Health and Medical News and Resources

General interest items edited by Janice Flahiff

Nutritionists Say Willpower No Match For Cheap Food, Big Portions

 

http://peterhowe-healer.com/obesity/

From the 20th November 2011 Medical News Today article

Ditching the diet for Thanksgiving? Turkey with all the fixings isn’t the only temptation causing would-be dieters to miss their goals, according to a new Cornell University review article that finds powerful environmental cues are subconsciously bending willpower every day.

“We’re slaves to our environment,” said David Levitsky, professor of nutritional sciences and of psychology at Cornell, who co-authored the article with graduate student Carly Pacanowski.

The article, “Free Will and the Obesity Epidemic,” will be published in an upcoming print edition of the journal Public Health Nutrition*.

Levitsky and Pacanowski analyzed hundreds of articles on eating behavior and found forces that individuals have no control over are heavily influencing the obesity epidemic in the United States. These forces include cheap food prices and ease of access to unhealthy food. Social factors such as seeing others eat are also strong stimulants, Levitsky said, and have taken on more strength in the past 50 to 60 years, as restaurant dining becomes more frequent.

The article finds portion size emerged as one of the most powerful links to overeating. “And it’s not just the amount you put on your plate, but also the package size from which the food comes determines how much you will eat,” Levitsky said.

The article suggests dieters can weigh themselves and graph the results on a daily basis to counter these forces because it boosts one’s awareness of unconscious eating. It also suggests that the government should play a role in combating the obesity epidemic by subsidizing fruits and vegetables, making low-calorie foods cheaper. 

 

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Nutrition | | Leave a comment

Why Did I Come In Here? How Walking Through Doorways Makes Us Forget

From the 20 November Medical News Today article

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away.”

“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized,” he added.

Read the entire news article here

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Psychology | , | Leave a comment

No Antibiotics For Future Infections? Possible If Nothing Is Done Today

 

Antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance

No Antibiotics For Future Infections? Possible If Nothing Is Done Today

From the 17 November 2011 Medical News Today article

The world is moving towards the unthinkable scenario of untreatable infections as fewer antibacterial drugs are discovered and more and more people are becoming resistant to existing drugs, researchers from University of Birmingham, England, reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The article coincides with the European Antibiotics Awareness Day, and warns about the urgency of the situation and the actions needed to turn it around.

People have become so used to antibioticsbeing readily available that there is no sense of urgency regarding the lack of new drugs, or in existing antibiotic’s essential tasks to prolong life.

A wide spectrum of medical procedures, including many elderly people whose immune system has weakened, rely on antibiotics to fend off opportunistic infections. Even fairly simple procedures, for example, transrectal prostate biopsies that are typically used to detectprostate cancer, become problematic because of antibiotic resistant infections.

Author Professor Laura Piddock explains:

“When patients are denied treatment with a new cancer drug because of its expense, there is public outrage despite the possibility of extending life by only a few weeks. Antibiotics are not perceived as essential to health or the practice of medicine, despite such agents saving lives so that individuals can live for many years after infection.”

According to an announcement made by the WHO (World Health Organization) 2 years ago, antibiotic resistance is one of the three biggest health threats, yet politicians, the public, and the media have been slow to understand the urgency of the situation. …

…

Put simply: The pharmaceutical industry finds that after spending a lot of money developing a new drug, they are then faced with many regulatory barriers, only to find that when their new medication is finally approved, it is not effective for long because the bacterium rapidly develops resistance to it.

One serious problem is the approach of drug trials for antibiotics. Researchers recruit people with infections who are not necessarily infected with the bacteria that the drug is designed to kill, which in turn affects efficacy results.

According to Professor Piddock, this problem could be eliminated by using point-of-care tests to identify the precise bacteria causing the infection and excluding that particular individual from the study if they do not have the bacterium which is being targeted. The number of people required for a trial is currently prohibitively high, yet an approach like this would reduce the number of people needed for each trial, and also ensure that those participating receive the drug that is specifically targeted to their infection.

