Health Canada is about to radically change the way doctors calculate the risks associated with cholesterol. New research shows that although lowering overall cholesterol levels helps prevent heart disease, the amount that is safe varies widely from person to person.

“The consensus is that we should shift the emphasis from total cholesterol to individual risk factors,” said Dr. Jacques Genest, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Montreal, in reporting yesterday on guidelines prepared by a group of experts for Health Canada.

The guidelines, which will be mailed soon to doctors, change the way heart risks will be rated, said Dr. George Fodor of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, who was chairman of the cholesterol study group.

Current cholesterol tests measure only the total of cholesterol, a waxy fat, that is present in the blood. But not all of the cholesterol is bad and the experts recommended that in the future, testing separate the HDL, the “good cholesterol,” from LDL, the material that can clog arteries.

The ratio of the two is the most important measure of heart health, Dr. Genest said.

In the past, a total cholesterol count of about 5.2 millimoles per litre of blood was considered healthy for everyone. But recent research has shown that what is safe varies widely, he said during the Fourth International Conference on Preventive Medicine.

The new guidelines suggest that a good ratio for someone who has high risk factors for heart disease would be about 1 mmol/l of HDL and 4 mmol/l of LDL.

However, in someone who is young and physically active and has no risk factors, a ratio as wide as one HDL to six or seven LDL is acceptable, Dr. Genest noted.

The committee said the blood test for cholesterol should also measure the level of triglycerides, another risk factor whose safe levels vary according to age and health of the individual.

Periodic screening for cholesterol is recommended only for men over 45 and women after menopause, concluded the 14-doctor committee, which developed the guidelines for Health Canada in a three-year review of studies of cholesterol.

Mass screening would be expensive and there is no need for it because statistically the risk of someone under 45 developing heart disease over the next decade is relatively small compared to the risk faced by people in older age groups, Dr. Genest explained.

Individual testing might make sense in younger people who have obvious risk factors, such as a family history of heart disease that strikes at an early age, he added.

The guidelines say doctors should try to identify cholesterol risk factors and work with patients to change as many as possible before they lead to problems. The factors include obesity and smoking, high blood pressure, a high-fat diet and sedentary habits. “If your doctor doesn’t ask about these, change doctors,” Dr. Genest suggested.

Specific recommendations for reducing cholesterol included elimination of smoking and increasing the variety of foods in the diet, with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables.

In addition, the doctors suggest adding more whole grains and fibre, reducing the use of salt and sugar in food and moderating the amount of alcohol you use.

“Cut down on your food from animal sources,” Dr. Genest suggested. “That includes ice cream and heavy cheese.” More important than the types of food is the amount.

“We do not treat cholesterol, we treat a patient. The doctor is the best suited to determine the patient’s individual needs,” Dr. Genest said.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs can help save lives, but they should be used only after other changes in risk factors, the committee concluded.

But for those who need the drugs, “we emphasize that all high-risk patients should be treated aggressively,” Dr. Fodor said.

Several drugs are available that can reduce cholesterol to safe levels, but once started they are generally taken for years.

Dr. Fodor said cholesterol lowering through lifestyle changes as well as drug use is already helping to save lives. The total cholesterol count of the average Canadian has declined over the past 20 years by about 1 mmol/l. This has translated to a drop of about 2% each year in the types of heart disease caused by cholesterol.

“This a a favourable trend and we want to continue to promote it in the future,” Dr. Fodor said.

He estimated that the new guidelines could reduce the number of deaths from heart disease by 30%.

Heart disease still kills 55,000 Canadians a year, making it the leading cause of death in this country.

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Power of Positive Thinking Under Debate (970220)

NEW YORK — While the “power of positive thinking” is encouraged as a way to improve health and well being, new research shows that it may be more important to avoid negative thinking.

Researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus studied 224 middle-aged and older adults, half of whom were caregivers for a relative with Alzheimer’s disease. At one-year intervals for three years, participants reported their degree of optimism and pessimism, negative life events, depression, stress, anxiety and other issues.

The researchers found that optimism and pessimism, previously thought to be linked, are actually independent factors that individually influence stressed and nonstressed people. And one factor is more foretelling than the other.

“Of greatest interest, we found that pessimism, not optimism, was a prospective predictor of psychological and physical health outcomes a year later,” write Susan Robinson-Whelen and colleagues in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Specifically, pessimism predicted anxiety, perceived stress and self-rated health for the next year, while optimism did not predict anything. The researchers explain that negative life events may not impact caregivers as much as noncaregivers because caregivers’ outlook for the future is already influenced by the stress of caring for an ill family member.

Previous research has shown that optimism may affect people’s success in alcohol treatment programs, with recovery from coronary artery bypass surgery and breast cancer surgery, and in other health-related concerns. This new study, the authors conclude, emphasizes the need to also consider how pessimism affects such outcomes.

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Heart Disease Prevention Guidelines Issued (970506)

NEW YORK —The American Heart Association (AHA) has issued “simplified and concise” recommendations aimed at helping individuals prevent the nation’s number one killer —heart disease.

“The first goal of prevention is to prevent the development of (heart disease) risk factors,” conclude a team of AHA experts led by Dr. Scott Grundy of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.

The new guidelines will come as little surprise to those who’ve already heard their physician urge a change in lifestyles. “(Heart-) healthy life habits should be universal,” the experts say. “These habits include avoidance or cessation of smoking, healthy eating, weight control, and appropriate exercise.”

To keep track of patient progress, doctors are being instructed to regularly check for smoking behaviors, physical inactivity, blood cholesterol levels, and high blood pressure.

In the recommendations, published in the current issue of the journal Circulation, the AHA urges physicians to target children as well as adults. “Ideally, risk factor prevention begins in childhood,” they point out. “Preventing cigarette smoking by children and adolescents is a prime goal. Another major goal is prevention of overweight and obesity in children and weight gain in adults: overweight lies at the heart of several (heart disease) risk factors.”

One way to check weight levels (providing a more valuable result than mere poundage), is what AHA experts call the waist-to-hip (WHR) ratio. “For men, a desirable WHR is less than 0.9,” the AHA explain, “meaning that the number of inches around the waist is 90% of the circumference of the hips; for middle-aged and elderly women it should be less than 0.8.”

The AHA say even a small increase in exercise can help beat obesity, lower cholesterol levels, and lessen the chance of heart attack and stroke. “For example,” they note, “in addition to three or four weekly sessions of brisk 30-minute walks, people should take stairs instead of elevators and park a little farther than usual from the office.”

Regular medical check-ups are essential in tracking any changes in risk. The AHA recommends physicians “measure blood pressure in all adults at least every 2 1/2 years.” And they advocate all “adults 20 and older should have their total cholesterol and HDL (“good”) cholesterol measured at least every five years.”

For those with suspected risk factors, medications can help. The AHA guidelines advise that patients whose blood pressure remains 140/90 or higher, even after three months of positive changes in lifestyle, “begin drug therapy.”

For those patients with consistently high blood levels of (“bad”) LDL cholesterol, the AHA guidelines urge the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs in combination with a switch to a healthy diet.

None of these potentially life-saving strategies will happen without a close doctor-patient relationship. “The physician must commit the time to make a proper assessment and initiate preventive efforts,” the experts say. “Patients should be involved in developing an effective plan for change and strategies for altering behavior.”

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U.S. Doctors Report Organ Transplant Advance (970806)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy researchers said Tuesday they may have found a way to prevent the body from rejecting “mismatched” organ transplants.

In an advance that could help the tens of thousands of people waiting for compatible organ donors, the doctors tested a therapy that seemed to turn off any immune system attack, even on transplanted organs that were completely mismatched.

The precise mechanism that blocked the rejection response remained unclear, the Defense Department said in a statement that hailed the work as a “breakthrough” and “significant milestone” in transplant science.

It said the research, by Capt. David Harlan and Lt. Cmdr. Allan Kirk of the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, suggested that the immune system was “re-educated” to leave the transplanted organ alone.

Currently, patients in need of a transplant must wait for an organ from a suitably matched donor. After the procedure, the patient must take anti-rejection medications for life to prevent the immune system from attacking and destroying the foreign organ.

