Health Buzz: Contaminated Drugs and Other Health News

The Trouble With Heparin

Once again, contaminated Chinese goods are keeping Food and Drug Administration officials busy. The contaminated product this time is the blood thinner heparin. Bloomberg news reports that China's State Food and Drug Administration acknowledged in a statement that traces of a substance known as over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate have shown up in tests. As U.S. News recently reported, shoddy and fraudulent pharmacy products pose a growing threat.

Marriage and Blood Pressure

As if people with marriages on the rocks didn't already have enough stress, a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine piles on a little more. While a happy marriage is good for blood pressure levels, a stressed one is worse than being single, the study found. People in stressed marriages had blood pressure that was 5 points higher during the daytime than that of single people, the AP reports. (HealthDay has more on that story.) U.S. News writer Deborah Kotz recently explored the science behind happy marriages and reduced stress in her On Women column.

New Tool for Assessing Osteoporosis

Low bone density is a red flag that osteoporosis may be a threat. But how do you decide if bone-strengthening osteoporosis drugs are right for you? NPR reports that an online tool created by the World Health Organization may help you decide. Here's more from U.S. News on how to grapple with early bone loss.

Controversy Over Old Blood Starts to Simmer

Heart surgery patients who received transfusions of blood that had been stored for more than two weeks were 64 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those who received fresher blood, the Los Angeles Times reports. (HealthDay also covered the story.) The study behind the reports wasn't designed to be definitive, so we'll surely hear more about this topic in the future.