NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - That clamor in the background? It's probably the TV, and it might be taking a toll on your toddler's development, researchers say.
According to the first national estimate of background television exposure, children in the U.S. spend nearly as much time around a switched-on television as they do in school.
Between the age of eight months and eight years, kids spend an average of 232 minutes a day with the TV droning on in the background, researchers found. Add to that the 80 minutes of active watching that previous studies have found, and you land at just over five hours of daily interaction with the electronic babysitter.
'It's quite an alarming study,' said Dr. Victor Strasburger, a pediatrician who has studied media use in youngsters, but was not involved in the new survey.
'This is a clear warning signal to parents that if they are not watching TV, they ought to turn it off, and a reminder that parents should be avoiding screen time in infants under two,' added Strasburger, of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
The results are based on nationally representative telephone interviews with close to 1,500 parents, who reported their child's activities over the past 24 hours and whether there was a TV on in the background.
The effects of screen time on developing brains and minds are not well understood, but researchers say concerning findings are emerging.
For instance, children spend less time playing with friends and interacting with parents when a TV is clamoring in the background than when there is no such distraction, said Matthew Lapierre of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, who led the new survey.
'We definitely need to rethink this sort of exposure,' he told Reuters Health. 'You have learned how to deal with this, but what does it mean for a very young child?'
Lapierre and his colleagues found that the younger children were, the more background TV they were exposed to. Toddlers under two, for example, spent 5.5 hours around the screen daily.
Kids with a TV in the bedroom and African Americans also had more exposure, according to the report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting media time for kids to less than two hours per day, keeping the TV set and Internet out of the bedroom and avoiding screen time for kids under two.
Surfing the Web or watching TV before bedtime has been linked to sleep problems and drowsiness during the day in kids. Researchers also worry that screen time may lead youth to snack more and to pick up bad habits, such as smoking and drinking in excess.
For infants and toddlers, studies suggest the din from a TV may slow down language development, according to Strasburger.
'Think about it,' he said. 'It's confusing for babies who are trying to get their language together to have indistinguishable voices in the background.'
Strasburger said young infants distinguish between people on TV and flesh-and-blood humans, and they learn better from the latter. When he walks into an examination room, the pediatrician added, he can tell which toddlers are watching TV and which ones have parents reading to them.
'The babies that are being read to are just chattering away, and the babies that sit in front of a TV are silent,' he said. 'It means their language development is threatened - they may catch up, but it's a concern.'
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cxXOG Pediatrics, online October 1, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by GLOBAL WEATHER NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Study finds birth defects down among IVF babies
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Though assisted-reproduction techniques (ART) are known to come with a higher risk for birth defects, a new review of defect rates in Western Australia shows major birth defects becoming less common over the course of a decade among babies born through ART.
It's unclear why there have been fewer birth defects in more recent years.
'Changes to clinical practice may be largely responsible with improved (laboratory techniques) leading to the transfer of 'healthier' embryos,' suggested Michele Hansen, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Subiaco, Western Australia.
It's also not known why babies conceived through ART are likelier to have an increased risk of birth defects in the first place.
A recent estimate, based on the results of several dozen studies, found that ART is linked with a 37 percent increase in the risk of being born with a birth defect (see Reuters Health story of April 19, 2012).
Hansen said she and her colleagues wanted to get an update on those rates using a database of all births in Western Australia.
They collected information on more than 207,000 births, including babies conceived through two common techniques, 1,328 by in vitro fertilization and 633 by intracytoplasmic sperm injection, from 1994 to 2002.
The data also included pregnancies terminated due to a defect in the fetus.
Overall, major birth defects, including cleft lip, hip dysplasia and malformations of the heart, abdominal wall and genitals, affected about eight percent of singleton babies conceived by ART, compared to about five percent of babies conceived without assistance.
When the researchers compared the period between 1994 and 1998 to the years between 1998 and 2002, they saw a decline in birth defects over time among babies whose parents used ART.
In the first period, nearly 11 percent of ART babies had a birth defect diagnosed by age six, compared to about 7.5 percent in the second period.
In the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, Hansen calls the results 'encouraging,' though she can't explain them.
The researchers speculate they could stem from a combination of ART techniques becoming available to a wider swath of the population, and changes in how the techniques themselves are applied.
'It is very difficult to assess the impact of each of these changes on birth defect risk, however, we believe that changes to laboratory practice...changes to the medications used for ovarian stimulation requiring lower doses and shorter stimulation periods; together with a decrease in the number of embryos transferred may all have had a positive impact on the 'health' of embryos transferred in ART treatments,' she told Reuters Health in an email.
'Whilst our study does still show that babies born using Assisted Reproductive Technology remain at a higher risk of birth defects, couples seeking ART treatment can be reassured that the vast majority of ART infants are born healthy and do not have a birth defect,' said Hansen.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SnGBpA Obstetrics & Gynecology, October, 2012.
This article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE.
It's unclear why there have been fewer birth defects in more recent years.
'Changes to clinical practice may be largely responsible with improved (laboratory techniques) leading to the transfer of 'healthier' embryos,' suggested Michele Hansen, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Subiaco, Western Australia.
It's also not known why babies conceived through ART are likelier to have an increased risk of birth defects in the first place.
A recent estimate, based on the results of several dozen studies, found that ART is linked with a 37 percent increase in the risk of being born with a birth defect (see Reuters Health story of April 19, 2012).
Hansen said she and her colleagues wanted to get an update on those rates using a database of all births in Western Australia.
They collected information on more than 207,000 births, including babies conceived through two common techniques, 1,328 by in vitro fertilization and 633 by intracytoplasmic sperm injection, from 1994 to 2002.
The data also included pregnancies terminated due to a defect in the fetus.
Overall, major birth defects, including cleft lip, hip dysplasia and malformations of the heart, abdominal wall and genitals, affected about eight percent of singleton babies conceived by ART, compared to about five percent of babies conceived without assistance.
When the researchers compared the period between 1994 and 1998 to the years between 1998 and 2002, they saw a decline in birth defects over time among babies whose parents used ART.
In the first period, nearly 11 percent of ART babies had a birth defect diagnosed by age six, compared to about 7.5 percent in the second period.
In the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, Hansen calls the results 'encouraging,' though she can't explain them.
The researchers speculate they could stem from a combination of ART techniques becoming available to a wider swath of the population, and changes in how the techniques themselves are applied.
'It is very difficult to assess the impact of each of these changes on birth defect risk, however, we believe that changes to laboratory practice...changes to the medications used for ovarian stimulation requiring lower doses and shorter stimulation periods; together with a decrease in the number of embryos transferred may all have had a positive impact on the 'health' of embryos transferred in ART treatments,' she told Reuters Health in an email.
'Whilst our study does still show that babies born using Assisted Reproductive Technology remain at a higher risk of birth defects, couples seeking ART treatment can be reassured that the vast majority of ART infants are born healthy and do not have a birth defect,' said Hansen.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SnGBpA Obstetrics & Gynecology, October, 2012.
This article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE.
Probiotic for babies may not fight allergies later
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kindergartners who were given 'good bacteria' supplements as infants were no less likely to suffer from allergies than other kids in a new study from Australia.
The findings, reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, add to a mixed bag of results from research into whether probiotics can help ward off kids' allergies.
Based on what's known so far, it may be that only certain probiotics are helpful for certain kids - but even then, the benefit seems 'very modest,' according to Dr. Sonia Michail, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles who was not involved in the work.
The 123 kids in this study, which was led by Marie P. Jensen of the University of Western Australia in Perth, were part of a clinical trial as infants, when researchers randomly assigned half to take a probiotic supplement every day for the first six months of life. The rest of the babies were given a placebo.
All of the babies were considered to be at increased risk of allergies because their mothers suffered from them.
In earlier studies, the researchers found no benefits of the probiotic when the babies were 1 to 2.5 years old.
This latest report finds still no effects at the age of 5. Of 66 kids who had received the probiotic in infancy, 44 percent had some type of allergy - such as nasal allergies, food allergies or asthma. That compared with 38 percent of 57 kids who got the placebo.
Probiotics are live microorganisms, usually bacteria, which are naturally present in the gut, and are often added to certain foods, like yogurt and fermented milk, or sold as supplements.
In theory, probiotics given early in life could help curb kids' allergy risk by ensuring a healthy balance of microbes in the intestines, which promotes normal immune function.
Allergies arise when the immune system overreacts to a normally benign substance.
One of the best known and widely used probiotics is Lactobacillus acidophilus - which is what kids in this study were given.
The findings are somewhat surprising, Michail said in an email, because some studies have found that probiotics may help curb certain kids' long-term risk of the allergic skin condition eczema.
But in those studies, the probiotics were different strains of friendly bacteria (L. rhamnosus GG in one study, and a probiotic mix in the other).
And they were given not only to infants, but to their moms starting about a month before delivery, noted Michail, who has researched the role of gut bacteria in kids' health.
What's more, one study found probiotic benefits only among kids who'd been born by C-section.
'Interestingly, the intestine of a baby just born does not have any bacteria, but this quickly changes and the intestine becomes populated by large numbers of bacteria called 'flora,'' Michail said.
Babies born via C-section are not exposed to their moms' beneficial bacteria in the birth canal, and studies have linked C-section birth to a higher allergy and asthma risk.
The 'different bacterial profile' in babies born by C-section 'may be permissive to the development of allergies,' Michail explained.
But the bottom line is that even in the positive studies, the benefits of probiotics seem small.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration classifies probiotics as a food or dietary supplement. That means the products don't have to be proven effective before hitting the market, but they cannot be promoted for treating or preventing any specific disease.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QZYVSG Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, online September 10, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
The findings, reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, add to a mixed bag of results from research into whether probiotics can help ward off kids' allergies.
Based on what's known so far, it may be that only certain probiotics are helpful for certain kids - but even then, the benefit seems 'very modest,' according to Dr. Sonia Michail, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles who was not involved in the work.
The 123 kids in this study, which was led by Marie P. Jensen of the University of Western Australia in Perth, were part of a clinical trial as infants, when researchers randomly assigned half to take a probiotic supplement every day for the first six months of life. The rest of the babies were given a placebo.
All of the babies were considered to be at increased risk of allergies because their mothers suffered from them.
In earlier studies, the researchers found no benefits of the probiotic when the babies were 1 to 2.5 years old.
This latest report finds still no effects at the age of 5. Of 66 kids who had received the probiotic in infancy, 44 percent had some type of allergy - such as nasal allergies, food allergies or asthma. That compared with 38 percent of 57 kids who got the placebo.
Probiotics are live microorganisms, usually bacteria, which are naturally present in the gut, and are often added to certain foods, like yogurt and fermented milk, or sold as supplements.
In theory, probiotics given early in life could help curb kids' allergy risk by ensuring a healthy balance of microbes in the intestines, which promotes normal immune function.
Allergies arise when the immune system overreacts to a normally benign substance.
One of the best known and widely used probiotics is Lactobacillus acidophilus - which is what kids in this study were given.
The findings are somewhat surprising, Michail said in an email, because some studies have found that probiotics may help curb certain kids' long-term risk of the allergic skin condition eczema.
But in those studies, the probiotics were different strains of friendly bacteria (L. rhamnosus GG in one study, and a probiotic mix in the other).
And they were given not only to infants, but to their moms starting about a month before delivery, noted Michail, who has researched the role of gut bacteria in kids' health.
What's more, one study found probiotic benefits only among kids who'd been born by C-section.
'Interestingly, the intestine of a baby just born does not have any bacteria, but this quickly changes and the intestine becomes populated by large numbers of bacteria called 'flora,'' Michail said.
Babies born via C-section are not exposed to their moms' beneficial bacteria in the birth canal, and studies have linked C-section birth to a higher allergy and asthma risk.
The 'different bacterial profile' in babies born by C-section 'may be permissive to the development of allergies,' Michail explained.
But the bottom line is that even in the positive studies, the benefits of probiotics seem small.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration classifies probiotics as a food or dietary supplement. That means the products don't have to be proven effective before hitting the market, but they cannot be promoted for treating or preventing any specific disease.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QZYVSG Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, online September 10, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
This year's flu vaccine guards against new strains
WASHINGTON (AP) - Time to get your flu vaccine - and a surprising new report shows babies and toddlers seem to be getting protected better than the rest of us.
Last year's flu shot won't shield you this year: Two new strains of influenza have begun circling the globe, and the updated vaccine appears to work well against them, government officials said Thursday.
Just because last year was the mildest flu season on record doesn't mean the virus might not bounce back to its usual ferocity this winter.
'People cannot become complacent this year,' said Dr. Howard Koh, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who received his own flu shot Thursday.
A yearly vaccination now is recommended for nearly everybody, but new figures released Thursday show that last year 52 percent of children and just 39 percent of adults were immunized.
Best protected: Three-quarters of tots ages 6 months to 23 months were vaccinated. That's a significant jump from the previous year, when 68 percent of those youngsters were immunized.
But even though seniors are at especially high risk of severe illness or death if they catch the flu, just 66 percent of them were immunized, a number that has been slowly dropping for several years.
Older adults got a little lost in the recent public health push to explain that flu vaccine benefits all ages - and it's time to target them again, said Dr. Daniel Jernigan, a flu specialist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In contrast, child deaths from flu have made headlines in recent years - the U.S. counted 34 pediatric deaths last year - raising parents' awareness of the risk, he said.
