Rising Obesity Rates for Kids, Minorities
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Obesity rates for American adults have stabilized while the rate of childhood and minority obesity is rising, according to a new study published in the journal Medical Decision Making.
Using a novel simulation approach based on national data from 2000-2004 and validated against 2005-2006 data, the study examined future projections for the distribution of body mass index in the United States.
The research explored statistics for many categories of Americans based on gender, age and race, seeking to discover which overweight groups were the most likely to have stable, rising or lower rates of weight.
Obesity May Raise Risk of Fibromyalgia
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Overweight and obese women—especially those who do not exercise at all or exercise for less than an hour a week—are at higher risk for developing the widespread pain disorder fibromyalgia, according to new research in the May issue of Arthritis Care & Research.
“Being overweight or obese was associated with an increased risk of fibromyalgia, especially among women who also reported low levels of leisure time physical exercise,” the researchers conclude. “Community-based measures aimed at reducing the incident of fibromyalgia should emphasize the importance of regular physical exercise and maintenance of normal body weight.”
Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 10 million people in the U.S. and is marked by widespread pain and tender points along the body, extreme fatigue, sleep problems, depression, and problems with cognition, according to the National Fibromyalgia Association. Other suspected risk factors for fibromyalgia include stressful or traumatic events such as an automobile accident, family history, or the presence of rheumatic diseases such as lupus.
Does breastfeeding protect against asthma?
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Sticking to a strict diet of mom’s milk during the first 4 months of life may reduce a child’s risk of developing asthma by their eighth birthday, according to a new study.
“Breast milk is the optimal food for infants during the first months of life,” lead researcher Dr. Inger Kull of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, told Reuters Health in an email. “But whether or not breastfeeding reduces the risk of asthma has been debated.”
Through her milk, a mother transfers “good” bacteria, antibodies and proteins that can help thwart infection. But the evidence for how breastfeeding might influence the later development of asthma remains confusing, with various studies suggesting protective, neutral and even detrimental effects.
Prevent Alzheimer’s? No evidence you can: US panel
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Fish oil, exercise and doing puzzles may all be good for the brain but there is no strong evidence that any of these can prevent Alzheimer’s disease, an expert panel concluded on Wednesday.
Nor can any other supplements, drugs or social interaction, the independent panel meeting at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington concluded.
The group of experts looked at the dozens of studies that have suggested ways to prevent Alzheimer’s - a devastating and incurable breakdown of the brain - and found none were strong enough to constitute proof.
Diabetes and Cancer Linked – Biomedical Scientists
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A team of biomedical scientists based have linked diabetes with cancer in women.
They suggest that female patients with type 2 diabetes have up to a 25 per cent increased risk of developing cancer than those without the condition, the Daily Mail reports.
According to NHS figures, around 2.3 million people have diabetes in the UK and there are at least half a million more who suffer from it and are not aware.
Use and Costs of Diagnostic Imaging Increasing for Patients With Cancer
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From 1999 through 2006 the use of diagnostic imaging for Medicare patients with cancer increased, with use of positron emission tomography (PET) increasing the most significantly, according to a study in the April 28 issue of JAMA. Imaging costs for these patients also increased, outpacing the rate of increase in total costs among Medicare beneficiaries with cancer.
Cancer-related expenditures are expected to increase faster than any other area of health care. “Emerging technologies, changing diagnostic and treatment patterns, and changes in Medicare reimbursement are contributing to increasing use of imaging in cancer,” the authors write. “The types and costs of imaging, including costly new imaging modalities, among Medicare beneficiaries with cancer have not been examined previously.”
Michaela A. Dinan, B.S., of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, N.C., and colleagues examined changes in the use and costs of imaging and how these changes have influenced the cost of cancer care. The study included an analysis of a nationally representative 5 percent sample of claims from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. From 1999 through 2006, there were 100,954 new cases of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, leu¬kemia, lung cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and prostate cancer.
Australia seeks plain packaging for tobacco products
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Australia will force tobacco companies to adopt plain packaging, removing all colour and branding logos within two years, in a world-first move aimed at reducing smoking-related deaths, government sources said.
Laws to be in force by January 2012 will prohibit tobacco companies from using any tobacco industry images and promotional text, as recommended by the World Health Organisation, the centre-left government will announce later on Wednesday.
The government believed the move, expected to be confirmed by Health Minister Nicola Roxon, would reduce the attractiveness of tobacco packaging and its potential to mislead particularly young people.
Body’s own “heat messenger” offers new painkiller
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Researchers have discovered the body’s own “heat messenger,” which helps nerves feel pain, and said on Monday they hope to use it to design a new, safer class of painkillers.
They found heat activates basic fatty acids similar to capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their kick, and found two potential ways to block the sensation.
“For the first time we have the opportunity to try to block pain at its source,” Dr. Kenneth Hargreaves of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
Citing Obesity of Children, County Bans Fast-Food Toys
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It was not a happy day for the Happy Meal.