Anti-rejection drugs often have significant unpleasant side effects and increase a patient’s susceptibility to infections and tumors. The drugs are also expensive.

As part of their research, the team led by Harlan and Kirk, which worked with transplant surgeon Stuart Knechtle of the University of Wisconsin, transplanted “very mismatched” kidneys into rhesus monkeys and treated them with the new therapy for 28 days after the operation.

Neither anti-rejection drugs nor any other therapy was administered. “Six months later, the primates are robust and suffering no significant side effects,” the Pentagon summary said.

It said the short course of the therapy appeared to be long-lasting, precluding the need for daily medication to prevent organ rejection.

The Navy team had no commercial partners in their research, a Navy spokeswoman said. A summary of the team’s research was to appear in the Aug. 5 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Joel Newman of the United Network for Organ Sharing, the Richmond, Virginia-based national organ allocation center, said any advance that cut or eliminated the need for immuno-suppressant drugs would be “very significant” for the tens of thousands of people living with transplanted organs.

The UNOS network, which tracks U.S. transplant data, said almost 4,000 Americans died in 1996 as they waited for a compatible donor. As of July 30, it listed more than 53,000 people awaiting transplants, mostly for kidneys followed by liver and heart.

UNOS said about 150,000 people in the United States have had organs transplanted into them since 1983 when immuno-suppressants entered wide use.

The team’s therapy lets the immune system recognize the transplanted organ but keeps it from sounding the alarm to attack the invading organ.

Harlan and Kirk, who were to discuss their research at a Pentagon briefing later Tuesday, said they believed their research may also provide help for a range of immune system illnesses.

Among these were the relatively innocuous but annoying hay fever and potentially life threatening illness such as multiple sclerosis and lupus, they said.

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Report: Scientists discover cause of brain cell death (970808)

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have discovered what causes brain cells to die in people with Huntington’s disease and six related disorders, The New York Times reported Friday.

The scientists said that in each case an insoluble ball of protein forms in the cell nucleus and kills it. The cause of cell death was previously unknown.

Researchers told the Times they hoped to learn how to dissolve the balls of protein, thereby delaying or preventing the onset of the disease.

Huntington’s disease is a mysterious, inherited malady in which portions of the brain known as basal ganglia atrophy and die. Victims develop an abnormal gait, as if drunk, and suffer severe dementia.

The related diseases, which also are inherited, include spinocellebellar ataxia and spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy. They affect different areas of the brain but produce similar symptoms.

“This is a pretty big deal,” said Dr. David Housman, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., who is an expert on Huntington’s disease. “We have turned a corner from looking at genes to where we can begin developing real assays for drugs. If I were someone at risk for Huntington’s disease this would be the biggest news I could imagine.”

The findings by researchers in Britain, Germany and the United States, are described in two articles that appear Friday in the journal Cell and a third article in the August issue of the journal Neuron.

Dr. Allan Tobin, the scientific director of the Hereditary Disease Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif., and the director of the Brain Research Institute at UCLA, said the findings were an important leap forward.

“When we found the gene for Huntington’s disease, our hope was that it would look like a smoking gun,” Tobin said. “Now the problem looks like an alarm clock that has a bomb in it somewhere.”

Tobin said therapies should be able to defuse the bomb.

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Lack of Light Causes High Blood Pressure? (970818)

NEW YORK — Around the world, the farther one gets from the equator, the more likely you are to find people with high blood pressure — not surprising news to anyone who has been on a Caribbean vacation.

However, lack of exposure to ultraviolet light may actually contribute to the rise in blood pressure in higher latitudes, according to a new theory from an Alabama researcher. And the theory may explain why blacks in the U.S. and Europe have a greater risk of high blood pressure than whites in those countries or blacks who live in Africa.

Sunlight plays an important role in the synthesis of vitamin D, notes Dr. Stephen Rostand, of the University of Alabama in Birmingham. The farther away from the equator, the less ultraviolet exposure and the less vitamin D that is synthesized in the body. And those with greater amounts of pigment in the skin — such as blacks — require six times the amount of ultraviolet B (UVB) light to produce the same amount of vitamin D found in lighter-skinned people. While 20% to 30% of UVB radiation is transmitted through white skin, only 5% is transmitted through deeply pigmented skin.

“Such observations are not limited to people of African origin,” Rostand reported in the current issue of the journal Hypertension. “Studies of Pakistani and Indian children living in the United States suggest that their capacity to produce vitamin D is the same as whites, but like blacks, they require longer exposure to UV light because of increased skin melanin content.”

Lower levels of vitamin D can cause secretion of parathyroid hormone. Together the two changes — possibly exacerbated by low calcium levels — may stimulate the growth of blood vessels, and change their ability to contract or respond to blood pressure regulating factors, according to the theory.

However, “as in any synthesis of this type, there are many pitfalls,” Rostand admitted. Many existing studies do not link high blood pressure with lower levels of vitamin D, or higher levels of parathyroid hormone, or even record the ethnic background of participants. And most people who live farther from the equator reside in industrialized countries, which may have other social, economic, or psychological factors that contribute to high blood pressure.

“There are multiple factors that contribute to blood pressure control,” said Dr. Paul Velletri, the hypertension group leader at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. “This could be an additional environmental exposure that is a risk for high blood pressure, but it needs to be studied in more detail.”

“From my perspective, considering all the things that are happening in high blood pressure research now, it could be an additional exposure that might increase the risk, but in and of itself, I don’t think it’s likely that it would be a sole cause for hypertension for most people,” Velletri said.

SOURCE: Hypertension (1997;30:150-156)

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Study finds peanuts good for the heart (970909)

LAS VEGAS (AP) — When you sip that glass of red wine, don’t forget to grab a handful of peanuts. Those, too, are healthy for the heart, according to a new study by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Peanuts, a crunchy snack that’s high in fat, may contain the heart-healthy compound resveratrol.

“Frequent consumption of peanuts and/or nuts result in reduced cardiovascular disease and lowered total cholesterol,” said Dr. Timothy Sanders, a researcher for the USDA’s Raleigh, N.C., Agricultural Research Center.

Sanders, whose research was funded by the Peanut Institute of Albany, Ga., presented his findings Monday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. The meeting ends Thursday.

Research on red wine has associated resveratrol with what’s commonly called the “French paradox” — that is, despite a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet, the French population has a surprisingly low rate of heart disease.

Sanders and his research group found that the compound was also present in Spanish, runner and Virginia-type (ball park) peanuts.

Research on resveratrol in the 1970s and 1980s indicated the compound was only found in peanuts that had been inoculated and incubated with microorganisms, making them inedible.

But Sanders’s group found that resveratrol is present in edible peanuts.

“I was surprised to find it, quite frankly. I really was. We still have large questions as to why is it here,” he said.

Sanders, who said he is not a nutritionist or a dietitian, isn’t sure just how many peanuts one would have to eat to make a difference.

The average concentration of resveratrol in red wine is 160 micrograms per fluid ounce. Sanders said the peanut seeds contain about 73 micrograms per ounce. The typical serving size of peanuts is considered to be one ounce, or a handful. The average glass of wine is about five fluid ounces.

John D. Folts, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical Center, said the study really has no value because resveratrol is hard to detect in a person’s blood.

“It has to be shown to get into the blood and do something favorable on the clotting system,” he said.

Reduced heart disease in people who eat peanuts may just be a result of the Vitamin E in peanuts, Folts said.

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Herbal remedies: Buyers beware (970923)

Lack of regulations mean potency varies and quality can be questionable, research shows.

JANET Ouellette was at her wit’s end. The 46-year-old homemaker from Sardis, B.C., was plagued by frequent attacks of debilitating migraine headaches. She had tried every conventional medication. Nothing seemed to work.

As a last resort, her brother, Robin Marles, a biochemist, suggested that she try a herbal remedy known as feverfew. He had studied the herb and heard that it had helped other migraine sufferers.

But there was a catch. His research had taught him that not all feverfew brands sold in health food stores were of equal potency. Some products labelled feverfew did not contain any of the active ingredient of the herb. So he urged his sister to take a brand he had tested in his lab.