The only ones who shouldn't get vaccinated: babies younger than 6 months and people with severe allergies to the eggs used to make the vaccine.
Flu specialists can't say how bad this winter's flu season might be. Influenza strains constantly evolve, and some cause more illness than others.
But strains from the H3N2 family tend to be harsher than some other flu types, and a new H3N2 strain is included in this year's vaccine because it is circulating in parts of the world.
Because of that strain, 'I am pretty confident that this year will be a more traditional flu season' than last year, CDC's Jernigan told The Associated Press. 'People won't have had any real exposure to that.'
Only one ingredient in this year's flu vaccine was retained from last year's, protection against the H1N1 strain that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic and has been the main kind of influenza circulating since. Also new in this year's shot is protection against a different Type B strain.
Other trends the CDC spotted last year:
-Roughly a third of teenagers got a flu vaccine.
-So did 45 percent of high-risk young and middle-aged adults, those who are particularly vulnerable to flu because they also have asthma, diabetes or any of a list of other health conditions.
-About 47 percent of pregnant women were vaccinated. Women have five times the risk of severe illness if they catch the flu when they're pregnant, and they can require hospitalization and suffer preterm labor as a result. Vaccination not only protects them, but recent research shows it also provides some protection to their newborns as well.
Vaccination rates vary widely among states, too. Nevada vaccinates a third of people who are eligible, while South Dakota reaches 51 percent. In Iowa, 76 percent of seniors get their flu shot, compared to half in Alaska. In Rhode Island, 74 percent of children are vaccinated, compared to 39 percent in Alaska.
Manufacturers are expected to make about 135 million doses of flu vaccine this year, and there are four different forms to choose from:
-The traditional flu shot is for all ages and people with high-risk health conditions.
-FluMist, the squirt-up-the-nose version, is for healthy people ages 2 to 49 who aren't pregnant.
-A high-dose shot is available for people 65 and older.
-And the intradermal shot - a skin-deep prick instead of the usual inch-long needle - is available for 18- to 64-year-olds.
The vaccine is covered by insurance, and Medicare and some plans don't require a copay; drugstore vaccination programs tend to charge about $30.
People can be vaccinated anytime, but Jernigan cautioned that it takes about two weeks for protection to kick in. Flu typically starts to appear in October or November, and peaks in January or February.
Also this year, public health groups are urging workers in doctors' offices, hospitals and particularly nursing homes, where patients are especially vulnerable, to do a better job getting vaccinated.
About 67 percent of health care workers were vaccinated last year, a number that's slowly rising. Doctors are the best role models, with about 86 percent immunized. But anyone - from the receptionist to the person delivering meals - can spread influenza to patients, and just half of those workers in nursing homes got vaccinated last year, Koh said.
In addition to patient safety, hospitals and clinics need to have enough healthy staff to care for the sick once the flu strikes, said Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University.
When that happens, 'we need to be vertical, not horizontal,' he said.
___
Online:
Government info and vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Last year's flu shot won't shield you this year: Two new strains of influenza have begun circling the globe, and the updated vaccine appears to work well against them, government officials said Thursday.
Just because last year was the mildest flu season on record doesn't mean the virus might not bounce back to its usual ferocity this winter.
'People cannot become complacent this year,' said Dr. Howard Koh, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who received his own flu shot Thursday.
A yearly vaccination now is recommended for nearly everybody, but new figures released Thursday show that last year 52 percent of children and just 39 percent of adults were immunized.
Best protected: Three-quarters of tots ages 6 months to 23 months were vaccinated. That's a significant jump from the previous year, when 68 percent of those youngsters were immunized.
But even though seniors are at especially high risk of severe illness or death if they catch the flu, just 66 percent of them were immunized, a number that has been slowly dropping for several years.
Older adults got a little lost in the recent public health push to explain that flu vaccine benefits all ages - and it's time to target them again, said Dr. Daniel Jernigan, a flu specialist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In contrast, child deaths from flu have made headlines in recent years - the U.S. counted 34 pediatric deaths last year - raising parents' awareness of the risk, he said.
The only ones who shouldn't get vaccinated: babies younger than 6 months and people with severe allergies to the eggs used to make the vaccine.
Flu specialists can't say how bad this winter's flu season might be. Influenza strains constantly evolve, and some cause more illness than others.
But strains from the H3N2 family tend to be harsher than some other flu types, and a new H3N2 strain is included in this year's vaccine because it is circulating in parts of the world.
Because of that strain, 'I am pretty confident that this year will be a more traditional flu season' than last year, CDC's Jernigan told The Associated Press. 'People won't have had any real exposure to that.'
Only one ingredient in this year's flu vaccine was retained from last year's, protection against the H1N1 strain that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic and has been the main kind of influenza circulating since. Also new in this year's shot is protection against a different Type B strain.
Other trends the CDC spotted last year:
-Roughly a third of teenagers got a flu vaccine.
-So did 45 percent of high-risk young and middle-aged adults, those who are particularly vulnerable to flu because they also have asthma, diabetes or any of a list of other health conditions.
-About 47 percent of pregnant women were vaccinated. Women have five times the risk of severe illness if they catch the flu when they're pregnant, and they can require hospitalization and suffer preterm labor as a result. Vaccination not only protects them, but recent research shows it also provides some protection to their newborns as well.
Vaccination rates vary widely among states, too. Nevada vaccinates a third of people who are eligible, while South Dakota reaches 51 percent. In Iowa, 76 percent of seniors get their flu shot, compared to half in Alaska. In Rhode Island, 74 percent of children are vaccinated, compared to 39 percent in Alaska.
Manufacturers are expected to make about 135 million doses of flu vaccine this year, and there are four different forms to choose from:
-The traditional flu shot is for all ages and people with high-risk health conditions.
-FluMist, the squirt-up-the-nose version, is for healthy people ages 2 to 49 who aren't pregnant.
-A high-dose shot is available for people 65 and older.
-And the intradermal shot - a skin-deep prick instead of the usual inch-long needle - is available for 18- to 64-year-olds.
The vaccine is covered by insurance, and Medicare and some plans don't require a copay; drugstore vaccination programs tend to charge about $30.
People can be vaccinated anytime, but Jernigan cautioned that it takes about two weeks for protection to kick in. Flu typically starts to appear in October or November, and peaks in January or February.
Also this year, public health groups are urging workers in doctors' offices, hospitals and particularly nursing homes, where patients are especially vulnerable, to do a better job getting vaccinated.
About 67 percent of health care workers were vaccinated last year, a number that's slowly rising. Doctors are the best role models, with about 86 percent immunized. But anyone - from the receptionist to the person delivering meals - can spread influenza to patients, and just half of those workers in nursing homes got vaccinated last year, Koh said.
In addition to patient safety, hospitals and clinics need to have enough healthy staff to care for the sick once the flu strikes, said Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University.
When that happens, 'we need to be vertical, not horizontal,' he said.
___
Online:
Government info and vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Kids Gulp 7 Trillion Calories Per Year
Click here to listen to this podcast
Kids from the ages of two to 19, consume about seven trillion calories in sugar-sweetened beverages per year, according to Steve Gortmaker of the Harvard School of Public Health. He spoke at the Obesity Society Annual Scientific Meeting in San Antonio on September 23rd. Seven trillion is a lot of calories in sugar-sweetened beverages. At, for example, 50 cents per can, it's about $24 billion a year.
All of those dollars and sugary calories are stoking the childhood obesity epidemic. Currently, in the U.S., about 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese-that's more than 12.5 million kids. And new research in the British Medical Journal suggests that obese children will have much higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease as adults. [Claire Friedemann, et al, Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Healthy Children And Its Association With Body Mass Index: Systematic review and meta-analysis] Even as kids, their hearts are changing shape to look like those of adults at risk for heart disease.
But the good news is that simply cutting out an average of 64 calories a day from kids' diets could start to level out the steep rise in childhood obesity. That's equivalent to less than half a can of most non-diet sodas.
-Katherine Harmon
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Kids from the ages of two to 19, consume about seven trillion calories in sugar-sweetened beverages per year, according to Steve Gortmaker of the Harvard School of Public Health. He spoke at the Obesity Society Annual Scientific Meeting in San Antonio on September 23rd. Seven trillion is a lot of calories in sugar-sweetened beverages. At, for example, 50 cents per can, it's about $24 billion a year.
All of those dollars and sugary calories are stoking the childhood obesity epidemic. Currently, in the U.S., about 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese-that's more than 12.5 million kids. And new research in the British Medical Journal suggests that obese children will have much higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease as adults. [Claire Friedemann, et al, Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Healthy Children And Its Association With Body Mass Index: Systematic review and meta-analysis] Even as kids, their hearts are changing shape to look like those of adults at risk for heart disease.
But the good news is that simply cutting out an average of 64 calories a day from kids' diets could start to level out the steep rise in childhood obesity. That's equivalent to less than half a can of most non-diet sodas.
-Katherine Harmon
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Kids Gulp Seven Trillion Calories Per Year
Click here to listen to this podcast
Kids from the ages of 2 to 19, consume about 7 trillion calories in sugar-sweetened beverages per year, according to Steve Gortmaker of the Harvard School of Public Health. He spoke at the Obesity Society Annual Scientific Meeting in San Antonio on September 23rd. Seven trillion is a lot of calories in sugar-sweetened beverages. At, for example, 50 cents per can, it's about $24 billion a year.
All of those dollars and sugary calories are stoking the childhood obesity epidemic. Currently, in the U.S., about 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese-that's more than 12.5 million kids. And new research in the British Medical Journal suggests that obese children will have much higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease as adults. [Claire Friedemann, et al, Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Healthy Children And Its Association With Body Mass Index: Systematic review and meta-analysis] Even as kids, their hearts are changing shape to look like those of adults at risk for heart disease.
But the good news is that simply cutting out an average of 64 calories a day from kids' diets could start to level out the steep rise in childhood obesity. That's equivalent to less than half a can of most non-diet sodas.
-Katherine Harmon
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by GLAMOROUS FASHION NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Kids from the ages of 2 to 19, consume about 7 trillion calories in sugar-sweetened beverages per year, according to Steve Gortmaker of the Harvard School of Public Health. He spoke at the Obesity Society Annual Scientific Meeting in San Antonio on September 23rd. Seven trillion is a lot of calories in sugar-sweetened beverages. At, for example, 50 cents per can, it's about $24 billion a year.
All of those dollars and sugary calories are stoking the childhood obesity epidemic. Currently, in the U.S., about 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese-that's more than 12.5 million kids. And new research in the British Medical Journal suggests that obese children will have much higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease as adults. [Claire Friedemann, et al, Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Healthy Children And Its Association With Body Mass Index: Systematic review and meta-analysis] Even as kids, their hearts are changing shape to look like those of adults at risk for heart disease.
But the good news is that simply cutting out an average of 64 calories a day from kids' diets could start to level out the steep rise in childhood obesity. That's equivalent to less than half a can of most non-diet sodas.
-Katherine Harmon
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by GLAMOROUS FASHION NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
'Social Aggression' Plagues Most Kids' Shows
Children between the ages of 2 and 11 are viewing social aggression on television at rates far greater than what many parents may realize, new research indicates.
In a study published Thursday in the Journal of Communication, researchers aimed to understand the role media plays in children's psychosocial development. They found that among the 50 most popular television shows for 2 to 11 year olds as ranked by Nielsen Media Research, 92 percent of the programs contained some social aggression, both verbal and non-verbal forms.
'Parents need to be more aware that just because shows do not contain physical aggression, it doesn't mean that there is not anti-social behavior present,' said Nicole Martins, assistant professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University and lead author of the study.
'I'm not saying that parents can't use the television at all,' Martins added, 'but it could be a teaching opportunity to emphasize that some of those mean remarks may cause lasting emotional scars.'
In total, the research team watched 150 television episodes, three of each show, making note of socially aggressive incidents aimed at damaging social status, self-esteem or both. Specific behaviors of friendship manipulation, gossiping and mean facial expressions were examined. They found that such incidents occurred at the rate of 14 times per hour, or one every four minutes.
Furthermore, Martins and her team realized that social aggression was more often committed by an attractive person, presented in a humorous context, and neither punished nor rewarded. While insults and name calling were the two most common verbal incidents witnessed, giggling and looks of disgust were the two most prevalent non-verbal behaviors.
'Of course, we cannot make firm claims about what types of effects exposure to these portrayals may have on young viewers,' the study authors wrote. That would require further study.
Rahil Briggs, assistant professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and a child development specialist, recommended that young children view television shows with their parents so that they can interpret the acceptability of what is being seen rather than being passive recipients.
'Being able to talk about what you see is a key piece,' Briggs said. 'In society, we have become more and more aware of the importance of bullying, and it's going to become increasingly necessary to understand the early building blocks of social aggression that may lead to this.'
Martins and her co-researcher Barbara Wilson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign identified only two other previous studies that have explored social aggression in children's programming. Collectively, this former work included a smaller number of shows studied, review of British shows that may not be applicable to U.S. audiences, and programming that focused on pre-teens and teens, rather than small children.
What sets this analysis apart is the breadth and number of shows included in the study, its attempt to understand the context in which social aggression is portrayed, and its emphasis on young children.
