Federal health authorities said Friday they will begin monitoring how well movie studios are doing to reduce depictions of smoking and other tobacco use in youth-rated movies.
Authorities at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health said that voluntary efforts by movie studios to reduce tobacco use in youth-rated movies have been unimpressive. Data on tobacco use in movies will be added to regular CDC reports to the public on smoking prevalence among youth and adults, total and per-capita cigarette consumption, and progress on tobacco control policies.
'We all have a responsibility to prevent youth from becoming tobacco users, and the movie industry has a responsibility to protect our youth from exposure to tobacco use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies that are produced and rated as appropriate for children and adolescents,' said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Tim McAfee. 'Eliminating tobacco imagery in movies is an important step that should be easy to take.'
MORE: PG-13 Movies May Start Teens Smoking
Understanding what motivates kids to smoke is a high priority of public-health experts. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 3,800 kids a day smoke their first cigarette. And, while smoking rates fell over the past 40 years, rates in both adults and youths have held steady in more recent years.
Previous research shows that kids who see smoking on television and in the movies are more likely to take up smoking. But depictions of smoking continue to turn up in youth-rated movies. Last year, the number of on-screen smoking scenes increased, according to a study published in the October issue of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
The data, from Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!, a project of Breathe California-Emigrant Trails, is based on tobacco incidents in top-grossing movies each year rated G, PG and PG-13. The study looked at 134 movies that were among the 10 top-grossing, youth-rated movies last year for at least one week.
The study found the number of tobacco incidents rose 3 percent (1,881 incidents) in 2011 compared to 2010 despite the fact that there were five fewer movies in the 2011 sample. The number of tobacco incidents per movie rose 7 percent over 2010 -- 13.1 incidents per movie in 2010 and 14 last year. The biggest increase in smoking depictions occurred in G and PG movies.
MORE: Smoking Rates Around the World Are Astronomical
And, while kids aren't supposed to see R-rated movies, smoking incidents in those films rose 7 percent in 2011, said the author of the study, Dr. Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine for the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. Glantz has been studying smoking in the movies for many years.
'There are going to be hundreds or thousands of kids who will take up smoking due to this backsliding,' Glantz told Take Part. 'There is a dose response here, too -- the more kids see, the more likely they will smoke.'
The uptick in smoking comes at a time when health professionals are unified behind the idea that kids are influenced by such depictions in the media. In a report released earlier this year, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin identified smoking in movies and tobacco-company advertising as the primary forces that cause kids to take up smoking.
'The evidence is sufficient to conclude that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and the initiation of smoking among young people,' the Surgeon General's report noted. Images of smoking in the movies, 'are powerful because they can make smoking seem like a normal, acceptable, or even attractive activity. Young people may also look up to movie stars, both on and off screen, and may want to imitate behaviors they see.'
MORE: Teen Smoking an 'Epidemic,' Surgeon General Says
Previous studies have also showed that depictions of smoking in the movies are more likely to influence low-risk kids to smoke; 'the kids whose parents don't smoke or kids who do well in school,' Glantz says.
The increase in on-screen smoking is further disappointing because top officials for three studios -- Comcast (Universal), Disney and Time Warner -- had previously committed to reductions in smoking in their movies, Glantz says. Smoking in youth-rated movies declined from 2005 to 2010.
Among these companies with stated policies discouraging smoking in movies, the percentage of movies that were tobacco-free declined by 17 percent from 2010 to 2011.
'A few studios had taken the lead in reducing the amount of smoking in their films,' Glantz says. 'They accomplished it and showed it could be done. But now there is this serious back-sliding. I don't know what accounts for that. These three studios are now about as bad as the studios that hadn't made a lot of progress. I don't know what happened.'
The Walt Disney Company 'actively seeks to limit the depiction of smoking in
movies marketed to youth,' according to a statement released by the company to Take Part.
MORE: U.S. Appeals Court Strikes Down Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels
'Disney discourages depictions of cigarette smoking in movies produced in the United States for which a Disney entity is the sole or lead producer and which are released either as a Touchstone movie or Marvel movie, and seeks to limit cigarette smoking in those movies that are not rated "R" to: scenes in which smoking is part of the historical, biographical or cultural context of the scene or is important to the character or scene from a factual or creative standpoint, or to scenes in which cigarette smoking is portrayed in an unfavorable light or the negative consequences of smoking are emphasized,' according to the statement.
The company also said it prohibits tobacco product placement and promotions and will place anti-smoking public service announcements on DVD's of new and newly re-mastered titles, not rated "R," that depict cigarette smoking and will work with theater owners to encourage the exhibition of an anti-smoking public service announcement before the theatrical exhibition of any such movie.
But the World Health Organization and other public health groups have recommended formal policies aimed at eliminating smoking in the movies, McAfee noted.
MORE: Teens: Smoking Less, Calling It 'Scummy' More
The Glantz study raises 'serious concerns about this individual company approach,' he wrote. 'This difference suggests that individual company policies may not be sufficient to sustain a reduction in youth exposure to tobacco-use and other pro-tobacco imagery in movies and that more formal, industry-wide policies are needed.'