Mrs. Ouellette gave it a whirl and, almost immediately, the severity of the migraines diminished, followed by a gradual reduction in the number of attacks.

Feverfew, in Mrs. Ouellette’s opinion, has changed her life for the better. “I might get one migraine every three months,” said Mrs. Ouellette, who continues to take the herb twice daily. “It means I can function.”

Mrs. Ouellette’s experience illustrates both the promise and pitfalls of herbal remedies, which have swelled into a $2-billion-a-year industry in North America and are growing by an estimated 15% annually.

Some herbal remedies do appear to provide benefit for some people suffering from a variety of ailments. But, in the absence of strict regulatory controls, many of the products are of questionable quality. Not everyone, after all, has a big brother who can tell them which product is effective.

“I will admit it, our industry does need a bit of a shakeup,” said Joel Thuna, a manager with Global Botanical Corp. Ltd., a family-run business that has been producing herbal remedies in Barrie, Ont., since the 1860s.

And that shakeup may be about to happen. In May, the federal government set up a special advisory panel that was given one year to make recommendations about how the industry should be regulated.

“Quality control is our central issue,” said Frank Chandler, director of the college of pharmacy at Dalhousie University and head of the new advisory panel. “You’ve got people out there who are selling fraudulent products, some of them knowingly, some of them unwittingly.”

Buying a herbal remedy in Canada is a “crap shoot,” he said.

Under existing Canadian laws, any commercial product that is meant to be ingested through the mouth is regulated as either a food or a drug. That means herbal producers have a great deal of flexibility in how they market most of their products.

They can choose to sell a product as a food supplement and avoid the regulations governing drugs. By following this strategy, however, they are prohibited from making claims that their product can benefit a person’s health.

If they do want to make medicinal claims, they must apply to Health Canada for a drug identification number, commonly known as a DIN.

This process can be quite simple, provided that the product is supposed to be used for minor ailments that do not usually require the attention of a doctor. For an administrative fee of up to $720, and by providing evidence the herb was used as a traditionally folk remedy plus a pledge that certain manufacturing standards will be maintained, a company can get a DIN and sell its herbal product like a non-prescription over-the-counter medicine.

But if a company wants to claim a herb can cure serious illnesses — such as heart disease — it must provide the same type of rigorous scientific studies required of a new prescription drug. Those studies can cost millions of dollars.

So companies generally do not bother to get DINs for those herbs that they believe can treat serious ailments. Some even skip the relatively easy approval process for making minor health claims. As a result, many labels do not actually mention what a supplement might be used for — or warn of possible side effects. The sellers rely on word of mouth to generate interest in their remedies or use marketing language that hints at potential uses. The consumer is left to make sense of it all.

Nonetheless, the free-for-all in the marketplace has not dampened consumer interest in herbal remedies. “When the populace gets disillusioned with traditional medicine, they go back to their roots,” said Ian Cameron, professor of family medicine at Dalhousie University.

Indeed, public suspicion of synthetic drugs has led many to turn to alternative medicines, which are perceived to be “natural” and therefore presumed to be “good.”

And without doubt, folkloric tradition — as well as some modern research — suggests that certain herbal remedies have merit. To some degree, modern medicine can trace its own roots back to herbal remedies that likely evolved through trial and error.

“Many contemporary western remedies were really used in folk history for many years,” noted Dr. Ronald Carr, professor of medicine at Dalhousie University. For example, digitalis, the powerful heart medication, is derived from the plant foxglove.

But the similarity between pharmaceutical drugs and traditional herbs can be taken only so far.

Modern pharmacology came about through the development of standardized products containing a fixed amount of a known active ingredient. Herbal remedies, by contrast, can contain a multitude of different ingredients, and their so-called active compounds may be not even known. Potency can vary from batch to batch, depending upon where and how the plant was grown and processed.

“These plants are quite variable genetically even though they may tend to look somewhat similar,” said Dr. Marles, an associate professor in the botany department at Manitoba’s Brandon University.

This fact alone adds to the uncertainty of herbal remedies. To make matters worse, herbal remedy makers are not all alike.

Some companies take great care in the selection and processing of their herbs to try to ensure some consistency in potency. But others buy their raw material from a variety of domestic or foreign sources and often lack the in-house expertise to know what they are getting. It may be a stale batch or not the real thing.

Even well-established firms have found themselves in the embarrassing position of selling the wrong product in their bottles.

In one widely reported incident, about nine years ago, C. E. Jamieson & Co. Ltd., sold a product labelled as Siberian ginseng but was actually Chinese silk vine. The mistake came to light only after a nursing mother reported that her infant was developing hair around the genitals, a side effect of the Chinese silk vine.

“It’s sad, it’s unfortunate that it happened,” said Robert Beland, director of scientific and technical affairs for Toronto-based Jamieson. Since then, he added, “we have invested millions and millions of dollars into improving our labs . . . to make sure something like that would never happen again.”

Herbal remedies can be risky when used incorrectly despite the popular myth that so-called natural products are safe.

“Just because it’s a natural product doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous,” said Tim Lee, an immunologist at Dalhousie University. “Poison ivy’s a natural product and hemlock’s a natural product.”

Some herbs (chaparral and comfrey) are considered so toxic that they are banned outright by Health Canada. A few (including ephedra) are so strong they cannot be sold without a DIN. And experts advise pregnant women to avoid many herbal remedies because it is often not known how they might affect a developing fetus.

Dr. Marles noted that herbal remedies can sometimes interact with prescription and non-prescription drugs. Using ginseng, in combination with certain antidepressants, has been known to cause headaches and insomnia.

Another concern is that a product may contain more than just the herb. Ground-up ginseng roots can include the dirt in which they were planted, warned Michael Atkins, who grows ginseng in Waterford, Ont., and is president of the Ginseng Growers Association of Canada.

There is a risk that the earth might contain potentially harmful bacteria, he said. “If you buy a capsule and the powder in it is very brown looking . . . I would be very worried about the amount of dust that’s in it.”

Occasionally, the consequences of herbal misuse can be catastrophic.

In the United States, where the rules are more lax than in Canada, 18 deaths and thousands of injuries have been caused by herbal diet remedies containing ephedra. Often mixed with caffeine, the potent herb becomes a legalized speed. It can accelerate the heart beat, causing a heart attack and stroke. Misuse can also damage the liver.

As the accident toll rises, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing stricter limits on the sale of ephedra, also known as ma huang.

In Canada, ephedra can be sold only as a nasal decongestant and remedies that combine the herb with other stimulants are strictly forbidden. “Ephedra is a great decongestant, but as a diet aid you’d have to be an idiot to try it,” Mr. Thuna said.

Despite tighter rules, there have still been two reported cases of Canadians suffering from ephedra toxicity.

Ephedra mishaps grab the headlines, but herbalists insist that most of their products are much safer than many pharmaceutical products, which are also misused.

On the other hand, Micheline Ho, chief of the product information division of Health Canada’s health protection branch, said there are no reliable figures for how many people suffer ill effects from herbal remedies. “A lot of people don’t consider these to be medicines and they see them as being natural, so that even if they do have an adverse reaction, they will not attribute it to that,” she said.

Nonetheless, many herbs appear to be quite harmless. There is no evidence that the popular herb known as echinacea, taken by millions to ward off colds and flu, causes adverse effects.

But even if it cannot do people harm, echinacea will not do them any good if it is mislabelled or wrongly processed. What is needed is an effective mechanism for classifying and identifying herbs, said Dennis Awang, president of MediPlant Consulting Services of Ottawa.

Dr. Awang was head of the now-defunct natural products section of the bureau of drug research at Health Canada. The section used to carry out tests on herbal remedies and had earned an international reputation for innovative work, but it was axed as a budget-cutting measure in 1991.

Now, Dr. Awang has become one of Health Canada’s most vocal critics.

“Health Canada is doing a lousy job of regulating,” he said. “One of the most important shortcomings of the regulatory apparatus is there is no program for certification of botanical identity and purity and strength. . . .

“You don’t even know what plant or plants there are [in the bottles],” he said, adding that products are often mislabelled.

