Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Novartis migraine drug not cost effective - UK price watchdog

Britain's drug price watchdog on Thursday rejected Novartis's migraine drug Aimovig for now, concluding in a draft decision that the medicine was not a cost-effective use of National Health Service resources. Novartis, with exclusive rights to the drug in Europe while cooperating with Amgen in the United States, said it was "disappointed" in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (NICE) conclusion.

Doctor lays out need-to-know basics on vitamins, supplements

Most people don't need to take vitamins or nutritional supplements because they can get all the nutrients they need by eating a healthy diet, a new patient resource published in JAMA Internal Medicine underscores. Nevertheless, there are more than 90,000 supplements on the U.S. market that include a wide range of vitamins, minerals and chemicals, and many of them don't live up to their advertised health benefits, the author writes.

Sen. Sanders, Rep. Cummings introduce bill to lower U.S. drug prices

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Elijah Cummings introduced legislation on Thursday aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs for American consumers, critiquing President Donald Trump administration's efforts to curb medicine prices. Democrats have been critical of efforts by the Trump administration to bring down drug prices after Trump, a Republican, promised to do so during his 2016 campaign and since being elected. They have said administration proposals let big drugmakers off the hook and did not do enough to help Americans.

Pesticide, metal exposure tied to increased risk of heart disease

Workers who are exposed to pesticides or metals on the job may be significantly more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers examined data on occupational exposure to solvents, metals and pesticides for 7,404 workers who were part of a Hispanic/Latino health study in four cities: Chicago, San Diego, Miami and New York. Overall, 6.5 percent of participants reported exposure to solvents at work, 8.5 percent encountered potentially toxic metals and 4.7 percent had pesticide exposure.

Games industry asks WHO to hold fire on 'gaming disorder'

Video games are compelling, but does playing them too much constitute a medical condition? The gaming industry is trying to avoid "gaming disorder" becoming a formally recognized ailment. The World Health Organization (WHO), which has spent years looking into the addictive nature of video games, put "gaming disorder" on its list of health problems last year, a decision set to be endorsed by governments in May, with potential impacts on, for example, healthcare policy and insurance.

Multistate E.coli infection outbreak appears to be over: CDC

The multistate outbreak of E. coli infections linked to romaine lettuce from the Central Coastal growing regions in northern and central California appears to be over, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday. Sixty-two people infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli were reported from 16 states and the District of Columbia, the CDC said in an update https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-11-18/index.html on its investigation into the outbreak.

Diabetes tied to worse word recall in older adults

Older people with type 2 diabetes may struggle more with verbal memory than their peers without the disease, a recent study suggests. Researchers followed 705 older adults without dementia for an average of 4.6 years. At the start, participants were between 55 and 90 years old, with an average age around 70, and 348 of them had diabetes.