Glantz has long argued for a modernized rating system to give movies with any tobacco use an R rating, unless the presentation of tobacco 'clearly and unambiguously reflects the dangers and consequences of tobacco use,' he says. Other options to discourage smoking are to run anti-smoking messages prior to the movie and persuading movie studies to adopt policies to certify they receive no payments for depicting particular tobacco brands in their movies.
'The MPAA has refused to address this issue in a meaningful way by giving movies with smoking an R rating,' Glantz says. 'They have never rated a single movie R for smoking. The goal here is to get smoking out of the movies being shown to kids.'
Question: Should movies that depict smoking receive an R rating? Tell us what you think in the comments.
Shari Roan is an award-winning health writer based in Southern California. She is the author of three books on health and science subjects.
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Friday, November 9, 2012
Malaria vaccine disappoints in trial in African babies
LONDON (Reuters) - A GlaxoSmithKline experimental malaria vaccine touted as a new weapon in the fight to eradicate the disease proved only 30 percent effective when given to babies as part Africa's largest ever clinical trial.
The surprisingly poor result for the world's first potential vaccine against malaria leaves uncertain whether it can have a useful role in fighting the mosquito-borne disease that kills hundreds of thousands of children a year.
Philanthropist Bill Gates, who has helped fund its development, said further data was needed to determine whether and how the vaccine might be used.
'The efficacy came back lower than we had hoped, but developing a vaccine against a parasite is a very hard thing to do,' he said in a statement.
Results from the final-stage trial with 6,537 babies aged six to 12 weeks showed the vaccine provided 'modest protection', reducing episodes of the disease by 30 percent compared to immunization with a control vaccine, researchers said on Friday.
That efficacy rate one year after vaccination is less than half the 65 percent reported in a smaller mid-stage trial in 2008 that followed babies of a similar age for six months.
It's also a lot less than the 50 percent seen last year in Phase III trial data from five to 17 month-olds.
Vaccinating babies, rather than toddlers, is the preferred option, since the new vaccine could then be added to other routine infant immunizations. A separate program for older children would involve a lot of extra costs.
Despite the limited success, Britain's top drugmaker said it would push ahead with developing the vaccine, called RTS,S or Mosquirix, and GSK Chief Executive Andrew Witty said he still believed it would be an important tool in fighting malaria.
'We've been at this for 30 years, and we're certainly not going to give up now,' Witty told a conference call.
GSK does not expect to make any profit from the vaccine, which would only be sold in poor countries. Witty reiterated a promise that if RTS,S is ultimately approved for market, it would be priced at cost of manufacture plus a 5 percent margin, and the margin would be reinvested by GSK in malaria research.
Given the target market, it is governments and international groups that will fund the vaccine's roll-out, and they now need more positive data before deciding whether it is worth buying.
'We will have to have more information to give us a clearer idea as to how useful this vaccine will be,' said Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, which funds bulk-buy vaccination programs for poorer nations.
In particular, Berkley told Reuters he wanted to see longer-term data, including the effect of booster shots, and an analysis of how the vaccine performed in different settings.
Details of the malaria trial, which is Africa's largest ever clinical trial involving almost 15,500 children in seven countries, were presented at a medical meeting in Cape Town and published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Witty said he would have liked to have seen efficacy rates of around 50 percent in infants, but stressed that more data would become available before the trial ends in 2014 which may throw more light on why rates of success are so variable.
'It's not as positive as we all might have hoped ... but it may take us down the road where we start to think about the vaccine for specific types of patients in specific types of areas,' he said. 'It may open up a more customized approach to how this potential vaccine gets used.'
Malaria is caused by a parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes. It is endemic in more than 100 countries worldwide and infected around 216 million people in 2010, killing around 655,000 of them, according to the World Health Organisation.
Control measures such as insecticide-treated bednets, indoor spraying and anti-malaria drugs have helped cut malaria cases and deaths significantly in recent years, but experts say an effective vaccine is vital to completely overcome the disease.
Scientists around the world are working on other potential malaria vaccines but RTS,S is by far the furthest ahead in development.
(Editing by Mark Potter)
This news article is brought to you by GOING GREEN NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The surprisingly poor result for the world's first potential vaccine against malaria leaves uncertain whether it can have a useful role in fighting the mosquito-borne disease that kills hundreds of thousands of children a year.
Philanthropist Bill Gates, who has helped fund its development, said further data was needed to determine whether and how the vaccine might be used.
'The efficacy came back lower than we had hoped, but developing a vaccine against a parasite is a very hard thing to do,' he said in a statement.
Results from the final-stage trial with 6,537 babies aged six to 12 weeks showed the vaccine provided 'modest protection', reducing episodes of the disease by 30 percent compared to immunization with a control vaccine, researchers said on Friday.
That efficacy rate one year after vaccination is less than half the 65 percent reported in a smaller mid-stage trial in 2008 that followed babies of a similar age for six months.
It's also a lot less than the 50 percent seen last year in Phase III trial data from five to 17 month-olds.