The profile of this issue must be raised in order to overcome the barriers to new antibiotic discovery and development. In response to this, the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy has launched Antibiotic Action, a campaign that has already obtained worldwide support, from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, ReACT, charities, and not-for-profit agencies amongst others.

All these initiatives represent patients who depend on effective antibiotic treatment.

Professor Piddock states:

“As absence of new antibiotics affects everyone, shifting this issue out of the medical arena and into the public eye is paramount, which will stimulate governments to act. To do this, Antibiotic Action is using the latest communication methods including Twitter; this approach will assist as many individuals as possible to sign one of two on-line petitions, one for UK citizens and another for those from outside the UK.” (http://antibiotic-action.com/petition/ )

Related articles
  • Government Facing Ticking Time Bomb Over Lack of Desperately Needed New Antibiotics, warns Antibiotic Action (prweb.com)
  • New clinical trial approach reduces time and costs of many studies (jflahiff.wordpress.com)

    From an April 8 2011 Stanford School of Medicine Press Release

    ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2011) — Doctors at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System are testing a new kind of clinical trial that’s not only less costly but guides doctors to switch to the best treatment even before the trial is completed. The new approach — called a point-of-care clinical trial — was developed by Stanford University biostatistician Philip Lavori, PhD, and a Boston-based team as an alternative to expensive, lengthy, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials to compare drugs and procedures that are already in regular use.

    “The goal of point-of-care clinical trials is to deliver the best care to patients while learning from each experience and redefining that care,” said Lavori, a professor of health research and policy at Stanford’s School of Medicine and the senior author of an article on the method to be published online April 4 in Clinical Trials. “This ‘learning and improving’ loop will enable health-care institutions to more rapidly fold improvements into their medical practices,” he said….

    …”The idea of embedding research into clinical care has been around for quite awhile but to my knowledge this is the first time that a randomized trial has been fully integrated into a hospital’s informatics system,” said Fiore. “It demonstrates an effective way to use electronic medical records to improve health care at a local level.”…

  • People believe ‘antibiotic myths’ (bbc.co.uk)
  • European Antibiotics Awareness Day (2020health.wordpress.com)
  • GPs told to resist antibiotics requests for coughs and colds (guardian.co.uk)
  • Antibiotics will never cure a cold (aboundingwellness.wordpress.com)
  • Health Tip: Why Antibiotic Resistance Is Serious (nlm.nih.gov)

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Public Health | , | Leave a comment

Useful tips when looking for a new doctor

Useful tips when looking for a new doctor.

From the 18th November posting by at KevinMD.com

These days, it is not uncommon for people to need to find a new doctor. The most common reasons include a) moving to a new city, b) dissatisfaction with your former doctor, c) your old doctor no longer accepts your new or old insurance, or d) you were diagnosed with a new medical condition and need specialized treatment.

Often, people go to their insurance company website or provider book, search for a doctor, and see a list of names in their area with contact information (and perhaps a brief biographical sketch). This narrows the choices down more than the phone book would, but now what? If insurance is not a limitation, the list of doctors to choose from will be even longer.

There is an old saying that word of mouth is the best form of advertising. This is one of the best ways to find a new doctor, provided you are getting the information from a source you know and trust. While friends and family can be good sources to ask about which doctors they use and like, it is also a very good idea to ask a friend (or friend of a friend) who works in a local hospital or health care setting. Here’s why.

First, healthcare providers know who provides good healthcare in their area. They know this because they read the reports of doctors they refer patients to, hear patient feedback on their experiences with the doctor, and may work in the same setting which allows them to have inside knowledge as to whether there are any problems with the doctor that may not be more commonly known to others.