'Television is quite persuasive,' Briggs said. 'I think it's helpful [to know], especially for parents who have long been aware of and concerned of implications of physical aggression on television, that social aggression is also quite prevalent.'
Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of the child and adolescent psychiatry residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital, emphasized the urgent need for additional research in the area.
'We need more research on the impact of media on kids on all ages -- violent, sexual, and socially aggressive media,' Beresin said. 'What are the consequences? Which kids are vulnerable?'
Beresin added, 'Most kids are not going to become violent or socially inappropriate or aggressive based on media, but some percent will. But we don't know what percent will. And we don't know how young this starts.'
Martins and her team made the case that parents need to be aware that perpetrators of social aggression may be potent role models for their children and that it may encourage unwanted behaviors in childhood.
Martins, however, hoped her research would increase awareness of the effects of social aggression not just for parents but also among television producers.
'Maybe this will encourage the industry to be more responsible in their portrayals,' she said. 'Perhaps they can make these scenes a lot less funny or associate pain or consequences with these remarks, instead of the way it is portrayed now -- because it may encourage children to be cruel to one another.'
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In a study published Thursday in the Journal of Communication, researchers aimed to understand the role media plays in children's psychosocial development. They found that among the 50 most popular television shows for 2 to 11 year olds as ranked by Nielsen Media Research, 92 percent of the programs contained some social aggression, both verbal and non-verbal forms.
'Parents need to be more aware that just because shows do not contain physical aggression, it doesn't mean that there is not anti-social behavior present,' said Nicole Martins, assistant professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University and lead author of the study.
'I'm not saying that parents can't use the television at all,' Martins added, 'but it could be a teaching opportunity to emphasize that some of those mean remarks may cause lasting emotional scars.'
In total, the research team watched 150 television episodes, three of each show, making note of socially aggressive incidents aimed at damaging social status, self-esteem or both. Specific behaviors of friendship manipulation, gossiping and mean facial expressions were examined. They found that such incidents occurred at the rate of 14 times per hour, or one every four minutes.
Furthermore, Martins and her team realized that social aggression was more often committed by an attractive person, presented in a humorous context, and neither punished nor rewarded. While insults and name calling were the two most common verbal incidents witnessed, giggling and looks of disgust were the two most prevalent non-verbal behaviors.
'Of course, we cannot make firm claims about what types of effects exposure to these portrayals may have on young viewers,' the study authors wrote. That would require further study.
Rahil Briggs, assistant professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and a child development specialist, recommended that young children view television shows with their parents so that they can interpret the acceptability of what is being seen rather than being passive recipients.
'Being able to talk about what you see is a key piece,' Briggs said. 'In society, we have become more and more aware of the importance of bullying, and it's going to become increasingly necessary to understand the early building blocks of social aggression that may lead to this.'
Martins and her co-researcher Barbara Wilson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign identified only two other previous studies that have explored social aggression in children's programming. Collectively, this former work included a smaller number of shows studied, review of British shows that may not be applicable to U.S. audiences, and programming that focused on pre-teens and teens, rather than small children.
What sets this analysis apart is the breadth and number of shows included in the study, its attempt to understand the context in which social aggression is portrayed, and its emphasis on young children.
'Television is quite persuasive,' Briggs said. 'I think it's helpful [to know], especially for parents who have long been aware of and concerned of implications of physical aggression on television, that social aggression is also quite prevalent.'
Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of the child and adolescent psychiatry residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital, emphasized the urgent need for additional research in the area.
'We need more research on the impact of media on kids on all ages -- violent, sexual, and socially aggressive media,' Beresin said. 'What are the consequences? Which kids are vulnerable?'
Beresin added, 'Most kids are not going to become violent or socially inappropriate or aggressive based on media, but some percent will. But we don't know what percent will. And we don't know how young this starts.'
Martins and her team made the case that parents need to be aware that perpetrators of social aggression may be potent role models for their children and that it may encourage unwanted behaviors in childhood.
Martins, however, hoped her research would increase awareness of the effects of social aggression not just for parents but also among television producers.
'Maybe this will encourage the industry to be more responsible in their portrayals,' she said. 'Perhaps they can make these scenes a lot less funny or associate pain or consequences with these remarks, instead of the way it is portrayed now -- because it may encourage children to be cruel to one another.'
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Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Obese Kids as Young as 6 at Risk of Heart Issues
Obese kids -- even as early as age 6 -- can start showing changes to their heart muscles that could lead to problems later, a new review of previously published studies shows. And some obese kids had elevated blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar at age 5.
This international study, published in the journal BMJ, combined the results of 63 studies on nearly 50,000 school-aged kids from 23 countries, making it one of the largest reviews of its kind to date. The researchers compared the data linking obesity in kids and risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
What they found was alarming. It gives obese kids a head start on developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes, said the lead study author, Claire Friedemann, a doctoral student in the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
The authors estimated that if obese kids continued to have high blood pressure as adults, their risk for heart attack and stroke would be 30 to 40 percent higher than that of their normal-weight peers.
Worldwide, emergency rooms are already starting to see patients with heart attacks and strokes at younger ages, said Dr. Richard J. Deckelbaum, professor of nutrition, pediatrics, and epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, who was not involved in the study.
'It's really not just something that will go away,' he said. 'People need to be aware that overweight kids are really going into adulthood with increased risks.'
The review showed that obese kids had thicker heart muscles compared to normal-weight kids, even after adjusting for height. That was startling to some experts. Thicker heart muscles usually are linked to long-standing high blood pressure, said Dr. Robert M. Campbell, a pediatric cardiologist and chief of Cardiac Services at Children's Sibley Heart Center in Atlanta, Ga., who was not involved in the study. If severe high blood pressure goes untreated for too long in adults, he said, you can end up with thicker heart muscle that doesn't work properly.
Whether the thicker heart muscle found in these kids would eventually threaten their health, or if it is simply a marker for high blood pressure, remains unclear. However, the fact that this thickened heart muscle is being found in these young patients in the first place is clearly a problem, Campbell said.
The study authors cautioned that just because someone has these risk factors as a kid, that is no guarantee that he or she will develop diseases like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes as an adult. Still, these combined results based on many studies should not be ignored, Campbell said.
'I think there's a call for us to pay attention,' he said. 'Let's accelerate the conversation and get serious about this.'
Fortunately, despite these sobering findings, Friedemann emphasized that all of the disease risk factors in this review can be prevented and reversed. She recommended targeting education efforts at an early age to teach children to assume responsibility for their own health to remain disease-free in the future.
'When you start healthy habits as a child,' she said, 'those habits are much easier to carry through to adulthood.'
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This international study, published in the journal BMJ, combined the results of 63 studies on nearly 50,000 school-aged kids from 23 countries, making it one of the largest reviews of its kind to date. The researchers compared the data linking obesity in kids and risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
What they found was alarming. It gives obese kids a head start on developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes, said the lead study author, Claire Friedemann, a doctoral student in the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
The authors estimated that if obese kids continued to have high blood pressure as adults, their risk for heart attack and stroke would be 30 to 40 percent higher than that of their normal-weight peers.
Worldwide, emergency rooms are already starting to see patients with heart attacks and strokes at younger ages, said Dr. Richard J. Deckelbaum, professor of nutrition, pediatrics, and epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, who was not involved in the study.
'It's really not just something that will go away,' he said. 'People need to be aware that overweight kids are really going into adulthood with increased risks.'
The review showed that obese kids had thicker heart muscles compared to normal-weight kids, even after adjusting for height. That was startling to some experts. Thicker heart muscles usually are linked to long-standing high blood pressure, said Dr. Robert M. Campbell, a pediatric cardiologist and chief of Cardiac Services at Children's Sibley Heart Center in Atlanta, Ga., who was not involved in the study. If severe high blood pressure goes untreated for too long in adults, he said, you can end up with thicker heart muscle that doesn't work properly.
Whether the thicker heart muscle found in these kids would eventually threaten their health, or if it is simply a marker for high blood pressure, remains unclear. However, the fact that this thickened heart muscle is being found in these young patients in the first place is clearly a problem, Campbell said.
The study authors cautioned that just because someone has these risk factors as a kid, that is no guarantee that he or she will develop diseases like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes as an adult. Still, these combined results based on many studies should not be ignored, Campbell said.
'I think there's a call for us to pay attention,' he said. 'Let's accelerate the conversation and get serious about this.'
Fortunately, despite these sobering findings, Friedemann emphasized that all of the disease risk factors in this review can be prevented and reversed. She recommended targeting education efforts at an early age to teach children to assume responsibility for their own health to remain disease-free in the future.
'When you start healthy habits as a child,' she said, 'those habits are much easier to carry through to adulthood.'
Also Read
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Xbox games get kids moving, but benefits unclear
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids burned more calories while playing dance and boxing video games than they did during a sedentary car racing game, in a new UK study.
Researchers said it's not surprising children would get their body working harder while playing a game on Kinect for the Xbox 360 that requires being off the couch and jumping around.
But it's still not clear whether that translates to real weight and health differences for youngsters who have those games at home.
'If the kids played the games exactly as they played them in this study and they did that for the amount of time they normally play video games, that could be very beneficial,' said Jacob Barkley, an exercise science researcher from Kent State University in Ohio who wasn't involved in the study.
'I would stop short of saying, 'Well then just buy your kids the Xbox and they'll lose weight,'' he told Reuters Health.
That's because kids may opt for the less-intensive games on the system, or they may substitute outdoor physical activity for video gaming, he added.
The new study involved 18 kids aged 11 to 15. Researchers from the University of Chester had the kids play three different Kinect games for 15 minutes each: Project Gotham Racing 4 (a sedentary game), Dance Central and Kinect Sports Boxing. Kids wore a heart rate monitor as well as a facemask measuring oxygen consumption so the researchers could calculate how many calories they were burning.
Heart rate and energy expenditure were both higher with the active games than the sedentary comparison, Michael Morris and his colleagues reported in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
On average, kids burned calories at a rate of 90 per hour playing the racing game, 180 per hour during Dance Central and 264 per hour while virtual boxing.
That's a higher expenditure than has been shown with other active gaming systems, according to Barkley - possibly because Kinect doesn't use a controller, so it's harder for kids to sit down while playing.
Calorie expenditure during the boxing game was comparable to what a person would burn while playing volleyball or table tennis, according to Morris.
'Moderate activity is obviously very good for you,' he told Reuters Health. But, he added, this study just provides a 'snapshot' into possible benefits from the games.
Kinect runs for $100 to $200 and the games can be bought for about $20 each.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend kids and teens get at least one hour of physical activity each day. That can include brisk walking or running, gymnastics or team sports like basketball.
'I don't think the (Kinect) games are a good substitute for traditional physical activity,' Barkley said. 'I do think the games are a good option relative to a sedentary game.'
Morris said he and his colleagues are now working on a longer-term study in which they give kids the games at home and track their weight and fitness for a year to see if active gaming leads to any health changes.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VDdgra Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, online September 24, 2012.
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Researchers said it's not surprising children would get their body working harder while playing a game on Kinect for the Xbox 360 that requires being off the couch and jumping around.
But it's still not clear whether that translates to real weight and health differences for youngsters who have those games at home.
'If the kids played the games exactly as they played them in this study and they did that for the amount of time they normally play video games, that could be very beneficial,' said Jacob Barkley, an exercise science researcher from Kent State University in Ohio who wasn't involved in the study.
'I would stop short of saying, 'Well then just buy your kids the Xbox and they'll lose weight,'' he told Reuters Health.
That's because kids may opt for the less-intensive games on the system, or they may substitute outdoor physical activity for video gaming, he added.
The new study involved 18 kids aged 11 to 15. Researchers from the University of Chester had the kids play three different Kinect games for 15 minutes each: Project Gotham Racing 4 (a sedentary game), Dance Central and Kinect Sports Boxing. Kids wore a heart rate monitor as well as a facemask measuring oxygen consumption so the researchers could calculate how many calories they were burning.
Heart rate and energy expenditure were both higher with the active games than the sedentary comparison, Michael Morris and his colleagues reported in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
On average, kids burned calories at a rate of 90 per hour playing the racing game, 180 per hour during Dance Central and 264 per hour while virtual boxing.
That's a higher expenditure than has been shown with other active gaming systems, according to Barkley - possibly because Kinect doesn't use a controller, so it's harder for kids to sit down while playing.
Calorie expenditure during the boxing game was comparable to what a person would burn while playing volleyball or table tennis, according to Morris.
'Moderate activity is obviously very good for you,' he told Reuters Health. But, he added, this study just provides a 'snapshot' into possible benefits from the games.
Kinect runs for $100 to $200 and the games can be bought for about $20 each.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend kids and teens get at least one hour of physical activity each day. That can include brisk walking or running, gymnastics or team sports like basketball.
'I don't think the (Kinect) games are a good substitute for traditional physical activity,' Barkley said. 'I do think the games are a good option relative to a sedentary game.'
Morris said he and his colleagues are now working on a longer-term study in which they give kids the games at home and track their weight and fitness for a year to see if active gaming leads to any health changes.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VDdgra Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, online September 24, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by FREE ROMANTIC DATING SITE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Kids' prescriptions often going unfilled
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A large share of medication prescriptions to children on Medicaid may go unfilled, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that of nearly 17,000 prescriptions made to kids at two urban clinics, 22 percent were never filled. That's similar to what's been seen in studies of adults - among whom anywhere from 16 percent to 24 percent of prescriptions go unfilled.