Vaccinating babies, rather than toddlers, is the preferred option, since the new vaccine could then be added to other routine infant immunizations. A separate program for older children would involve a lot of extra costs.
Despite the limited success, Britain's top drugmaker said it would push ahead with developing the vaccine, called RTS,S or Mosquirix, and GSK Chief Executive Andrew Witty said he still believed it would be an important tool in fighting malaria.
'We've been at this for 30 years, and we're certainly not going to give up now,' Witty told a conference call.
GSK does not expect to make any profit from the vaccine, which would only be sold in poor countries. Witty reiterated a promise that if RTS,S is ultimately approved for market, it would be priced at cost of manufacture plus a 5 percent margin, and the margin would be reinvested by GSK in malaria research.
Given the target market, it is governments and international groups that will fund the vaccine's roll-out, and they now need more positive data before deciding whether it is worth buying.
'We will have to have more information to give us a clearer idea as to how useful this vaccine will be,' said Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, which funds bulk-buy vaccination programs for poorer nations.
In particular, Berkley told Reuters he wanted to see longer-term data, including the effect of booster shots, and an analysis of how the vaccine performed in different settings.
Details of the malaria trial, which is Africa's largest ever clinical trial involving almost 15,500 children in seven countries, were presented at a medical meeting in Cape Town and published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Witty said he would have liked to have seen efficacy rates of around 50 percent in infants, but stressed that more data would become available before the trial ends in 2014 which may throw more light on why rates of success are so variable.
'It's not as positive as we all might have hoped ... but it may take us down the road where we start to think about the vaccine for specific types of patients in specific types of areas,' he said. 'It may open up a more customized approach to how this potential vaccine gets used.'
Malaria is caused by a parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes. It is endemic in more than 100 countries worldwide and infected around 216 million people in 2010, killing around 655,000 of them, according to the World Health Organisation.
Control measures such as insecticide-treated bednets, indoor spraying and anti-malaria drugs have helped cut malaria cases and deaths significantly in recent years, but experts say an effective vaccine is vital to completely overcome the disease.
Scientists around the world are working on other potential malaria vaccines but RTS,S is by far the furthest ahead in development.
(Editing by Mark Potter)
This news article is brought to you by GOING GREEN NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Malaria vaccine a letdown for infants
LONDON (AP) - An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.
That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half - though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.
Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, described the vaccine's protection levels as 'unacceptably low.' She was not linked to the study.
Scientists have been working for decades to develop a malaria vaccine, a complicated endeavor since the disease is caused by five different species of parasites. There has never been an effective vaccine against a parasite. Worldwide, there are several dozen malaria vaccine candidates being researched.
In 2006, a group of experts led by the World Health Organization said a malaria vaccine should cut the risk of severe disease and death by at least half and should last longer than one year. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people every year, mostly young children and pregnant women in Africa. Without a vaccine, officials have focused on distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying homes with pesticides and ensuring access to good medicines.
In the new study, scientists found babies who got three doses of the vaccine had about 30 percent fewer cases of malaria than those who didn't get immunized. The research included more than 6,500 infants in Africa. Experts also found the vaccine reduced the amount of severe malaria by about 26 percent, up to 14 months after the babies were immunized.
Scientists said they needed to analyze the data further to understand why the vaccine may be working differently in different regions. For example, babies born in areas with high levels of malaria might inherit some antibodies from their mothers which could interfere with any vaccination.
'Maybe we should be thinking of a first-generation vaccine that is targeted only for certain children,' said Dr. Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, one of the study investigators.
Results were presented at a conference in South Africa on Friday and released online by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is scheduled to continue until 2014 and is being paid for by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
'The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later,' said Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is developing a competing malaria vaccine. He noted the study showed the Glaxo vaccine lost its potency after several months. Hill said the vaccine might be a hard sell, compared to other vaccines like those for meningitis and pneumococcal disease - which are both effective and cheap.
'If it turns out to have a clear 30 percent efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale,' said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who also sits on a WHO advisory board.
Eleanor Riley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine might be useful if used together with other strategies, like bed nets. She was involved in an earlier study of the vaccine and had hoped for better results. 'We're all a bit frustrated that it has proven so hard to make a malaria vaccine,' she said. 'The question is how much money are the funders willing to keep throwing at it.'
Glaxo first developed the vaccine in 1987 and has invested $300 million in it so far.
WHO said it couldn't comment on the incomplete results and would wait until the trial was finished before drawing any conclusions.
___
Online:
www.nejm.org
This news article is brought to you by TECHNOLOGY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half - though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.
Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, described the vaccine's protection levels as 'unacceptably low.' She was not linked to the study.
Scientists have been working for decades to develop a malaria vaccine, a complicated endeavor since the disease is caused by five different species of parasites. There has never been an effective vaccine against a parasite. Worldwide, there are several dozen malaria vaccine candidates being researched.
In 2006, a group of experts led by the World Health Organization said a malaria vaccine should cut the risk of severe disease and death by at least half and should last longer than one year. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people every year, mostly young children and pregnant women in Africa. Without a vaccine, officials have focused on distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying homes with pesticides and ensuring access to good medicines.