When I needed to find an endodontist to perform a root canal last year, I first asked my regular dentist for a list of names. He gave me a list of endodontists who accepted my insurance and said all were good. Still, I wanted to base my choice on something more specific than using eenie-meenine-miney-mo. Problem is, I don’t have any friends or family members who are dentists. But I did know someone who had a relative who was a dentist in the area. I asked the person I knew about the names on the list, he asked the relative for me, and later he told me who I should see based on reputation in the dental community. The root canal worked out very well and I could not have been happier.

Another thing to do is look at the doctor’s credentials. First, check if the doctor is board certified since this gives you the highest probability that you will be provided competent specialized services. The best place to check is the website for the American Board of Medical Specialists (ABMS) which contains board certification status in 24 specialty areas. For psychology, see the American Board of Professional Psychology(ABPP), which contains board certification status in 14 different areas of psychology. Please note that there are good doctors who are not board certified and bad doctors who are board certified but you increase your chance of finding the former by choosing one who is board certified. Other credentials to look at are where the doctor went to school and completed training. This can be found by either calling the doctor’s office or doing an internet search.

An internet search is another good way to research a new doctor as you may discover news articles that a doctor was interviewed for, which may give you more confidence in the doctor’s expertise. Be careful, however, of doctor review websites because they tend to be skewed towards people who had a negative experience versus a positive experience and thus may not tell the entire story. Be sure to check the website for your state’s licensing board as this can tell you if there are any disciplinary complaints pending against the doctor.

One other idea some people have is to “interview” your potential doctor. Basically, this involves asking the doctor some important questions during an initial consultation such as how are emergencies handled, what are the after-hours policies, how can you get a prescription refill, do you actually see the doctor or a nurse practitioner, etc. Based on the answers to these types of questions and the personal feel you get based on interacting with the doctor, you can get a sense of the doctor is a right fit for you. While good rapport with the doctor is important, also consider how the office staff treats the patients. Are they friendly and courteous or do they seem to be rude and cut people short? Does there seem to be frequent infighting amongst the staff and is the doctor yelling at staff in front of patients. If so, these are bad signs. You need to deal with a competent office staff as well as a competent doctor to manage your health care needs.

One last point: If you get a letter from your doctor saying they will no longer be participating with your insurance as of a certain date due to a contract dispute, see this as a call to action. Contact the insurance company to complain and have others you know do the same who see the particular doctor. If enough pressure is brought to bear, you may not have to make a switch at all as the insurance company and doctor may then make a new agreement. This just happened to me recently, actually.

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | health care | , | Leave a comment

Consumers can have greater control over spending on health than previously thought

Consumers can have greater control over spending on health than previously thought.

From the blog Medcine-Blog-Health 4 October 2011 posting

The historic RAND Health Insurance Experiment found that patients had little or no control over their health carespending once they began to receive a physician’s care, but a new study shows that this has changed for those enrolled in consumer-directed health plans.

Patients with health coverage that includes a high deductible and either a health savings account or a health reimbursement arrangement reduced their costs even after they initiated care.

Overall, the study found about two thirds of the reduction in total health care costs was from patients initiating care less often and the remaining third was from a reduction in costs after care is initiated. The findings were published online by the journal Forum for Health Economics and Policy.

“Unlike earlier time periods, it seems that today’s consumers can have greater influence on the level and mix of medical services provided once they begin to receive medical care,” said Amelia Haviland, the study’s lead author and a senior statistician at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. “We found that at least part of the savings in cost per episode reflects choices for less-costly treatments and products, not just a reduction in the number of services.”

Researchers from RAND, Towers Watson and the University of Southern California examined the claims experience of many large employers in the United States to determine how consumer-directed health plans and other high-deductible plans can reduce health care costs. The study was funded by the California HealthCare Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

According to Haviland, at least three factors influenced the cost of care once the patient had initiated care: lower use of name-brand medications, less in-patient care and lower use of specialists. Researchers speculate that patients may talk to their doctors about their higher deductibles and ask them to help keep costs low.

