HEALTH

AURORA, Colo. - Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that high doses of vitamin D reduce the incidence of acute respiratory illness in older, long-term care residents.

The findings of the clinical trial, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, could help reduce one of the leading causes of serious illness, debilitation and death among patients in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

There is a new world order across the OTC community, the Kline Group reported.

(To view the full OTC Trend Report, click here.)

Between 2010 and 2015, Johnson & Johnson retained its status as the No. 1 OTC manufacturer by dollar volume organically, without making any blockbuster corporate acquisitions. And Bayer reinforced its hold on the No. 2 OTC market position following its bolt-on acquisition of Merck’s Consumer Health business in 2014.

With the advent of complimentary health screenings available through a growing number of retail health fairs — such as CVS Health, Walmart and Sam’s Club and ShopRite, to name a few — more and more consumers are learning for the first time that they may be diabetic or prediabetic from their neighborhood pharmacist as opposed to their primary care doctors.

(To view the full Diabetes Report, click here.)

More and more, meter manufacturers today are differentiating their offerings not by the traditional micrometers of blood necessary for a viable glucose reading or the value inherent in the cost of test strips, but in the accompanying adherence app or other technologies that will help diabetes patients better navigate their disease states.

(To view the full Diabetes Report, click here.)

Diabetics are most adherent around meal times, especially during breakfast and toward the beginning of the week, according to a review of Medisafe’s more than 160,000 diabetes patients who utilize its adherence tool in an effort to better manage the condition.

(To view the full Diabetes Report, click here.)

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Healthcare Products Association on Tuesday welcomed one new member to the CHPA Board of Directors during the board’s fall meeting. Rekha Rao, general manager, North America, Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals, Colgate-Palmolive Company, was elected to the board.

In her role at Colgate-Palmolive Company, Rao has overall profit-and-loss responsibility and is responsible for both the strategies and day-to-day operations.

Sam’s Club last month hosted a health screening day specifically catering to the health needs of the women shopping the store with a “Support Her Health” screening offering. “Women often prioritize their families’ needs and work responsibilities over their own health and wellness, but it’s important to ensure regular health checkups don’t fall off the to-do list,” said Tara Raddohl, senior director of corporate communications at Sam’s Club.

Sales of OTC medicines continued on a strong growth trajectory of more than 3%, growing by approximately $1.4 billion in dollar volume to $45.6 billion for the 52 weeks ended Oct. 2, according to IRI data. And that’s primarily organic growth from existing brands; there were no big Rx-to-OTC switches driving the kind of gangbuster growth as there were in each of the two years prior.

(To view the full OTC Trend Report, click here.)