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• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have released updated 2010 immunization schedules for children, adolescents, and adults. All of the schedules and related resources can be viewed and downloaded at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/default.htm.
• The 2010 Clinical Practice Recommendations from the American Diabetes Association promote the use of hemoglobin A1c (A1C) as a faster, easier diagnostic test for diabetes, with a cut point of ≥6.5%. An A1C range of 5.7%–6.4% is included as a new category of increased risk for future diabetes. The 2010 Clinical Practice Recommendations are available at http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/Supplement_1.
• Data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study suggest that as many 395,000 births in the United States each year involve antenatal exposure to at least one herbal product. Of the 4,239 women included in the study, 462 (10.9%) reported use of an herbal product during the antenatal period (3 months before or during pregnancy). During pregnancy, herbal use was highest (6.9%) in the first trimester. (Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Dec 23. [Epub ahead of print])
• Recruitment has begun for the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL), which will investigate whether taking daily doses of vitamin D (about 2,000 IU), fish oil (about 1 g of omega-3 fatty acids), or both reduces the risk of developing heart disease, stroke, or cancer in people who do not have a prior history of these illnesses. The study aims to enroll 20,000 men and women in the United States; it is being funded by the National Institutes of Health and coordinated by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Additional information is available at http://www.vitalstudy.org.