'There are lots of studies that show that if you're not adherent to your medication, you'll have worse health outcomes,' said lead researcher Dr. Rachael Zweigoron, of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
That goes for adults, but also for kids, according to Zweigoron. It's not clear from the study why more than one-fifth of prescriptions went unfilled. But parents were more likely to pick up certain medications than others.
Antibiotics and other drugs for infections were filled 91 percent of the time, versus 65 percent of prescriptions for vitamins and minerals, for example.
'When your child has an ear infection and is in pain, you have much more of a sense of urgency,' Zweigoron said. But if a doctor recommends a vitamin D or iron supplement, she added, parents might not see the immediate need.
That raises the question of whether parents always know why a pediatrician has prescribed a medication or supplement. 'Are we, as pediatricians, doing a good enough job of explaining the importance to parents?' Zweigoron said.
The findings, which appear in the journal Pediatrics, are based on 4,833 kids seen over two years at two clinics connected to Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
All of the children were on Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor. So it's not clear if the findings would be the same for U.S. kids with private insurance.
But Zweigoron said that unfilled prescriptions are likely a problem, to some degree, among families on private insurance, too. Her team did find that electronic prescriptions were almost 50 percent more likely to be filled than old-fashioned paper ones.
The reason is unknown, but Zweigoron speculated that convenience is a big factor. The finding is also in line with other studies showing that adults are more likely to fill their own prescriptions when they're sent to pharmacies electronically.
Zweigoron said more research is needed to weed out the reasons that parents often leave kids' prescriptions unfilled. For now, she suggested that if parents have questions about a medication, including worries about side effects, they speak up.
'If you're not sure why the doctor's prescribing something, you should feel empowered to ask questions,' Zweigoron said.
'And if for some reason they're having trouble getting the medication,' she added, '(parents) should bring that up, too.'
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QvDRFS Pediatrics, online September 24, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by MOVIE CRITIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Researchers found that of nearly 17,000 prescriptions made to kids at two urban clinics, 22 percent were never filled. That's similar to what's been seen in studies of adults - among whom anywhere from 16 percent to 24 percent of prescriptions go unfilled.
'There are lots of studies that show that if you're not adherent to your medication, you'll have worse health outcomes,' said lead researcher Dr. Rachael Zweigoron, of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
That goes for adults, but also for kids, according to Zweigoron. It's not clear from the study why more than one-fifth of prescriptions went unfilled. But parents were more likely to pick up certain medications than others.
Antibiotics and other drugs for infections were filled 91 percent of the time, versus 65 percent of prescriptions for vitamins and minerals, for example.
'When your child has an ear infection and is in pain, you have much more of a sense of urgency,' Zweigoron said. But if a doctor recommends a vitamin D or iron supplement, she added, parents might not see the immediate need.
That raises the question of whether parents always know why a pediatrician has prescribed a medication or supplement. 'Are we, as pediatricians, doing a good enough job of explaining the importance to parents?' Zweigoron said.
The findings, which appear in the journal Pediatrics, are based on 4,833 kids seen over two years at two clinics connected to Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
All of the children were on Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor. So it's not clear if the findings would be the same for U.S. kids with private insurance.
But Zweigoron said that unfilled prescriptions are likely a problem, to some degree, among families on private insurance, too. Her team did find that electronic prescriptions were almost 50 percent more likely to be filled than old-fashioned paper ones.
The reason is unknown, but Zweigoron speculated that convenience is a big factor. The finding is also in line with other studies showing that adults are more likely to fill their own prescriptions when they're sent to pharmacies electronically.
Zweigoron said more research is needed to weed out the reasons that parents often leave kids' prescriptions unfilled. For now, she suggested that if parents have questions about a medication, including worries about side effects, they speak up.
'If you're not sure why the doctor's prescribing something, you should feel empowered to ask questions,' Zweigoron said.
'And if for some reason they're having trouble getting the medication,' she added, '(parents) should bring that up, too.'
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QvDRFS Pediatrics, online September 24, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by MOVIE CRITIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Monday, September 24, 2012
My Story: Note to Parents of Sick Kids-Hang in There
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Friday, September 21, 2012
White kids at higher fracture risk than others
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Mirroring the results of research in adults, a new study shows that white children are at a higher risk of breaking a bone than children of other races.
The researchers say that genetics might have something to do with the differences, but it's also possible that environmental factors - such as participation in sports - could play a role.
'What looks like a racial disparity may actually reflect a difference in exposure to physical activities with higher risk for fractures, such as competitive, organized sports,' said Dr. Leticia Manning Ryan, a professor at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who did not participate in the research.
Earlier studies have shown that white women are more likely to suffer a fracture than black women (see Reuters Health report of May 3, 2005).
Tishya Wren, the lead author of the study and professor at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said her study stemmed from a larger research program looking at children's bone health.
The study included 1,470 girls and boys aged six to 17 years old, whose bone density and broken bones were tracked for six years.
'When I separated our data by race...we noticed this very interesting relationship, which hasn't really been recognized (in children) before,' Wren said.
She and her colleagues found that 22 percent of the white kids had had a fracture, while only 12 percent of the other children had experienced a fracture.
White boys appeared to be the most at risk. By the end of the study, about 28 percent had had a fracture, compared to about 18 percent of white girls, 12 percent of non-white boys and six percent of non-white girls.
Most of the fractures occurred while the kids were playing sports, and Wren's group found that lower body fat and more participation in sports were tied to an increased risk of fracture.
For instance, playing sports more than four days per week was tied to a 35 percent increased risk of having a fracture, the group reports in The Journal of Pediatrics.
After the researchers took into account risk factors, such as how many sports the kids played and their body type, they still found that white children had about a two-fold risk of fracturing a bone.
'We think some of it must be related to a genetic type of effect,' Wren told Reuters Health. 'We also think there might be something inherent in the bone itself that's causing it to be more susceptible to fracture.'
SOCIOECONOMICS MAY PLAY A ROLE
Still, Ryan noted, it's possible that the study didn't fully capture how much exposure kids had to high-risk activities, because the researchers didn't examine the children's socioeconomic status.
Ryan said other studies have shown that more children from wealthier families are more likely to play organized sports.
'I would use caution in definitively stating that these findings reflect a racial disparity without incorporating socioeconomic status,' she told Reuters Health.
Wren said that until the contributors to the increased risk of broken bones are nailed down, it is important to use the findings to keep parents and doctors aware of the risks.
She said she would not tell parents to avoid sports to reduce kids' risks, because other studies have found that kids with higher body mass and less dense bone - signs indicative of being inactive - are at a greater risk of having a fracture from low-impact injuries.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VgWgH8 The Journal of Pediatrics, online September 12, 2012.
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The researchers say that genetics might have something to do with the differences, but it's also possible that environmental factors - such as participation in sports - could play a role.
'What looks like a racial disparity may actually reflect a difference in exposure to physical activities with higher risk for fractures, such as competitive, organized sports,' said Dr. Leticia Manning Ryan, a professor at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who did not participate in the research.
Earlier studies have shown that white women are more likely to suffer a fracture than black women (see Reuters Health report of May 3, 2005).
Tishya Wren, the lead author of the study and professor at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said her study stemmed from a larger research program looking at children's bone health.
The study included 1,470 girls and boys aged six to 17 years old, whose bone density and broken bones were tracked for six years.
'When I separated our data by race...we noticed this very interesting relationship, which hasn't really been recognized (in children) before,' Wren said.
She and her colleagues found that 22 percent of the white kids had had a fracture, while only 12 percent of the other children had experienced a fracture.
White boys appeared to be the most at risk. By the end of the study, about 28 percent had had a fracture, compared to about 18 percent of white girls, 12 percent of non-white boys and six percent of non-white girls.
Most of the fractures occurred while the kids were playing sports, and Wren's group found that lower body fat and more participation in sports were tied to an increased risk of fracture.
For instance, playing sports more than four days per week was tied to a 35 percent increased risk of having a fracture, the group reports in The Journal of Pediatrics.
After the researchers took into account risk factors, such as how many sports the kids played and their body type, they still found that white children had about a two-fold risk of fracturing a bone.
'We think some of it must be related to a genetic type of effect,' Wren told Reuters Health. 'We also think there might be something inherent in the bone itself that's causing it to be more susceptible to fracture.'
SOCIOECONOMICS MAY PLAY A ROLE
Still, Ryan noted, it's possible that the study didn't fully capture how much exposure kids had to high-risk activities, because the researchers didn't examine the children's socioeconomic status.
Ryan said other studies have shown that more children from wealthier families are more likely to play organized sports.
'I would use caution in definitively stating that these findings reflect a racial disparity without incorporating socioeconomic status,' she told Reuters Health.
Wren said that until the contributors to the increased risk of broken bones are nailed down, it is important to use the findings to keep parents and doctors aware of the risks.
She said she would not tell parents to avoid sports to reduce kids' risks, because other studies have found that kids with higher body mass and less dense bone - signs indicative of being inactive - are at a greater risk of having a fracture from low-impact injuries.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VgWgH8 The Journal of Pediatrics, online September 12, 2012.
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Thursday, September 20, 2012
Race doesn't affect injury outcomes in kids
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - White, black and Hispanic children who got seriously injured were equally likely to survive their hospital stay in a new study - despite past evidence of racial disparities for injured adults and sometimes children as well.
The findings, from David Chang and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, are based on 12 years of hospital data from their state, covering 47,000 injured kids and teens.
About one percent of all young people died from their injuries - a number that was similar across racial and ethnic groups.
'We suspect that there's something about the system, and it could be the diversity or it could be the health care system in California, where there's less of a difference between races than you see in different parts of the country,' Chang told Reuters Health.
California's ethnic diversity may allow for more 'culturally competent care' that ultimately improves outcomes for minority patients, he and his colleagues said.
According to findings they published in the Archives of Surgery, falls, car crashes and gun accidents were among the causes of kids' injuries - with guns injuring a disproportionate number of black kids and falls happening more often in Asians.
Deaths originally seemed to be slightly less common in white kids than in blacks and Hispanics, but those differences disappeared when the researchers accounted for age, mechanism of injury and an estimate of injury severity.
In that analysis, Asian children were less likely to die from injuries than youths of other races and ethnicities.
Past research has found racial disparities in many areas of health care, including in treatment outcomes for adults who are sent to the hospital with a serious injury.
Some experts have also seen that pattern in younger patients, including Dr. Richard Falcone, head of trauma services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the new study.
'Even though they all come here so they all have access to the same trauma center, we do see some differences in outcomes, probably due to insurance status in the end,' he said.
Kids who don't have health insurance before arriving at the hospital may have gone a longer time without seeing a pediatrician for a check-up, or they may have more social stressors, he said. Both of those could affect how well they respond to treatment.
Still, Chang and his colleagues said, insurance status tends to be less of an issue in children because of the greater number of government-run programs available. And children wouldn't yet have developed the type of chronic health problems that are more common in minorities and the poor than the white and well off.
Falcone agreed with Chang that California's diversity could explain some of the differences between research conducted there and in different parts of the country.
'There are studies out there showing the more culturally competent, or the more diverse your community, the less likely you are to see some of these disparities,' he told Reuters Health.
Falcone said future studies could try to tease apart how much diversity influences differences in outcomes by race, and what else is different between more and less diverse states that could affect minority health.
Until then, Chang added, all medical schools can teach cultural competency - whether or not they're in diverse states.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/R2Va0C Archives of Surgery, online September 17, 2012.
This article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE.
The findings, from David Chang and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, are based on 12 years of hospital data from their state, covering 47,000 injured kids and teens.
About one percent of all young people died from their injuries - a number that was similar across racial and ethnic groups.
'We suspect that there's something about the system, and it could be the diversity or it could be the health care system in California, where there's less of a difference between races than you see in different parts of the country,' Chang told Reuters Health.
California's ethnic diversity may allow for more 'culturally competent care' that ultimately improves outcomes for minority patients, he and his colleagues said.
According to findings they published in the Archives of Surgery, falls, car crashes and gun accidents were among the causes of kids' injuries - with guns injuring a disproportionate number of black kids and falls happening more often in Asians.
Deaths originally seemed to be slightly less common in white kids than in blacks and Hispanics, but those differences disappeared when the researchers accounted for age, mechanism of injury and an estimate of injury severity.
In that analysis, Asian children were less likely to die from injuries than youths of other races and ethnicities.
Past research has found racial disparities in many areas of health care, including in treatment outcomes for adults who are sent to the hospital with a serious injury.
Some experts have also seen that pattern in younger patients, including Dr. Richard Falcone, head of trauma services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the new study.
'Even though they all come here so they all have access to the same trauma center, we do see some differences in outcomes, probably due to insurance status in the end,' he said.
Kids who don't have health insurance before arriving at the hospital may have gone a longer time without seeing a pediatrician for a check-up, or they may have more social stressors, he said. Both of those could affect how well they respond to treatment.
Still, Chang and his colleagues said, insurance status tends to be less of an issue in children because of the greater number of government-run programs available. And children wouldn't yet have developed the type of chronic health problems that are more common in minorities and the poor than the white and well off.