Dr. Awang is not alone in his criticism. Don Beatty, head of regulatory affairs and quality assurance for Quest Vitamins, estimates that 10% of the herbal products on store shelves are blatantly violating some Canadian regulation. Either they lack bilingual labelling, are illegal imports or make a health claim that is prohibited in Canada.

“We can’t prevent everything and we admit we don’t see everything,” Ms. Ho said when asked why Ottawa doesn’t always crack down on offenders.

She added that most of the federal government’s enforcement is at the manufacturing, distribution and large importing level. “Our activities are not at the retail level, so that could be why we haven’t spotted them.”

Yet even when companies apply for DINs, there is no guarantee that the bottle contains what it is supposed to. “There is no actual product submission or testing that is involved with getting a DIN,” Mr. Beatty said. “It’s just really a paper process and the government relies on honesty, I guess, and good faith. In a perfect world, that would be sufficient, but it doesn’t always work that way.”

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Study Questions Beliefs About Fat in Diets (980216)

PHILADELPHIA — The often repeated advice that everyone should eat less fat and more carbohydrates is coming under challenge.

New research finds that cutting fat levels much below the typical American diet probably won’t lower the risk of heart disease for the majority of adults, and it might even increase the hazard for some.

On average, fat makes up 34% of the calories in the American diet, and this is already close to the level recommended by major health organizations. The American Heart Association suggests that 30% or less of calories should come from fat.

Nevertheless, “there is a movement toward even further fat restriction,” said Dr. Ronald Krauss of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California.

He noted that many individuals, sometimes with the encouragement of doctors and other health professionals, believe that if a low-fat diet is good, an even lower fat one should be better still.

Krauss is head of the heart association’s nutrition committee, which writes the organization’s dietary guidelines. At a meeting Saturday of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he presented new evidence of why very low fat diets may be good for some but bad for others.

He said his data suggest that about one-third of the U.S. population may benefit from reducing fat intake below 30%. Another one-third will neither be helped nor harmed by this. And the final third may actually increase their risk of heart disease.

Krauss noted that evidence in favor of lowering fat and replacing it with carbohydrates comes from studies that look at average cholesterol levels across large population groups.

“These fail to reflect the tremendous amount of individual variation,” he said.

Just how someone’s cholesterol level responds to diet depends, at least in part, on the genes that he or she inherits. Probably many genes are involved, and no one knows what they are.

However, once these genes are identified, Krauss said it should be possible to tailor people’s diets to match the needs of their genetic profiles.

One factor in all this appears to be the kind of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL, that people produce. While LDL is generally known as the bad cholesterol, since it increases the risk of clogged arteries, it comes in two varieties.

By far the worse is what experts call small, dense LDL. Between 20% and 30% of adults make this kind of LDL. It is part of a syndrome that also often includes low levels of HDL, the protective good cholesterol, and high triglycerides, among other things.

Those with small, dense LDL have what’s known as a pattern B cholesterol profile. Their risk of heart disease is about three times higher than the majority of Americans, who have larger LDL and are considered to be pattern A.

Krauss put 105 men on a low-fat diet in which 24% of calories came from fat. This is close to what’s typically achieved with AHA’s more rigorous Step 2 diet, intended for those who have trouble lowering their cholesterol.

He found that men with pattern B cholesterol responded strongly to the low-fat diet, significantly improving their cholesterol levels. However, those with more normal pattern A showed little or no benefit.

Indeed, about 40% of them actually shifted from pattern A to pattern B. Their protective HDL dropped significantly, and they developed the small, dense LDL.

“This may give some caution to very low-fat diets in these individuals,” said Krauss.

For now, doctors cannot easily determine whether their patients are pattern A or pattern B, although Krauss said such tests should soon be available.

Dr. Jan Breslow of Rockefeller University questioned whether the apparently damaging effects seen among the pattern A men on low-fat diets truly will put them at higher risk of heart trouble.

He noted that large population studies generally conclude that the less fat people eat, the lower their risk.

“This is a big raging debate,” he said, that will require more research to settle.

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Study: Dirty Teeth Lead to Heart Attacks (980217)

PHILADELPHIA — Worried about a heart attack? You should exercise, eat right and keep your teeth clean, researchers said Monday.

The bacteria found in plaque can cause blood platelets to clump up — the first stage toward a blood clot that could cause a heart attack or stroke, University of Minnesota researchers said.

Gum disease offers a good route for these bacteria to get into the blood, and several researchers have reported recently finding bacteria in the atherosclerotic plaque that clogs diseased arteries.

“We know a great deal about risk factors for atherosclerosis and heart attacks, but not the actual causes,” Dr. Mark Herzberg, a professor of preventive sciences at the University of Minnesota, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

His team took the germs found in dirty and diseased gums, including strains of Streptococcus and Porphyromonas bacteria, and infused them into rabbits. The blood platelets in the rabbits started to clump.

The rabbits also had abnormal electrocardiograms and faster heart and breathing rates. Using a different bacterium did not have these effects.

What is different about some of the bacteria found in plaque and gum disease is a protein they produce called platelet aggregation associated protein or PAAP. This could be the key to the problem, Herzberg said.

It has not been proved that the same thing happens in humans. Herzberg said he wants to test the unfortunate rabbits more to see if they suffer heart attacks when the bacteria are infused.

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U.S. Doctors Found to Overuse Antibiotics on Children (980319)

NEW YORK — Nearly half of children seen by physicians in the U.S. for treatment of a common cold leave their doctors’ offices with unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics, according to a study appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Bacteria-fighting antibiotics are useless against colds, the vast majority of which are caused by viruses. Nonetheless, “antibiotics were prescribed to 44% of (pediatric) patients with common colds,” according to a review of 531 US pediatric office visits conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, and the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

The study, based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics, also found that 46% of children were prescribed antibiotics for (viral) upper respiratory tract infections (URI), even though there is no evidence that antibiotics can help treat those conditions. The unnecessary overprescription of antibiotics during past decades has been blamed for the recent emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of sometimes deadly bacteria.

The researchers say children aged 5 to 11 years were nearly twice as likely as younger children to receive an antibiotic prescription during a cold-related office visit. They speculate that parents of school-aged children may put more pressure on physicians to prescribe antibiotics because these parents “often do not have mechanisms in place to care for their child at home, (and) they may perceive antibiotic treatment as reassurance that ‘everything possible is being done’ and feel more comfortable returning the child with a respiratory illness back to school.”

The study authors also note that pediatricians were half as likely to prescribe antibiotics for colds or URIs, compared with general practitioners or other non pediatricians.

An accompanying editorial noted that this is the third analysis of NCHS data to find overprescribing of antibiotics for upper respiratory infections.

The editorial authors believe managed care company policies may be contributing to the problem. They speculate that patients who wrongly believe antibiotics will speed recovery may be pressuring doctors for prescriptions. Once they receive these prescription, patients then give compliant doctors higher marks on health maintenance organization satisfaction surveys. Managed care administrators use those surveys to evaluate — and reward — individual physicians.

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Talking Raises Blood Pressure (980324)

NEW YORK — Talking can trigger a sharp rise in blood pressure — something to remember the next time you have your blood pressure taken, according to a new study in the American Journal of Hypertension.

“Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (the first and second numbers in a blood pressure reading) increased markedly as soon as the patients started talking... when compared with the preceding period of silence,” report researchers at the Clinique Cardiologique in Paris, France.

They studied blood pressure readings in 28 male and 22 female hypertension patients during routine doctor’s office visits. Readings were taken during periods of “active talking,” quiet reading, and silence.

“Mean systolic blood pressure increased significantly, by 17 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), while talking,” the researchers say. Systolic pressure rose from an average of 142 mm Hg during the preceding silent period to 159 mm Hg during the talking interval. Diastolic blood pressure also rose during talking, by an average of 13 mm Hg.

The researchers also found that talking seemed to have a residual effect on blood pressure, raising measurements by an average of 4 mm Hg during post-talking silent episodes.

However, they say reading actually triggered an 8 mm Hg reduction in systolic blood pressure, along with a 3 mm Hg drop in diastolic readings, compared with measurements obtained during periods of silence.

