Health & Medicine
Turbocharged Acne Gel Gets the Nod
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration gave people troubled by acne a new treatment option. It's a faster-working and more powerful version of adapalene, the most widely prescribed topical retinoid. The prescription gel, which will be sold as Differin Gel, 0.3% beginning in July, is three times as strong as the existing version yet doesn't cause harsh side effects, dermatologists say. A large study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that after 12 weeks of treatment, 21.8 percent of people on the stronger version were clear or almost clear of pimples, compared with 15.4 percent on the existing version; 22 percent did have some dryness, burning, and flaking, while only 12 percent of those on the weaker version did. The side effects are generally mild and ease after a month. — Adam Voiland
You're Sharing That Cigarette, Mom
Smokers, when you light up, your baby does, too. British researchers reported evidence last week: nearly six times more cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, in the urine of 12-week-old babies whose parents averaged 16 cigarettes a day compared with babies of nonsmokers. Though not the most harmful component in tobacco, cotinine indicates how much smoke a person is exposed to. Previous research suggests that secondhand smoke causes as many as 6,000 pediatric deaths a year due to respiratory problems like asthma and pneumonia. It also increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, particularly for babies who sleep in the same bed as smokers. A possible reason for the findings could be contact with clothing or other objects loaded with smoke particles, theorize the authors of the study, published last week in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. — D.K.
A Surprising Risk of Stroke in Women
Middle-aged women have yet another reason to eat right and get their workouts. According to a study published last week in Neurology, they're twice as likely as men their age to have a stroke. The results surprised researchers because until recently, men ages 45 to 54 were thought to be at a greater risk than women the same age. "It could be a reflection of the obesity epidemic," says lead researcher Amytis Towfighi, a stroke expert at the University of California-Los Angeles. She notes that abdominal obesity proved to be an independent risk factor for stroke in women. Meanwhile, George Howard, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama-Birmingham who has extensively researched stroke epidemiology, cautions that the subject needs further study, because the data could alternatively be interpreted to indicate a decreased stroke rate for middle-aged men. — Katherine Leitzell
This story appears in the July 2, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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