Falcone agreed with Chang that California's diversity could explain some of the differences between research conducted there and in different parts of the country.
'There are studies out there showing the more culturally competent, or the more diverse your community, the less likely you are to see some of these disparities,' he told Reuters Health.
Falcone said future studies could try to tease apart how much diversity influences differences in outcomes by race, and what else is different between more and less diverse states that could affect minority health.
Until then, Chang added, all medical schools can teach cultural competency - whether or not they're in diverse states.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/R2Va0C Archives of Surgery, online September 17, 2012.
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Community program may help some obese kids
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Heavy kids who took part in a program hosted at community YMCAs were able keep off some extra weight and improved their quality of life, including relationships with peers and functioning at school.
The six-month program - covering diet, physical activity and 'screen time' - was a scaled-down version of intensive, clinic-based treatments that have been shown to help obese kids lose weight but at a steep price.
Researchers hope making such interventions cheaper and more convenient means many more families could benefit. But it's been unclear if a less-intensive program would still be effective at helping kids and their families make significant lifestyle changes.
'Despite the high prevalence of childhood obesity, if you're a parent of an obese child, the available treatment programs are few and far between,' said Gary Foster, from Temple University in Philadelphia.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 17 percent of U.S. kids and teens are now obese. Heavy kids are more likely to become heavy adults, which puts them at risk for diabetes, heart disease and a range of other weight-related conditions.
Obesity also disproportionately affects minority children and those from lower-income families - another reason why finding low-cost treatments is a priority.
Foster led the new study along with YMCA of Greater Providence, Rhode Island, with funding from United Health Group. The 155 participants were kids ages six to 17, all in the 85th percentile or higher for body size.
Together with their parents, kids went to 12 face-to-face sessions at YMCAs, which included weigh-ins and discussions on monitoring food and exercise and setting weight and behavior goals. Parents led another 12 sessions for their kids at home with the help of worksheets provided by the YMCA and phone check-ins.
Kids and teens got points for achieving their goals during the study, which they could then exchange for small prizes, such as a Frisbee.
The majority of kids and their parents - 84 percent - stuck it out through the six-month program.
Though kids and teens were still growing and on average gained both height and weight, they tended to inch closer to normal weight for their age during the program. For example, 92 percent qualified as obese at the start of the study, which dropped to 82 percent by six months out.
Kids also rated their quality of life as higher after the program on physical, emotional, social and school-related scales. Before starting the sessions, their health-related quality of life was comparable to kids with cancer, the researchers reported this week in Pediatrics.
Foster pointed out that the program didn't use specialized experts such as child psychologists and that the YMCA group leaders hadn't had any prior experience treating childhood obesity. That's what makes the findings especially promising, he told Reuters Health.
'We really tried to streamline the program to take the best of what has been shown to be effective,' Foster said.
The next step, he added, will be to see if researchers can tinker with the program further to make it even simpler, so it's more convenient for families and possibly cheaper to administer.
Two of the researchers are employed by United Health Group and two others, including Foster, are consultants to the health care and insurance company.
One limitation with the study, they noted, is they didn't have information on kids' weight after six months. So they can't be sure that any obesity-related program benefits held up over the long run. There also wasn't a group of kids who didn't go through the program for researchers to track as a comparison.
Melissa Kalarchian, a psychologist and obesity researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who wasn't involved in the new study, agreed it begs a more systematic follow-up to explore those issues.
She told Reuters Health the current findings are 'exciting' because they show taking evidence-based treatment components to the community can work.
'I think it's promising as being among the first studies to show that treatments that have been effective in a research setting can be translated into a real-world setting like the Y,' Kalarchian said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QENfoo Pediatrics, online September 17, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The six-month program - covering diet, physical activity and 'screen time' - was a scaled-down version of intensive, clinic-based treatments that have been shown to help obese kids lose weight but at a steep price.
Researchers hope making such interventions cheaper and more convenient means many more families could benefit. But it's been unclear if a less-intensive program would still be effective at helping kids and their families make significant lifestyle changes.
'Despite the high prevalence of childhood obesity, if you're a parent of an obese child, the available treatment programs are few and far between,' said Gary Foster, from Temple University in Philadelphia.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 17 percent of U.S. kids and teens are now obese. Heavy kids are more likely to become heavy adults, which puts them at risk for diabetes, heart disease and a range of other weight-related conditions.
Obesity also disproportionately affects minority children and those from lower-income families - another reason why finding low-cost treatments is a priority.
Foster led the new study along with YMCA of Greater Providence, Rhode Island, with funding from United Health Group. The 155 participants were kids ages six to 17, all in the 85th percentile or higher for body size.
Together with their parents, kids went to 12 face-to-face sessions at YMCAs, which included weigh-ins and discussions on monitoring food and exercise and setting weight and behavior goals. Parents led another 12 sessions for their kids at home with the help of worksheets provided by the YMCA and phone check-ins.
Kids and teens got points for achieving their goals during the study, which they could then exchange for small prizes, such as a Frisbee.
The majority of kids and their parents - 84 percent - stuck it out through the six-month program.
Though kids and teens were still growing and on average gained both height and weight, they tended to inch closer to normal weight for their age during the program. For example, 92 percent qualified as obese at the start of the study, which dropped to 82 percent by six months out.
Kids also rated their quality of life as higher after the program on physical, emotional, social and school-related scales. Before starting the sessions, their health-related quality of life was comparable to kids with cancer, the researchers reported this week in Pediatrics.
Foster pointed out that the program didn't use specialized experts such as child psychologists and that the YMCA group leaders hadn't had any prior experience treating childhood obesity. That's what makes the findings especially promising, he told Reuters Health.
'We really tried to streamline the program to take the best of what has been shown to be effective,' Foster said.
The next step, he added, will be to see if researchers can tinker with the program further to make it even simpler, so it's more convenient for families and possibly cheaper to administer.
Two of the researchers are employed by United Health Group and two others, including Foster, are consultants to the health care and insurance company.
One limitation with the study, they noted, is they didn't have information on kids' weight after six months. So they can't be sure that any obesity-related program benefits held up over the long run. There also wasn't a group of kids who didn't go through the program for researchers to track as a comparison.
Melissa Kalarchian, a psychologist and obesity researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who wasn't involved in the new study, agreed it begs a more systematic follow-up to explore those issues.
She told Reuters Health the current findings are 'exciting' because they show taking evidence-based treatment components to the community can work.
'I think it's promising as being among the first studies to show that treatments that have been effective in a research setting can be translated into a real-world setting like the Y,' Kalarchian said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QENfoo Pediatrics, online September 17, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
China's Bright Dairy recalls cheese product for babies: paper
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's Bright Dairy & Food Co Ltd has been ordered by the Shanghai government to recall a cheese product for babies as it includes an additive banned for years, a Shanghai government newspaper said on Thursday.
This is Bright Dairy's second scandal in a fortnight after it had to recall batches of sour milk last week. Its shares were trading down 0.5 percent, and have lost 9 percent since the sour milk recall.
China's milk industry is struggling to restore consumer confidence after a series of scandals, the worst of which was in 2008 when milk and infant formula laced with the industrial chemical melamine killed at least six children and made nearly 300,000 ill.
The Shanghai Daily said the dairy firm will face penalties for changing its formula without authorization and that all supermarkets and convenience stores in the city have been told to remove the cheese product from their shelves.
A spokesman for Bright Dairy and representatives for the Shanghai government were not immediately available for comment.
The additive is not allowed for babies as it is a newly extracted compound that may have unknown effects on infants, the report added.
The paper quoted Bright Dairy as saying that the ingredient was added before the ministry adopted new regulations in 2009 and that the product is not meant to be only for babies despite the packaging. The company plans to put the product on the market again in October with clearer labelling, the report said.
(Reporting by Carrie Ho, David Lin and Melanie Lee; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Edwina Gibbs)
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This is Bright Dairy's second scandal in a fortnight after it had to recall batches of sour milk last week. Its shares were trading down 0.5 percent, and have lost 9 percent since the sour milk recall.
China's milk industry is struggling to restore consumer confidence after a series of scandals, the worst of which was in 2008 when milk and infant formula laced with the industrial chemical melamine killed at least six children and made nearly 300,000 ill.
The Shanghai Daily said the dairy firm will face penalties for changing its formula without authorization and that all supermarkets and convenience stores in the city have been told to remove the cheese product from their shelves.
A spokesman for Bright Dairy and representatives for the Shanghai government were not immediately available for comment.
The additive is not allowed for babies as it is a newly extracted compound that may have unknown effects on infants, the report added.
The paper quoted Bright Dairy as saying that the ingredient was added before the ministry adopted new regulations in 2009 and that the product is not meant to be only for babies despite the packaging. The company plans to put the product on the market again in October with clearer labelling, the report said.
(Reporting by Carrie Ho, David Lin and Melanie Lee; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Edwina Gibbs)
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
FDA To Parents: Don't Feed Your Child Simply Thick
Photo credit: Amazon
Simply Thick, a product given to infants who have difficulty swallowing, may increase their risk of developing a life-threatening illness, the FDA warned yesterday.
According to the agency, 22 infants developed necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) after being fed baby formula or breast milk mixed with Simply Thick. Seven of them died.
NEC is a disease that causes severe inflammatory changes in the intestine. It most often strikes infants born prematurely, and all but one of the babies who fell ill after being fed Simply Thick were premature. But the FDA warned that any infant given Simply Thick was at risk. It extended previous warnings to include all babies because it believes parents, caregivers and doctors should consider this information before giving the thickener to babies of any age.
So what does this mean for parents who have given their child Simply Thick?
Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician in Austin, Texas, and co-author of Baby 411 said that if you're currently using the product to thicken your baby's breast milk or formula, discontinue use immediately and call your pediatrician. Be on the lookout for NEC symptoms, which include a bloated stomach, greenish vomit, bloody stools and lack of interest in feeding.
'If you've already stopped using the product for a while and your baby seems fine, there's no need to worry,' Brown said.
Brown said that if reflux and spitting up continues to be an issue, parents do have other options. 'They can try doing smaller, more frequent feedings; keeping infants upright for at least 20 minutes after eating; and placing them at a 30 percent incline for sleeping,' she said. 'In severe cases, your pediatrician may prescribe medication to help treat.'
Formula-fed babies may find some relief with products that have rice starch added to their recipe. But adding rice cereal to breast milk won't work because it breaks down and thins out too quickly, Brown said.
Why Simply Thick is linked to NEC is unclear. For more information and updates to the FDA warning, visit the agency's MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program website.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Twenty Minutes of Exercise Cuts Kids' Diabetes Risk
Just 20 minutes of exercise a day can protect kids from diabetes, according to a new study.
This clinical trial, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, randomly assigned 222 overweight, inactive kids to one of three activity groups for 13 weeks.
The first two groups underwent 20 or 40 minutes of daily aerobic exercise in an after-school program. The third group went about their usual routines.
The researchers found that 20 minutes of exercise for just a few months was helpful compared to no exercise at all, said the lead author of the study, Catherine L. Davis, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia.
Those kids who were active for just 20 minutes a day were more fit, had less body fat, and had better markers for diabetes risk when compared to kids who weren't active.
The authors also found that health effects of exercise were the same for boys and girls and for different races.
Predictably enough, the study also found that more exercise is better. Kids who exercised longer had even less body fat and better values for markers of diabetes risk.
What was surprising is that these benefits occurred even without changing what kids ate.
'This study helps to isolate the benefit of exercise in cutting down on diabetes risk and obesity in kids,' said study co-author, Dr. B. Adam Dennis, an endocrinology fellow at Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta, Ga.
More research is needed to see if these results last, caution the researchers.
Dr. David L. Katz, editor-in-chief of the journal Childhood Obesity, said the study shows 'even a little bit of physical activity might be the difference between a child developing diabetes or not.' Katz was not involved with the study.
These findings could help policymakers when it comes to redesigning physical activity opportunities at the local, national, and global level.
'I hope these findings will provide an impetus for changes in communities around the U.S. and the rest of the world that will focus attention on children's health,' Davis said. 'This can be done by providing welcoming, safe physical activity programs for children of all skill levels.'
This school-based study suggests that the 'physical' may need to be put back into 'education.' Davis suggested that schools are a natural focus for exercise programs. While the creation of after-school exercise programs might be necessary to ensure 40 minutes of daily exercise, she said, 20 minutes a day of exercise can be achieved during regular school activities, like recess and gym class. She added that exercise is not just useful in cutting back diabetes risk and obesity, but it is also good for kids' brains. She cited a related study that showed that exercise improved cognition and math skills in kids.
Short exercise breaks in the classroom can easily be included during the school day, said Katz, who is also the co-creator of an in-class exercise program that offers online, free resources for educators.
This study had an unusually low drop-out rate -- perhaps because the activities were simple, fun, and appealing to kids of all athletic abilities, Davis said. The researchers also used low-cost prizes to reward kids for effort rather than performance.
'We purposely de-emphasized performance,' said Davis, adding that it didn't really matter if they got the ball in the hoop as long as they achieved their target heart rate.
Their findings have important implications for designing school exercise programs in the future, she said, because many other programs tend to weed out less physically skilled kids and focus on a smaller group of more athletic kids.
