Obese kids may face heart risks later
Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:04:02 GMT
By STEPHANIE NANO, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - The chicken nuggets are coming home to roost. By the time today's teens are middle age, the rate of heart disease could be 16 percent higher because of the extra pounds they are carrying around today, a U.S. study suggests.
A second study, by Danish researchers, documents a connection between excess weight in even younger kids and heart disease in adults — especially boys.
The two reports in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine may well be underestimating the future health effects of childhood obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, director of an obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston.
"We've simply never had a generation that's been this heavy from so early in life. The consequences of that are unprecedented and unknown," said Ludwig, who was not involved in the research.
While the U.S. projections were based on a computer model, the Danish study is a large, decades-long look at what happened in real life to 277,000 children as they grew up. Some 14,500 of them — twice as many men as women — had heart disease or died from it before age 60.
The researchers found that the more overweight a child was between ages 7 and 13, the greater the risk of heart disease was in adulthood. The relationship was strongest in boys and increased with age.
For example, an average-size 13-year-old boy had a 12 percent risk. But for a boy of the same age and height who weighed about 25 pounds more, the risk went up by one-third, to 16 percent.
"Our findings suggest that as children are becoming heavier worldwide, greater numbers of them are at risk of having a event in adulthood," said the researchers from the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen.
Today, about a third of U.S. youngsters are either overweight or obese. Increasing numbers of obese children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol and other obesity complications that were seldom seen in children before.
Some of those complications are risk factors for heart disease, which could explain the link between childhood weight and a higher risk of heart disease, the Danish researchers suggest. Or it could be because many heavy children — although not all — become heavy adults, they said.
Their study used detailed health records kept for every schoolchild in Denmark. They calculated the body mass index, which is based on height and weight, for children born between 1930 and 1976. Using hospital discharge records and a death registry, they tracked the children from age 25 to find out who had heart disease by age 60.
One of the researchers, Jennifer Baker, said previous studies that have looked at the issue have been inconsistent, and this is the "first to convincingly demonstrate that excess weight in childhood is associated with heart disease in adulthood."
The U.S. researchers used obesity figures for U.S. teens in 2000 to estimate that as many as 37 percent of men would be obese when they reached 35, compared to 25 percent now. For women, as many as 44 percent would be obese; now the rate is 32 percent.
Using a computer model, they estimated that by the time the teens are 50, the rate of heart disease will rise 5 percent to 16 percent — as many as 100,000 extra cases. They also projected heart disease deaths could rise by as much as 19 percent.
"If we do nothing, the health consequences are really going to be quite dramatic," said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, of the University of California, San Francisco, lead author of the study.
Projections of increasing rates of heart disease and deaths between ages 35 and 50 were particularly striking, she said.
"This is an age when people are normally working, they're raising their families. They're not worried about going to the doctor or worried about dying or having a heart attack," said Bibbins-Domingo.
The researchers noted that their predictions are based on current treatments and trends for obesity and heart disease, and changes in prevention and treatment could make a difference.
____
On the Net:
New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org
Major U.S. airports offering flu shots
Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:03:31 GMT
By DANIEL YEE, Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - After taking off their shoes, emptying their pockets and passing through the security checkpoint, travelers at some major U.S. airports can now roll up a sleeve and get a flu shot.
"The convenience is great," Danny Manzon, a busy, 53-year-old restaurant consultant, said after getting vaccinated Tuesday at a kiosk in front of an AirTran gate at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He said he had wanted to get a flu shot for three months but never had the time.
For years, some airports have been offering flu shots to airline passengers before they cleared security. But many travelers were too afraid of missing their flights to stop.
So this year, airports in such cities as Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Newark, N.J., and San Francisco are setting up "airside" health stations close to the gates, past the security checkpoints.
The shots typically take just a few minutes and cost $15 to $35. So far, the airports in the five major cities have given out about 15,000 shots this season.
"It's helpful being on the airside because people don't know how long it's going to take getting through security so they don't want to take a risk of waiting in a medical clinic or being stuck in security and not making their plane," said Maureen Zampella, director of nursing and general operations manager of a service that is offering flu shots at the Newark airport.
The vaccinations are seen as particularly convenient for those who travel frequently on business.
"They don't have time to go to the physician," said Dr. Dominic Mack, chief medical officer of the service offering shots in Atlanta.
Airline passengers receiving the shots won't be protected right away. It takes about two weeks for a shot to offer full protection.
