Romney vows to increase cancer research
Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:50:06 GMT
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told breast cancer survivors Tuesday that their disease "is getting less than a fair shake" when it comes to research funding.
Romney, a former governor who made health care reform his signature issue in Massachusetts, suggested that as president he would increase federal spending on research of breast cancer and other cancers.
"There's no substitute for funding," he said at a conference of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a 25-year-old network of breast cancer survivors.
Romney and the group's founder, Nancy G. Brinker, sat on stage in matching silver armless chairs, their backs against huge pink pillows, as she posed a handful of questions that other presidential candidates had already answered via videotape.
Romney got into the spirit of the event, twice borrowing the group's slogan to say, "I'm getting pinked up!"
Brinker did not ask Romney about his opposition to embryonic stem cell research, a position that puts him at odds with many health care advocacy groups. But she did want to know what he would do help further the fight against cancer.
Romney said private and public money are desperately needed for research.
"I haven't put together a budget yet. It seems a little early," he said with a chuckle. "But I think you can expect that, at least in my view, the right way to allocate money to research is on a scientific basis — not just a political basis. I don't think you should determine who should get how much money based on who came in your office last."
"On that basis, it's pretty clear that breast cancer, and cancer in general, are not getting their fair share," he said, adding later: "Cancer is getting less than a fair shake."
Romney said other keys are cancer prevention and detection, both of which would improve nationally if more people could afford routine health care.
"For that to happen, in my view, we have to have everybody insured," the Republican said. "I will fight to get every person in this country health insurance."
Romney opposes public-run health care systems like those in Canada and Britain. He helped Massachusetts enact a landmark health program that makes sure anybody who qualifies for Medicaid enrolls in the program, requires people who can afford health insurance to purchase it and offers subsidies for middle-class people who can't afford insurance.
The state worked with insurance companies to find ways to offer low-cost, low-coverage insurance.
Romney has said he would not impose the Massachusetts system — or the health insurance mandate — on any states as president, but he would give state leaders wide latitude on how they spend federal money.
His hope is that states would use the money to craft their own plans to get more people insured.
Miss. ranked fattest state in nation
Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:00:42 GMT
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. - Experts say Mississippians need to skip the gravy, say no to the fried pickles and start taking brisk walks to fight an epidemic of obesity.
According to a new study, this Deep South state is the fattest in the nation. The Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention, says Mississippi is the first state where more than 30 percent of adults are considered obese.
Aside from making Mississippi the butt of late-night talk show jokes, the obesity epidemic has serious implications for public policy.
If current trends hold, the state could face enormous increases in the already significant costs of treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments caused by the extra poundage.
"We've got a long way to go. We love fried chicken and fried anything and all the grease and fatback we can get in Mississippi," said Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland, chairman of the Public Health Committee.
Poverty and obesity often go hand in hand, doctors say, because poor families stretch their budgets by buying cheaper, processed foods that have higher fat content and lower nutritional value.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a self-described "recovering foodaholic" who lost 110 pounds several years ago — explained during a Southern Governors' Association meeting in Biloxi last weekend that there are historical reasons poor people often fry their foods: It's an inexpensive way to increase the calories and feed a family.
Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation, and the Delta is the poorest region of Mississippi.
Dr. Marshall Bouldin, director of the diabetes and metabolism center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told the Southern governors that if the Delta counties were excluded, "Mississippi would wind up being about 30th in diabetes problems in the United States."
Mississippi's public schools already are taking steps to prevent obesity.
A new state law enacted this year requires schools to provide at least 150 minutes of physical activity instruction and 45 minutes of health education instruction each week for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. Until now, gym class had been optional.
The state Department of Education also is phasing in restrictions on soft drinks and snacks.
All public schools are currently banned from selling full-calorie soft drinks to students. Next academic year, elementary and middle schools will allow only water, juice and milk, while high schools will allow only water, juice, sports drinks and diet soft drinks.
The state Department of Education publishes lists of snacks that are approved or banned for sale in school vending machines. Last school year, at least 50 percent of the vending offerings had to be from the approved list. That jumped to 75 percent this year and will reach 100 percent next year.
Among the approved snacks are yogurt, sliced fruit and granola bars, while fried pork rinds and marshmallow treats are banned. One middle school favorite — Flamin' Hot Cheetos — are on the approved list if they're baked but banned if they're not.
State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds said he hopes students will take home the healthful habits they learn at school.
"We only have students 180 days out of the year for seven hours in a school day. The important thing is that we model what good behavior looks like," Bounds said Monday after finishing a lunch of baked chicken.
Bounds ate at a Jackson buffet that's popular with state legislators. On Monday, the buffet included traditional, stick-to-your-ribs Southern fare: fried chicken, grits, fried okra, turnip greens.
Dr. William Rowley, who worked 30 years as a vascular surgeon and now works at the Institute for Alternative Futures, said if current trends continue, more than 50 percent of adult Mississippians will be obese in 2015.
Holland, who helps set the state Medicaid budget, said he worries about the taxpayers' cost of treating obesity.
"If we don't change our ways," he said, "we're going to be in the funeral parlors ... because we're going to be all fat and dead."
Study questions school defibrillators
Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:59:45 GMT
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE - A nationwide push to put portable defibrillators in every school, a response to several high-profile student deaths, may not be worth the cost, a new study concludes.
