ATLANTA - Hispanic high school students use drugs and attempt suicide at higher rates than their black and white classmates, according to a new federal survey that shows a continuation of a troubling trend.

"It is disheartening that we aren't seeing progress among Hispanic teens for certain risk factors," said Howell Wechsler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a prepared statement.

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By Steven Reinberg
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Direct-to-consumer drug ads on television should include a toll-free phone number that would allow consumers to report adverse side effects, U.S. health experts suggested Friday.

The experts serve on a panel that advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Such phone numbers are already mandated by the FDA for print ads. At Friday's meeting, the panel discussed designing a study to determine the most effective way of adding the phone number to TV ads.

A new study suggests that more than half of all insured Americans regularly take prescription drugs to treat chronic health problems, with drugs to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol the most widely used, the Associated Press reported.

By Carolyn Colwell
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 12 (HealthDay News) -- Daily doses of statins and blood pressure medications will not be enough to prevent heart disease among the ever-growing number of Baby Boomers who are overweight or obese, a new study suggests.

TUESDAY, April 22 (HealthDay News) -- A combination of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and mildly intoxicating doses of alcohol caused widespread nerve cell death in the brains of young rats, a German study finds.

Less than one-third of prescription medicines used to treat children have been formally approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in youngsters, but many parents believe all such drugs are FDA-approved, says a survey released Monday by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.

Thought this article from the New York Times would definitely qualify as a health care headache. Turns out that people who were once used to paying $20 or so for their prescriptions are paying well over $300 a month. Was wondering if anyone got a jolt the last time they paid a trip to their pharmacist. Did you notice your payment for prescriptions skyrocket?

I'd like to hear feedback on the idea of food being an addiction, much as drugs and alcohol are. Can someone be addicted to food - in a physical and psychological sense?

Should some clinics or rehab for food addicts be free, like they are for drug and alcohol patients?

Does an obese person (through over-eating) need therapy to stop, or do they just need more self-control and a change in lifestyle?

Mandated approval times lead to fixes after medications have reached millions, study says

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) -- New research shows that drugs that are approved quickly to meet mandated deadlines are more likely to run into trouble down the line, after they are in millions of Americans' medicine cabinets, than drugs that receive more deliberation before approval.

MONDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- New insights about an on-off switch that controls cell growth could one day help identify targets for drugs to treat cancer and other diseases that involve unnatural cell growth, researchers are reporting.