TUESDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- The drug allopurinol -- a drug used to lower uric acid levels -- may lower blood pressure in adolescents with high blood pressure, a new study shows.

Because high blood pressure is commonly associated with high uric acid levels, some studies suggest that elevated uric acid may be one cause of high blood pressure. But since elevated uric acid levels in high blood pressure could be the result of several factors, high uric acid levels are not currently considered a true risk factor for hypertension.

TUESDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- France is doing it. Britain, the Netherlands and Norway are on their way.

And hospitals elsewhere should be doing it, too, namely moving toward all single rooms in newly built hospitals, argue the authors of a paper in the Aug. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

TUESDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A study to determine whether folic acid and vitamin B supplements help the heart has been cut short, because the pills weren't doing any good and might have even caused participants harm.

"This confirms what a lot of recent studies have found -- no benefit of taking vitamin B supplements to reduce the risk of heart disease, and it raises a few red flags," said Alice H. Lichtenstein, Gershoff professor of nutrition at Tufts University, Boston.

CHICAGO - The American Medical Association on Thursday issued a formal apology for more than a century of discriminatory policies that excluded blacks from participating in a group long considered the voice of U.S. doctors.

The apology stems from initiatives at the nation's largest doctors' group to reduce racial disparities in medicine — from the paltry number of black physicians to the disproportionate burden of disease among blacks and other minorities.

The firestorm that erupted last month over Ricki Lake choosing homebirthing and the AMA's subsequent statement about how it feels hospital births are safer got me thinking. Should women have choices when it comes to birthing options? Or should women rely on hospitals?