Getting vaccinated now offers plenty of time for the shot to take full effect before the peak flu season begins, typically after December.
Airport health officials said eventually they may offer other vaccinations, too, as well as cholesterol tests and screening for high blood pressure.
"We're finding that's where people are," said Michelle Smith, spokeswoman for Denver Health, which operates a clinic at the Denver airport.
Last year, Chicago's O'Hare Airport dispensed about 5,000 flu shots to passengers and employees from kiosks next to gates.
"It went over great," and the idea was expanded this year to Chicago's Midway, said Dr. John Zautcke, medical director for the University of Illinois Medical Center at O'Hare. So far, O'Hare and Midway have vaccinated a total of about 9,500 people this year.
"Business travelers love it," Zautcke said. "They are just thanking us."
Study Some supplements contain steroids
Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:03:43 GMT
By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer
One quarter of dietary supplements purchased in a recent sampling contained traces of steroids and 11.5 percent had banned stimulants, according to a study to determine whether supplements sold across the United States are really clean.
The study was overseen by Informed-Choice, a nonprofit coalition of dietary supplements, and conducted by a British company, HFL.
HFL bought best-selling brands of a variety of supplements made by companies that were not believed to screen for banned substances as part of their routine quality control process. The study does not reveal the names of the brands or their manufacturers.
Of the 52 supplements that could be analyzed for steroids, 13 showed up with steroid contamination. The result surprised Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, who said no American athlete has tested positive because of supplement contamination since 2004.
"I think it's surprising, and hopefully they'll provide names so this illegal activity can be shut down," Tygart said.
These results come about five years after an International Olympic Committee study that sampled 240 supplements purchased in America and found 18.8 percent of them contained steroids.
"The presence of steroids and stimulants in supplement products is still very much an issue," the conclusion of the report read. "It is clear that not all supplement manufacturers follow good manufacturing practices and the necessary controls are not always implemented to ensure the safety of athletes and the general public who use the supplement products."
Kelly Hoffman, executive director of Informed-Choice, told USA Today, which first reported on the study, that banned substances can find their way into products accidentally, such as when manufacturers fail to properly clean equipment.
In all, 10 categories of supplements were tested. Those known as testosterone boosters were most susceptible to having banned substances in them; six of nine boosters contained androstenedione, which was declared illegal about three years ago.
Though amateur athletes are considered most susceptible to buying tainted products at health stores, the issue is also relative to professional sports.
It has long been default mode for players who test positive to say they used a tainted product.
Three years ago, the NFL and the players union began working with the nonprofit company, NSF International, that put supplements through a purity test and labels substances that are safe to take.
Lori Bestervelt, senior vice president and chief technical officer for NSF, said she also wasn't surprised at the results of the HFL test.
"I think there are two categories, one where people are intentionally putting them in, and another where they aren't but they don't have a good rein on the supply chain or manufacturing practices, so things can slip in," she said. "If you don't have good control of the supply chain, and you're not testing and auditing, things like this can happen."
Bestervelt said the NSF Web site provides a list of supplements that have carry the "Certified for Sport" seal, meaning they've passed that organization's rigorous testing process and are at low risk to contain banned substances.
___
On the Net:
HFL: http://www.hfl.co.uk/
NSF "Certified for Sport" list: http://www.nsf.org/Certified/BannedSub/listings.asp
FDA eases access to dangerous acne drug
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:45:40 GMT
WASHINGTON - Women seeking an acne medicine that can cause severe birth defects may find it a little easier to fill their prescription: The government announced some changes Wednesday designed to ease access to the troublesome drug.
A program called iPledge was designed to ensure that every user of Accutane or its generic competitors — and every doctor who prescribes it and every pharmacy that sells it — follows strict rules to make sure that women don't get pregnant while on the drug. Among those rules are month-by-month prescriptions based on passing pregnancy tests.
But last summer, the Food and Drug Administration heard evidence that iPledge hasn't ended the problem: There were 122 pregnancies in the program's first year and another 37 in the four months since. Another 19 pregnancies occurred in women who managed to get the drug despite never enrolling in iPledge.
Still, in October the FDA agreed to a few changes to the program, and announced Wednesday that iPledge is now implementing these changes:
_Women of childbearing age who don't fill a prescription within seven days of a pregnancy test will be allowed to get another test and then fill the prescription — with the exception of the initial prescription. Until now, those who didn't act within seven days were frozen out of the program for the next 23 days.