Read the entire blog item

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | health care | , | Leave a comment

CDC Issues Initial 2011-2012 Seasonal FluView Report

Business/Employers Influenza Toolkit

CDC Issues Initial 2011-2012 Seasonal FluView Report
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2011/p1014_fluview_report.html
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released the initial FluView report for the U.S. 2011-2012 flu season with the message that flu activity is currently low, making this the perfect time to get vaccinated.

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Consumer Health, Public Health | , , , , | Leave a comment

In the News: Dietary Supplements Research [NCCAM News and Events]

A woman's hands on a pill bottle, angled to imply the label is being read.

In the News: Dietary Supplements Research (from the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine)

via In the News: Dietary Supplements Research [NCCAM News and Events].

 

Three recently published studies have highlighted the use and research surrounding natural products.

  • Vitamin E and the risk of prostate cancer: the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
  • Effect of increasing doses of saw palmetto extract on lower urinary tract symptoms: a randomized trial in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
  • Monounsaturated, trans, and saturated fatty acids and cognitive decline in women in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Many people take natural products in an effort to be well and stay healthy. In fact, according to the 2007 NHIS survey, 17.7 percent of American adults had used “natural products” (i.e., dietary supplements other than vitamins and minerals) in the past 12 months. It is important to study the safety and efficacy of widely used natural products that hold promise for treating or preventing disease or symptom management so that consumers, health care providers, and policy makers can make informed health care decisions.

NCCAM Research Spotlights

Other Resources

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Consumer Health, Nutrition | , , , | Leave a comment

HPV vaccine myths put health, lives at risk, say health leaders: Airing the facts

HPV vaccine myths put health, lives at risk, say health leaders: Airing the facts.

Excerpts from this blog item from the American Public Health Association

HPV vaccine myths put health, lives at risk, say health leaders: Airing the facts

Vaccination rates for human papillomavirus are lagging for teens, and a complicated web of confusion and misinformation may be to blame, according to public health leaders.

Several strains of HPV can cause cervical cancer, and two vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, have been shown conclusively to defend against those strains. The Food and Drug Administration recommended in 2006 that girls receive the vaccine before they become sexually active so that they are protected at the outset. In 2009, FDA approved the use of the vaccine for boys as well.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 6 million people in the U.S. become infected with HPV each year and each year about 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, leading to about 4,000 deaths.

Studies have shown the vaccine to be overwhelmingly safe, CDC said. As of June 2011, about 35 million doses of Gardasil had been distributed in the United States. CDC’s adverse event tracking mechanisms reported about 18,000 adverse events, 92 percent of which were nonserious events, such as fainting, swelling at the injection site and headache. Sixty-eight deaths were reported, but there is “no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine, and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination,” CDC said.

And yet, fed perhaps by misinformation or squeamishness about the idea of their children becoming sexually active, some parents are opting not to vaccinate, and the vaccination rates are lagging, according to CDC.

Figure

Lauren Fant receives an HPV vaccination from nurse Stephanie Pearson at a doctor’s office in Marietta, Ga., in 2007.

Photo by John Amis, courtesy AP Images

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Consumer Health, Health Education (General Public) | , , , , , | 1 Comment

NIH Launches Research Program to Explore Health Effects from Climate Change

 

National Institutes of Health

Image via Wikipedia

NIH Launches Research Program to Explore Health Effects from Climate Change.

Excerpts from the Environmental News Bits Blog item

A new research program funded by the National Institutes of Health will explore the role that a changing climate has on human health. Led by NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the program will research the risk factors that make people more vulnerable to heat exposure; changing weather patterns; changes in environmental exposures, such as air pollution and toxic chemicals; and the negative effects of climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

In addition to better understanding the direct and indirect human health risks in the United States and globally, one of the program’s goals is to determine which populations will be more susceptible and vulnerable to diseases exacerbated by climate change. Children, pregnant women, the elderly, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and those living in urban or coastal areas and storm centers may be at elevated risk. This program will also help to develop data, methods, and models to support health impact predictions.

