Health & Wellness

LONDON—Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs.
“This technique has great promise,” said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe (or trachea) transplants have ever been done.
If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden, who was not involved in the research.

TORONTO — This is your gut. This is your gut on drugs.
A new study reveals that a common antibiotic disrupts normal bacterial levels in the digestive tract of healthy adults for longer than previously thought. Six months later, in fact, some beneficial types of bacteria were still wiped out or remained at levels lower than before the drugs were taken.
“You don’t want to be giving readers the impression that we shouldn’t be using antibiotics (when needed),” says Dr. David Relman, senior author of the study, which was published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Biology.

CHICAGO — Many women recoil at the thought of baring their arms in sleeveless dresses or blouses, but not Michelle Obama — half of the fabulously fit new first couple.
Both U.S. president-elect Barack Obama and the future first lady have exercise routines that would put most people to shame. Michelle Obama used to join a friend for 4:30 a.m. workouts, and Barack Obama usually starts his day in the gym.
Michelle Obama has hosted “The View,” been interviewed on “60 Minutes,” graced the cover of Newsweek and hit the campaign trail, all with her buff arms bared.

TORONTO — Scientists have sequenced much of the genome of the woolly mammoth, raising the tantalizing but remote possibility that one day the long-extinct mammal could be resurrected to again trudge through the Arctic snow.
The researchers at Penn State University extracted DNA from mammoth hair found frozen in the permafrost of Siberia, where the massive beasts once roamed up until about 10,000 years ago, before their species disappeared for good.

WASHINGTON—Learning the name of a colour changes the part of the brain that handles colour perception.
Infants perceive colour in the right hemisphere of the brain, researchers reported, while adults do the job in the brain’s left hemisphere.
Testing toddlers showed the change occurred when the youngsters learned the names to attach to particular colours, scientists reported in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

TORONTO—Almost a third of adult Canadians diagnosed with asthma and taking medications to treat their wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath may not actually have the allergic respiratory condition at all, researchers say.
In a study of about 500 adults who previously had been told they have asthma, airway-function and other tests showed that about 30 percent did not, in fact, have the disease, suggesting asthma may be significantly overdiagnosed in Canada.

HAMILTON—Some young adults are damaging their ears by listening to digital music players too loud and for extended periods of time, a Hearing Foundation of Canada survey has found.
By the time they hit age 40, teens who listen to music too loud will have significant hearing loss, said foundation advocate Gael Hannan.
Part the problem is due to what a McMaster University associate professor calls an audio level creep. People start out their day listening to music at a low level, but to drown out background noise, they continue to turn up the music, said Alex Sevigny.

TORONTO—Alberta surgeons aren’t always following guidelines aimed at minimizing the risk patients will develop an infection as a result of their surgery, a new survey reveals.
And experts in infection control and health-care safety say the findings probably are reflective of surgical practice in other parts of the country, as well.

THUNDER BAY, Ont.—Storm drains and alcohol apparently don’t mix.
Rescue personnel were called out early yesterday morning to a storm drain where a teenager had become trapped after a 25-metre fall.
Thunder Bay police say the injured youth and four others—all intoxicated—had removed the grate and held the victim over the open sewer before he fell.
Firefighters rescued the teen, who was hospitalized with hypothermia and a fractured knee.
The four others have been charged with public intoxication.

TORONTO - Canadians with chronic illnesses wait longer to see medical specialists than counterparts in seven other developed countries, a new international survey suggests.

Only 40 per cent of Canadians with chronic illnesses who took part in the survey reported waiting less than four weeks to see a specialist. And 42 per cent said they had to wait more than two months - substantially longer than counterparts in the seven other countries.