Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
U.S. Surgeons Perform 6 Simultaneous Kidney Transplants
In what's believed to be the first operation of its kind, Johns Hopkins surgeons transplanted six kidneys simultaneously, hospital officials announced Tuesday. The 10-hour surgeries on Saturday required six operating rooms and nine surgical teams, the Associated Press reported.
"All 12 (donor and transplant) patients are doing great, the kidneys are working well," said Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of Hopkins' transplant center and head of the transplant team.
The transplants were made possible when a donor who was willing to donate a kidney to anyone was found to be a match for one of the transplant candidates. The other five candidates each had a willing donor whose kidney wasn't a match for their particular relative or friend, but was a match for one of the other candidates, the AP reported.
The donors and recipients were matched using a living-donor system developed at Johns Hopkins.
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THC/Alcohol Combination Kills Brain Cells: Study
A combination of THC -- the active ingredient in marijuana -- and alcohol caused widespread nerve cell death in the brains of rats, says a German study.
Researchers injected THC, a synthetic form of THC, ethanol, the anticonvulsant drug MK-801, and phenobarbital to rats 1 to 14 days old, United Press International reported.
When administered alone, neither THC nor synthetic THC caused cell death. But both did cause cell death when given with lower-than-toxic amounts of ethanol. The researchers also found that THC increased the neurotoxic effect of MK-801 and phenobarbital.
"Nerounal degeneration became disseminated and very severe when THC was combined with a mildly toxic ethanol dose," the researchers said in a statement. The study was published in the journal Annals of Neurology.
The researchers said the combined effect of THC and alcohol on the developing brain requires further investigation, UPI reported.
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Pre-Eclampsia May Increase Child's Heart Disease Risk
Children born to mothers who develop pre-eclampsia during pregnancy may have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease later in life, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge in Great Britain.
Pre-eclampsia can reduce the amount of oxygen a fetus receives. This may impair the growth of the baby's cardiovascular, metabolic and endocrine systems, said the researchers, who studied pregnancies at high altitude (where oxygen is restricted) and conducted tests on pregnant animals, BBC News reported.
Their findings were to be presented at a meeting of the Society for Endocrinology.
"We have known for a while that changes in maternal nutrition can affect fetal development and influence disease susceptibility later in life, but relatively little work has investigated how low oxygen levels in the womb may affect infant development," said lead researcher Dr. Dino Giussani, BBC News reported.
"Our research shows that changes to the amount of oxygen available in the womb can have a profound influence on the development of the fetus in both the short- and long-term, and trigger an early origin of heart disease."
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FDA Reports More Deaths Related to Tainted Heparin
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration now says 62 deaths are associated with use of tainted batches of the blood thinner heparin, more than triple the previous estimate of 19 deaths.
The FDA said Tuesday that the deaths weren't new ones. The revised count is based on more data received recently by the agency after reports of the contaminated blood thinner first surfaced in February. The 62 deaths appear to be the allergic-type reactions seen with the other fatalities, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There were only three deaths due to allergic reactions in 2006, the FDA said.
Heparin is often given to dialysis patients and people undergoing heart surgery. The raw materials for the drug come from the mucous lining of pig intestines. Many of those pigs come from rural farms in China, with the intestines often processed by unregulated mom-and-pop workshops.
The FDA last month identified the contaminant in heparin as oversulfated condroitin sulfate, which was found in samples of the blood thinner produced in China for Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill.
Oversulfated chondroitin sulfate mimics heparin's qualities and is a modified form of chondroitin sulfate. Chondroitin sulfate is a naturally occurring substance made from animal cartilage and is often used in supplements to treat arthritic joints. But, oversulfated chondroitin sulfate is man-made and doesn't occur naturally.
On Tuesday, the FDA posted a month-by-month heparin mortality count on its Web site, showing that a sudden jump in allergic-style fatal reactions actually began last November -- possibly signaling the time when the contamination began, the Associated Press reported.
FDA officials don't know how the contaminant got into the heparin.
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Dyslexia's Impact Differs, Depending on the Language
The areas of the brain affected by dyslexia differ between children who learned to read in English and those who learned to read in Chinese, say researchers who compared MRI brain scans of children, the Associated Press reported.
"This finding was very surprising to us. We had not ever thought that dyslexics' brains are different for children who read in English and Chinese. Our finding yields neurobiological clues to the cause of dyslexia," said study lead author Li-Hai Tan, a professor of linguistics and brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Hong Kong.
The study was published Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Children who learn English and other alphabetical languages learn the sounds of letters and how to combine them into words, while Chinese children memorize hundreds of symbols that represent words, Guinevere F. Eden, director of the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., told the AP.
This finding shows that "we cannot just assume that any dyslexic child is going to be helped by the same kind of intervention," said Eden, who was not involved in the study.
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Magnetic Dart Boards Recalled
About 870,000 Fun 'N Games Magnetic Dart Boards are being recalled by Henry Gordy International Inc., of Plainfield, N.J., because small magnets on the ends of the darts can detach and be swallowed by young children.
If more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract each other and cause potentially fatal intestinal blockages or perforations. There have been no injuries reported, said the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The recalled dart boards are about 5.5 inches in diameter and came with two 2.75-inch magnetic darts. The Chinese-made toys were sold at Family Dollar stores across the United States from September 2002 through March 2008 for about $1.
Consumers with the recalled dart boards should return them by first class mail to: Henry Gordy International Inc., 809A Market Street, Hermann, Mo., 65041 for a full refund including tax and shipping costs. For more information, contact the company at 888-790-2700.
