Youths who consumed more sweet and salty snacks and sweetened drinks had reduced standardized math and English test scores, compared with those with lower junk food intake, researchers reported at the American Society for Nutrition annual meeting. Another study also presented at the meeting showed that children who drank 2.5 liters of water daily had reduced working memory cost and lighter urine color, but similar cognitive flexibility and inhibition, compared with those with a 0.5 liter daily water intake.

A session at the recent meeting of the American Society of Safety Professionals focused on how to enhance safety during the handling or moving of patients and how to decrease the risk for injuries and musculoskeletal disorders among health care professionals, including nurses. The speakers recommended the establishment of safe patient handling and mobility programs following principles set forth by the ANA.

Two immunocompromised patients contracted severe antibiotic-resistant infections resulting in one death after receiving fecal transplants, according to the FDA. The agency said it is stopping trials of fecal transplants until researchers are able to put in place safety processes to screen stool donations.

Older adults who took antidepressants had a threefold increased likelihood of developing dementia, compared with those who don't take them, according to a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry. The findings were based on data involving 71,515 Israeli adults ages 60 and older followed between 2013 and 2017.

Youths who received complete rotavirus vaccination were 33% less likely to develop type 1 diabetes than those who weren't vaccinated, and there was an even lower risk among those who were given all three doses of the pentavalent vaccine, compared with those who received only two monovalent vaccine doses, according to a study in Scientific Reports. Researchers also found 94% and 31% lower rates of rotavirus infection-related and any hospitalizations, respectively, among vaccinated children during the first two months after vaccination, compared with those who weren't vaccinated.

GlaxoSmithKline will pay up to $67 million over five years for the new Laboratory for Genomics Research for the development of treatments based on gene editing for cancer, neurological disorders and immunological diseases. The center will be run in cooperation with the University of California.

Researchers have developed a laser technology called the Cytophone that can look beneath the skin to detect and blast away circulating tumor cells under the skin, while also being able to spot blood clots as the cells circulate. The system described in Science Translational Medicine, which is more than 1,000 times more sensitive than current approaches, was found to successfully detect tumor cells in 27 of 28 patients, often in 10 seconds.

The House on Wednesday amended a health care spending bill to remove a 23-year ban on using federal funding to create a national patient identifier. The move was backed by a group of health care stakeholders in a letter to House lawmakers sent earlier this week urging them to pass the amendment introduced by Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill.

New York state has removed the right to obtain religious exemptions from its school vaccination rules. The action was in response to the most serious measles outbreak in decades.

The CMS approved Washington's plan to implement a subscription model with makers of expensive hepatitis C drugs for its Medicaid program. Under the model, the state would pay a fixed annual amount to a drugmaker in exchange for unlimited supply of hepatitis C medications.

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