Public Health
Obesity, low birthweight mar health of U.S. kids
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Rising obesity rates and a large percentage of children born with low birthweight are dragging down the overall health of American children in their first decade of life, according to a report tracking the health and well-being of young children in the United States.
While U.S. children overall have seen improvements in their well-being in recent years, American children aged 6 to 11 are four times more likely to be obese than similarly aged children in the 1960s, the report found.
The report, led by researchers at Duke University in North Carolina and the Foundation for Child Development, a private advocacy group, looked at the well-being of children in early childhood, those from birth to age five, and middle childhood, or those aged 6 to 11, from 1994 to 2006.
Seniors, Minorities To Have Largest Impact on Tomorrow’s America
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The demographic patterns of older Americans and certain ethnic groups will have greater effects on the country’s socioeconomic outlook than previously thought, according to the latest issue of Public Policy & Aging Report (PPAR). In particular, the Baby Boomer generation and residents of Hispanic and Asian backgrounds will have a noticeable impact as their populations swell.
The entire issue is authored by cutting-edge demographer William H. Frey. He is currently a senior fellow with Metropolitan Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and is a research professor at the University of Michigan and a senior fellow of the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, CA.
OHSU Cancer Institute researchers discover key gene involvement in cancer development
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Oregon Health & Science University researchers have identified a gene that is necessary in eliminating cancer cells.
“This finding is important because expression of this gene is frequently suppressed in many cancers, such as lymphoma and breast cancers,” said Charles Lopez, M.D., Ph.D., OHSU Cancer Institute (hematology/medical oncology), OHSU School of Medicine.
The research will be presented at a minisymposium on Wednesday April 16 at 10:30 a.m. at the annual American Association of Cancer Research meeting in San Diego, Calif.
Breaking personal health records
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Who owns your medical tests results and your personal health data? Such a vexing question cuts to the core of personal liberty and freedom of information. Now, researchers writing in the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management have introduced the notion of ownership of medical information and present a basic research model for the adoption of personal health records.
Personal health records (PHRs) have been developed in the US as part of the Institute of Medicine’s goal of improving healthcare quality and making it more patient-centered as well as through patient pressure to have greater control of their health data. The PHR is also integral to the US National Health Information Network (NHIN), which will give all Americans access to their electronic health records by 2014. However, little research has been published on how PHRs compare with other types of medical records or how privacy concerns are to be addressed.
Melinda Whetstone and Ebrahim Randeree of the College of Information, at Florida State University, Tallahassee explain that employers, insurance companies, healthcare providers and independent entities have increasing access to PHRs. However, whether the PHR, and other types of electronic records (Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR), have been adopted and implemented successfully remains unclear.
Man jailed for fake Viagra sales
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The general manager of a Shanghai chemical company was jailed for two years on Thursday for selling fake tablets of the male impotence drug Viagra on the Internet, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Backpack Straps Can Decrease Blood Flow in the Shoulder, Arm
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More than 92 percent of the children in the U.S. carry backpacks. Typically the backpacks are loaded with almost one-fourth of the child’s body weight (22 percent) and worn with only one strap. Last year, a team of physician researchers examined the effect heavy-loaded backpack straps can have on children. They found the straps can significantly increase pressure when the load is ten percent or more. They also found that strap pressures with loads as small as ten percent of bodyweight can obstruct localized blood flow and contribute to shoulder fatigue.
This year the team has examined pack straps and adults. In some professions, such as the military, firefighting and mountain rescue, the packs may equal as much as 60 percent of adult body weight. The findings of the most recent study indicate that even light loads of 26 pounds can decrease upper extremity blood flow, and may result in a loss of fine motor control and increased fatigue.
Study Being Presented at the 121st Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society
The studies were conducted by Timothy Neuschwander, Brandon Macias and Alan Hargens, all of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California–San Diego. Dr. Neuschwander will present the team’s findings, Backpack Straps Decrease Upper Extremity Blood Flow, at the 121st Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society, part of the Experimental Biology 2008 scientific conference.
Cell phones could be used to better teens’ health
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Teenagers love their cell phones, and researchers may be able to take advantage of that fact to improve their health, a pilot study suggests.
In a study of 15 teenage girls, the investigated looked at the feasibility of using GPS-enabled cell phones to track adolescents’ whereabouts when they were away from home or school. The researchers found that the girls were happy to take the phones with them wherever they went, and that the GPS accurately plotted their travels over one week.
The point of the surveillance was not to pass on information to curious parents, however. Instead, the researchers hope to use the technology to study the health risks that teenagers typically face, and possibly to intervene.