The French team say their findings may help explain what doctors have long called “white coat” phenomenon — the tendency for some patients’ blood pressure to rise during medical consultations. They believe more accurate measurements of blood pressure might be obtained if blood pressure is measured while the patient remains silent, thus reducing the impact of the “white coat” phenomenon.

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Report: Baby Boomers Face Alzheimer’s Upsurge (980325)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans with Alzheimer’s could more than triple as the population ages unless scientists find a way to prevent or cure it, according to advocates pressing for more research money.

“Many of our nation’s baby boomers have a time bomb ticking in their heads today,” Stephen McConnell, a spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Association, told a Senate panel Tuesday.

The group’s projections — based on Census data and the prevalence of Alzheimer’s now — suggest that by 2050, when the youngest baby boomers will be in their 80s, 14 million Americans could suffer from the disease, compared with 4 million today.

“And that figure only counts the patients who are affected, it doesn’t count the husbands and the wives and the children and the brothers and the sisters,” said Rosemary Cronin of Dubuque, Iowa, whose husband Bob was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four years ago.

Cronin testified Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that allots money for health programs. Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he hopes to boost government spending on Alzheimer’s research from about $340 million this fiscal year to $440 million in 1999, but “candidly, it is easier said than done.”

Congressional Republicans and President Clinton agree that more money should go to medical research, but not on where it will come from and how it should be spent.

Alzheimer’s is an irreversible neurological disorder that destroys brain cells, robbing people of memory. It most commonly shows up in people over age 65. Medicare spends on average more than $3,000 a year extra on each senior citizen who has it.

New drugs may help slow its progress, and substances such as vitamin E have shown preventative potential, but more study is needed, said Dr. Steven DeKosky, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

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In Health Matters, Old Adage About Old Age Rings True (980408)

People who live to a ripe old age will only wind up spending their twilight years in pain and misery in a nursing home. Right?

Not necessarily.

A study by Stanford University researchers found that middle-age people who watch their weight, exercise and don’t smoke not only live longer, but have fewer years of sickness and dependence on others when they get old.

“Not only do persons with better health habits survive longer, but ... disability is postponed and compressed into fewer years at the end of life,” the study’s authors concluded.

The study in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine was co-written by Dr. James Fries, who ignited a debate over aging and health 18 years ago when he challenged the common belief that those who live longer end up sicker and frailer than people who die younger.

The new study is the first substantial research to confirm his theory, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a Harvard Medical School endocrinologist.

“This study suggests that healthy lifestyle practices don’t simply extend the amount of time people spend in a nursing home,” Manson said.

The study of 1,741 University of Pennsylvania alumni found that thin non-smokers who exercised at least two hours per week remained free of even minor disabilities for up to seven years longer than those with bad habits.

People with the healthiest lifestyles in middle age were half as likely as overweight, sedentary smokers to have trouble with daily tasks by the time they were 75. Those with the worst lifestyles also were 50% more likely to die and were twice as disabled in the last two years of life.

Manson noted that other studies have shown that people are never too old to benefit from lifestyle changes.

Dr. Christine Cassel, chairwoman of geriatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said the study should motivate people to change their habits and encourage doctors to emphasize prevention.

Still, “there are always going to be four to six years at the end of life when we are quite frail and dependent on others,” she said.

The Stanford study looked at students who attended Penn in 1939 and 1940 and were surveyed on their health habits in 1962, when their ages ranged from 39 to 48.

They were divided into low-risk, moderate-risk and high-risk groups based on how many cigarettes they smoked per day, their weight relative to their height, and how many hours they exercised each week.

They were surveyed again every year from 1986 (average age 67) to 1994 (average age 75), or until they died, on their ability to perform basic tasks: dressing, rising from a chair, eating, walking, grooming, reaching, gripping and doing errands.

The researchers acknowledged that those studied still have their sickest years ahead of them, since half can be expected to live beyond age 85. The study is still going on.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Edward Campion, a geriatrics specialist and deputy editor of the Journal, also noted that the disability survey does not adequately measure some common problems of old age, such as loss of vision and hearing, incontinence and depression.

Also, the older people get, the greater their chance of suffering from dementia, the “most feared age-related cause of disability,” Campion said.

The study also was limited to white, mostly male college graduates, most of whom have good incomes. Poor people, minorities and those with limited education are more likely to suffer chronic disease and disability as they age, Campion and Cassel said.

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Fat children risk heart disease early, study finds (980408)

WASHINGTON, April 8 — Fat children show early signs of heart disease such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, researchers said on Wednesday.

And they are unlikely to grow out of it — most children who were fat at nine were still fat at 11, Johanna Dwyer of Tufts University in Boston and colleagues said.

“These children are in a risky track, not only for continued or greater overweight in the future, but also potentially for some very serious adult cardiovascular disease problems,” Dwyer said in a statement.

Dwyer and colleagues examined more than 5,100 primary school children at 96 schools in California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas for their report, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“The overweight children had significantly higher blood pressure, total blood cholesterol, low density lipoprotein or LDL cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol, and lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol or HDL cholesterol, than their lighter peers,” Dwyer said.

Dwyer’s team started out with the children when they were in the third grade, aged about nine. Nearly 30% of girls and 28% of the boys were overweight as measured by body mass index (BMI), a ratio of height to weight.

Two and a half years later, 34% of boys and 30% of girls were overweight.

“A child’s weight status in the third grade was the most powerful predictor of overweight at follow-up in the fifth grade,” Dwyer said. Boys and blacks were also more likely to be overweight.

“Over the two and a half years of the study, many more children became fat than returned to the desirable weight,” she added.

Blood pressure rose with BMI and, as would be expected, the overweight children ran more slowly.

But Dwyer’s team could not blame lack of exercise for the condition of the overweight children. On average, the time spent in vigorous activity, watching TV and playing video games was about the same for all the children.

She said more study was needed into ways to prevent children from becoming fat and how to encourage them to eat more healthily.

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Study links high-fat breakfasts to blood clotting (980415)

WASHINGTON, April 14 — Even a simple breakfast of toast and margarine may be too fatty for the body to handle and it could be there are no “good” fats in a high-fat diet, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday.

A single high-fat meal can cause elevations in a blood-clotting factor known as Factor VIIa, which has been associated with heart attacks, they wrote in a report in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Louise Mennen and colleagues at the Agricultural University in Wageningen, Netherlands, said it did not matter what kinds of fats people ate — all fat was bad.

“The results of our trial support the view that the factor VIIa response to a high dietary fat intake is independent of the type of fat,” Mennen said in a statement.

The researchers studied 91 elderly women to identify dietary fats that might raise the risk of heart disease.

The women ate four breakfasts, each with 50% of calories from fat but containing different fatty acids. The meals included a bun, margarine, jam, cake and orange juice.

One breakfast contained palmitic acid, a highly saturated animal fat, one had stearic acid, found in beef and cocoa butter, and the other two had differing levels of linoleic and linolenic acid, found in corn, canola and other vegetable oils.

The control breakfast used for comparison was low-fat and included a low-fat bun and yogurt.

Levels of factor VIIa rose significantly in those who ate the high-fat breakfasts. In contrast, levels decreased in those who ate the control diet.

“There were no differences among the fat-rich diets,” Mennen said.

It was not yet clear if factor VIIa was a direct cause of heart attacks, she said.

“This study adds another reason to try to adhere to the current recommendations of a low-fat diet,” Alice Lichtenstein of Tufts University’s Human Nutrition Research Center said in a telephone interview.

The American Heart Association recommends that the average person should limit total fat intake to no more than 30% of total calories.

Some studies have indicated that monounsaturated fats such as olive oil are better for the heart than animal fats or most vegetable fats. Mennen’s team did not test olive oil in their study.

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Docs Find Root of Soy’s Cholesterol-Cutting Power (980319)

WASHINGTON — Researchers have discovered the component in soy responsible for reducing cholesterol levels in the blood, a study released Friday said. The responsible component has been a mystery since a connection between soybeans and low cholesterol levels was first revealed in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1995.

