Daily Briefing: Too Much Sitting, Maternal Mortality and Fracking

Sedentary Lifestyle: Another study suggests that sitting more than three hours a day is associated with shortened lifespan, reports Andrew Seidman for the New York Times. In related news, Michelle Andrews reports for Kaiser Health News on how the new guidelines for obesity coaching are coming into play.

Maternal Mortality: Providing contraception access to women in developing countries could reduce maternal mortality by almost a third, according to a study published in the Lancet, reports Sabrina Tavernise for the New York Times.

Fracking: Evidence that fluids can up from deep underground to contaminate drinking water is calling into question claims from gas-industry geologists that the solutions they inject into the ground are too deep to affect human health. The new study in Pennsylvania was based on naturally occuring fluids not those used in fracking, reports Abrahm Lustgarten for ProPublica.

Vaccines: The human papillomavirus vaccine is working -- reducing the number of infections among women, reports Jennifer Goodwin for Health Day.

Insurer Consolidation: WellPoint has bought Amerigroup for $4.9 billion, making it the largest insurer of Medicaid recipients in the nation. The move seems designed to take advantage of the opportunity in Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid coverage, reports Alex Nussbaum for Bloomberg.

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Illustration by Toban Black via Flickr