Four Tips for Understanding Medical News
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Medicine is a science. That means research should provide clear answers that stand the test of time and scrutiny from additional investigations. That’s the theory behind evidence-based, data-driven scientific medicine. But in our imperfect world, things don’t always turn out as they should. The April 2008 issue of Harvard Men’s Health Watch explains how to handle medical advice that changes from day to day and study to study.
Here are four tips:
1. Understand the different types of research you are likely to hear about. Randomized controlled clinical trials are the gold standard for medical research, and really the only way to prove whether an intervention is beneficial or harmful. Meta-analyses are also important—they combine the results of many different studies and use sophisticated statistical techniques to analyze the pooled data. Observational studies can provide information on links between two factors, but they cannot prove that one factor caused another. Results from animal and laboratory studies should be considered preliminary.
How does P wave dispersion change in patients with Wilson’s disease?
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Wilson’s disease is a severe inherited metabolic disorder, which is associated with intracellular copper overload and multiple organ involvement. Main cardiac manifestations in Wilson’s disease include arrhythmias and cardiac failure. Recently, researchers at the Ankara Y¨¹ksek Ihtisas Hospital and in Ankara University Faculty of Medicine investigated P wave dispersion (PWD) as a non-invasive marker of intra-atrial conduction disturbance in patients with Wilson’s disease.
This research, led by Dr. Nurcan Arat is to be published on February 28, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.
Sickness costs UK economy 100 billion pounds
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Ill-health costs the British economy over 100 billion pounds a year, more than the entire annual budget of the NHS, according to a report.
Dame Carol Black, national director for health and work, said the annual economic cost of sickness absence is equivalent to the entire gross domestic product of Portugal.
Benefit costs, additional health costs and forgone taxes make up the bulk of the bill, at more than 60 billion pounds.
Neighborhoods play key role in how much people exercise, study says
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The neighborhoods people live in can help inspire – or discourage – their residents to exercise and keep physically active, new research suggests.
Residents of neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty, lower education, and more female-headed families are less likely than others to exercise, according to the study.
It’s not simply that poorer people are less likely to exercise, researchers say. In fact, the study, which was done in Chicago, found that a person’s individual income wasn’t as important as the neighborhood he or she lived in for determining exercise levels.
Australian men care about their health
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A study of male attitudes to health and how they use health services, published in the online open access journal, BMC Health Services Research, challenges the usual stereotype that men are uninterested in their health. Rather than procrastinating, men may delay going to the doctor so that they can watch a health problem to see if it will fix itself. Indeed, a picture emerges of men as personal health detectives, monitoring rather than ignoring symptoms, and visiting the doctor only if a problem fails to resolve itself.
The results will surprise those people who envisage the Australian pub-going male as brusque and disinterested in all things medical. When men do see a physician, they usually expect a quick-fix solution.
Doctor’s reminders boosts adherence to meds
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Even after a heart attack, people don’t always take the medicine prescribed for them - but a reminder from their doctor helps keep them on track, a study shows.
Follow-up patient mailings stressing the importance of taking beta-blocker pills after a heart attack increased adherence to these medications, the researchers report.
“The main finding was that 17 percent more patients were adherent with beta-blocker therapy following the intervention—this translates into one additional adherent patient for every 16 mailings,” lead author Dr. David H. Smith told Reuters Health.
Young Athletes Paying to Play?
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Soccer, football, baseball, tennis, gymnastics. Today the number of activities available to the young athlete serves up a smorgasbord of choices. “College-bound teenagers in the United States and around the world are way more active than ever before,” said Col. Tom DeBerardino, MD, the Sports Medicine Fellowship Director at Keller Army Hospital in West Point, N.Y.
“These days it seems in order to be a well-rounded student and gain admission into a good college, participating in at least one or even two extracurricular sports is a must on almost every student’s ‘to do’ list. However, increased exposure to sporting activities translates into increased risk of injuries sustained by these young student athletes,” Dr. DeBerardino noted. “Fortunately, operations and procedures to fix many of these problems are now good, too.”
Dr. DeBerardino cited the following statistics on newly arriving cadets at West Point:
• In 1998, 10 to 12 cadets reported having major reconstructive shoulder surgery
before college.
• By 2008, at least 50 cadets had already had this surgery before arriving on campus.
Attending Hospital at Night Or Weekends May be Associated with Treatment Delays
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The time of day or night at which severely injured patients attend hospital has a huge impact on their treatment and prognosis, warn two senior doctors in this week’s BMJ.
This is because provision of key aspects of hospital trauma services such as staffing, access to operating theatres, and interventional radiology is reduced after normal working hours, say Paul Frost and Matt Wise, consultants in intensive care medicine at the University Hospital of Wales.
Their views follow the publication last month of a large trial to predict outcomes in patients with traumatic brain injury.