One-third of American elementary school kids are overweight or obese, according to 2008 statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Type 2 diabetes is one of the most deadly and devastating consequences of obesity -- hence the importance of finding out how much exercise kids should get in order to prevent it.
Katz said the study shows that when it comes to how much exercise is helpful in cutting diabetes risk, 'some is better none; more is better than some.'
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This clinical trial, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, randomly assigned 222 overweight, inactive kids to one of three activity groups for 13 weeks.
The first two groups underwent 20 or 40 minutes of daily aerobic exercise in an after-school program. The third group went about their usual routines.
The researchers found that 20 minutes of exercise for just a few months was helpful compared to no exercise at all, said the lead author of the study, Catherine L. Davis, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia.
Those kids who were active for just 20 minutes a day were more fit, had less body fat, and had better markers for diabetes risk when compared to kids who weren't active.
The authors also found that health effects of exercise were the same for boys and girls and for different races.
Predictably enough, the study also found that more exercise is better. Kids who exercised longer had even less body fat and better values for markers of diabetes risk.
What was surprising is that these benefits occurred even without changing what kids ate.
'This study helps to isolate the benefit of exercise in cutting down on diabetes risk and obesity in kids,' said study co-author, Dr. B. Adam Dennis, an endocrinology fellow at Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta, Ga.
More research is needed to see if these results last, caution the researchers.
Dr. David L. Katz, editor-in-chief of the journal Childhood Obesity, said the study shows 'even a little bit of physical activity might be the difference between a child developing diabetes or not.' Katz was not involved with the study.
These findings could help policymakers when it comes to redesigning physical activity opportunities at the local, national, and global level.
'I hope these findings will provide an impetus for changes in communities around the U.S. and the rest of the world that will focus attention on children's health,' Davis said. 'This can be done by providing welcoming, safe physical activity programs for children of all skill levels.'
This school-based study suggests that the 'physical' may need to be put back into 'education.' Davis suggested that schools are a natural focus for exercise programs. While the creation of after-school exercise programs might be necessary to ensure 40 minutes of daily exercise, she said, 20 minutes a day of exercise can be achieved during regular school activities, like recess and gym class. She added that exercise is not just useful in cutting back diabetes risk and obesity, but it is also good for kids' brains. She cited a related study that showed that exercise improved cognition and math skills in kids.
Short exercise breaks in the classroom can easily be included during the school day, said Katz, who is also the co-creator of an in-class exercise program that offers online, free resources for educators.
This study had an unusually low drop-out rate -- perhaps because the activities were simple, fun, and appealing to kids of all athletic abilities, Davis said. The researchers also used low-cost prizes to reward kids for effort rather than performance.
'We purposely de-emphasized performance,' said Davis, adding that it didn't really matter if they got the ball in the hoop as long as they achieved their target heart rate.
Their findings have important implications for designing school exercise programs in the future, she said, because many other programs tend to weed out less physically skilled kids and focus on a smaller group of more athletic kids.
One-third of American elementary school kids are overweight or obese, according to 2008 statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Type 2 diabetes is one of the most deadly and devastating consequences of obesity -- hence the importance of finding out how much exercise kids should get in order to prevent it.
Katz said the study shows that when it comes to how much exercise is helpful in cutting diabetes risk, 'some is better none; more is better than some.'
Also Read
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The Good and Bad News on Kids' Fast Food Diets
Remember the Subway commercials starring "The Subway Guy," Jared Fogel, who lost more than 200 pounds by dining on deli sandwiches and baked chips? And how about junk food lover Doug Logeais, who shed pounds on a daily diet of McDonald's food? According to Daily Mail, the 40-year old chose the chain's "healthier" menu items, like the breakfast burrito, grilled chicken snack wrap and salad.
Now there's the latest story of the Virginia woman who lost 76 pounds while dining on Starbucks menu items such as oatmeal, coffee, paninis, and fruit and cheese.
But are these fast food diets sending a message to kids that fast food is healthy?
Here's the bad news:
* A recent report from the Centers of Disease Control found that children in the U.S. eat almost as much salt as adults -- and they have the higher blood pressure to prove it. Children's Hospital at Montefiore nutritionist Lauren Graf said, "Many times the higher intakes of sodium may simply be a marker of a higher intake of fast food and processed foods."
* The Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine recently listed the worst fast food meals for kids, and the results may surprise you. Chick Fil-A's Grilled Nuggets Kids Meal contains the same amount of cholesterol as a Big Mac, while McDonald's Cheeseburger Happy Meal has more sodium than 13 orders of McDonald's kids fries. Burger King's Hamburger Kids Meal (yes, hold the cheese) contains almost as much cholesterol as six slices of pork bacon.
* In an age of high-sugar, caffeinated energy drinks, Taco Bell has found a way to taint an innocent cup of orange juice. Last month, the chain introduced MTN Dew A.M., a breakfast drink blend of Mountain Dew and Tropicana orange juice.
Here's the good news:
* New York Board of Health's newly instated ban on supersize sodas means consumers won't be able to buy a sweetened beverage larger than 16 ounces at the city's restaurants, food carts, fast food restaurants, movie theaters, and stadiums. Although the soda ban faces plenty of opposition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg tweeted, "Six months from today our city will be an even healthier place.It will help save lives."
* McDonald's is set to post calorie information on its menus, according to the Daily Ticker. The chain also announced it would start offering more health-conscious menu items such as an egg white McMuffin, grilled chicken Happy Meals and side items like blueberries and cucumbers.
* Healthy fast food chains may be on the horizon. According to Business Week, former McDonald's exec Mike Roberts plans to open a chain of healthier fast food restaurants in cities like New York and Chicago. The restaurants will feature items like a quinoa crunch wrap.
Victoria Leigh Miller is a freelance writer. She has been writing about parenting topics since 2001.
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Study links BPA, obesity in kids
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids and teens that had higher levels of the chemical bisphenol A in their urine were more likely to be overweight or obese, in a new nationally-representative U.S. study.
The findings can't prove BPA - which has been banned from baby bottles but is still found in aluminum cans and other types of packaging - causes kids to gain weight.
But previous studies have also suggested a link between the chemical, a type of synthetic estrogen, and body weight in adulthood. And researchers say earlier exposures could be more influential.
'Children are uniquely vulnerable to environmental chemicals,' said Dr. Leonardo Trasande from the New York University School of Medicine, who worked on the study.
It's possible, he said, that ingesting extra BPA could throw off young people's hormonal balance and disrupt their metabolism. But for now, that's just a theory.
'Unhealthy diet and poor physical activity are still the biggest causes of childhood obesity,' Trasande told Reuters Health.
He and his colleagues analyzed data from a nationwide health and nutrition survey conducted between 2003 and 2008. Close to 3,000 kids age six to 19 were weighed, measured and had their urine tested for BPA. They also answered a range of diet and lifestyle questions.
In total, about one-third of the kids were overweight and 18 percent were obese.
The average kid had close to three nanograms - three billionths of a gram - of BPA in every milliliter of urine.
The researchers found that just over 10 percent of kids with the lowest BPA levels were obese, compared to 22 percent of those with the highest BPA, according to results published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That was after taking into account how much kids ate overall, as well as their age, race and gender.
Trasande said he was struck by the strength of that link. But it still doesn't mean extra BPA in kids' diets was responsible for their extra pounds.
There are a couple of other theories, according to Trasande.
'Obese children could ingest food that has higher BPA content - it could be what we call reverse causation,' he said. Or, 'They could have higher BPA stores in their bodies and release more BPA. Those are both very plausible explanations.'
Still, he said the findings point to hormone-like chemicals as one factor to consider in the rise of childhood obesity, after diet and exercise.
Karin Michels, an epidemiologist from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, agreed there is 'accumulating evidence' that BPA may be linked to obesity and related diseases like diabetes - although the majority of that research still comes from animals.
Her own study found a link between urinary BPA and adult weight, based on the same health and nutrition survey used by Trasande's team.
'We still don't really know how safe bisphenol A is,' Michels, who wasn't involved in the new report, told Reuters Health.
While more research is underway, Michels said it makes sense to avoid polycarbonate bottles, aluminum cans and other products containing BPA if there are other options.
'I think we should be on the safe side,' she said. But, 'I don't think we have to panic about it at this point.'
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online September 18, 2012.
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The findings can't prove BPA - which has been banned from baby bottles but is still found in aluminum cans and other types of packaging - causes kids to gain weight.
But previous studies have also suggested a link between the chemical, a type of synthetic estrogen, and body weight in adulthood. And researchers say earlier exposures could be more influential.
'Children are uniquely vulnerable to environmental chemicals,' said Dr. Leonardo Trasande from the New York University School of Medicine, who worked on the study.
It's possible, he said, that ingesting extra BPA could throw off young people's hormonal balance and disrupt their metabolism. But for now, that's just a theory.
'Unhealthy diet and poor physical activity are still the biggest causes of childhood obesity,' Trasande told Reuters Health.
He and his colleagues analyzed data from a nationwide health and nutrition survey conducted between 2003 and 2008. Close to 3,000 kids age six to 19 were weighed, measured and had their urine tested for BPA. They also answered a range of diet and lifestyle questions.
In total, about one-third of the kids were overweight and 18 percent were obese.
The average kid had close to three nanograms - three billionths of a gram - of BPA in every milliliter of urine.
The researchers found that just over 10 percent of kids with the lowest BPA levels were obese, compared to 22 percent of those with the highest BPA, according to results published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That was after taking into account how much kids ate overall, as well as their age, race and gender.
Trasande said he was struck by the strength of that link. But it still doesn't mean extra BPA in kids' diets was responsible for their extra pounds.
There are a couple of other theories, according to Trasande.
'Obese children could ingest food that has higher BPA content - it could be what we call reverse causation,' he said. Or, 'They could have higher BPA stores in their bodies and release more BPA. Those are both very plausible explanations.'
Still, he said the findings point to hormone-like chemicals as one factor to consider in the rise of childhood obesity, after diet and exercise.
Karin Michels, an epidemiologist from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, agreed there is 'accumulating evidence' that BPA may be linked to obesity and related diseases like diabetes - although the majority of that research still comes from animals.
Her own study found a link between urinary BPA and adult weight, based on the same health and nutrition survey used by Trasande's team.
'We still don't really know how safe bisphenol A is,' Michels, who wasn't involved in the new report, told Reuters Health.
While more research is underway, Michels said it makes sense to avoid polycarbonate bottles, aluminum cans and other products containing BPA if there are other options.
'I think we should be on the safe side,' she said. But, 'I don't think we have to panic about it at this point.'
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online September 18, 2012.
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Monday, September 17, 2012
Gel balls new threat to toddlers, doctors say
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After surgically removing a large gel ball blocking the intestines of a baby girl, Texas doctors are warning parents about a new kind of water-absorbing balls often sold as playthings.
The colored balls, marketed under the brand name Water Balz by Ohio-based DuneCraft Inc, are small to begin with, but can grow to the size of a racquetball when placed in water.
For orally fixated toddlers, that can be a problem, said Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, a pediatric surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.
'It goes in small and grows on the inside and may not come out,' he told Reuters Health.
That was the case for an eight-month-old girl, who was brought to Texas Children's with stomach problems. Her parents suspected she had eaten one of her sister's Water Balz, and their concerns grew when they read on the label that the balls expand up to 400 times if placed in water.
Olutoye and his colleagues could see on x-rays that part of the child's small intestine was distended, as if something was blocking it, but they couldn't see the culprit. Over the next 48 hours, the girl's belly grew bigger and bigger and her symptoms didn't go away.
'The blockage allows fluid and gas to accumulate, it is just like you step on a hose,' said Olutoye, whose report appeared Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Finally, the doctors took the baby to the operating room. They cut her intestine open and drew from it a bright-green Water Balz nearly an inch and a half across.
She recovered and is doing fine, according to Olutoye.
The surgeon said that as this type of product becomes more common, parents and doctors alike need to be aware of the danger it poses if swallowed. He explained that if the intestine is blocked long enough, the building pressure may eventually cause it to rupture.
'If this is not taken care of really quickly, there can actually be a perforation. and you can die from it,' said Olutoye.
DuneCraft's CEO Grant Cleveland said he was sorry to learn of the incident. He noted that the Water Balz product already carries warnings on the label and is recommended for kids over 3.
'An eight-month-old has no business being near that product,' he told Reuters Health. 'Trying to turn it in to a public risk is absurd.'
The new report is the first in humans, said Olutoye, although there have been cases of birds dying after eating a similar gel product used in gardening and agriculture. He added warned that the balls should be kept away from pets.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cxXOG Pediatrics, online September 17, 2012.
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The colored balls, marketed under the brand name Water Balz by Ohio-based DuneCraft Inc, are small to begin with, but can grow to the size of a racquetball when placed in water.
For orally fixated toddlers, that can be a problem, said Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, a pediatric surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.
'It goes in small and grows on the inside and may not come out,' he told Reuters Health.
That was the case for an eight-month-old girl, who was brought to Texas Children's with stomach problems. Her parents suspected she had eaten one of her sister's Water Balz, and their concerns grew when they read on the label that the balls expand up to 400 times if placed in water.
Olutoye and his colleagues could see on x-rays that part of the child's small intestine was distended, as if something was blocking it, but they couldn't see the culprit. Over the next 48 hours, the girl's belly grew bigger and bigger and her symptoms didn't go away.
