Food-allergic teens often take risks with food
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A substantial number of teenagers with food allergies admit to “risk-taking” behavior such as not reading food labels or knowingly eating foods labeled “may contain” allergens, a survey shows.
The poll of 174 food-allergic individuals whose average age was 16 years also shows that many of them do not always carry self-injectable epinephrine—the medication that is immediately needed in the case of a severe allergic reaction.
Whether or not they pack their EpiPens depends largely on where they are going, who they will be with, and how convenient it is to carry it. If the purse is small or the clothes tight-fighting, odds are they won’t carry it.
Understanding prostate cancer hormone therapy “syndrome”
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Men with prostate cancer may be put on hormone therapy, to block testosterone production in an effort to halt or slow tumor growth. While some health effects of so-called “androgen deprivation therapy” (ADT) for prostate cancer are clearcut—for example sexual dysfunction—there is this whole set of less specific, more vague symptoms, like changes in mood, memory, feeling unwell, being tired. A new study suggests that these symptoms are likely due to the fact that the patients are older, sicker and have more advanced disease.
“Androgen deprivation is probably not playing a big role in causing these symptoms,” said Dr. Vahakn B. Shahinian of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Calcium improves pregnancy outcomes
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In pregnant women with low calcium intake, treatment with calcium supplements can reduce the severity of preeclampsia—a potentially serious complication of pregnancy characterized by elevated blood pressure and protein in the urine—as well as cut maternal illness and infant death, according to a study by the World Health Organization.
“Pregnant women with limited access to dairy products or those with absorption issues, such as lactose intolerance, are likely to have low calcium intake and, based on our findings, should receive calcium supplements,” lead author Dr. Jose Villar, from the Geneva-based United Nations group, told Reuters Health.
CRP may help predict lung cancer risk in smokers
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Measuring blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP)—a marker of inflammation—may help identifying smokers with abnormal lesions in their airways that are likely to progress, new research suggests.
CRP levels are commonly used to gauge inflammation, which is thought to play a role in the development of abnormal airway lesions and lung cancer. Still, it was unclear if CRP testing could predict when such lesions are likely to progress to more advanced stages.
Sleep: not enough, too much may up diabetes risk
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Research hints that not getting enough sleep each night, or getting too much sleep, may increase a person’s risk of developing non-insulin dependent (type 2) diabetes, independent of other factors.
“Sleep duration may be a novel risk factor for the development of clinical diabetes,” conclude the researchers in the March issue of Diabetes Care.
Dr. Henry Klar Yaggi from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and two colleagues studied the long-term (15-year) impact of sleep duration on the development of diabetes in more than 1,100 middle-aged and elderly men who were free of diabetes in 1987-1989 and were followed until 2004.
Program spots asthma in preschoolers
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A pilot program of The New York Academy of Medicine identifies 2-year-olds with probable asthma and facilitates treatment. The initiative has significantly curbed asthma symptoms among children in subsidized preschool and Head Start programs in East Harlem and the Lower East Side.
In East Harlem, which has been the epicenter of the asthma epidemic in NYC, asthma is “kind of off their radar” in participating preschools, Dr. Sebastian Bonner, staff asthma expert at the Academy told Reuters Health. “They are really dealing with other things like diabetes, obesity and issues that are harder to address.”
Saliva-based tests detect oral cancer
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Early diagnosis of oral cancer and Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease involving dry eyes, dry mouth and rheumatoid arthritis, may soon be possible with saliva-based tests, according to two presentations today at the annual meeting of the American Association for Dental Research.
“If we can catch someone with oral cancer at stage 2 instead of stage 4, we can improve this person’s 5-year survival rate by 50 percent, which would be of tremendous service not only to the quality of life of the individual, but also to the healthcare burden of the country,” said senior investigator Dr. David Wong.
Early periodontal treatment leads to lower medical costs
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Chronic conditions such as diabetes mellitus (DM), coronary artery disease (CAD), and cerebrovascular disease (CVD) have been associated with periodontal disease.
These conditions can be extremely costly to treat, and it has been unclear if earlier periodontal treatment could lead to a reduction in overall risk and medical expenditures.
