Peruvian doctors amputate wrong leg, then right one
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LIMA (Reuters) – Peruvian doctors amputated the healthy leg of an 86-year-old man, then amputated the other leg when they realized their mistake.
“I was shocked when I lifted the sheets and saw they had taken his left leg,” the man’s daughter, Carmen Villanueva, told Peruvian radio station RPP.
“The ulcer was on his right leg and they had to amputate that one too to keep the infection from spreading,” she said.
Calories Listed On Menus Can Help Curb Childhood Obesity
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In another attempt to get control of the staggering obesity rates among today’s youth, restaurants are now offering calorie counts on menu items designed for children. This discovery is based on research done by Dr. Pooja Tandon of the University of Washington in Seattle.
His team interviewed 99 parents of children aged 3 to 6 years old. The parents were given McDonald’s restaurant menus and were asked to pick out meals for themselves and their children. Half of the menus contained specific calorie information while the other half listed pictures only.
Parents consistently chose items that had approximately 100 fewer calories when they were able to see the calorie content.
Weight-loss drug maker funding film on obesity
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GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the weight-loss drug Alli, is moving into the movie business.
The big pharma company plans to announce at the Sundance Film Festival today who will direct a documentary on obesity that the company will pay for. The film will be made by the Creative Coalition, a nonprofit arts group with an advocacy mission.
A Glaxo executive told the New York Times that the company had no expectations that Alli would be mentioned in the film and that the company simply wanted to educate Americans about obesity.
Obesity rates idle as most of us are already fat
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America’s rapid rise in obesity appears to have leveled off, with new government figures showing no significant increase in a decade.
But there’s little reason to cheer. More than two-thirds of adults and almost a third of children are overweight, and there are no signs of improvement.
Experts say they’re not sure whether the lull in the battle of the bulge can be attributed to more awareness and better diets — or whether society has simply reached a maximum level of tubbiness.
Smoking Addiction – 4 of its Worst Results
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If you cannot seem to stop yourself from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, then you may be suffering from smoking addiction. The serious outcome of smoking originated from the day you started the vice and will continue till you decide to quit. The worst results of smoking are cancer and heart attack. Aside from the two mentioned, there are still some dangers involved from smoking which will be discussed below.
Worst Results of Smoking
There isn’t just one worst result of smoking. In fact, there are several results you need to remember. These effects may just help you quit smoking entirely.
Special suit helps kids with cerebral palsy
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Nicole was born weighing just one pound, 14 ounces. Doctors diagnosed cerebral palsy.
“As she’s getting older she’s starting to realize more that there is something different. And she wants to be able to do what the other kids do,” said Nicole’s mother, Joy.
Thanks to a special suit and intensive therapy, Nicole really can.
Project seeks genetic basis of childhood cancer
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Researchers announced a new project on Monday to sequence all the genes in childhood tumors to try to discover previously unknown causes of cancer.
They also hope they can use the research to help tailor treatments for children, to spare them radiation and chemotherapy that may do them little good.
The collaboration between St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis parallels a similar project funded by the U.S. government to sequence all the genes in 20 common adult cancers.
Parents cut kids’ calories when menus are labeled
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When restaurant menus list calories, parents will limit how much fast food their kids eat, a new report suggests.
But parents don’t restrict their own energy intake, according to the report, which joins a growing body of work on the effects of menu labeling.
For the study, researchers randomly assigned 99 parents of 3- to 6-year-olds to one of two groups. Both were shown McDonald’s-like menus and asked to choose foods for themselves and their kids. However, one group’s menu included the calorie content next to the price for each item.
New tools and systems may help patients, primary care clinicians manage obesity
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Using combined and intensive treatments and restructuring care to treat obesity like other chronic diseases may help primary care clinicians and patients better address the condition, according to a commentary and three articles published in the January 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Data suggest an extensive gap exists between recommended obesity care and current practice by primary care clinicians, notes Robert F. Kushner, M.D., of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, in the commentary. “The reasons for the gap are complex owing to multiple physician, patient and medical system factors,” he writes. “Cited barriers include a lack of reimbursement, limited time during office visits, lack of training in counseling, competing demands, low confidence in the ability to treat and change patient behaviors, limited resources, the perception that patients are not motivated and a paucity of proven and effective interventions to treat obesity.”
“In this issue of the Archives, three articles on weight loss for overweight or obese patients have potential implications for primary care practice,” Dr. Kushner writes. The findings, outlined below, provide information on effective interventions for obesity and its complications in primary care settings.
Quantifying the number of pregnancies at risk of malaria in 2007: A demographic study
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Research published this week in PLoS Medicine concludes that at least 125.2 million women at risk of malaria become pregnant each year.