'The blockage allows fluid and gas to accumulate, it is just like you step on a hose,' said Olutoye, whose report appeared Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Finally, the doctors took the baby to the operating room. They cut her intestine open and drew from it a bright-green Water Balz nearly an inch and a half across.
She recovered and is doing fine, according to Olutoye.
The surgeon said that as this type of product becomes more common, parents and doctors alike need to be aware of the danger it poses if swallowed. He explained that if the intestine is blocked long enough, the building pressure may eventually cause it to rupture.
'If this is not taken care of really quickly, there can actually be a perforation. and you can die from it,' said Olutoye.
DuneCraft's CEO Grant Cleveland said he was sorry to learn of the incident. He noted that the Water Balz product already carries warnings on the label and is recommended for kids over 3.
'An eight-month-old has no business being near that product,' he told Reuters Health. 'Trying to turn it in to a public risk is absurd.'
The new report is the first in humans, said Olutoye, although there have been cases of birds dying after eating a similar gel product used in gardening and agriculture. He added warned that the balls should be kept away from pets.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cxXOG Pediatrics, online September 17, 2012.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012
CDC: US kids eat too much salt, as much as adults
CHICAGO (AP) - American children eat as much salt as adults - about 1,000 milligrams too much, or the same amount as in just one Big Mac. Extra salt is linked with higher blood pressure, even in kids, but government research says those who are overweight and obese may be most vulnerable to its effects.
The new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Previous research has shown similar results in adults but studies on salt, weight and blood pressure are scarce in children.
The CDC researchers looked at data on 6,200 kids aged 8 to 18 involved in 2003-08 national health surveys. The children were asked twice over several days to detail all foods they'd eaten the previous day; the researchers calculated salt intake from their answers.
Overall, 15 percent had either high blood pressure or slightly elevated blood pressure called prehypertension.
Those who ate the most salt faced double the risk of having elevated blood pressure, compared with those who ate few salty foods. But among overweight or obese kids, the risk was more than triple.
The recommended daily salt or sodium intake for kids and adults is no more than 1 teaspoon daily, or about 2,300 milligrams. On average, study kids ate 3,300 milligrams daily.
CDC researcher Quanhe (SHWAH'-nuh) Yang says it's unclear why heavier kids would be more sensitive to salt but it could be due to obesity-related hormone changes. The results raise concerns because studies have shown that elevated blood pressure in childhood, even just prehypertension, can lead to full-fledged high blood pressure in adulthood and potentially premature heart disease.
Prehypertension and high blood pressure in children younger than 17 depend on age, height and gender.
In those 18 and up, readings between 120 over 80 and 140 over 90 are prehypertension; 140 over 90 and higher is high blood pressure.
___
Online:
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov
Blood pressure charts: http://tinyurl.com/8k6egur
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
This news article is brought to you by ADVANCED DATING ADVICE - where latest news are our top priority.
The new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Previous research has shown similar results in adults but studies on salt, weight and blood pressure are scarce in children.
The CDC researchers looked at data on 6,200 kids aged 8 to 18 involved in 2003-08 national health surveys. The children were asked twice over several days to detail all foods they'd eaten the previous day; the researchers calculated salt intake from their answers.
Overall, 15 percent had either high blood pressure or slightly elevated blood pressure called prehypertension.
Those who ate the most salt faced double the risk of having elevated blood pressure, compared with those who ate few salty foods. But among overweight or obese kids, the risk was more than triple.
The recommended daily salt or sodium intake for kids and adults is no more than 1 teaspoon daily, or about 2,300 milligrams. On average, study kids ate 3,300 milligrams daily.
CDC researcher Quanhe (SHWAH'-nuh) Yang says it's unclear why heavier kids would be more sensitive to salt but it could be due to obesity-related hormone changes. The results raise concerns because studies have shown that elevated blood pressure in childhood, even just prehypertension, can lead to full-fledged high blood pressure in adulthood and potentially premature heart disease.
Prehypertension and high blood pressure in children younger than 17 depend on age, height and gender.
In those 18 and up, readings between 120 over 80 and 140 over 90 are prehypertension; 140 over 90 and higher is high blood pressure.
___
Online:
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov
Blood pressure charts: http://tinyurl.com/8k6egur
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
This news article is brought to you by ADVANCED DATING ADVICE - where latest news are our top priority.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Study Links Age to Kids' Weight Gain After Tonsillectomy
A Johns Hopkins study has tied weight gains in children who underwent tonsillectomies to their age at the time of surgery. The results should end speculation in many families that a child's weight gain was caused by the reason for the surgery. Both my daughter and I had tonsillectomies as children and saw a jump on the scale afterward.
The Baltimore researchers studied 115 area children. They discovered that significant weight gains occurred in many under the age of 6, but not in older children, according to Newswise.
In prior generations, doctors used tonsillectomy primarily to treat inflamed or infected tonsils. These days, its most common use is as a treatment for breathing disorders during sleep, such as sleep apnea after other methods fail, says the Mayo Clinic. The procedure also treats recurring or severe tonsillitis, complications associated with enlarged tonsils, and other rare diseases of the tonsils.
Both the tonsils and the adenoids are collections of immune cells located behind the lymph glands. They're positioned in the mouth and behind the patient's nasal passages, according to MedicineNet. It's easiest to picture them as two oval-shaped pads on each side of the back of the throat.
For years, experts believed that weight gain after tonsillectomy was linked to the most common reason to perform the procedure: sleep apnea. The Baltimore study is the first to largely dispel this belief and is also considered the biggest to evaluate weight gain in each age group through age 17.
The researchers hope their results will bring relief to parents concerned that their overweight adolescent children will gain even more weight after the surgery. The results suggest that only children between 2 and 6 who are at normal weight or who are underweight will experience a significant weight gain.
My daughter and I were each 5 when our respective doctors advised tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies. Both of us were close to the limit on charts for normal weight prior to the surgery, but we didn't stand out as overly heavy in a group. My baby book states that within six months after the surgery, this had changed. By the end of kindergarten, my daughter was also overweight.
The Maryland study looked at the records of children between 6 months and 18 years old who had undergone tonsillectomies at the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center between 2008 and 2011. The average post-surgical weight gain was 2 to 5 pounds and was directly tied to the child's age, not the reason for the surgery.
Parents who remain concerned about the link between age and kids' weight gain after tonsillectomy can use this information to plan for reductions in daily calories if their children fall into the affected age group. The researchers plan to next investigate exactly why age affects a weight gain after this type of surgery.
Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Helping kids be more sun-safe is a challenge: study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Pediatricians' offices that offer more extensive counseling and information on safer sun practices are no more likely to have parents who follow that advice than offices that offer less intensive counseling, according to a new study.
Another problem: Kids who pursued physical exercise were twice as likely to suffer sunburns. That wasn't surprising, but it concerned the study's authors because the brochures about exercise were separate from those about sun protection and avoiding rays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. - meaning some kids might get one message, but not the other.
'Physicians are in the habit of writing prescriptions and advising how to use the medication. It is a huge step for physicians to take the step of engaging the parent/child in the decision to change behavior,' Dr. June Robinson, the senior author of the study, told Reuters Health by email.
It's possible that the way pediatricians offer such counseling - more as a prescription rather than as a way to engage parents and find ways to change their behavior - led to the results, said Robinson, a dermatology professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that children's doctors should advise their patients about sunburns and tanning.
To get a sense of what advice doctors offer, Robinson and her colleagues surveyed 30 medical staff members at three pediatricians' offices in the Chicago area about their recommendations regarding sun protection.
One office provided the most extensive counseling on sun protection, offering it year-round during regular check-ups, physical exams and when the child came in with a sunburn.
This included advice on wearing and reapplying sun block and protective clothing and seeking shade.
The office that provided the least extensive counseling only advised families about sun protection when they were about to go on a family vacation or to summer camp or when the child had a sunburn.
Staff there also only offered recommendations on wearing sun block.
The other office fell somewhere between the two in how much sun protection counseling it provided.
Robinson's colleagues then surveyed 100 parents who had visited one of the offices with a child between nine and 16 years old.
They asked the parents about their children's behaviors, such as how long they spent in the sun, whether they used indoor tanning, how many sunburns they had had, and whether they used sun block.
The researchers found that the parents who visited the office with the most extensive counseling were no more likely to practice sun-safe habits than the parents who visited the office that offered the least amount of advice.
For instance, children who were seen at the office that gave the most advice scored an average of 10 on a 39-point scale of how well they were sun-protected, compared to a score of 12 among children seen at the office that offered the least advice.
A score of one is considered best protected, while 39 is totally unprotected from the sun.
When Robinson's group took into account factors such as the child's age and skin tone, the differences between the offices were so small that they were likely due to chance.
And those children who exercised outdoors between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. 'were twice as likely to use inadequate sun protection and sustain sunburns,' according to the study, than those who performed exercise outside of those hours.
COMMUNICATION CHANGES
Robinson said that doctors can be effective at promoting behaviors among families, but that they might need to change their communication style.
'Communication by physicians with parents in a way that incorporates the principles of motivational interviewing, a patient-centered technique that attempts to engage patients in order to find reasons to change behavior that resonate with each individual, may be more effective in promoting behavioral change than admonitions to use sunscreen,' she said.
Lori Crane, a professor of community and behavioral health at the Colorado School of Public Health, has found in an earlier study that doctors who do offer more extensive counseling on sun protection end up with patients more likely to stick to that advice.
'The methodology in (the current) article is not really very strong for coming up with this conclusion that sun protection counseling doesn't have an effect,' said Crane, who did not participate in the latest research.
Crane pointed out that there's no direct measure of how much counseling each family received, leaving room for the possibility that some families at each office received more or less.
Robinson and her colleagues write in their report in The Journal of Pediatrics that because they didn't directly observe the counseling, there could have been potential errors in how much the staff remembered giving.
However, 'since these are stable and well established practices, the pediatricians have a continuing relationship with the families and have counseled prior to the survey,' she said.
Dr. Richard Roetzheim, a professor of family medicine at the University of South Florida, who was not involved in the study, said he 'wasn't really convinced by this study that counseling doesn't work.'
However, he was pleased to see a study like this.
'I think physicians are increasingly being called on to change patients' behaviors,' Roetzheim told Reuters Health, and it's important to see what works.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Pble7S The Journal of Pediatrics, online September 5, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
Another problem: Kids who pursued physical exercise were twice as likely to suffer sunburns. That wasn't surprising, but it concerned the study's authors because the brochures about exercise were separate from those about sun protection and avoiding rays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. - meaning some kids might get one message, but not the other.
'Physicians are in the habit of writing prescriptions and advising how to use the medication. It is a huge step for physicians to take the step of engaging the parent/child in the decision to change behavior,' Dr. June Robinson, the senior author of the study, told Reuters Health by email.
It's possible that the way pediatricians offer such counseling - more as a prescription rather than as a way to engage parents and find ways to change their behavior - led to the results, said Robinson, a dermatology professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that children's doctors should advise their patients about sunburns and tanning.
To get a sense of what advice doctors offer, Robinson and her colleagues surveyed 30 medical staff members at three pediatricians' offices in the Chicago area about their recommendations regarding sun protection.
One office provided the most extensive counseling on sun protection, offering it year-round during regular check-ups, physical exams and when the child came in with a sunburn.
This included advice on wearing and reapplying sun block and protective clothing and seeking shade.
The office that provided the least extensive counseling only advised families about sun protection when they were about to go on a family vacation or to summer camp or when the child had a sunburn.
Staff there also only offered recommendations on wearing sun block.
The other office fell somewhere between the two in how much sun protection counseling it provided.
Robinson's colleagues then surveyed 100 parents who had visited one of the offices with a child between nine and 16 years old.
They asked the parents about their children's behaviors, such as how long they spent in the sun, whether they used indoor tanning, how many sunburns they had had, and whether they used sun block.
The researchers found that the parents who visited the office with the most extensive counseling were no more likely to practice sun-safe habits than the parents who visited the office that offered the least amount of advice.
For instance, children who were seen at the office that gave the most advice scored an average of 10 on a 39-point scale of how well they were sun-protected, compared to a score of 12 among children seen at the office that offered the least advice.
A score of one is considered best protected, while 39 is totally unprotected from the sun.
When Robinson's group took into account factors such as the child's age and skin tone, the differences between the offices were so small that they were likely due to chance.
And those children who exercised outdoors between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. 'were twice as likely to use inadequate sun protection and sustain sunburns,' according to the study, than those who performed exercise outside of those hours.
COMMUNICATION CHANGES
Robinson said that doctors can be effective at promoting behaviors among families, but that they might need to change their communication style.
'Communication by physicians with parents in a way that incorporates the principles of motivational interviewing, a patient-centered technique that attempts to engage patients in order to find reasons to change behavior that resonate with each individual, may be more effective in promoting behavioral change than admonitions to use sunscreen,' she said.
Lori Crane, a professor of community and behavioral health at the Colorado School of Public Health, has found in an earlier study that doctors who do offer more extensive counseling on sun protection end up with patients more likely to stick to that advice.
'The methodology in (the current) article is not really very strong for coming up with this conclusion that sun protection counseling doesn't have an effect,' said Crane, who did not participate in the latest research.
