Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Cancer survivors face stress from steep medical bills

Cancer survivors have higher-than-average rates of medical financial hardship, a U.S. study suggests. Medical financial hardship includes problems paying bills and other challenges with money; psychological stress like intense worry over unpaid bills; and behavioral issues like delaying needed care because of cost. Swiss team develop 'microswimmer' robot to deliver drugs through the body

A tiny sliver of elastic material swims along inside a narrow tube, coiling up and changing shape in response to the thickness of fluid and the contours of the tube around it as it moves towards its goal. The miniature robot - the bacteria-inspired brainchild of a team of scientists in Switzerland seeking new methods to deliver drugs to diseased tissue - is designed to wend its way through blood vessels and other systems in the body. France holds trial of firms accused of selling horse meat as beef

Two former managers of French meat-processing firm Spanghero and two Dutch meat traders go on trial in Paris on Monday accused of passing off cheap horse meat as pricier beef in ready-made meals and burgers that were sold in countries across Europe. The scandal stems from the discovery by Irish authorities in early 2013 of horse meat in frozen burgers labeled "pure beef". Investigations widened when British frozen foods group Findus found horse meat in lasagna made by the Luxembourg unit of frozen food specialist Comigel, Tavola. Many migraine sufferers wary of alcohol as a headache trigger

Many migraine sufferers avoid alcohol, saying it can trigger the severe headaches, a survey found. Among more than 2,000 migraine patients in the Netherlands, more than a third said alcohol was a migraine trigger for them. Of the 650 patients who had stopped consuming alcohol, one in four said it was to avoid triggering migraines. And 78 percent of patients who did drink alcohol cited red wine as the specific drink that could trigger an attack. Vodka was a trigger for only 8 percent. New app may improve ability to focus

For people who have trouble concentrating, help may be on the way through a new game app that helps improve the ability to focus just by playing. Researchers documented improvements in attention among healthy young adults who played a game called Decoder twice a week for a month, according to a report in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. China reports African swine fever outbreak in Ningxia region

China's agriculture ministry on Sunday reported a new African swine fever outbreak in the northwestern region of Ningxia. The outbreak occurred on a farm with 57 live pigs in Yongning county, infecting pigs and killing 13, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement. New breast cancer gene tests don't faze women

Women with breast cancer who get newer genetic tests to estimate their risk of recurrence may not be any more anxious about their test results than their peers who get older tests that focus on fewer genes, a recent study suggests. Researchers surveyed 1,063 women with early stage breast cancer who had genetic tests between 2013 and 2015, a period when testing evolved from focusing on two genes - BRCA1 and BRCA2 - to examining a dozen or more genes that play a role in breast cancer. U.S. insulin costs per patient nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016: study

The cost of insulin for treating type 1 diabetes in the United States nearly doubled over a five-year period, underscoring a national outcry over rising drug prices, according to a new analysis shared with Reuters. A person with type 1 diabetes incurred annual insulin costs of $5,705, on average, in 2016. The average cost was roughly half that at $2,864 per patient in 2012, according to a report due to be released on Tuesday by the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). Chinese scientist who gene-edited babies fired by university

A Chinese scientist who created what he said were the world's first "gene-edited" babies evaded oversight and broke ethical boundaries in a quest for fame and fortune, state media said on Monday, as his former university said he had been fired. He Jiankui said in November that he used a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born that month, sparking an international outcry about the ethics and safety of such research.