“Governments and policy makers need to know what the health effects from climate change are and who is most at risk,” said John Balbus, M.D., NIEHS senior advisor for public health and lead for NIEHS’ efforts on climate change. “The research from this program will help guide public health interventions, to ultimately prevent harm to the most vulnerable people.”

The funding program is an outgrowth of two previous efforts led by NIH. A December 2009 workshop, sponsored by a trans-NIH working group, brought leaders in the field together to begin identifying priorities for NIH climate change research. NIH then led the ad hoc Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health in developing an outline of research needs, which are described in a report available atwww.niehs.nih.gov/climatereport.

November 20, 2011 Posted by | Public Health | , , , , | Leave a comment

Traffic-related air toxics and preterm birth: a population-based case-control study in Los Angeles county, California

Air-pollution

Image via Wikipedia

From the Web page

Background

Numerous studies have associated air pollutant exposures with adverse birth outcomes, but there is still relatively little information to attribute effects to specific emission sources or air toxics. We used three exposure data sources to examine risks of preterm birth in Los Angeles women when exposed to high levels of traffic-related air pollutants – including specific toxics – during pregnancy.

 …

Results

Odds of preterm birth increased 6-21% per inter-quartile range increase in entire pregnancy exposures to organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), benzene, and diesel, biomass burning and ammonium nitrate PM2.5, and 30% per inter-quartile increase in PAHs; these pollutants were positively correlated and clustered together in a factor analysis. Associations with LUR exposure metrics were weaker (3-4% per inter-quartile range increase).

Conclusions

These latest analyses provide additional evidence of traffic-related air pollution’s impact on preterm birth for women living in Southern California and indicate PAHs as a pollutant of concern that should be a focus of future studies. Other PAH sources besides traffic were also associated with higher odds of preterm birth, as was ammonium nitrate PM2.5, the latter suggesting potential importance of secondary pollutants. Future studies should focus on accurate modeling of both local and regional spatial and temporal distributions, and incorporation of source information.

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Public Health | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fragrant chemicals may pose threat to humans, environment | Great Lakes Echo

Fragrant chemicals may pose threat to humans, environment | Great Lakes Echo.

From the 12 October 2011 Great Lakes Echo Blog

By Sara Matthews-Kaye

Editor’s note: Synthetic musk is one of the pollutants of emerging concern to be discussed Oct. 11-14 in Detroit at the 2011 Great Lakes Week.  Detroit Public Television is providing ongoing coverage of Great Lakes Week at greatlakesnow.org

Some scientists worry that the chemicals that make lotion, soap, trash bags and a myriad of household products smell good are an emerging class of pollutants that threaten environmental and human health.

There is “supporting evidence that more study and research need to be done,” said Antonette Arvai, a physical scientist with the International Joint Commission, a U.S. and Canadian agency that will discuss newly emerging pollutants at its biennial meeting in Detroit this week.

Lotions, soaps and other pleasant smelling cosmetics may contain harmful chemicals. Photo: Normann Copenhagen (Flickr)

Use of fragrant chemicals in the United States has doubled since 1990. Arecent study by the commission identifies synthetic musk fragrance, used in a great number of personal care and cleaning products, as a chemical of emerging concern.

“When musk is applied to the structure of a cell wall, more toxins can pass through it,” Arvai said.  The commission has recommended that scientists and regulatory authorities in both countries study the health risk of synthetic musks.

Concerns go beyond human health. Synthetic musk accumulates in aquatic organisms over time.  A2009 studyinEnvironmental Toxicology and Chemistryreported that two musk fragrances, Galaxolide and Tonalide, were found in every sample of fish taken from the North Shore Channel in Chicago.

A large portion of world-wide musk production is Galaxolide and Tonalide.

Read the entire article

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November 20, 2011 Posted by | Consumer Health, Public Health | , , , , | Leave a comment

   

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