Health Highlights: Feb. 20, 2012

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

Inhalable Caffeine Product to be Reviewed by
FDA

The safety of an inhalable caffeine product called AeroShot will be
reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency will also
investigate whether the product can be labeled as a dietary
supplement.

Aeroshot is sold in lipstick-sized canisters. A person puts one end of
the canister in their mouth and inhales a fine powder that dissolves
almost instantly. Each container contains 100 milligrams of caffeine
powder, about equal to the amount in a large cup of coffee, the
Associated Press reported.

New York U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer asked the FDA to review the safety
and legality of Aeroshot, which went on sale late last month in New York
and Massachusetts. It’s also sold in France.

“I am worried about how a product like this impacts kids and teens, who
are particularly vulnerable to overusing a product that allows one to take
hit after hit after hit, in rapid succession,” Schumer said, the AP
reported.

AeroShot is safe and does not contain additives used to enhance the
caffeine effect in energy drinks, according to inventor David Edwards, a
Harvard biomedical engineering professor.

—–

First ‘Test Tube’ Meat to be Produced This
Fall: Scientist

A Dutch scientist says the world’s first “test tube” meat will be
produced this fall.

The meat will be a hamburger made from cow’s stem cells, Mark Post said
Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, Agence France-Presse reported.

The ingredients for the hamburger are “still in the laboratory phase,”
but by fall “we have committed ourselves to make a couple of thousand of
small tissues, and then assemble them into a hamburger,” said Post, chair
of physiology at Maastricht University.

His goal is to develop a method of producing skeletal muscle tissue in
the laboratory that exactly mimics meat, and use this technology to
eventually replace the meat-animal industry, AFP reported.

—–

Big Danger in Tiny Pollution Particles:
Scientists

Fine airborne pollution particles called secondary organic aerosols are
more dangerous than previously believed, according to a new research.

These compounds’ persistence in the atmosphere was under-represented in
older scientific models, according to a study scheduled to be released on
Tuesday, The New York Times reported.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California,
Irvine and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland,
Wash.

“If the authors’ analysis is correct, the public is now facing a false
sense of security in knowing whether the air they breathe is indeed safe,”
said Bill Becker, of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies,
The Times reported.

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