Content about Health & Wellness

LOS ANGELES — The Entertainment Industry Foundation is sponsoring the Revlon Run/Walk for Women for the 20th year in a row, the group said Tuesday.

Emma Stone and Olivia Wilde will act as Revlon brand ambassadors and hosts for the New York event, which takes place on May 4, while Halle Berry will do the same for the Los Angeles event, on May 11, along with Entertainment Tonight correspondent Brooke Anderson and Dancing with the Stars host Carrie Ann Inaba.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Step by step, Walgreens of South Florida and the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation on Tuesday announced the third annual Walk with Walgreens Family Fun Day and Health Fair, which takes place April 20 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, home to both the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami Hurricanes football teams. 

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A MinuteClinic location at a CVS store in downtown Columbia, S.C., got a visit from one of the state's top health officials recently.

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. — BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy will notify physicians within two hours whether a patient has been accepted for treatment, the company said.

BioPlus said the new "2-Hour Patient Acceptance Guarantee" program would let physicians know if their patients could be admitted pending insurance qualifications or would not be admitted and triaged to another pharmacy.

NEW YORK — An experimental drug developed by AstraZeneca for rheumatoid arthritis produced mixed results in measurements of patients' conditions, according to results of a late-stage clinical trial.

AstraZeneca announced initial results of the phase-3 "OSKIRA-1" trial of fostamatinib, which it calls the first oral spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor in development for RA.

ST. LOUIS — More than 90 runners signed on to join Team Walgreens/Team Tori last month at the 2013 St. Louis Undy 5000 in support of 24-year old Tori Riley. The team raised more than $1,000 in support, half contributed to the Colon Cancer Alliance and the other half to Team Tori, through T-shirt sales, raffles for Walgreens beauty bags and silent auctions that included St. Louis Cardinals tickets, among other items.

NEW YORK — Men who go bald may be at increased risk of heart disease, according to a new study by researchers in Japan.

The researchers, at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine, examined data on 36,690 men, finding that those who experienced vertex baldness were 1.32 times more likely to experience coronary heart disease than those without baldness and those who experienced frontal baldness.

The study, based on previously published medical studies, appeared on April 3 in the journal BMJ Open.

WASHINGTON — The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine Friday morning commended a U.S. District Court ruling that expands over-the-counter access of Plan B One-Step to women under the age of 17. "This decision reflects the overwhelming evidence that emergency contraception is safe and effective for all women of reproductive age," the medical associations stated as part of a joint statement. 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Novo Nordisk has launched a diabetes awareness sweepstakes in which the winners get a free trip to the 2013 IndyCar finale, the Danish drug maker said Friday.

The company announced that it had hired IZOD IndyCar Series Charlie Kimball as spokesman for its Race with Insulin contest. Kimball, the first licensed driver with diabetes to race at the highest level of the series, was diagnosed with the disease during a routine doctor visit in 2007 while racing in Europe and is a user of Novo Nordisk's NovoLog (insulin aspart [rDNA origin]).

NEW YORK — The annual cost of treating dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion, according to a new study by the RAND Corp.

The research organization said that number meant dementia costs more to treat than cancer or heart disease, with the greatest cost coming from institutional and home-based long-term care, as opposed to medical services.

NEW YORK — Retail-based health clinics, urgent care clinics, telehealth and traditional physicians may be increasingly competing to serve the healthcare needs of Americans but the real winner is the patient, suggests a recent article in The Economist.

ORLANDO, Fla. — According to an independent research firm, a recent pilot program to address awareness of the dangers of prescription drug abuse in teens showed 75% of all respondents were more aware of the dangers of misusing and abusing prescription drugs after participating in the educational program.