Total knee replacement not only improves knee mobility in older
adults with severe osteoarthritis of the knee, it actually improves
the overall level of physical functioning, new research indicates.

Foodborne diseases appear to be on the rise in both rich and poor
countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.

Women who are heavy in their middle years are at greater risk of
Alzheimer’s disease, especially if they have large waists. However,
for men, being underweight during that period of life actually
increases the likelihood of developing the degenerative brain
disease, researchers report in the American Journal of
Epidemiology.

Diets high in saturated fat appear to increase the risk of cancer
of the small intestine, a study shows.

Children born “small for gestational age” — that is, significantly
smaller than most babies born after the same number of weeks of
pregnancy — appear to be at increased risk for rapid gains in
weight and body fat during adulthood, researchers from Paris,
France report.

Pop star Britney Spears’ 2-year-old son was taken to the hospital
over the weekend after he had a reaction to something he ate, a
statement on the singer’s Web site said on Monday.

Milk may be a treatment for milk allergy. In a carefully controlled
study, researchers from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Duke
University found that giving milk-allergic children milk in
increasingly higher doses over time eased their allergic reactions
to milk and even helped some of the children completely overcome
their milk allergy.

Physical activity levels are low in adolescents with juvenile
idiopathic arthritis, and this appears to be unrelated to disease
activity, study findings in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism
indicate.

But researchers are working on new therapies to combat the problem

A survey of nurses in elementary and middle schools found that food
allergy action plans for students with food allergies are used
inconsistently.