The new study, conducted at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, showed isoflavones in soy proteins, also known as phytoestrogen, can lower cholesterol levels by as much as 10%.

The isoflavones lowered both total cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or “bad cholesterol,” levels. Phytoestrogen is the plant form of the female hormone estrogen.

The researchers focused on isoflavones because of its likeness to human hormones, said Dr. John Crouse, an author on the study reported to the American Heart Association’s 38th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

“Isoflavones are a natural candidate ...because some of their similarities to hormones that effect the level of LDL,” Crouse said in a telephone interview.

Patients with higher levels of cholesterol saw their cholesterol count drop by a greater percentage than patients with lower levels, the study said. The study, examined 156 patients with “moderately elevated cholesterol levels.”

Some of the patients in the nine-week study drank soy drinks with isoflavones and some drank soy drinks with no isoflavones. Another group of patients received drinks containing no soy proteins or isoflavones.

Patients whose soy drinks contained no isoflavones and the control group showed no reductions in cholesterol levels, the study said.

Scientists began investigating the link when they noticed the low levels of heart disease in some Asian countries compared to the United States. One of the dietary differences between the societies was the Asian countries high soy consumption, said Dr. Gregory Burke, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine who also worked on the study.

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Thick Waisted At Risk For Poor Health (980320)

LONDON — A large waist not only restricts what you can wear; it also can be an indicator of poor health.

Researchers from Britain and the Netherlands have found that adults with wide girths face a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and generally find ordinary activities, such as climbing stairs, more of a struggle than those adults who are trimmer.

Moreover, men and women with wider waists are more likely to experience lower back pain and thick-waisted men more likely than their slimmer adult counterparts to be laid off from work as a result of this pain.

“Waist circumferences of more than 102.0 centimeters (40 inches) in men and more than 88.0 cm (35 inches) in women have a strong likelihood of developing several disorders, including shortness of breath, hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), hypertension, and difficulty with the basic activities of daily life,” the researchers report.

Dr. Michael Lean of the department of human nutrition at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland led the multicenter research team whose findings appear in the March 21st issue of The Lancet. The team studied 5,887 men and 7,018 women in the Netherlands who were between the ages of 20 and 59 years.

The researchers found that men with waist circumferences of greater than 102 cm had a 4.5 times greater risk of getting non-insulin dependent diabetes than those with waists of less than 94 cm (37 inches). For women with waists of more than 88 cm, the risk of getting the same disease was 3.8 times greater than for those with waists smaller than 80 cm (31.5 inches).

Lean and colleagues say that health professionals need to encourage adults to maintain trim waistlines. They also note that adults with moderately wide waists should be monitored for health problems.

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Many do not know stroke warning signs - U.S. poll (980422)

CHICAGO, April 21 — Many people in the United States cannot identify the common warning signs for a stroke, according to a survey published on Tuesday.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati said a poll of 1,880 people in the Cincinnati area found only 57% could correctly identify one of the five stroke danger signals and substantially fewer knew more than one.

Those 75 or older, the group with the highest stroke risk, were the least knowledgeable about risk signs and factors, the report added.

The study, published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, listed these danger signs, as drawn up by the National Institutes of Health:

Sudden weakness or numbness of the face, arm or leg; sudden dimness or loss of vision, especially in one eye; sudden difficulty speaking or understanding speech; sudden severe headache with no known cause; and unexplained dizziness, unsteadiness or sudden falls.

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Exercise may prevent Alzheimer’s disease—U.S study (980428)

WASHINGTON, April 28 — Regular exercise can help protect against Alzheimer’s disease in old age, researchers said on Tuesday.

People who had participated in exercises including jogging, biking, golf and swimming from ages 20 through 59 were at a lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s, according to a study reported to the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting.

“It gives us another reason to exercise,” said neurologist Arthur Smith, who led the study. “We can’t say at this point how much or how little. The main thing would be a regular exercise program.”

The next step is to find out if any particular types of exercise are more beneficial than others, Smith said in an interview.

The study was conducted by surveying 373 people — 126 had Alzheimer’s — about their physical activity through their lifetime.

Exercise, while not a cure, could also be beneficial to patients who already have Alzheimer’s, said neurologist Robert Friedland, who also worked on the study.

“Certainly physical, social and mental activities are desirable in patients with Alzheimer’s, and inactivity is deleterious,” Friedland said in a telephone interview,

Friedland cautioned that lack of exercise should just be listed as another risk factor, not the cause of Alzheimer’s. Other risk factors include age, head injuries, and a family history of the disease.

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Stress Has Greater Effect On Hostile People (980423)

NEW YORK — Venting angry feelings may affect the health of hostile individuals more than their calmer peers, according to a study.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, studied 52 middle-aged, healthy women who described a life event that made them angry and later read a factual passage about Abraham Lincoln’s life. Women who scored high on a standard hostility scale had significant increases in systolic blood pressure (11 points) and heart rate (increase of 5 beats/minute) while discussing their life event compared with when they were reading. In contrast, women who scored low on the hostility scale showed no significant changes (3 points in blood pressure, no change in heart rate) when recalling the stressful event compared with when they read aloud.

“If anger-prone women exhibited this strong of a physical reaction to just talking about an emotional event, then repeated, lifetime exposure to stressful events could pose a risk of damaging their arteries,” researcher Edward Suarez said in a Duke University statement. Emotional stress has been linked to cardiovascular disease, but Suarez’s study shows it may be harmful only to people already prone to anger and irritation.

Suarez points out that hostile people should not stop talking about situations that made them angry, especially during counseling sessions or psychotherapy. “You have to be talking in a therapeutic setting, not just venting your anger over and over again without any progress toward resolving the situation,” he said.

While low-hostile women got angry, the stress was in their mind but not their body, Suarez concluded.

The research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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Job Satisfaction Affects Quality Of Life (980423)

NEW YORK — People with the greatest degree of job satisfaction are those who have a high degree of support from their supervisors, flexible work arrangements, and an opportunity to learn on the job while still making time for their family responsibilities, according to the results of national survey of over 3,000 workers.

The survey results also indicate that job dissatisfaction spills over into employees’ personal lives, affecting their personal well-being and that of their family.

The 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce, issued by the New York-based Families and Work Institute, is based on detailed interviews of workers and is modeled in part after a quality of employment survey conducted 20 years ago by the Labor Department.

“We now better understand how work affects life off the job, and how that in turn affects people’s work,” said Ellen Galinsky, Institute president and co-author of the report. “Demanding and hectic jobs lead to negative spillover into workers’ personal lives, jeopardizing their personal and family well-being. And, when workers feel burned out by their jobs, when they don’t have the time and energy for their families, these feelings spill back into the workplace, reducing job performance.”

Today’s employees are spending more of their time at work. The average person now works 44 hours per week. The amount of time spent on the job per week has increased by 3.5 hours since 1977.

Many of those surveyed said that they have to work very fast (68%) and very hard (88%). Nearly 25% of employees reported feeling stressed at work often or very often, and 26% said that they often felt emotionally drained by their work. Almost 30% said that they often did not have the energy to do things with their family or friends due to being tired out from work. And one in three employees takes work home at least once a week — a 10% rise over the 1977 figure.

Other interesting findings about the current US workforce include statistics showing that it is more racially and ethnically diverse (20% non-white), older (median age 40), and comprised of more women (48%) than 20 years ago. Women in the workforce also are more likely to have college degrees and to hold managerial and professional jobs than ever before.

The vast majority of full-time workers have a spouse who also works full-time and nearly one in five employed parents is single. Even more surprising: 27% of single parents are men.

The report also highlights changing roles of married men and women. Married women still spend more time than men on household chores, but the gap is narrowing. On workdays, men spend 2.1 hours on such chores (an increase of nearly one hour) compared with the 2.9 hours (a 30-minute decline) that women spend on such chores.

Both men and women report having less personal time than reported 20 years ago, now averaging 1.6 hours per workday for men and 1.3 hours for women. However, two thirds of workers say they can easily take time off during the workday to address family or personal matters.

Many workers also reported having less job security. Three people in 10 said it is somewhat or very likely they will lose their jobs within a few years. And only 16% of workers said their chance of advancement at work is “excellent” while 61% said their chance of promotion was fair or poor.

