Gale Scott

In a study approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, California researchers are launching a pilot program to see if MDMA, the recreational drug known as "Ecstasy" will alleviate social anxiety in adults with autism.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved a new use for sirolimus, treating a rare lung disease.

Untreated strep infections can cause acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in children. That complication has become rare in the continental US, but a new CDC report finds a resurgence in the American territory of Samoa and in people of Samoan descent living in the state of Hawaii.

Plasma-rich platelet injection, an arthritis therapy, is thought to induce regeneration of damaged cartilage. A Netherlands team looked at existing studies and was not convinced that there is credible proof the therapy works. The studies all had a high-to-moderate risk of bias, they found.

New strains of leishmania, a parasitic disease that starts with skin ulcers, are spreading. The CDC reports on an outbreak in a group of 24 scientists and warns US physicians to be alert for the infection in travelers returning from Latin America and South America. The destruction of the Amazon rain forest may be playing a role.

Seizures and other neurological problems traced to pork tapeworms are a new health threat for the US, the CDC reports.

Fatal drownings happen even in strong, healthy swimmers in lifeguarded pools. A New York City health department investigation points to an under-reported cause: deliberate breath-holding as part of informal contests or self-imposed training regimens.

Implanting an electrical stimulating device to help patients with gastroparesis is less successful when patients also suffer from depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems, a Texas team reports.

Obesity associated with metabolic syndrome can be treated when patients adhere to a high-protein diet, a team of researchers from University of California, Los Angeles found.

Patients with gastroparesis may be helped with a combination of gastric electrical stimulation and surgery to widen the pylorus, a Texas team reports.

Patients who are obese may have a genetic makeup that causes their stomachs to empty faster than those of normal-weight people. Investigators say there is a drug that can help.

The FDA says the investigational drug combination of daclatasvir (Daklinza/ Bristol-Myers Squibb) and sofosbuvir (Sovaldi/Gilead ) may now be given to patients who have hepatitis C infections with either advanced cirrhosis or infections that have come back after patients received a liver transplant.

The US Food and Drug Administration today approved 3-month paliperidone palmitate (Invega Trinza/Janssen) a longer-lasting version of Janssen's paliperidone palmitate product marketed as Invega Sustenna, a treatment that works for only 1 month per injection.

Treating hepatitis C with new antivirals saves lives and-in the long run-money spent on patient care. But some patients and their physicians are learning there are barriers to getting prescriptions approved by patients' insurance carriers.

African Americans are more likely to be infected with the hepatitis C virus than Caucasians. But that does not mean they are more likely to die from the disease, researchers reported at the 2015 Digestive Disease Week conference in Washington, DC.

A relatively higher rate of hepatitis C infection in US adults considered to be part of the baby boom generation is starting to decline, researchers report. The statistical drop started the year after a CDC push for all US adults to get tested.

A recent study found that while most insurers are paying for the new hepatitis C antivirals, disparities exist. More than 20% of patients at the hospital studied who had private insurance were refused their prescriptions for sofosbuvir with simeprevir, the researchers found.

A drug that shows promise in protecting the human gut microbiome from antiobiotic assaults that can lead to C. difficile infection is about to enter Phase 2 trials. So far, it has worked well in lab pigs, researchers said at Digestive Disease Week 2015.

Reducing unnecessary lab tests in the intensive care unit is possible, a team of researchers from New York reported at the 2015 American Thoracic Society meeting in Denver, CO.

Reporting at the 2015 Digestive Disease Week conference in Washington, DC, a research team from Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, found that colonoscopy has the edge over upper endoscopy in fecal microbiota transplant.

Transplanting a healthy person's fecal microbiota into the digestive tract of a patient believed to have a recurrent C. difficile infection has gone from obscurity to an accepted treatggggment. But a new study finds it was wrongly proposed for more than 25% of patients referred for treatment.

The proximal and distal colon act like two different organs when it comes to biological function and the microbiota that live there. The difference is seen even at the gene transcriptional level and response to vitamin D, a team of researchers from the University of Chicago reported.

Some intestinal bacteria cause more pain than others in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, according to study results reported by a team of researchers from North Carolina.

Excessive daytime sleepiness related to severe obstructive sleep apnea is also linked to depression in men, reported a team of researchers from Australia.

Music can be relaxing, even for patients in a high-stress situation like learning to breath without mechanical ventilation, researchers reported at the 2015 American Thoracic Society meeting in Denver, CO.

Hospitals have been paying Medicare penalties when patients are readmitted too soon after discharge. So far the focus has been on patients with heart failure and pneumonia but a study from NYU finds sepsis readmissions are also common.

Patients whose genetic risk of getting lung cancer was assessed became more likely to follow through with CT lung scans, a California study of smokers found. That was most true for patients who learned they were at high risk, but learning they were at lower risk did not reduce these patients' rates of complying with screening.

Patients recommended for screening colonoscopy often resist because the bowel cleansing regimen is unpleasant. In an abstract presented at the 2015 Digestive Disease Week conference in Washington, DC, Campbell Levy, MD, of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, and colleagues at other institutions reported on a novel edible product that achieves the desired results.

Children who get lung transplants face a higher risk of developing chronic kidney disease. New research looks at risk assessment and prevention.