased risk for severe premenstrual depression, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the National Institute of Mental Health have found.Known medically as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, this psychiatric condition affects roughly 8 percent of women in their childbearing years. [click link for full article]