People checked with a heart CT scan after seeing a doctor for chest pain have no less risk of heart attack, dying or being hospitalized months later than those who take a simple treadmill test or other older exam, a federal study said.

The results are a surprise. CT scans — fancy X-rays that give 3-D images of heart arteries — were expected to prove best and instead turned out to be just a reasonable alternative. Doctors have used these scans for a decade without knowing whether they are better than traditional tests. The federal government funded the $40 million study — the largest ever of heart imaging — to find out.

But the study also wound up exposing how much medical radiation most patients like this — 4 million in the United States each year — are getting. Radiation can raise the risk of developing cancer, yet few doctors are choosing heart tests that do not require radiation, the study revealed.

Peanuts may benefit heart health

Eating peanuts may lower the risk for cardiovascular disease and death, a large study suggests.

Consumption of peanuts and tree nuts has been linked to lower mortality, but mainly in studies conducted among people of European descent and high socioeconomic status. This new report, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is a prospective study of 71,764 black and white Americans, primarily of lower socioeconomic status, and 134,265 men and women living in Shanghai. They consumed some tree nuts, but primarily peanuts.

After following participants for as long as 12 years, they found that compared with those in the lowest one-fifth for nut consumption, those in the highest one-fifth had a 21 percent lower risk of death in the American study and a 17 percent lower risk in the Chinese analysis.

First successful penis transplant

In a nine-hour surgery, a South African medical team successfully transplanted the penis of a dead donor to a young man without one. Three months later, they say, the 21-year-old recipient, who lost his penis because of complications from a ritual circumcision, has a totally functional sexual organ. That makes him the first successful recipient of a donated penis.

"Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years, and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery," Andre van der Merwe, head of Stellenbosch University's Division of Urology and head of the surgical team, told Bloomberg.

He said that South Africa has a greater need for penis transplants than most of the world. Young men who are members of the Xhosa people often undergo ritual circumcision, sometimes in rural areas without proper instruments or sterilization. Complications from this practice lead to an estimated 250 penile amputations each year.

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