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Health Tips ... from UPI

By ALEX CUKAN, United Press International

STEROID AS EFFECTIVE AS SURGERY FOR CARPAL TUNNEL

Carpal tunnel syndrome or CTS affects 3 percent of the U.S. population but there is no universally accepted therapy. Madrid researchers suggest steroid injection is just as effective as surgery for the long-term symptomatic relief of carpal tunnel syndrome -- for a year, at least -- and actually more effective over the short term. "This is the first randomized controlled clinical trial comparing the two most common therapies for CTS," writes study author Dr. Domingo Ly-Pen in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism. "Our findings suggest that both local steroid injections and surgical decompression are highly effective in alleviating the symptoms of primary CTS at 12 months of follow-up. Nevertheless, local injection seems superior to surgery in the short term."

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NEIGHBORHOOD LINKED TO DEPRESSION, HIV

Living in a disadvantaged U.S. urban neighborhood can increase a male resident's risk of contracting HIV, say Baltimore researchers. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study related disadvantaged neighborhoods to stress, which in turn increased injection drug use in male study participants. The study, published in Health Psychology, finds neighborhood stressors, such as crime, abandoned buildings, loitering, unemployment, crowding and litter led to greater depression -- which may be due in part to such conditions. "Individuals who have high levels of depression tend to take more illicit drugs and engage in more risk behaviors," says Carl A. Latkin.

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ASPIRIN KEY TO PREVENT SECOND STROKE

A Swiss study finds stroke survivors who stopped taking their prescribed daily aspirin tripled their risk of having another stroke within a month. "This is the first controlled retrospective study to investigate the potential risk of suffering ischemic stroke shortly after discontinuing aspirin," said study co-author Dr. Patrik Michel, director of the acute stroke unit at Lausanne University Hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland. This study reinforces the importance of compliance with aspirin therapy in patients with symptomatic arteriosclerosis, including previous stroke, Michel told the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in New Orleans.


CELL PHONES AFFECT YOUNG DRIVERS

A University of Utah study finds when young motorists talk on cell phones, they drive like elderly people -- with slower reaction times. "If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone," says study author David Strayer. "It's like instantly aging a large number of drivers." The study, published in the journal Human Factors, finds drivers young or old using hands-free phones were 18 percent slower in hitting their brakes than drivers who didn't use cell phones. They also had a 12 percent greater following distance and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked.

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(EDITORS: For more information on CARPAL TUNNEL contact Amy Molnar at [email protected]. Kenna Lowe or Tim Parsons at (410) 955-6878 or [email protected]. For STROKE, Carole Bullock (214) 706-1279 or [email protected]. For CELL PHONES, Lee Siegel, (801) 581-8993 or [email protected].)

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