In what it described as a blow against the fattening temptations of fast food, the board of supervisors in Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco, voted Tuesday to ban the promotional toys that often accompany child-size portions of cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets if those meals don’t meet certain nutritional standards.
The criteria, which are based on federal standards and recommendations from the nonprofit Institute of Medicine, would apply to all fast-food restaurants giving away toys in meals in-tended for children. Ken Yeager, the board president, said the new law would level “the playing field by taking away the incentive to choose fatty, sugary foods over healthier options.”
Campaigns do little to combat obesity
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When I was a teenager, I was walking down the street and a man hollered out of his car window, “When you wear red, people call you Kool-Aid!”
As amusing as it may be to compare a person to a man-sized pitcher of sugar water, at the time, I felt ugly.
I have always been “fat,” but I have never been unhealthy.
Panic Attacks Anxiety Mood Disorders
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A panic attack is usually an overpowering fear which occurs for no clear reason. Most people may have one episode or perhaps a couple in their whole lives other people can experience anxiety attacks on an ongoing basis. However frequently they occur they can be alarming plus the actual physical symptoms overwhelming and people have been known to telephone emergency medical services when the very first anxiety attack happens.
The signs and symptoms could seem like a heart attack or other life-threatening emergency with sweating excessively, prickling or pins and needles, along with other symptoms present. One of the toughest things about a panic attack is the fear of having to deal with another anxiety attack.
Previously, anxiety attacks were considered a ‘nervous’ dysfunction or simply stress but now repeated panic attacks are referred to as a medical condition called panic disorder. This is actually an inappropriate flight or fight response.
Study Examines Costs of Neuropathic Pain
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Constantly rising U.S. health care costs could be reduced significantly by preventing and treating neuropathic pain conditions associated with diabetes and herpes zoster virus infections, according to research published in The Journal of Pain, the peer review publication of the American Pain Society, http://www.ampainsoc.org and jpain.org.
Researchers at the University of Rochester and the University of Arizona examined databases of medical and pharmacy claims at major national health plans covering some 75 million lives. The objective of the study was to estimate and compare health care costs of two peripheral neuropathic pain conditions, post herpetic neuralgia (PHN) and diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). PHN causes pain following rash healing in herpes zoster, which infects 1 million people in the U.S. every year.
DPN is a painful neuropathy estimated to affect up to 47 percent of diabetes patients. According to one study, some 5 million Americans are afflicted with neuropathic pain conditions, of which PHN and DPN are the most common.
Anemia Tougher to Tackle in Black Children with Kidney Disease
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Black children with chronic kidney disease have more severe anemia than white children even when they receive the same treatment, according to a multicenter study led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center to be published in the May issue of the American Journal of Kidney Disease.
The findings suggest that inherent biological differences, rather than access to care and treatment, may be at play, raising the question whether current guidelines for anemia treatment should be tailored to reflect race, investigators say.
Anemia, marked by abnormally low levels of red blood cells, is a key indicator of disease status. It is diagnosed by measuring levels of the protein hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in and out of red blood cells.
Researchers Develop Technique to Visualize ‘Your Brain on Drugs’
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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed an imaging protocol that allows them to visualize the activity of the brain’s reward circuitry in both normal individuals and those addicted to drugs. The technique could lead to better insight into why people take recreational drugs as well as help determine which treatment strategies might be most effective.
Drug addiction is a complex process that involves numerous biological and environmental factors, but a central element is how the drugs affect the activity of dopamine, the chemical that regulates pleasure and reward in the brain.
To get a real-time sense of dopamine activity, Joanna Fowler and her colleague Gene-Jack Wang at Brookhaven, along with Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, combined positron emission tomography (PET), a medical imaging technology useful for identifying brain diseases, with special radioactive tracers that bind to dopamine receptors.
An underlying cause for psychopathic behavior?
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Psychopaths are known to be characterized by callousness, diminished capacity for remorse, and lack of empathy. However, the exact cause of these personality traits is an area of scientific debate. The results of a new study, reported in the May 2010 issue of Elsevier’s Cortex (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/cortex), show striking similarities between the mental impairments observed in psychopaths and those seen in patients with frontal lobe damage.
One previous explanation for psychopathic tendencies has been a reduced capacity to make inferences about the mental states of other people, an ability known as Theory of Mind (ToM). On the other hand, psychopaths are also known to be extremely good manipulators and deceivers, which would imply that they have good skills in inferring the knowledge, needs, intentions, and beliefs of other people. Therefore, it has been suggested recently that ToM is made up of different aspects: a cognitive part, which requires inferences about knowledge and beliefs, and another part which requires the understanding of emotions.
Dr Simone Shamay-Tsoory, from the University of Haifa in Israel, along with colleagues from The Shalvata Mental Health Care Center and the Rambam Medical Center, tested the hypothesis that impairment in the emotional aspects of these abilities may account for psychopathic behaviour.