In the new study, scientists found babies who got three doses of the vaccine had about 30 percent fewer cases of malaria than those who didn't get immunized. The research included more than 6,500 infants in Africa. Experts also found the vaccine reduced the amount of severe malaria by about 26 percent, up to 14 months after the babies were immunized.
Scientists said they needed to analyze the data further to understand why the vaccine may be working differently in different regions. For example, babies born in areas with high levels of malaria might inherit some antibodies from their mothers which could interfere with any vaccination.
'Maybe we should be thinking of a first-generation vaccine that is targeted only for certain children,' said Dr. Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, one of the study investigators.
Results were presented at a conference in South Africa on Friday and released online by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is scheduled to continue until 2014 and is being paid for by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
'The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later,' said Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is developing a competing malaria vaccine. He noted the study showed the Glaxo vaccine lost its potency after several months. Hill said the vaccine might be a hard sell, compared to other vaccines like those for meningitis and pneumococcal disease - which are both effective and cheap.
'If it turns out to have a clear 30 percent efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale,' said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who also sits on a WHO advisory board.
Eleanor Riley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine might be useful if used together with other strategies, like bed nets. She was involved in an earlier study of the vaccine and had hoped for better results. 'We're all a bit frustrated that it has proven so hard to make a malaria vaccine,' she said. 'The question is how much money are the funders willing to keep throwing at it.'
Glaxo first developed the vaccine in 1987 and has invested $300 million in it so far.
WHO said it couldn't comment on the incomplete results and would wait until the trial was finished before drawing any conclusions.
___
Online:
www.nejm.org
This news article is brought to you by TECHNOLOGY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Iron, omega-3s tied to different effects on kids' brains
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For children with low stores of two brain-power nutrients, supplements may have different, and complex, effects, a new clinical trial suggests.
Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency worldwide, affecting about 2 billion people, according to the World Health Organization.
Poor children in developing countries are at particular risk for shortfalls in iron, as well as other nutrients, including the omega-3 fats found largely in oily fish.
So the new study looked at the effects of giving 321 schoolchildren in South Africa either supplements containing iron, omega-3s or both. All of the kids had low levels of both nutrients, which are vital for children's growth and healthy brain development.
After about eight months, researchers found varied changes in the kids' memory and learning abilities.
In general, children given iron showed improvements on tests of memory and learning. That was especially true if they had outright anemia - a disorder wherein the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity is reduced, causing problems like fatigue and difficulty with concentration and memory.
For example, on a memory test, anemic kids given iron were able to recall an extra two words out of 12.
In contrast, there was no overall benefit linked to omega-3 supplements. And when the researchers zeroed in on kids with anemia, those who used omega-3s did worse than before on one test of memory.
Then there were the children with clear iron deficiency, but not anemia. Of those kids, girls who got omega-3s fared worse, while boys improved their test scores.
What it all means for kids with nutritional deficiencies is unclear, according to lead researcher Jeannine Baumgartner, of North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa.
One limitation of the study, she said in an email, is that the number of children in each group her team analyzed was small. There were 67 kids with anemia, for example.
Thus, 'the results need to be interpreted cautiously,' Baumgartner told Reuters Health in an email.
There are still a lot of questions, according to Baumgartner, whose group's findings are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The children in this study were 6 to 11 years old. But, Baumgartner said, animal research suggests brain deficits that take shape early in life might not be reversible.
'The question arises whether supplementation during school age might be too late to achieve beneficial effects on cognitive performance,' she said.
Still, the omega-3 findings are consistent with some recent animal research. Baumgartner said her team found that in rats deficient in both iron and omega-3s, giving either supplement alone seemed to worsen the animals' memory performance. The picture was better, though, when the rats were given both iron and omega-3s.
In children, things are more complicated. Other nutritional deficiencies, as well as exposure to toxins like lead and the general effects of poverty could all dampen kids' brain development, Baumgartner pointed out.
'We believe that more research is needed to investigate the biological and functional links between nutrients essential for brain development and cognitive functioning,' she said.
Since this study focused on impoverished children with low iron, and possibly other nutritional deficiencies, the results cannot be extended to children in general, according to Baumgartner.
In the U.S., recommendations call for babies to get an iron test during the first year of life to check for deficiencies. For healthy kids older than six months, the recommended iron intake varies from 7 to 15 mg of iron per day, depending on their age and sex.
There is a risk from getting too much iron and experts tell parents to ask their doctor before giving children iron supplements.
The current study was partly funded by Unilever, which makes omega-3-enriched spreads. Paul Lohmann GmbH provided the iron supplements, and Burgerstein AG provided the omega-3s.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RIna8G American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online October 24, 2012.
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Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency worldwide, affecting about 2 billion people, according to the World Health Organization.
Poor children in developing countries are at particular risk for shortfalls in iron, as well as other nutrients, including the omega-3 fats found largely in oily fish.
So the new study looked at the effects of giving 321 schoolchildren in South Africa either supplements containing iron, omega-3s or both. All of the kids had low levels of both nutrients, which are vital for children's growth and healthy brain development.
