Using Cell Phones to Teach Pandemic Flu Preparedness
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A team from the University of Illinois at Chicago has developed the first interactive tool using mobile phones to educate the public about pandemic flu.
The free, interactive media—called Mobile PanFlu Prep—will be demonstrated at the Local, State and Federal Public Health Preparedness Summit Feb. 22-24 in Washington.
Public launch is March 1.
Heavy drinking tied to worse eating habits
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The more alcohol a person drinks, the less likely he or she is to be eating a healthy diet, a new study shows.
“People who drank the largest quantity, even infrequently, had the poorest diets,” Dr. Rosalind A. Breslow of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
A number of studies have linked moderate alcohol consumption with a lower risk of dying from heart disease, Breslow and her colleagues note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Sanofi shares fall as FDA delays anti-obesity drug
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Sanofi-Aventis shares fell as much as 4.5 percent on Monday after U.S. regulators delayed final approval of its experimental anti-obesity pill Acomplia, which is among the world’s most keenly awaited new drugs.
A spokesman for the world’s third-largest drugmaker said a final decision was expected in the next few months, but some analysts do not now expect it to reach the market until 2007.
Autism surrounded by misunderstanding-experts
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People with autism are more intelligent and able to function better than previously believed, but mistrust of doctors, biased tests and the Internet have bred myths about the condition, experts said on Sunday.
At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers presented reports showing that even autistics who do not speak can have above-average intelligence. They also offered additional studies disputing claims that vaccines can cause autism.
No worry about eating chicken, EU’s Kyprianou says
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Europe’s health chief urged Europeans on Monday to carry on eating poultry meat despite outbreaks of the lethal strain of bird flu, saying EU authorities had weapons available to wipe out the disease.
A string of EU countries have now confirmed the H5N1 strain of the disease in wild bird flocks, knocking consumer confidence in poultry meat - especially chicken. Italy, for example, has complained of a 70 percent slump in sales in under one week.
“We have the measures and legislation for containment and eradication of such diseases,” EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told a news conference. “It (bird flu) is a virus that only spreads to humans with difficulty.”
Obese boys, girls more likely to be bullied
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Obese grade-school children are more likely to be the targets of bullying than their leaner peers are, a UK study suggests.
Researchers found that among more than 8,000 7-year-olds, obese boys and girls were about 50 percent more likely to be bullied over the next year than their normal-weight classmates.
On the other hand, obese boys were also more inclined to describe themselves as bullies. Compared with normal-weight boys, they were 66 percent more likely to physically or verbally harass their peers—presumably, the study authors speculate, because of their dominant size.
FDA: More study needed on birth control patch risk
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Early findings suggest Johnson & Johnson’s contraceptive patch may cause more blood clots than birth control pills but more research is needed, U.S. health officials said on Friday.
One study showed women who used the patch, Ortho Evra, were twice as likely to develop blood clots than others who took the pill. A second study, however, found the risk was about the same with either method.
“We should caution that these results are preliminary and further evaluation is necessary to understand what these results mean,” said Dr. Daniel Shames, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s division of reproductive and urologic drug products.
Parental conflict may negatively affect children by disrupting their sleep
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For years, researchers have known that children who grow up in homes with high levels of conflict tend to have behavior and learning problems. But they didn’t know why.
Now a new study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development finds parental conflict may negatively affect children by disrupting their sleep.
Researchers from Auburn University in Alabama and Brown University in Providence, R.I., assessed children’s sleep in 54 healthy 8- and 9-year-old children, along with parental conflict from both the child and parental viewpoint. None of the children had any previously diagnosed sleep disorders, and their parents experienced conflict levels in the normal range.
Strokes in Children Need to Be Recognized Quickly
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Who would think a seemingly healthy teenager would suffer a stroke? Certainly not 13-year-old Colin Quinn, of Exton, Pa., who suddenly found he couldn’t get into the family car as he was leaving a guitar lesson. Colin was unable to move the left side of his body.
Fortunately, Colin’s parents acted quickly, calling an ambulance and having him taken to a pediatric hospital that was prepared to assess and treat this sudden event. The medical staff diagnosed it as a stroke-an interruption in blood flow within the brain. Today, two years later, Colin still has lingering weakness in his left arm and other aftereffects, but has largely recovered.
“Although usually thought of as afflicting only elderly patients, strokes may occur as early as infancy,” said pediatric neurologist Rebecca Ichord, M.D., who treated Colin at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Stroke needs to be considered by first-line pediatric caregivers who encounter a patient with suspicious neurological symptoms, such as difficulty walking or using an arm.”
More physical activity does not lower risk of colon cancer
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A prospective cohort study of 31,783 American women has found no significant association between levels of physical activity and colon cancer incidence.
The study, published online February 17, 2006 in International Journal of Cancer, the official journal of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC).
Alternating drugs best for lowering fever in kids
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Alternating between acetaminophen (in painkillers such as Tylenol) and ibuprofen (for example, Advil) is better than sticking with either agent alone at bringing down a fever in a young child, a study shows.
The study involved 464 children, between 6 and 36 months of age, with a rectal temperature of at least 38.4 degrees Celsius who were randomized to receive acetaminophen (12.5 mg/kg per dose every 6 hours), ibuprofen (5 mg/kg per dose every 8 hours), or alternating doses of each drug (every 4 hours) for 3 days.
Treatment with the alternating regimen provided many benefits over the two types of single therapy, Dr. E. Michael Sarrell, from Tel Aviv University, and colleagues report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Impact of parental behavior on children’s future behavior
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How parents handle everyday marital conflicts has a significant effect on how secure their children feel, which, in turn, significantly affects their future emotional adjustment.
This finding, from researchers at the universities of Notre Dame, Rochester (NY) and Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., was published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development. It provides powerful new evidence regarding the impact of parental behavior on children’s future behavior.
Child’s popularity may predict good reading skills
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How are you first grader’s social skills? If his calendar is jammed with play dates and the phone rings off the hook, say a silent thanks -your child’s popularity may predict good reading skills by the third grade. That’s the finding from a study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development.
The study, from researchers from Stanford University, also finds the opposite - that children with low reading skills in first and third grade are more likely to have relatively high aggressive behavior in third and fifth grades.
The researchers chose to explore this question in light of the fact that the social and academic realms in school are inextricably connected. “Children’s social behavior can promote or undermine their learning,” explains lead author Sarah Miles, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University, “and their academic performance may have implications for their social behavior.”
Cause of ongoing pain elucidated
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Scientists in the UK, searching for the cause behind ongoing spontaneous pain, have found evidence that it’s the undamaged nerve fibers that cause the pain, not those that are damaged by injury or disease.
Ongoing pain is characterized by a burning or sharp stabbing or shooting pain that can occur spontaneously after nerve injury. Unlike “evoked” pain caused, for example, by hitting your thumb with a hammer, ongoing pain frequently reduces quality of life and is difficult to treat with currently available painkillers.
Genetics of human muscular dystrophy
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Various forms of human muscular dystrophy result from mutations in genes encoding proteins of the nuclear envelope. A new paper in the February 15th issue of G&D reveals how.
Ten human hereditary laminopathies, including Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), are associated with mutations in the LMNA gene that codes for the nuclear filament proteins, lamins A and C. Dr. Brain Kennedy and colleagues at the University of Washington have used a mouse model of EDMD to elucidate the mechanism by which altered expression of A-type lamins causes progressive muscular degeneration.