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T’ai Chi Lowers Blood Pressure (980423)

NEW YORK — T’ai chi — a slow, relaxed form of exercise with origins in ancient China — lowered people’s blood pressure almost as well as moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, according to a study presented recently at a meeting sponsored by the American Heart Association.

“You better believe we were surprised by those results,” one of the researchers, Dr. Deborah R. Young from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, said in a statement. “We were expecting to see significant changes in the aerobic exercise group and minimal changes in the t’ai chi group.”

The scientists studied 62 sedentary adults, aged 60 years and older, assigning half to a program of brisk walking and low-impact aerobics and the other half to learning t’ai chi. After 12 weeks, systolic blood pressure (the first number in a blood pressure reading) had fallen significantly in both groups, an average of 8.4 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) in the aerobic exercise group and 7 mm Hg in the t’ai chi group.

“It could be that in elderly, sedentary people, just getting up and doing some slow movement could be associated with beneficial reductions in high blood pressure,” Young theorizes. High blood pressure is a risk factor for stroke and heart attack.

Young cautions that the results of her research need to be confirmed by studying a larger group of people. “Until we know more, I encourage people to go out and do brisk walking on a regular basis,” she said. “We know it’s associated with a multitude of health benefits.”

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Superbug defies antibiotics (980423)

A SUPERBUG resistant to all known antibiotics has been discovered by government scientists.

They have found a strain of bacteria that could prove deadly for the elderly, Aids sufferers and other vulnerable groups with weakened immune systems. The strain was identified by scientists during routine screening at the Public Health Laboratory Service in Colindale, North London.

Tests have shown that the strain of a bacterium called Pseudomonas aeruginosa is resistant to the current last-resort antibiotics called carbapenems. It causes a wide range of infections in people with damaged immune systems. P. aeruginosa can cause lung infections in cystic fibrosis sufferers and potentially fatal septicaemia in patients receiving treatment for leukaemia.

A spokesman for the laboratory service said the bacterium had been detected in one sample. He said: “Hospitals send in samples to our reference laboratory to ask us to identify the bacteria and to see what drugs they might be resistant to. We have identified a multi-drug resistant bacterium. Multi-drug resistance is very rare. But this is not to say that we are not concerned.”

The bug was discovered by a team led by David Livermore, who directs the PHLS unit monitoring the emergence of drug resistant bacteria. He told New Scientist magazine: “This gives a worrying indication of how resistance is on the rise in a broad range of pathogens.”

The discovery follows a report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology which said the routine use on farms of drugs that are related to human antibiotics should be banned. The fear is that drug resistance could be transferred from farms to the human population.

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CDC reports stress highest among poor, young adults (980501)

ATLANTA, April 30 — Almost 9% of U.S. adults suffer frequent mental distress, with high rates reported among young adults, the poor and the divorced, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday.

The CDC said frequent mental distress — defined as 14 or more days of poor mental health over a 30-day span — was reported among 10% of people aged 18 to 24, 18.5% of those separated or divorced and 15.5% of people making less than $15,000 a year.

Among respondents aged 18 to 24, a high level of distress was found among 12.3% of women and 7.8% of men. The lowest level was 6.8%, among those of both sexes over 65.

“Mental health is a key component of mental quality of life, and we hope these data will help health agencies to identify groups of people in need of mental health services and also guide public policy,” CDC researcher Dave Moriarty said.

The poll, a random telephone survey conducted from 1993 to 1996, included 436,107 people over the age of 18.

Moriarty said researchers were surprised to find that women in certain locations appeared to have higher rates of distress than the average reported in the survey.

In New York, 19.1% of young women reported frequent mental distress, but he said rates were also high in less urban areas.

“One of the things that surprised us was the high level of stress for particular states, especially Nevada, Colorado and Kentucky,” he said.

In Nevada, 18.4% of women ages 18 to 24 suffered frequent distress. In Colorado, 17.3% of women in that age group reported high distress levels.

In Nevada and Colorado, distress decreased as the ages of those surveyed increased. But in Kentucky, where 14.9% of women aged 18 to 24 reported frequent distress, levels rose with age to 16.5% for those 25 to 44 and 18% for those 45 to 64.

“Poverty and unemployment rates, we believe, have a big impact on distress,” Moriarty said. “People who have been unemployed for less than a year had a 14.7% distress rate and those unemployed more than a year had a 17.8% rate,” Moriarty said.

The survey also found:

- Those who reported frequent mental distress said they often were absent from work or could not perform well.

- People with incomes more than $50,000 a year suffered the lowest rate of frequent mental distress at 5.7%.

- College graduates were half as likely (5.9%) to suffer distress as people who never finished high school (12.9%).

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Panic Attack Sufferers Are Mostly Women (980504)

NEW YORK — Women are more likely to suffer a recurrence of panic attacks after treatment for panic disorder than men, according to a study.

Women are twice as likely as men to suffer panic attacks, unprovoked episodes of anxiety characterized by shortness of breath and rapid heart rate. New findings reported in the May issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry now at least partly explain this dichotomy.

A multicenter team of investigators led by Dr. Kimberly A. Yonkers of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas examined information on 412 panic disorder patients collected through the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Disorders Research Program.

The researchers found no differences between men and women in the severity of characteristics of their panic attacks at the start of the study, or in their likelihoods of remission. However, women were more likely than men to have panic with agoraphobia, fear of open, crowded, or public places. Men, on the other hand, were more likely than women to have uncomplicated panic disorder.

In addition, during the first 6 months after remission, 25% of women experienced panic recurrences compared with only 15% of men. And this difference persisted over time: by the end of the 5‑year study, 82% of women had experienced recurrences compared with a little more than half of the men.

The findings are in agreement with previous studies “...which suggested that men and women with panic disorder and panic disorder with agoraphobia have a different course of illness,” Yonkers and others say in the report. They add that a similar association between gender and course of illness has been observed in patients with post‑traumatic stress disorder, “...which is also more chronic in women.”

“It is unclear what types of biological and psychosocial substrates are contributing to the more chronic course of illness for women with these anxiety disorders,” the multicenter team explains, “... but further research into differences between the sexes may shed light on (underlying) factors.”

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Childhood abuse leads to adult disease, study shows (980515)

WASHINGTON, May 14 — Abused children often grow up to be physically sick adults, plagued by alcoholism, depression, addictions and obesity, a report released on Thursday found.

Psychologists and child experts have been saying for years a troubled childhood has repercussions in adulthood, but this time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) weighed in with a full report.

Dr. Vincent Felitti of the Kaiser Permanente medical group in San Diego, Dr. Robert Anda of the CDC and colleagues interviewed 9,000 people about a wide variety of factors in their lives and their health, and found episodes of childhood abuse were closely linked with bad health habits in adulthood.

“Persons who had experienced four or more categories of childhood exposure, compared to those who had experienced none, had four to 12-fold increased health risks for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and suicide attempt,” the report reads.

Such people were two to four times more likely to smoke, to be generally ill, to have had more than 50 sex partners and thus to have sexually transmitted diseases, and up to 1.6 times more likely to be obese.

Abuse included sexual abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse and “household dysfunction” such as growing up with a parent who was an addict or alcoholic, criminal or wife-beater.

The researchers said the effects of such experiences were probably hard-wired into the brains of children.

“There are two mechanisms here — the psychological and emotional consequences and, two, the long-term neurological consequences,” Felitti told a news conference.

“That may have a lot to do with why change is so hard to bring about.”

Anda said a baby is born with a billion neurons, but most of the connections are made by age 12. “It’s hard to change the brain after age 12,” he said.

He said people probably engaged in dangerous behaviors to try to wipe out the pain of their childhood. “The smoking of a cigarette, for instance — a child of that background may experience immediate relief,” Anda said.

Felitti said such experiences probably combined with genetics to produce people who were addictive or depressed.

He said doctors and other health workers must be aware of the possibility patients may be reacting to childhood abuse.

“This information must be routinely sought in all patients — not just people who look some way or act some way,” Felitti said. “We have found that responding to ‘yes’ with the question: ‘And tell me how you think that has affected you later in life’ is extremely effective,” he added.