After about eight months, researchers found varied changes in the kids' memory and learning abilities.
In general, children given iron showed improvements on tests of memory and learning. That was especially true if they had outright anemia - a disorder wherein the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity is reduced, causing problems like fatigue and difficulty with concentration and memory.
For example, on a memory test, anemic kids given iron were able to recall an extra two words out of 12.
In contrast, there was no overall benefit linked to omega-3 supplements. And when the researchers zeroed in on kids with anemia, those who used omega-3s did worse than before on one test of memory.
Then there were the children with clear iron deficiency, but not anemia. Of those kids, girls who got omega-3s fared worse, while boys improved their test scores.
What it all means for kids with nutritional deficiencies is unclear, according to lead researcher Jeannine Baumgartner, of North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa.
One limitation of the study, she said in an email, is that the number of children in each group her team analyzed was small. There were 67 kids with anemia, for example.
Thus, 'the results need to be interpreted cautiously,' Baumgartner told Reuters Health in an email.
There are still a lot of questions, according to Baumgartner, whose group's findings are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The children in this study were 6 to 11 years old. But, Baumgartner said, animal research suggests brain deficits that take shape early in life might not be reversible.
'The question arises whether supplementation during school age might be too late to achieve beneficial effects on cognitive performance,' she said.
Still, the omega-3 findings are consistent with some recent animal research. Baumgartner said her team found that in rats deficient in both iron and omega-3s, giving either supplement alone seemed to worsen the animals' memory performance. The picture was better, though, when the rats were given both iron and omega-3s.
In children, things are more complicated. Other nutritional deficiencies, as well as exposure to toxins like lead and the general effects of poverty could all dampen kids' brain development, Baumgartner pointed out.
'We believe that more research is needed to investigate the biological and functional links between nutrients essential for brain development and cognitive functioning,' she said.
Since this study focused on impoverished children with low iron, and possibly other nutritional deficiencies, the results cannot be extended to children in general, according to Baumgartner.
In the U.S., recommendations call for babies to get an iron test during the first year of life to check for deficiencies. For healthy kids older than six months, the recommended iron intake varies from 7 to 15 mg of iron per day, depending on their age and sex.
There is a risk from getting too much iron and experts tell parents to ask their doctor before giving children iron supplements.
The current study was partly funded by Unilever, which makes omega-3-enriched spreads. Paul Lohmann GmbH provided the iron supplements, and Burgerstein AG provided the omega-3s.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RIna8G American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online October 24, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Modest results in program to reduce kids' screen time
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A program aimed at reducing the number of hours young children spent in front of a screen didn't accomplish that goal, but it did cut back on the meals they ate in front of a television, a new study found.
That's good news according to the lead author, because people tend to eat more and eat unhealthy food while watching television.
'The relationship between screen time and obesity is linked to eating in front of a screen,' said Dr. Catherine S. Birken, a pediatrician at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
In addition to its association with obesity, the study's researchers say screen time - whether it is in front of a television, computer or video game console - has been linked to children having problems with language development and behavior, and their likelihood of cigarette smoking.
'These are really important health outcomes in young children,' said Birken. 'So we need to understand what works and what doesn't.'
So far, studies scrutinizing various methods of cutting back on kids' screen time have found little success.
However, Birken told Reuters Health that a couple of past studies did find promising results in preschool children, which is why her team decided to test a practical approach in that age group.
For their study, published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, Birken and her colleagues recruited three-year-old children from a network of clinics around the Toronto area during their annual checkups. The children and their parents were randomly assigned into one of two groups.
In an intervention group of 64 children, the parents were told about the health impact of screen time on kids and how to reduce their children's hours.
Some of the techniques included removing televisions from the kids' bedrooms and not allowing them to eat with the television on.
Those families, along with a control group of 68 similar children and their parents, were also educated about safe media use, such as rating systems, Internet safety and violent programming.
The researchers then looked to see if the children's viewing or eating habits changed when they returned for a checkup a year later.
'TAKING IT SERIOUSLY'
Overall, the amount of time the children spent in front of a screen did not significantly differ between the two groups.
At the end of the study, the children in both groups spent between 60 and 65 minutes in front of a screen on weekdays. On the weekends, they spent between 80 and 90 minutes in front of a screen.
There also wasn't a difference in the children's BMI scores - a measure of weight in relation to height - between the start and end of the study. However, Birken said (for statistical reasons) she would only expect to see that in a larger group of children.
But, there was a statistically significant difference in the number of meals the children in the intervention group ate in front of the television.
At the start of the study, each group of kids ate about two meals with the television on daily. A year later, that number remained the same for the control group, but fell to about 1.6 for the intervention group.
That, the researchers note, works out to be at least two fewer meals per week in front of the television.
'I don't think there is much harm in turning the TV off during meals. I think that is a good message either way,' said Birken.
But, she added that her team would have liked to see the kids spending less time in front of a television. She said it could be that the program needs to be spread out across society, including the children's doctors and teachers.
Dayna M. Maniccia, an assistant professor at the University of Albany who has researched screen time interventions, said even if the study didn't show a reduction in screen time, it makes people think about it.