At the 35th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research, a team of investigators from the Columbia University School of Dental & Oral Surgery (New York, NY) and Aetna Dental (Pittsburgh, PA) reported findings from a study that investigated the effect of early periodontal treatment on Per Member Per Month (PMPM) costs for DM, CAD, and CVD, in a population of 144,225 patients with both medical and dental insurance.
New hepatitis drug may be more effective
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Entecavir, a new drug designed to battle frequently fatal hepatitis B, is more effective than a rival drug, according to a pair of research studies financed by the drug’s manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
The two studies on long-term liver disease, published in this week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, found that entecavir, also known as Baraclude, does a better job than GlaxoSmithKline’s drug, Epivir (lamivudine).
China delegate suggests euthanasia experiments
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An adviser to China’s parliament has suggested that the country allow regions to “experiment” with euthanasia as a step toward legalizing mercy killing nationwide, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.
A survey done in several areas of the country showed more than 80 percent of people supported euthanasia for those with incurable, painful illness, with approval rates especially high among the elderly, Zhao Gongmin, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.
“Conditions are not yet ripe for national-level legislation on euthanasia,” Zhao, a member of parliament’s advisory body, was quoted as saying on the sidelines of the ongoing parliament session in Beijing.
Acupuncture appears effective for lower back pain
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Acupuncture improves lower back pain, compared with no treatment, German researchers report. However, they found that a minimal intervention consisting of superficial needle placement at non-acupuncture points resulted in similar improvements.
Past studies have yielded inconclusive results concerning the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat lower back pain. To further investigate, a team lead by Dr. Benno Brinkhaus, from the Charite University Medical Center in Berlin, evaluated nearly 300 patients in what the researchers believe is the largest trial to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture for lower back pain.
Stroke-prevention drug underutilized in minorities
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Despite its proven efficacy in reducing the risk of stroke in patients with abnormal heart rhythm, the blood thinner warfarin is less commonly given to racial minorities, even though their risk of stroke is higher than that of whites, a new study shows.
Furthermore, only about half of older patients in the United States hospitalized with abnormal heart rhythm, also referred to as atrial fibrillation, are prescribed warfarin when they are discharged, according to a report in the journal Stroke. Atrial fibrillation increases the risk of blood clot. By “thinning” the blood, warfarin can prevent the formation of these clots, which are the most common cause of strokes.
Birth defects from mom’s West Nile infection rare
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Birth defects appear to be uncommon in infants born to women infected with West Nile virus (WNV) during pregnancy, according to a new report.
“The current study’s findings are overall reassuring in that the majority of the women for whom there was information delivered apparently healthy infants with normal growth and development,” Dr. Daniel R. O’Leary from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado told Reuters Health.
O’Leary and colleagues studied 77 pregnant women with WNV illness. Twenty-five women were believed to have been infected during the first trimester, 27 in the second trimester, and 24 in the third trimester. Time of infection was unknown for 1 woman.
Dogs bite babes and toddlers more often
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According to a new study, dog bites in children occur frequently and the breed of dog, behaviour of dog owners, children, and parents are all influencing factors.
Dogs bite very young children more often, and the researchers say that children 1 year of age or younger have the highest risk of being bitten, while children up to age 10 have a higher risk than older individuals.
In the study Dr. Johannes Schalamon and associates at the Medical University of Graz, reviewed the cases of 341 children treated for dog bites at a trauma center in Austria over a 10-year period.
Scientists fight leukaemia with ‘natural killer’ cells
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Scientists at the University of the West of England and the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the Bristol Children’s Hospital have just won funding for a two-year project aimed at improving the outcome of bone marrow stem-cell transplants in young leukaemia patients.
After a stem cell transplant there is a significant risk that grafted donor white blood cells, known as T-cells, will attack the recipient and may cause a fatal complication called graft versus host disease (GvHD). In Bristol a monoclonal antibody called Campath is used to kill donor T-cells, reducing the chance of GvHD. A side effect of Campath therapy is delayed recovery of the immune system after the transplant which may be associated with leukaemic relapse.
