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Move over, dodgeball: Schools pump up physical education with choices

By Carolyn Thompson Associated Press You won’t find gym class on the schedule in upstate New York’s Victor school district. What you will see: kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, dance, self-defense, archery and in-line skating — all under the heading of physical education. The teachers say it’s a more fitting description of lessons meant to last well beyond the class bell. “We want our kids as they walk out of these halls in grade 12 to be active for life,” said Ron Whitcomb, the district’s director of health, physical education and athletics. With the ...

Baby gene therapy study offers hope for fatal muscle disease

WASHINGTON (AP) — A first attempt at gene therapy for a disease that leaves babies unable to move, swallow and, eventually, breathe has extended the tots’ lives, and some began to roll over, sit and stand on their own, researchers reported. Only 15 babies with spinal muscular atrophy received the experimental gene therapy, but researchers in Ohio credited the preliminary and promising results to replacing the infants’ defective gene early — in the first few months of life, before the neuromuscular disease destroyed too many key nerve cells. “They all should have died by ...

Company wins approval for lymphoma drug

NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. regulators have approved a new treatment for people with a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to AstraZeneca PLC’s Calquence for people with mantle cell lymphoma after chemotherapy or other treatments fail. The British drugmaker is now conducting further testing required by the FDA to confirm the drug’s benefits and risks. Mantle cell lymphoma is a blood cancer that usually strikes middle-aged people and the elderly. By the time it’s diagnosed, it usually has spread to the lymph nodes, bone ...

Doctors: Global warming is taking a toll on people’s health

WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is hurting people’s health a bit more than previously thought, but there’s hope that the Earth — and populations — can heal if the planet kicks its coal habit, a group of doctors and other experts said. The poor and elderly are most threatened by worsening climate change, but there remains “glimmers of progress” especially after the 2015 Paris agreement to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new big study published Monday in the British medical journal Lancet. Comparing the report to a health checkup, four ...

FDA moves to ax heart benefits claim from soy foods

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators want to remove a health claim about the heart benefits of soy from cartons of soy milk, tofu and other foods, saying the latest scientific evidence no longer shows a clear connection. The announcement by the Food and Drug Administration marks the first time the agency has moved to revoke a health food claim since it began approving such statements in 1990. The claim that soy protein can reduce heart disease appears on about 200 to 300 products in the U.S., according to industry figures, including popular brands like Silk soy milk. Calls to ...

Panel recommends new, better shingles shot

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal panel recommended that older people already vaccinated for shingles get a new, better shot. The advisory group said the just-approved vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline works better at preventing shingles and may last longer than the one that’s been sold in the U.S. since 2006. Shingles, a painful condition that causes blisters, occurs when the chickenpox virus resurfaces decades later, often when people are in their 60s or older. About 1 in 3 U.S. residents will get it during their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and ...