Crane pointed out that there's no direct measure of how much counseling each family received, leaving room for the possibility that some families at each office received more or less.
Robinson and her colleagues write in their report in The Journal of Pediatrics that because they didn't directly observe the counseling, there could have been potential errors in how much the staff remembered giving.
However, 'since these are stable and well established practices, the pediatricians have a continuing relationship with the families and have counseled prior to the survey,' she said.
Dr. Richard Roetzheim, a professor of family medicine at the University of South Florida, who was not involved in the study, said he 'wasn't really convinced by this study that counseling doesn't work.'
However, he was pleased to see a study like this.
'I think physicians are increasingly being called on to change patients' behaviors,' Roetzheim told Reuters Health, and it's important to see what works.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Pble7S The Journal of Pediatrics, online September 5, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
More hospital errors when kids have chronic ills
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Medical errors affect about three percent of hospitalized children in the U.S., with the risk being higher if they have a chronic health condition, a new study suggests.
Using a government database, researchers found that of children hospitalized in 38 U.S. states in 2006, 44 percent had at least one chronic health problem, such as asthma, a digestive disorder, diabetes or cancer.
Among hospitalized kids with no chronic health problems, 1.3 percent were affected by a medical error; the figure among children with a chronic condition was just over five percent.
The results, reported in the journal Pediatrics, are not surprising, the researchers say. In fact, they expected to see a higher error rate among kids with chronic disorders.
'They may stay in the hospital longer, and their condition may be more complicated' compared with kids free of chronic ills, explained senior researcher Dr. Huiyun Xiang, of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
It's not clear from the findings how serious the medical errors were, or how often they caused kids harm. The errors were not even necessarily 'mistakes,' per se, Xiang said.
The researchers used hospital discharge records and counted certain 'codes' as a medical error. That included codes like 'complications peculiar to certain specified procedures.'
Adverse reactions to a medication, an infection following surgery and even bedsores are more general examples of the kinds of potentially preventable events considered medical errors.
The bottom line, according to the researchers, is that everyone needs to be aware of the greater error risk when kids have chronic health problems.
And the risk appears to climb in tandem with the number of conditions a child has. Among kids with one chronic ill, the error rate was around three percent, while for those with two the rate was closer to seven percent.
For parents, Xiang said the risk of medical error should be kept in context. 'Even the overall rate of 5.3 percent among children with chronic conditions is relatively low,' he noted.
This study did not look at potential fixes, Xiang said. But he noted that the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has been funding projects to improve hospital patients' safety - like preventing infections, which are the most common complication of hospital stays nationwide.
Those efforts stemmed largely from a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which found that medical errors cost the U.S. $17 billion to $29 billion a year - and kill nearly 98,000 people.
The IOM said that many errors arise because the healthcare system is 'fragmented,' and stressed that improving safety needs to be a 'team sport.'
AHRQ suggests that hospital patients, or parents of patients, help protect themselves by asking questions. One step is to make sure that someone - like your pediatrician - is coordinating your child's care and making sure everyone is on the same page.
Xiang also said it's important for parents to understand their child's at-home medication regimen, especially if there are multiple health conditions.
'Parents should be very careful in monitoring their child's medication at home,' he said.
Xiang pointed to a recent study in which researchers made home visits to families of children with sickle cell disease or epilepsy. Looking at 280 medication uses, they found 61 errors - like giving the child the wrong dose, or missing a dose altogether.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/S4kiB8 Pediatrics, online September 10, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
Using a government database, researchers found that of children hospitalized in 38 U.S. states in 2006, 44 percent had at least one chronic health problem, such as asthma, a digestive disorder, diabetes or cancer.
Among hospitalized kids with no chronic health problems, 1.3 percent were affected by a medical error; the figure among children with a chronic condition was just over five percent.
The results, reported in the journal Pediatrics, are not surprising, the researchers say. In fact, they expected to see a higher error rate among kids with chronic disorders.
'They may stay in the hospital longer, and their condition may be more complicated' compared with kids free of chronic ills, explained senior researcher Dr. Huiyun Xiang, of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
It's not clear from the findings how serious the medical errors were, or how often they caused kids harm. The errors were not even necessarily 'mistakes,' per se, Xiang said.
The researchers used hospital discharge records and counted certain 'codes' as a medical error. That included codes like 'complications peculiar to certain specified procedures.'
Adverse reactions to a medication, an infection following surgery and even bedsores are more general examples of the kinds of potentially preventable events considered medical errors.
The bottom line, according to the researchers, is that everyone needs to be aware of the greater error risk when kids have chronic health problems.
And the risk appears to climb in tandem with the number of conditions a child has. Among kids with one chronic ill, the error rate was around three percent, while for those with two the rate was closer to seven percent.
For parents, Xiang said the risk of medical error should be kept in context. 'Even the overall rate of 5.3 percent among children with chronic conditions is relatively low,' he noted.
This study did not look at potential fixes, Xiang said. But he noted that the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has been funding projects to improve hospital patients' safety - like preventing infections, which are the most common complication of hospital stays nationwide.
Those efforts stemmed largely from a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which found that medical errors cost the U.S. $17 billion to $29 billion a year - and kill nearly 98,000 people.
The IOM said that many errors arise because the healthcare system is 'fragmented,' and stressed that improving safety needs to be a 'team sport.'
AHRQ suggests that hospital patients, or parents of patients, help protect themselves by asking questions. One step is to make sure that someone - like your pediatrician - is coordinating your child's care and making sure everyone is on the same page.
Xiang also said it's important for parents to understand their child's at-home medication regimen, especially if there are multiple health conditions.
'Parents should be very careful in monitoring their child's medication at home,' he said.
Xiang pointed to a recent study in which researchers made home visits to families of children with sickle cell disease or epilepsy. Looking at 280 medication uses, they found 61 errors - like giving the child the wrong dose, or missing a dose altogether.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/S4kiB8 Pediatrics, online September 10, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
Monday, September 10, 2012
More California Private School Parents Opting Out of Vaccines
This news article is brought to you by CELEBRITY MUSIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Cranberry juice may beat kids' bladder infections
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cranberry juice rich in certain antibacterial substances may help prevent repeat urinary tract infections in kids, a small study suggests.
Researchers found that cranberry juice made with high concentrations of proanthocyanidins (PACs) cut kids' risk of repeat urinary tract infections by two-thirds, versus a comparison juice.
Since the juice on your supermarket's shelves may not have that PAC level, the researchers say their findings are not an endorsement of any product.
But the results, published in the Journal of Urology, do give support to cranberry as a UTI fighter, according to a pediatric urologist not connected to the study.
PACs are the compounds thought to give cranberries their bacteria-fighting potential. Women have long turned to cranberry juice and supplements to help prevent recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) - though studies have been mixed on whether they work.
There has been little research on kids, even though UTIs are relatively common in children. Girls have about an 8 percent chance of contracting the infection at some point in childhood; boys have a 2 percent chance.
Besides being uncomfortable, recurrent UTIs can eventually damage the kidneys in some children. So doctors may prescribe antibiotics to help prevent them.
But antibiotics can have side effects, and using them long-term can breed drug-resistant bacteria. So researchers are looking at whether cranberry products can be a good alternative.
For the new study, doctors at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, recruited 40 children who'd had at least two UTIs in the past year. They randomly assigned the kids to drink one of two juices made for the study: a cranberry juice rich in PACs or a juice free of all 'cranberry products.'
Over the next year, kids who drank cranberry juice had UTIs at a rate of 0.4 per child, compared with 1.15 in the comparison group.
The power of cranberries against UTIs 'was initially regarded as an old wives' tale,' said Dr. Hiep Nguyen of Boston Children's Hospital, who was not involved in the study.
But Nguyen said he now often recommends cranberry - either juice or supplements - when kids have recurrent UTIs.
'It can be a great alternative to prophylactic (preventive) antibiotics,' Nguyen said.
That doesn't mean cranberry is the cure-all. If a child has frequent UTIs, Nguyen said, antibiotics may be necessary to 'break the cycle.' On top of that, many children's UTIs are related to less-than-ideal bathroom habits - like 'holding it in,' rather than going when they need to.
Drinking enough fluids, going to the bathroom regularly, and - if needed - tackling constipation problems are all considered important in warding off kids' UTIs.
So Nguyen cautioned parents against simply running to the grocery store for cranberry juice. 'They still should see a doctor, so they can try to address the underlying problem,' Nguyen said.
What's more, there's no guarantee that the cranberry juice you buy would have the PAC content that the juice in this study did.
'The findings of this study should not be construed as an endorsement of any commercially available cranberry products,' write the researchers, led by Dr. Kourosh Afshar. (Afshar could not be reached for comment.)
Nguyen agreed that juice can be tricky. 'Pure cranberry juice often doesn't taste so good,' he noted. So manufacturers often mix it with something more palatable, like apple juice, or add a lot of sugar.
Cranberry juice mixed with other juices would likely have lower PAC levels. If there's added sugar, that means calories; drinking a lot of sugary juice can also cause diarrhea in kids.
'We do worry about the sugar content,' Nguyen said.
So it would be important, he noted, not to overdo cranberry juice. In this study, the daily dose prescribed to each child was based on body weight.
Cranberry tablets are the other option. But no one knows the exact dose needed to prevent any one child's UTIs. Right now, it's basically a matter of following the product's labeling, according to Nguyen.
Six kids in each group of the study dropped out before they had completed it. The top reasons were the parents' belief that the juice wasn't working, and kids just refusing to drink it.
Getting children to drink cranberry juice can be a challenge, Nguyen noted - especially the pure variety without a ton of sugar.
Ocean Spray provided both juices used in the study. The work was funded by the Lions Gate Healthcare Research Foundation.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RpIBZm Journal of Urology, online August 20, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
Researchers found that cranberry juice made with high concentrations of proanthocyanidins (PACs) cut kids' risk of repeat urinary tract infections by two-thirds, versus a comparison juice.
Since the juice on your supermarket's shelves may not have that PAC level, the researchers say their findings are not an endorsement of any product.
But the results, published in the Journal of Urology, do give support to cranberry as a UTI fighter, according to a pediatric urologist not connected to the study.
PACs are the compounds thought to give cranberries their bacteria-fighting potential. Women have long turned to cranberry juice and supplements to help prevent recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) - though studies have been mixed on whether they work.
There has been little research on kids, even though UTIs are relatively common in children. Girls have about an 8 percent chance of contracting the infection at some point in childhood; boys have a 2 percent chance.
Besides being uncomfortable, recurrent UTIs can eventually damage the kidneys in some children. So doctors may prescribe antibiotics to help prevent them.
But antibiotics can have side effects, and using them long-term can breed drug-resistant bacteria. So researchers are looking at whether cranberry products can be a good alternative.
For the new study, doctors at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, recruited 40 children who'd had at least two UTIs in the past year. They randomly assigned the kids to drink one of two juices made for the study: a cranberry juice rich in PACs or a juice free of all 'cranberry products.'
Over the next year, kids who drank cranberry juice had UTIs at a rate of 0.4 per child, compared with 1.15 in the comparison group.
The power of cranberries against UTIs 'was initially regarded as an old wives' tale,' said Dr. Hiep Nguyen of Boston Children's Hospital, who was not involved in the study.
But Nguyen said he now often recommends cranberry - either juice or supplements - when kids have recurrent UTIs.
'It can be a great alternative to prophylactic (preventive) antibiotics,' Nguyen said.
That doesn't mean cranberry is the cure-all. If a child has frequent UTIs, Nguyen said, antibiotics may be necessary to 'break the cycle.' On top of that, many children's UTIs are related to less-than-ideal bathroom habits - like 'holding it in,' rather than going when they need to.
Drinking enough fluids, going to the bathroom regularly, and - if needed - tackling constipation problems are all considered important in warding off kids' UTIs.
So Nguyen cautioned parents against simply running to the grocery store for cranberry juice. 'They still should see a doctor, so they can try to address the underlying problem,' Nguyen said.
What's more, there's no guarantee that the cranberry juice you buy would have the PAC content that the juice in this study did.
'The findings of this study should not be construed as an endorsement of any commercially available cranberry products,' write the researchers, led by Dr. Kourosh Afshar. (Afshar could not be reached for comment.)
Nguyen agreed that juice can be tricky. 'Pure cranberry juice often doesn't taste so good,' he noted. So manufacturers often mix it with something more palatable, like apple juice, or add a lot of sugar.
Cranberry juice mixed with other juices would likely have lower PAC levels. If there's added sugar, that means calories; drinking a lot of sugary juice can also cause diarrhea in kids.
'We do worry about the sugar content,' Nguyen said.
So it would be important, he noted, not to overdo cranberry juice. In this study, the daily dose prescribed to each child was based on body weight.
Cranberry tablets are the other option. But no one knows the exact dose needed to prevent any one child's UTIs. Right now, it's basically a matter of following the product's labeling, according to Nguyen.
Six kids in each group of the study dropped out before they had completed it. The top reasons were the parents' belief that the juice wasn't working, and kids just refusing to drink it.
Getting children to drink cranberry juice can be a challenge, Nguyen noted - especially the pure variety without a ton of sugar.
Ocean Spray provided both juices used in the study. The work was funded by the Lions Gate Healthcare Research Foundation.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RpIBZm Journal of Urology, online August 20, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
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