'The new study is great because it means that people are looking at this and pediatricians are taking it seriously,' said Maniccia.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/uFc4g2 Pediatrics, online November 5, 2012.
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That's good news according to the lead author, because people tend to eat more and eat unhealthy food while watching television.
'The relationship between screen time and obesity is linked to eating in front of a screen,' said Dr. Catherine S. Birken, a pediatrician at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
In addition to its association with obesity, the study's researchers say screen time - whether it is in front of a television, computer or video game console - has been linked to children having problems with language development and behavior, and their likelihood of cigarette smoking.
'These are really important health outcomes in young children,' said Birken. 'So we need to understand what works and what doesn't.'
So far, studies scrutinizing various methods of cutting back on kids' screen time have found little success.
However, Birken told Reuters Health that a couple of past studies did find promising results in preschool children, which is why her team decided to test a practical approach in that age group.
For their study, published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, Birken and her colleagues recruited three-year-old children from a network of clinics around the Toronto area during their annual checkups. The children and their parents were randomly assigned into one of two groups.
In an intervention group of 64 children, the parents were told about the health impact of screen time on kids and how to reduce their children's hours.
Some of the techniques included removing televisions from the kids' bedrooms and not allowing them to eat with the television on.
Those families, along with a control group of 68 similar children and their parents, were also educated about safe media use, such as rating systems, Internet safety and violent programming.
The researchers then looked to see if the children's viewing or eating habits changed when they returned for a checkup a year later.
'TAKING IT SERIOUSLY'
Overall, the amount of time the children spent in front of a screen did not significantly differ between the two groups.
At the end of the study, the children in both groups spent between 60 and 65 minutes in front of a screen on weekdays. On the weekends, they spent between 80 and 90 minutes in front of a screen.
There also wasn't a difference in the children's BMI scores - a measure of weight in relation to height - between the start and end of the study. However, Birken said (for statistical reasons) she would only expect to see that in a larger group of children.
But, there was a statistically significant difference in the number of meals the children in the intervention group ate in front of the television.
At the start of the study, each group of kids ate about two meals with the television on daily. A year later, that number remained the same for the control group, but fell to about 1.6 for the intervention group.
That, the researchers note, works out to be at least two fewer meals per week in front of the television.
'I don't think there is much harm in turning the TV off during meals. I think that is a good message either way,' said Birken.
But, she added that her team would have liked to see the kids spending less time in front of a television. She said it could be that the program needs to be spread out across society, including the children's doctors and teachers.
Dayna M. Maniccia, an assistant professor at the University of Albany who has researched screen time interventions, said even if the study didn't show a reduction in screen time, it makes people think about it.
'The new study is great because it means that people are looking at this and pediatricians are taking it seriously,' said Maniccia.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/uFc4g2 Pediatrics, online November 5, 2012.
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Sunday, November 4, 2012
Nurses Who Saved NICU Babies Remember Harrowing Hurricane Night
Nurses at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at New York University's Langone Medical Center have challenging jobs, even in the best of times. Their patients are babies, some weighing as little as 2 pounds, who require constant and careful care as they struggle to stay alive.
On Monday night, as superstorm Sandy bore down on Manhattan, the nurses' jobs took on a whole new sense of urgency as failing power forced the hospital's patients, including the NICU nurses' tiny charges, to evacuate.
'20/20' recently reunited seven of those nurses: Claudia Roman, Nicola Zanzotta-Tagle, Margot Condon, Sandra Kyong Bradbury, Beth Largey, Annie Irace and Menchu Sanchez. They described how they managed to do their jobs - and save the most vulnerable of lives - under near-impossible circumstances.
On Monday night, as Sandy's wind and rain buffeted the hospital's windows, the nurses were preparing for a shift change and the day nurses had begun to brief the night shift nurses. Suddenly, the hospital was plunged into darkness. The respirators and monitors keeping the infants alive all went silent.
For one brief moment, everyone froze. Then the alarms began to ring as backup batteries kicked in. But the coast wasn't clear - the nurses were soon horrified to learn that the hospital's generator had failed, and that the East River had risen to start flooding the hospital.
'Everybody ran to a patient to make sure that the babies were fine,' Nicola Zanzotto-Tagle recalled. 'If you had your phone with a flashlight on the phone, you held it right over the baby.'
For now, the four most critical patients - infants that couldn't breathe on their own - were being supplied oxygen by battery-powered respirators, but the clock was ticking. They had, at most, just four hours before the machines were at risk of failing.
Annie Irache tended to the most critical baby -- he had had abdominal surgery just the day before - as an evacuation of 20 NICU babies began.
'[He] was on medications to keep up his blood pressure,' Irache said, 'and he also had a cardiac defect, so he was our first baby to go.'
One by one, each tiny infant, swaddled in blankets and a heating pad, cradled by one nurse and surrounded by at least five others, was carried down nine flights of stairs. Security guards and secretaries pitched in, lighting the way with flashlights and cell phones.
The procession moved slowly. As nurses took their careful steps, they carefully squeezed bags of oxygen into the babies' lungs.
