By Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber SAN FRANCISCO — From the time they arrived to the moment they laid their heads on hotel pillows, the thousands of cardiologists attending this week’s Heart Rhythm Society conference have been bombarded with pitches for drugs and medical devices. St. Jude Medical adorns every hotel key card. Medtronic ads […]

Sometimes the biggest culprits for adding unwanted calories to our diet when we’re trying to lose weight are the drinks we’re consuming! Not being very substantial, and often “refreshing”, many high calorie drinks sneak past our health radar, undetected. And before you know it, you just can’t seem to drop that last 5, or 10 […]

With the West Kootenay having become fertile soil for many innovative food system initiatives, another project is now underway which hopes to build the capacity within the West Kootenay to form a regional food system organization. Often referred to as ‘food councils,’ ’roundtables,’ ‘networks’ or ‘coalitions,’ hundreds of these types of regional organizations do already […]

By Janet Raloff, Science News Children exposed in the womb to substantial levels of neurotoxic pesticides have somewhat lower IQs by the time they enter school than do kids with virtually no exposure. A trio of studies screened women for compounds in blood or urine that mark exposure to organophosphate pesticides such as chlorpyrifos, diazinon […]

Like baby birds straining in the nest to get more worms than their siblings, another tax requisition besets beleaguered Nelson taxpayers, the West Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital District board announced recently. Property owners in the city will be paying around $24 more — on a house assessed at $300,000 — on their “hospital” tax bill […]

The Province will provide $2 million to the Union of BC Municipalities for West Nile Virus (WNV) monitoring and larvaciding  —insecticide that affects only developing stages of mosquitoes — for targeted areas of the Kootenays, the Okanagan and the Fraser Valley. WNV is transmitted to people and animals, such as horses, through a bite from an […]

Major gaps in the echocardiography departments in Nelson and Castlegar have temporarily and partially been closed as Interior Health Authority announced Tuesday they have arranged contract services for those facilities. Interior Health will provide echocardiography service at Kootenay Lake Hospital on a monthly basis from April through September — around five days per month. “Nelson […]

 Eating a big dinner might be sabotaging your weight loss efforts in more ways than you think! Here are just somepossible ways: You’re not active enough in the evening to justify making dinner your largest meal (most people aren’t!). Why do we eat food? No, it’s not just because it tastes good. We eat for energy! […]

 A slew of food scandals have occurred in China in recent weeks, highlighting the country's ongoing challenge with maintaining levels of food safety.Most recently, a report on broadcaster CCTV2 revealed that a Shanghai producer of steamed buns (mantou) used contained dye and excessive amounts of artificial sweetener in the ...

An additional $5.9 million will be available in 2011 to enhance the care provided to residents living in publicly funded residential care sites, the region’s health authority announced Wednesday. The investment will standardize the delivery of residential care across Interior Health and will be directed to staffing, education and quality initiatives. Particular attention will go […]