Free Fitness Tips

SOURCE: Minnesota Health Fairs Inc

  Sep 14, 2010 16:28 ET

MINNEAPOLIS, MN–(Marketwire – September 14, 2010) –  Flu shot season is here and Health Fair 11 is ready to hold its annual Flu Fighter clinics. But before you head out to get your annual vaccination, there are some important changes to know about.

1. Flu Fighter clinics have new host sites. in September, MVNA nurses will be giving flu shots at all Minnesota Life Time Fitness locations. In October, vaccinations will be available at all YMCA centers in the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. Club memberships are NOT required to attend Flu Fighter clinics.

2. Everyone is currently eligible to get a flu shot.  The Cent

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BOSTON Cancer patients, brace yourselves. Many new drug treatments cost nearly $100,000 a year, sparking fresh debate about how much a few months more of life is worth.

The latest is Provenge, a first-of-a-kind therapy approved in April.

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WASHINGTON Scrutiny of drug and consumer product giant Johnson & Johnson ratcheted up Tuesday as a congressional chairman demanded the company provide proof of its claim that federal regulators cleared a plan to secretly buy up defective painkillers.

The letter from Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns, D-N.Y., comes a week ahead of a hearing to scrutinize J&J’s “phantom recall,” conducted last year, when the company paid an outside contractor to quietly purchase more than 88,000 packets of Motrin off store shelves.

A J&J executive testified in May that the FDA “was aware” of the action.

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Driving trucks! Bring your gear like I did and become an ammo driver. then when you drop the ammo at the range, you ask to shoot the big guns!

WASHINGTON Antibiotics can temporarily upset your stomach, but now it turns out that repeatedly taking them can trigger long-lasting changes in all those good germs that live in your gut, raising questions about lingering ill effects.

Nobody yet knows if that leads to later health problems. But the finding is the latest in a flurry of research raising questions about how the customized bacterial zoo that thrives in our intestines forms – and whether the wrong type or amount plays a role in ailments from obesity to inflammatory bowel disease to asthma.

Don’t be grossed out: This is a story in part about, well, poop.

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TRENTON, N.J. Health giant Johnson & Johnson is donating about $200 million in cash and medicine to a sweeping United Nations program created to improve the health and lives of people in poor countries.

J&J is launching a five-year program called “Every Mother, Every Child,” meant to help almost 400 million women and children in developing countries. The maker of No More Tears Baby Shampoo will donate its medicine for treating intestinal worms in children, send pregnant women messages on prenatal health on their cell phones, and work to make childbirth safer.

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YAOUNDE, Cameroon UNICEF says more than 300 people have died in the West African nation of Cameroon from the country’s worst cholera outbreak in 20 years.

UNICEF said Monday that more than 4,500 people have been sickened by the highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea in victims, leading to severe dehydration.

At least 331 people have died since the outbreak began in May, and officials fear it will spread further when children return to school this week after summer break.

UNICEF is launching an informational campaign in schools to teach children about good hygiene to prevent the disease from spreading.

Cholera also has killed several hundred people in Nigeria this year and more than 40 in the neighboring country of Chad.

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Events

Paradise Buy Local Thursdays farmers market: 5 p.m.-dusk. Paradise Community Park, Pearson Road at Black Olive Drive. 893-3276. through Aug. 12.

Thursday Night Market: 6-9 p.m. Broadway from Second to Fifth streets. Fresh produce, performances and locally made products. through Sept. 30.

1078 Gallery: 7:30 p.m. Summer Reading Series — Summertime Blues, with Heather Altfield, Jeff Hull and more. 820 Broadway. Suggested donation $3.

Performances

Chico Cabaret: 7 p.m. doors. “Grease,” full, uncensored version of Rydell High’s senior class of 1959. 2201 Pillsbury Road. 7 p.m. $16-$18. 895-0245.

Chic

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WASHINGTON A group of federal health experts narrowly voted to expand approval of a best-selling antidepressant on Thursday, though panelists disagreed over which types of pain the pill effectively treats.

The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to broaden approval of Elli Lilly & Co.’s Cymbalta to treat chronic pain, a major expansion of a drug already used by 15 million U.S. patients.

An FDA panel of outside physicians voted 8-6 in favor of the broader indication, though they separately ruled that the drug did not appear effective for arthritis-related pain.

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CHICAGO Aggressive, drug-resistant staph infections caught in hospitals or from medical treatment are becoming scarcer, another sign of progress in a prevention effort that has become a national public health priority.

The decline was seen in a federal study of methicillin-resistant staph, or MRSA. The bug often causes only a boil or skin infection. But researchers in the study focused on invasive cases that can become deadly, invading the bloodstream, flesh, lungs and bones.

Researchers found that in nine metro areas, cases of MRSA (MUR’-suh) fell about 16 percent between 2005 and 2008.

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