'We literally synchronized our steps going down nine flights,' Zanzotto-Tagle said. 'I would say 'Step, step, step.'
With their adrenaline pumping, the nurses said, it was imperative that they stay focused.
'We're not usually bagging a baby down a stairwell ... n the dark,' said Claudia Roman. 'I was most worried about, 'Let me not trip on this staircase as I'm carrying someone's precious child, because that would be unforgivable.'
When the medical staff and the 20 babies emerged, a line of ambulances was waiting. A video of Margot Condon cradling a tiny baby as she rode a gurney struck a chord worldwide. But Condon said she had a singular goal.
'I was making sure the tube was in place, that the baby was pink,' she said. 'I was not taking my eyes off that baby or that tube.'
Like other nurses, she did not feel panic. Her precious patient helped keep her calm.
'[Babies] love to be held, so every time I would look down at the baby, the baby had his little hand on my chest, like 'And this is good!''
Langone patients were evacuated to various New York hospitals, including Mount Sinai Medical Center, where mother Luz Martinez wrapped nurse Beth Largey in an embrace. Largey had carried her 2-pound baby boy to safety.
In Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, another mom tearfully expressed her gratitude to Sandra Kyong Bradbury, who ensured the safe evacuation of a baby named Jackson.
'I'm just so thankful,' she said.
The nurses would later receive praise from President Obama, who said they represented the 'brightest in America.'
Many others call them heroes.
Asked what they believed made a hero, they gave responses such as 'keeping calm in the face of adversity' and 'teamwork.'
'We take care of (the babies) every day,' said Kyong Bradbury. During the storm, she said, 'it was in extreme circumstances.'
'You step up,' she said, 'and I think that's what makes a hero.'
Also Read
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
On Monday night, as superstorm Sandy bore down on Manhattan, the nurses' jobs took on a whole new sense of urgency as failing power forced the hospital's patients, including the NICU nurses' tiny charges, to evacuate.
'20/20' recently reunited seven of those nurses: Claudia Roman, Nicola Zanzotta-Tagle, Margot Condon, Sandra Kyong Bradbury, Beth Largey, Annie Irace and Menchu Sanchez. They described how they managed to do their jobs - and save the most vulnerable of lives - under near-impossible circumstances.
On Monday night, as Sandy's wind and rain buffeted the hospital's windows, the nurses were preparing for a shift change and the day nurses had begun to brief the night shift nurses. Suddenly, the hospital was plunged into darkness. The respirators and monitors keeping the infants alive all went silent.
For one brief moment, everyone froze. Then the alarms began to ring as backup batteries kicked in. But the coast wasn't clear - the nurses were soon horrified to learn that the hospital's generator had failed, and that the East River had risen to start flooding the hospital.
'Everybody ran to a patient to make sure that the babies were fine,' Nicola Zanzotto-Tagle recalled. 'If you had your phone with a flashlight on the phone, you held it right over the baby.'
For now, the four most critical patients - infants that couldn't breathe on their own - were being supplied oxygen by battery-powered respirators, but the clock was ticking. They had, at most, just four hours before the machines were at risk of failing.
Annie Irache tended to the most critical baby -- he had had abdominal surgery just the day before - as an evacuation of 20 NICU babies began.
'[He] was on medications to keep up his blood pressure,' Irache said, 'and he also had a cardiac defect, so he was our first baby to go.'
One by one, each tiny infant, swaddled in blankets and a heating pad, cradled by one nurse and surrounded by at least five others, was carried down nine flights of stairs. Security guards and secretaries pitched in, lighting the way with flashlights and cell phones.
The procession moved slowly. As nurses took their careful steps, they carefully squeezed bags of oxygen into the babies' lungs.
'We literally synchronized our steps going down nine flights,' Zanzotto-Tagle said. 'I would say 'Step, step, step.'
With their adrenaline pumping, the nurses said, it was imperative that they stay focused.
'We're not usually bagging a baby down a stairwell ... n the dark,' said Claudia Roman. 'I was most worried about, 'Let me not trip on this staircase as I'm carrying someone's precious child, because that would be unforgivable.'
When the medical staff and the 20 babies emerged, a line of ambulances was waiting. A video of Margot Condon cradling a tiny baby as she rode a gurney struck a chord worldwide. But Condon said she had a singular goal.
'I was making sure the tube was in place, that the baby was pink,' she said. 'I was not taking my eyes off that baby or that tube.'
Like other nurses, she did not feel panic. Her precious patient helped keep her calm.
'[Babies] love to be held, so every time I would look down at the baby, the baby had his little hand on my chest, like 'And this is good!''
Langone patients were evacuated to various New York hospitals, including Mount Sinai Medical Center, where mother Luz Martinez wrapped nurse Beth Largey in an embrace. Largey had carried her 2-pound baby boy to safety.
In Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, another mom tearfully expressed her gratitude to Sandra Kyong Bradbury, who ensured the safe evacuation of a baby named Jackson.
'I'm just so thankful,' she said.
The nurses would later receive praise from President Obama, who said they represented the 'brightest in America.'