_Those women will have to fill the prescription within seven days of a pregnancy test rather than within seven days of first seeing their doctor.
Depression anorexia childbirth affect sex life
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:45:14 GMT
NEW YORK -
Childbirth and the psychiatric
disorders anorexia and depression can affect a woman's sex
life, but in different ways, a small study suggests.
Research has shown that women with mental health
conditions, including major depression and eating disorders,
tend to report more problems with their sex life than other
women do. The same has been found in studies of new mothers.
But the nature of this sexual dysfunction has not been
clear.
In the new study, researchers found that women with either
anorexia or depression typically had sex more frequently than
new mothers did. They were, however, more likely to report
having &;problems&; during sex, according to findings published
in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
This suggests that anorexia and depression have similar
effects on a woman's sex life, while childbirth has a different
sort of impact, according to the researchers, led by Dr.
Frances A. Carter of the Christchurch School of Medicine and
Health Sciences, Otago University in New Zealand.
The study results are based on questionnaire responses from
76 women who had taken part in three previous, separate studies
and included 10 women with anorexia; 24 women with major
depression; and 42 women who'd given birth within the past two
months. All of the women were married or in stable
relationships.
Overall, Carter's team found that 80 percent and 79 percent
of women with anorexia or depression, respectively, said they'd
had sex in the past two weeks, compared with only half of the
new mothers.
On the other hand, none of the women in the postnatal group
said they had any problems during sex, while roughly one third
of those with anorexia or depression said they did.
The fact that new mothers had sex less often is not
surprising, according to Carter and his colleagues. However,
the reported lack of any sexual difficulties is &;more
optimistic&; than the results obtained from other studies, which
&;suggested that sexual difficulties were the norm.&;
The researchers add that their findings should be
considered preliminary, in part because the study group was so
small, particularly the number of women with anorexia.
SOURCE: International Journal of Eating Disorders, November
2007.
Emergency room visits by seniors rising study
Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:28:57 GMT
By Lisa Baertlein
LOS ANGELES -
The rate of visits to U.S. hospital
emergency rooms by senior citizens grew faster than that of any
other age group between 1993 and 2003, straining the country's
already overcrowded emergency care system, according to a study
published on Wednesday.
The research from George Washington University also found
the rate of emergency room visits by older blacks was rising at
an alarming rate.
The reasons behind seniors' accelerated visit rates were
not immediately clear.
Researchers said the trend could have been driven by
health-care advances that have resulted in people living longer
with chronic medical issues. It could also have been related to
difficulty finding timely primary care, they said.
&;Seniors are using the emergency department more and more
frequently, and given the needs of this population and the
nature of their medical problems, the current state of
overcrowding is likely to continue to escalate dramatically,&;
said Dr. Mary Pat McKay, a study co-author from the George
Washington University Medical Center in Washington.
The researchers, who published their findings in the Annals
of Emergency Medicine, said a review of hospital data from 1993
to 2003 showed a 34 percent increase in emergency room visits
by people aged 65 to 74.
By comparison, there was little change in visit rates among
people younger than the age of 21 from 1993 to 2003. The rate
of visits was up 19 percent for individuals aged 22 to 49 and
16 percent for people aged 50 to 64.
The authors said seniors' additional emergency room visits
did not appear to be driven by frivolous complaints.
McKay said she was surprised the data showed a widening gap
between the rates of black and white seniors seeking emergency
care.
Emergency visits by black people aged 65 to 74 rose by the
greatest rate, nearly doubling during the 11-year study period
to 77 visits per 100 persons. In comparison, the visit rate
among whites of the same age group was up 26 percent to 36
visits per 100 persons.
&;That there is a racial disparity didn't surprise me. What
surprised me is that it's getting worse,&; she said.
The study's authors said more research was needed to
pinpoint the reasons driving the differences.
They said the higher prevalence of diabetes and
hypertension in the black community may be a factor.
They also noted that nearly twice as many young blacks lack
health insurance -- a problem that worsens among the poor.
People who were uninsured before becoming eligible for the
U.S. government's Medicare health coverage at age 65 are more
likely to have serious health problems if they could not afford
to get needed care for chronic illnesses.
Whatever the cause, the study's authors estimated that
visits by people aged 65 to 74 could nearly double to 11.7
million by 2013 from 6.4 million in 2003 if the trend in
emergency room visit rates continues.
&;The system is broken and the point of the study is that
it's going to get worse,&; said McKay.