Most malaria deaths are caused by Plasmodium falciparum, which thrives in tropical and sub-tropical regions. But the most widespread type of malaria is P. vivax malaria, which also occurs in temperate regions. Most malaria deaths are among young children in sub-Saharan Africa but pregnant women and their unborn babies are highly vulnerable to malaria. About 10,000 women and 200,000 babies die annually because of malaria in pregnancy, which can cause miscarriages, preterm births, and low-birth-weight births. Estimates on the burden of malaria were previously only available for Africa.
The researchers estimated the sizes of populations at risk of malaria in 2007 by combining maps of the global limits of P. vivax and P. falciparum transmission with data on population densities. They used data from various sources to calculate the annual number of pregnancies (the sum of live births, induced abortions, miscarriages and still births) in each country.
Beijing fights obesity with tape measures
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Primary school students in China’s capital Beijing are being enlisted to help with the weighty issue of growing obesity.
The students have been given tape measures to size up the waistlines of their parents and themselves during the winter holiday, which starts Friday.
The move was initiated by Beijing educational and health authorities in an attempt to understand and combat obesity and encourage a healthier lifestyle.
The skinny on our obesity problem
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The Rowan County Health Department presented the 2009 Community Health Needs Assessment to the Rowan County Board of Health on Jan. 12. Leonard Wood, public health director, described how the department established a Community Health Assessment Committee (CHAC) in November 2008 to begin the process of evaluating citizen and agency responses to health related priorities for Rowan County. The CHAC was composed of 41 Rowan County citizens representing private and public agencies, public education, the medical community, the Board of Health, Cooperative Extension, Healthy Rowan, community foundations, Social Services, Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare, Catawba and Livingstone Colleges, the Hispanic Coalition and other agencies interested in participating in this assessment. In addition, 14 focus groups were held to collect primary health care data from citizens across the county. The themes that kept re-occurring from both the CHAC and the focus groups were in the following priority order: concerns about obesity, access to affordable health care/health insurance, diabetes and other chronic diseases, minority health disparities and individual responsibility for their own health care.
Obesity is not just a concern of how much you weigh; the problems of obesity lead to detrimental and life-threatening chronic diseases. These diseases include: heart disease, hypertension, stroke, Type II diabetes, infertility, gallbladder disease, cancer, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and depression. Obese individuals have a 37.4 percent higher annual medical cost than their healthier peers, and according to the Health Affairs Web site, this will translate to an increase in the national cost of health care, both direct and indirect, of $75.64 billion for 2011 for adults 18 and over. For young people age 10-17, the cost of being overweight and obese is estimated to be $164.95 million for 2011. These cost figures are staggering.
Avalon | Hospitalization Program Offers Obesity Treatment In New YorkStanding as the first hospitali
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Standing as the first hospitalization program in New York for the treatment of eating disorders, Avalon Centers has been treating patients with programs since 1998. Avalon engages a group of highly skilled professions who are experts in treating patients diagnosed with Obesity, Binge Eating Disorders, Bulimia and Anorexia.
The facility offers a supportive, home like setting where patients work closely with Avalon clinicians, nutritionists, nurses, and psychiatrists to meet their unique mental health, emotional, nutritional, medical, and psychological needs. Avalon has become known for helping patients who suffer particularly from obesity. Obesity and Binging are considered eating disorders that effect how a person perceives and treats their body. Overweight and obesity are often interchangeable terms for describing weight that is greater than what is healthy for a given height, age, and gender. Obesity and being overweight identify ranges of weight that have been shown to increase the likelihood of other health problems, including heart disease, stress, depression, and so forth.
For adults, overweight and obesity ranges are determined by using weight and height to calculate a number called the “body mass index” (BMI). BMI is used because it correlates with their amount of body fat. An adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight. An adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese. It is important to remember that although BMI correlates with the amount of body fat, BMI does not directly measure body fat.
New Laws 2010: California bans trans fat in restaurants
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Starting on Jan 1, 2010, California prohibits restaurants from using oils, margarines and shortening with more than half a gram of trans fat per serving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
The new law was actually passed by the California Legislature in 2008, but the state gave the restaurants time to change their recipes and menu to avoid introduction of trans fat into restaurants-prepared meals.
Trans fat has been linked to a number of health problems like diabetes and heart disease. It’s probably also linked to other cardiovascular diseases among other things.
New study links masturbation and prostate cancer
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Given the bind that many prominent American men have thrust themselves into — think Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, et al. — it seems it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. And your prostate gland appears to agree.
According to a new research out of the UK, men who have frequent sex in their twenties and thirties were at a greater risk of developing prostate cancer later in life. What’s even more unusual is that researchers showed that young men who masturbated frequently, as opposed to those who have sex frequently with a partner, were at an even greater risk of developing prostate cancer.