Many others call them heroes.
Asked what they believed made a hero, they gave responses such as 'keeping calm in the face of adversity' and 'teamwork.'
'We take care of (the babies) every day,' said Kyong Bradbury. During the storm, she said, 'it was in extreme circumstances.'
'You step up,' she said, 'and I think that's what makes a hero.'
Also Read
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Living at high altitude tied to developmental delay
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - South American babies and toddlers living at high altitude were more likely to score poorly on early tests of brain development, in a new study.
Of all kids age three months to two years, one in five was at high risk of developmental delays, according to tests done at their pediatricians' offices. That rose to between one in three and one in four for those who lived above 2,600 meters, or 8,530 feet.
Because there is less oxygen at higher elevations, researchers said blood flow in the uterus may also be decreased at altitude - which could impact the brain of a developing fetus.
'The findings emphasize the need for health care providers and policy-makers to recognize that altitude may increase developmental risks not just for physical growth, as has been reported, but for neurologic and cognitive development,' wrote George Wehby from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who conducted the research.
His study involved over 2,000 young kids evaluated at offices in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador in 2005 and 2006.
The babies and toddlers were all given a series of problem-solving and motor tasks to complete, which their doctors used to measure which ones might be at risk for delayed development.
Wehby found that on average, for every 100-meter (328-feet) increase in elevation, kids were 2 percent more likely to be judged at high risk of future developmental problems.
Compared to kids living below 800 meters (2,625 feet), those above 8,530 feet were twice as likely to be at high risk, according to their pediatricians' evaluations.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
All of the babies in Bolivia lived above the 8,530-foot cut-off, and all the kids in Argentina, Brazil and Chile lived below it. Ecuador was the only country in the study that included kids from both high- and low-altitude regions.
Of the largest cities in the United States, Albuquerque has a high point of 6,120 feet and Denver of 5,470 feet. Many Western states - including California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah - have regions above 10,000 feet.
However, it's hard to know whether the results apply to other communities at high elevation, according to Alexis Handal, an epidemiologist from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who does her research in Ecuador.
'We're starting to realize there's such a complicated social context within which these populations live that it's very hard to look at one area and try to generalize to other areas,' Handal, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.
For example, she said, parents' work hours, whether families have access to nutritious food and what environmental toxins communities might be exposed to can all interact with factors like altitude to influence maternal and child health.
'Perhaps what we also have to focus on is. how can we also develop programs that promote infant development, that help families?' she added.
Wehby said in the study that babies born at higher elevations may be helped by earlier health screening to make sure they're developing normally.
But he also pointed to the need for more research on why altitude may affect development - and whether similar patterns apply to kids in other high-altitude regions.
SOURCE: bitly.com/SsOh9z The Journal of Pediatrics, online October 22, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
Of all kids age three months to two years, one in five was at high risk of developmental delays, according to tests done at their pediatricians' offices. That rose to between one in three and one in four for those who lived above 2,600 meters, or 8,530 feet.
Because there is less oxygen at higher elevations, researchers said blood flow in the uterus may also be decreased at altitude - which could impact the brain of a developing fetus.
'The findings emphasize the need for health care providers and policy-makers to recognize that altitude may increase developmental risks not just for physical growth, as has been reported, but for neurologic and cognitive development,' wrote George Wehby from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who conducted the research.
His study involved over 2,000 young kids evaluated at offices in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador in 2005 and 2006.
The babies and toddlers were all given a series of problem-solving and motor tasks to complete, which their doctors used to measure which ones might be at risk for delayed development.
Wehby found that on average, for every 100-meter (328-feet) increase in elevation, kids were 2 percent more likely to be judged at high risk of future developmental problems.
Compared to kids living below 800 meters (2,625 feet), those above 8,530 feet were twice as likely to be at high risk, according to their pediatricians' evaluations.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
All of the babies in Bolivia lived above the 8,530-foot cut-off, and all the kids in Argentina, Brazil and Chile lived below it. Ecuador was the only country in the study that included kids from both high- and low-altitude regions.
Of the largest cities in the United States, Albuquerque has a high point of 6,120 feet and Denver of 5,470 feet. Many Western states - including California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah - have regions above 10,000 feet.
However, it's hard to know whether the results apply to other communities at high elevation, according to Alexis Handal, an epidemiologist from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who does her research in Ecuador.
'We're starting to realize there's such a complicated social context within which these populations live that it's very hard to look at one area and try to generalize to other areas,' Handal, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.
For example, she said, parents' work hours, whether families have access to nutritious food and what environmental toxins communities might be exposed to can all interact with factors like altitude to influence maternal and child health.
'Perhaps what we also have to focus on is. how can we also develop programs that promote infant development, that help families?' she added.
Wehby said in the study that babies born at higher elevations may be helped by earlier health screening to make sure they're developing normally.
But he also pointed to the need for more research on why altitude may affect development - and whether similar patterns apply to kids in other high-altitude regions.
SOURCE: bitly.com/SsOh9z The Journal of Pediatrics, online October 22, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIP ADVICE.
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