Health Highlights: March 7, 2016

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

GoGo SqueeZ Applesauce Pouches Recalled

GoGo squeeZ applesauce pouches are being voluntarily recalled due to quality concerns, the company says.

Food residue was found in two product pumps during an inspection by the Michigan State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. While it’s possible the food residue may have ended up in the applesauce pouches, no evidence of such contamination has been found.

The company also said no illnesses related to the recalled products have been reported, and that production of the items has been halted until the problem is fixed.

The recalled applesauce pouches have Best Before Dates between 12/415 and 3/4/17. For more information, consumers can call 1-844-275-5841.

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Jimmy Carter No Longer Requires Cancer Treatment

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Sunday he no longer requires treatment for melanoma skin cancer that had spread to his brain.

He received the diagnosis less than seven months ago and received targeted radiation at several brain tumors as well as the immune-boosting drug Keytruda, the Washington Post reported.

Carter, 91, shared his good news during one of his regular Sunday School classes at Maranatha Baptist Church in his home town of Plains, Ga. He said he had an MRI that lasted more than two hours.

“And then the doctors determined that I didn’t need any more treatment,” he said in a video posted by WXIA-TV. “So I’m not going to have any more treatment.”

Carter will continue to undergo scans to monitor for the possible return of cancer cells and will “resume treatment if necessary,” his spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said in an email to the Post.

The former president was treated at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute. A spokesman for the institute refused comment, citing patient privacy.

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Former First Lady Nancy Reagan Dies at 94

Nancy Reagan, whose style and staunch support of her husband, former President Ronald Reagan, gained her admirers and detractors, died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 94.

According to Mrs. Reagan’s spokeswoman, Joanne Drake, the former first lady died of congestive heart failure.

Born Anne Frances Robbins in 1921 in New York City, Mrs. Reagan was the daughter of Edith Luckett, an actress, and Kenneth Robbins, a car dealer who abandoned his family soon after Nancy was born, The New York Times reported. Luckett went on to marry an affluent Chicago neurosurgeon, Dr. Loyal Davis, who adopted Nancy and gave her his family name.

The young Nancy Davis embarked on an acting career in the 1940s that saw her share the screen with the likes of Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland, the Times said. However, it was her relationship with one young actor — Ronald Reagan — that was to take her life in a different direction.

In her memoirs, Nancy Reagan said that after marrying the (then) actor in 1952, she was determined to be a stay-at-home wife, although she did continue with occasional work as an actress.

The couples’ lives took a major turn, however, in the mid 1960s, when Ronald Reagan became governor of California in a landslide victory.

He left that office in 1973, and with the help and influence of his wife began to set his sights on the Presidency, the Times said. Nancy Reagan helped guide her husband’s choices in terms of connections and staff, and was critical to his election as president in 1980, experts say.

“Without Nancy, there would have been no Governor Reagan, no President Reagan,” the late Michael Deaver, a longtime friend and adviser to the couple, once told the Times.

Nancy Reagan ran the two-term Reagan White House with a strict hand, and had her detractors and admirers. In 1981, a Gallup poll placed her at the top of “most admired women” in the nation.

But Nancy Reagan also survived tough challenges, most notably the attempted assassination of her husband in 1981, and breast cancer, with which she was diagnosed in 1987.

The disease caused her to undergo a mastectomy of the left breast, and she used her experience to urge all women to undergo annual mammography screening.

Mrs. Reagan was also vocal on the subject of drug and alcohol abuse by the young, and her famous “Just Say No” campaign helped fuel anti-addiction messages throughout the 1980s.

In 1994, the couple disclosed that Ronald Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Speaking to Newsweek, Mrs. Reagan described the following decade as a “long goodbye,” with “hours spent with old love letters and powerful advocacy for new research into cures for the disease that was taking Ronnie from her.”

Soon after her husband’s death in 2004, Nancy Reagan broke with then-President George W. Bush’s stance against embryonic stem cell research, believing it might give hope to families battling Alzheimer’s and other illnesses.

Nancy Reagan is survived by her two children with Ronald Reagan, Patti Davis and Ron Reagan Jr.

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