The survey of emergency response to schools in the Seattle area over 16 years found that students suffered cardiac arrests only 12 times and a third of these children had known heart problems.
Most of the cardiac arrests at schools between 1990 to 2005 involved adults — teachers, volunteers or people just walking on school property. And they occurred much more often in high schools and middle schools than elementary schools.
"I certainly have no objection to AEDs ," said one of the researchers, Dr. Tom Rea, of the University of Washington's Harborview Medical Center. He's also medical director for King County Medic One, the county's emergency medical service.
But not every school has the money for a defibrillator, which each cost an average of $1,000 to $3,000, not including the cost to train school staff, he said. They decided to do the study after several states mandated the purchase of defibrillators for schools and others were considering similar measures, he said.
Rea said the research, which was published Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggests putting AEDs in high schools or pinpointing schools where students and staff have medical problems.
"I'm not trying to make that decision for people," he was quick to add.
The people who do have to make these decisions will find the Seattle study helpful, because it is the first large study of its kind, said Mary Fran Hazinski, a registered nurse who specializes in pediatric emergency medicine at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.
Hazinski, who was not involved in the study, said schools are required to identify students with health problems who may require an emergency response. It makes sense to combine that mandate with this study to figure out if defibrillators are needed, Hazinski added.
Hazinski and Rea also emphasized the importance of CPR training and emergency response planning.
"We plan for other emergencies like fire or tornado and we should plan for medical emergencies," Hazinski said.
She said the American Heart Association recommends putting AEDs in public places where it would take more than 5 minutes for a paramedic to arrive, such as schools in rural areas or on large campuses. Defibrillators are used to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.
According to the study, schools are one of the best places for adults to suffer cardiac arrest; 74 percent of those victims were given CPR by a bystander. Hazinski said Seattle and King County has one of the highest rates of CPR training in the nation, but school staff have high training rates everywhere.
Study eyes diabetes in pregnant women
Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:32:58 GMT
By STEPHANIE NANO, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - A new, large study suggests that treating women who develop diabetes during pregnancy greatly reduces the chances that their baby will become obese during childhood.
The research found that the higher the mother's blood sugar levels, the greater the child's risk of being obese by age 5 to 7, even if the mother wasn't diagnosed with diabetes.
Untreated high blood sugar nearly doubled the child's risk of becoming overweight or obese, said the study's lead author, Dr. Teresa Hillier of Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.
That higher risk disappeared, however, when women with diabetes followed a special diet, exercised or were given insulin. Their children had about the same risk of becoming obese as those whose mothers had normal blood sugar, the researchers found.
"The important message is that the risk of child obesity related to gestational diabetes is potentially reversible," said Hillier, adding that high blood sugar during pregnancy is contributing to the nation's epidemic of childhood obesity.
The research, funded by the American Diabetes Association, is in the September issue of the group's journal, Diabetes Care.
Gestational diabetes begins during pregnancy and usually goes away after childbirth. It affects 3 to 8 percent of pregnant women in the United States. The mother's elevated blood sugar can cause the fetus to grow too large, sometimes requiring delivery by Caesarean section and can bring on other health problems for the mother and baby.
Whether a mother's high blood sugar can lead to childhood obesity has been less clear. It was seen in a study of Pima Indians and in some studies of other populations, the researchers said.
Dr. Boyd Metzger of Northwestern University said the Kaiser research complements a study he presented earlier this summer that suggests lowering the threshold for a diabetes diagnosis. His study found the higher the mother's blood sugar, the greater the risk of complications for the newborn, even at levels below the cutoff for diabetes.
The new study "just provides further evidence that we should be making changes in the diagnosis," said Metzger.
Kaiser patient Janelle Peterson said she worried about getting diabetes when she was pregnant in 2001 with her first son, Erick, because of a family history of diabetes.
"I dreaded it because I knew it was going to happen," said Peterson, who lives outside Portland in the town of Scappoose.
With the help of a nutritionist, Peterson said she struggled to change her diet and keep her blood sugar low. During her second pregnancy with now 3-year-old Christian, she needed to use insulin.
"I had to keep telling myself, I'm doing it for my baby, I'm doing it for a healthy baby and I'm doing it for myself," she said.
Peterson said the effort paid off; today both of her sons are healthy and don't have weight problems.
For their study, Hillier and her colleagues analyzed medical records for 9,439 patients in Oregon, Washington and Hawaii who gave birth between 1995 and 2000 and were all screened for diabetes. Their children were weighed between ages 5 and 7.
Of the children whose mothers had normal blood sugar levels, 24 percent were overweight and 12 percent were obese. For untreated high blood sugar, 35 percent of the children were overweight and 20 percent were obese.
In the treated diabetes group, 28 percent of the children were overweight and 17 percent were obese. The researchers found no statistical difference between the treated and normal level groups after taking into account other contributing factors for childhood obesity — including the mother's age, weight gain during pregnancy, size of the baby and ethnicity.
They calculated that children from the untreated highest levels were 89 percent more likely to be overweight and 82 percent more likely to be obese, compared to children whose mothers had normal levels. Even those children who had normal birth weights were at increased risk of obesity, the researchers said.
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On the Net:
American Diabetes Association: http://www.diabetes.org