Ancient Mummies Reveal Clogged Arteries, Despite Lack of Cheeseburgers

Mummy Heart Disease: Despite never having eaten double bacon cheeseburgers, Egyptian mummies CT-scanned by researchers had clogged arteries, Alan Bavley reports for the Kansas City Star.

HMOS: Thousands of California employers are trimming more-expensive doctors and hospitals from their insurance networks in a bid to bring down costs, Duke Helfand reports for the Los Angeles Times. While some workers welcome lower insurance costs, others worry that they'll have far less choice of doctors and hospitals.

Organ Donation: Wow: In a complex marathon of surgeries known as a 5-way kidney swap, five patients received kidneys from five healthy donors last Friday. It was California's first such swap and the nation's second, Victoria Colliver reports for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Painkiller Conflict: John Fauber, writing for the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today, probes how a University of Wisconsin research group receiving millions from pharmaceutical firms helped liberalize use of painkiller drugs that can lead to addiction.

Autism: New research suggests that one alternative treatment for autistic children, secretin, isn't effective, while other mainstream behavioral and medication therapies can have positive effects, Shirley S. Wang reports for the Wall St. Journal.

Photo credit: StrangeInterlude via Flickr