New findings from studies in mice suggest that defects in the brain’s ability to respond to glucose play a role in the development of non-insulin dependent (type 2) diabetes, and that a high-fat diet may contribute to impairing brain cells’ ability to regulate glucose throughout the body. [click link for full article]

A recent Washington Post editorial “erroneously criticized Medicare for paying private Medicare Advantage plans more per beneficiary than is paid under traditional fee-for-service Medicare,” CMS Acting Deputy Administrator Herb Kuhn writes in a [click link for full article]

“The proposal for a ‘comparative effectiveness’ center” included in the House version of SCHIP reauthorization legislation (HR 3162) “has become a seductively simple idea that few are willing to challenge in Washington, making it almost inevitable, save a veto of SCHIP altogether,” Scott Gottlieb, resident fellow at the [click link for full article]

Cost estimate for HR 976, the SCHIP Reauthorization Act of 2007, Congressional Budget Office: CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate the cost of legislation that would reauthorize and expand SCHIP ( [click link for full article]

The more teenagers watch smoking in movies the higher their risk is of becoming established smokers who have consumed over 100 cigarettes during their lifetimes, says a report in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (JAMA/Archives).Previous studies have indicated that the more teenagers are exposed to smoking in movies the more likely they are to start smoking. [click link for full article]

Although less than 4% of US 8 to 15 year olds receive treatment for ADHD, experts estimate that 8.7% of children in that age-group meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). You can read about this in a report published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (JAMA/Archive journals). [click link for full article]

A leading epidemiologist has attacked Swedish research that looked at inequalities in patients’ access to cancer drugs across Europe and the world. In a commentary published in the September issue of the cancer journal, Annals of Oncology [1], Professor Michel Coleman says the Karolinska report is so badly flawed that no safe conclusions can be drawn from it about cancer survival, and he highlights the role played by a major drug company in funding the research. [click link for full article]

We often think that high-tech, surgical methods are the best approach when it comes to medical care. But for children born with clubfoot, there is growing, worldwide interest in a low-tech, non-surgical method of treatment that is more effective, less expensive and easier to provide than surgery.Ponseti International, the University of Iowa-based organization that promotes the technique, will hold a symposium Sept. [click link for full article]

The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, based in an area of South Africa where over one in five people are HIV infected, is to receive approximately 15 million pounds over five years, subject to a three year review, from the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest medical research charity. The Centre will use the funding to improve the health status of people in the area, with a particular focus on HIV infection. [click link for full article]

When you look back on your school days, doesn’t it seem like you studied all the time? However, most of us seem to have retained almost nothing from our early immersion in math, history, and foreign language.Were we studying the wrong way during all those wee hours? Well, as it turns out we may have been. Psychologists have been assessing how well various study strategies produce long-term learning, and it appears that some strategies really do work much better than others. [click link for full article]