Study Fat workers cost employers more
Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:07:25 GMT
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Overweight workers cost their bosses more in injury claims than their lean colleagues, suggests a study that found the heaviest employees had twice the rate of workers' compensation claims as their fit co-workers.
Obesity experts said they hope the study will convince employers to invest in programs to help fight obesity. One employment attorney warned companies that treating fat workers differently could lead to discrimination complaints.
Duke University researchers also found that the fattest workers had 13 times more lost workdays due to work-related injuries, and their medical claims for those injuries were seven times higher than their fit co-workers.
Overweight workers were more likely to have claims involving injuries to the back, wrist, arm, neck, shoulder, hip, knee and foot than other employees.
The findings were based on eight years of data from 11,728 people employed by Duke and its health system. Researchers found that workers with higher body mass indexes, or BMIs, had higher rates of workers' compensation claims.
The most obese workers — those with BMIs of 40 or higher — had the highest rates of claims and lost workdays. BMI is a measure of height and weight. A 6-foot, 300-pound person, for example, has a BMI of just over 40.
Study co-author Dr. Truls Ostbye said the findings should encourage employers to sponsor fitness programs.
"There are many promising programs," Ostbye said. "We'd like to see more research about what is truly effective."
James Hill, who heads the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado, said managers will pay attention to the findings because injuries mean more immediate financial losses than the future health-care costs of diabetes and heart disease.
"When you see that claims rates double, I think that's going to get people's attention," Hill said.
But there isn't enough good information about employer-sponsored programs that work, said John Cawley, an expert in the economics of obesity at Cornell University. Employers don't know whether paying for nutrition counseling, obesity surgery or anti-obesity drugs through health insurance makes economic sense, he said.
"It's now apparent to everybody that obesity is a big problem," Cawley said. "But the research isn't there to know where to get biggest bang for the buck."
Cawley noted that BMI does not distinguish muscle from fat and can equate a buff body builder to a couch potato. Although BMI, a measure of height and weight, is used in most obesity research, Cawley's research has found that blacks are particularly likely to be misclassified as obese by BMI.
New York employment attorney Richard Corenthal cautioned employers not to overreact with discriminatory policies.
"Employers need to be careful not to view this study as a green light to treat obese or overweight workers differently," Corenthal said.
The study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, got funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
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On the Net:
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BMI calculator: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/index.htm
Study doesnt back abortioncancer link
Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:00:37 GMT
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - A Harvard study released Monday supports earlier findings by a panel of experts that having an abortion doesn't increase a woman's risk of getting breast cancer.
However, this latest analysis isn't likely to convince all those opposed to abortion. Three states — Texas, Minnesota and Mississippi — require doctors to warn women seeking abortions of the purported link to breast cancer "when medically accurate," letting doctors make that determination based on current scientific evidence.
In 2003, a group of scientists convened by the
http://www.archinternmed.com
2003 NCI report: http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancerinfo/ere-workshop-report
Report praises vision restoration study
Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:05:04 GMT
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON - Electrodes inserted in the brain may point the way to restoring sight lost to eye disease or trauma.
The research in monkeys is in very early stages, but has shown some promise, Harvard Medical School researchers report in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the
http://www.pnas.org
Can aspirin prevent cancer Jurys out
Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:34:26 GMT
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - The research could give you whiplash: Aspirin prevents cancer, one study says. Oops, maybe not, says another.
Now comes word that aspirin may fend off cancer only if people take much more than is used to fight heart disease, suggesting some of the earlier back-and-forth may have been due to confusion over the right dose.
Even that evidence is circumstantial, offering no end to the competing headlines.
"A general perspective that people have is, 'Why is it so difficult to get a clear answer on a pill that costs a few pennies and is available over-the-counter and taken by millions of people?'" says the
American Cancer Society's Dr. Michael Thun, a coauthor of the newest study.
For decades, scientists have chased the hope that aspirin could be an easy way to prevent certain cancers. The idea: Aspirin fights inflammation, and thus pain, by inhibiting substances known as cyclooxygenase, or COX, enzymes. COX enzymes also are involved in the formation of certain kinds of tumors, such as colorectal, prostate and breast cancers.
Aspirin does something else, as well: It makes blood less likely to form clots, giving it an important role in fighting heart disease. A daily baby aspirin — 81 milligrams — is recommended for people with cardiovascular disease or who are at high risk for it.
In contrast, connecting the cancer dots — showing that reducing COX would in turn reduce tumors — is vexing. And because aspirin can cause stomach ulcers and bleeding, firm proof of an anticancer benefit is a must before any health group will recommend using it for that reason.
The hints of that benefit are tantalizing.
"Aspirin and cancer's not going to go away, and there's great value in figuring out how to use it," says Dr. Phillip Febbo, an oncologist at Duke University Medical Center who is closely following the research.
Aspirin and similar anti-inflammatory drugs reduce the risk of many cancers when tested in animals bred to develop human-like tumors. Evidence in people isn't nearly so clear-cut.
In so-called observational studies, people who say they regularly use aspirin seem at lower risk of colorectal cancer in particular, and also prostate, breast and a few other cancers. However, people who take aspirin on their own may be healthier than the general population and thus at lower risk of cancer anyway.
Some more rigorous trials randomly assigned people at high risk of colon cancer to use aspirin, and found those who did developed fewer precancerous growths called polyps — but stopped short of showing the drug really prevented cancer, Thun explains. More disappointing news came in 2005, when a major study that assigned women to use either a baby aspirin or dummy pills found no effect on a whole list of cancers.
Thun and colleagues at the cancer society wondered if many of those earlier studies used too low a dose of aspirin to have an anticancer effect. So they examined adult-strength aspirin — 325 mg or more — in a study tracking more than 140,000 people.
Taking an adult-strength aspirin daily for at least five years was associated with a 30 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer, a 20 percent lower risk of prostate cancer, and 15 percent less cancer overall, they reported last week in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute.
That's not proof of aspirin's benefit, either, but it does suggest that clinical trials start looking at higher doses to tease out an answer.
Duke's Febbo says answers also may come from improved testing of the COX enzyme's role in individual tumors. As with other tumor stimulators, there may be subsets of people for whom COX is a big cancer factor, and others where COX, and thus aspirin, won't matter.
Until then, what's the average person to do? Neither the cancer society nor a government committee that sets health guidelines recommends aspirin to prevent cancer, even for those at high risk of colorectal cancer. Consult a doctor first if you're considering it anyway, Thun stresses — aspirin can be dangerous if someone bleeds easily or has certain other conditions.
For now, cancer specialists e their cardiac colleagues' advice.
"Stick with what's heart-healthy," says Febbo. And stay tuned: "There's a lot of potential for aspirin" and cancer.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