“We have seen again and again that having someone tell the worst secret of their life, and seeing that they are still accepted as a human being, is extremely important.”

In the long run this would save time, he said.

“Large amounts of time are already being spent on these patients,” he said.

He said Kaiser Permanente was testing home visitor programs that it was hoped would reduce incidences of abuse. Another study was being run with the CDC, tracing people from birth, to see if the interventions prevented later health problem.

“I think in general our culture needs to look at where it is spending its money,” Anda said.

Perhaps it would be better to spend more on preventing the causes of disease, than the billions now spent on “end-stage” disease such as cancer and heart disease, he said.

They said their findings were important because the main causes of sickness and death in the United States were now related to lifestyle and behavior — especially the leading killer, heart disease.

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Blood pressure tests urged for children-U.S. studies (980519)

WASHINGTON, May 18 — Researchers on Monday urged doctors to regularly test all children over age three for high blood pressure after two new studies showed that hypertension could lead to a serious heart condition in teen-agers.

The studies, published on Monday, found that children with severe high blood pressure may develop a thickening of the heart walls that, by the time they are teen-agers, may be as severe as the condition in hypertensive adults.

The condition, called left ventricular hypertrophy, is a complication of high blood pressure. In adults, it is a risk factor for heart attack, heart failure and stroke.

The studies, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, found that the condition was more common in boys and in overweight children of both sexes.

“It’s kind of a pre-heart disease situation. If your heart is bigger or thicker as is shown in the studies, it’s a risk factor like cholesterol,” Dr. Samuel Gidding, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal, said in a telephone interview.

He said the studies found that 1% of American children have significant high blood pressure and of that group about 8% had thickening of the heart muscle.

“It shows that heart damage can occur early in kids with high blood pressure,” Gidding said. “This suggests that there is a definite sub-group of kids that would benefit from treatment with drugs.”

Researchers urged pediatricians to monitor children’s blood pressure and weight more frequently, and they also recommended periodic echocardiograms for teen-agers with severe hypertension.

In one of the studies, Dr. Stephen Daniels and co-researchers at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati examined 130 adolescents with sustained, significant high blood pressure. Fourteen percent of them had severe left ventricular hypertrophy, and 11 of the children had changes that exceeded the “at-risk” level for heart disease in adults.

He said in an interview that while the condition was not immediately life-threatening in children, “I think what it means is that some of these patients are starting down a path that may ultimately lead to cardiovascular disease, meaning heart attacks and strokes.”

Daniels said drug treatment should be considered for children with more severe conditions, while lifestyle factors — diet, weight control and exercise — may be the focus to manage less severe conditions.

Dr. Richard Schieken and researchers from the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, studied changes in blood pressure and left ventricular mass in a group of 231 children with normal blood pressure at 18-month intervals from ages 11 through 17.

The study found that for the entire group, the size of the left ventricular mass increased as weight increased and that it was consistently larger for boys than girls.

Gidding said the Schieken study showed that in children with normal blood pressure the growing heart was related to body size and weight and there was no significant risk of them developing left ventricular hypertrophy. “Their hearts are mainly growing because their bodies are growing,” he said.

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Car AC units can harm health - U.S. researchers (980521)

ATLANTA, May 19 — Foul-smelling bacteria and fungi lingering in automobile air conditioners could pose health problems for people with allergies or weakened immune systems, researchers said on Tuesday.

A study of air conditioner evaporators from 12 cars found many types of fungi and bacteria, researchers said. Owners of the vehicles complained of unpleasant odors.

All of the air conditioners, from six manufacturers and three countries, had been used for less than two years.

Robert Simmons, a professor of biology at Georgia State University, said the growths could cause problems for people with weakened immune systems or who are allergic to the fungi. The research was presented at a conference of the American Society for Microbiology.

“Any kind of immunosuppressed person is more susceptible to this kind of a problem,” Simmons said. “The health issue here is primarily people having allergic responses to the fungi.”

Simmons said the health effects of continued exposure to the microbes are unclear. “Nobody knows at this point whether low concentrations of these things over time have any serious biological effects or not,” he said.

The bacteria and fungi survived a wide range of temperatures and were found in evaporators that had been stored in a dry area for two years, even though they had grown in the moist condensation on the air conditioning systems, the researcher said.

“When it gets hot and dry, it just sits there and survives. When it gets cool and damp, it grows again,” Simmons said.

Microbes on air conditioning systems also can reduce system efficiency and cause corrosion, he said.

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Studies Question Impact of Exercise on Sound Sleep (980602)

It is widely assumed that if you exercise today, you’ll sleep better tonight. But some researchers are working to debunk this bedside philosophy, and recent studies reveal that some of the conventional wisdom about exercise and sleep may be off the mark.

A study to be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Physiology and Behavior concludes that for those who already sleep well, exercising just before bedtime does not disrupt sleep.

This contradicts the advice of many guides to better sleep which caution against hitting the Stairmaster before hitting the sack, saying it gets the body too wound up.

The study’s co-author, Dr. Patrick O’Connor, an associate professor in the Department of Exercise Science at the University of Georgia, says the advice “just didn’t jibe with my own personal experience.”

So he, along with Dr. Shawn Youngstedt of the University of California-San Diego, set up the study, in which a group of college students were made to do 30 minutes of exercise an hour before their regular bedtime. Then, after a five-minute shower, they were sent home with a device to monitor their sleep and a rectal thermometer to record body temperature. A control group, which did not exercise, was also monitored.

Though the exercisers had increased body temperature, both groups fell asleep in about 25 minutes — longer than normal, O’Connor said, due to the discomfort of being monitored.

These results come as a surprise to University of British Columbia Psychology Professor Stanley Coren, author of Sleep Thieves, who says that even the relatively effortless act of taking a shower before bed can “retard sleep” for some due to the noise and the water pressure. O’Connor cautions that the study did not deal with people who had major sleeping problems or with older people.

Dr. Peter Mauri, medical director of the sleep disorders center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., notes that insomnia patients tend to be hyperactive and that late-night exercise “makes them more alert.”

He advises his patients to unwind for five or six hours after exercising. Then, he said, their metabolism and body temperature would plummet to levels lower than before the workout, allowing them to sleep better.

But O’Connor said the study results are useful for those with busy schedules to know that impending shut-eye need not be a reason to skip exercise. “Sleep’s an important part of life, but so is maintaining your weight, maintaining your cholesterol level,” he said. “Exercise has a lot of benefits to it beyond any effect it might have on sleep.”

Another common slumber tip — that getting exercise will lead to a good night’s sleep — was similarly debunked in a recent study. According to a report published in June 1997 by the same doctors in the journal Sleep, exercisers sleep about as well as those whose main activity is reclining in a La-Z-Boy chair.

By analyzing studies completed between 1965 and 1995 on the effects of exercise on sleep, Youngstedt, O’Connor and Dr. Rod Dishman, also of the University of Georgia, found that exercise had a minimal effect on the stages of sleep. They found that those who exercised slept about 10 minutes more than those who didn’t. “Nobody really knows what that means for health,” O’Connor said of such variations.

“If you read the American Sleep Disorders Association recommendations about exercise,” Youngstedt said, “it would say that exercise improves sleep, which is the party line. But there’s not much evidence really showing that.”

Past studies that have shown exercise improving sleep were often based on the sleepers’ subjective feeling about how well they slept, he pointed out.

“Maybe those who exercise have a lot of other behaviors that are better for sleep, too,” such as less caffeine or alcohol consumption and better sleep schedules.

He said that too much exercise can actually have a detrimental effect on sleep due to hormonal imbalances or, in a worst-case scenario, depression.

At the same time, a cushiony, couch-potato lifestyle can have its own detrimental effects. The weight gain that comes with inactivity can cause sleep apnea, where fatty deposits block your throat, Youngstedt warned. “You literally stop breathing many times during the night.”

Andrew Bostinto, a former Senior Mr. America weightlifter and founder of the National Gym Association, a nonprofit fitness organization, feels that sleeping well is more than physical. “It’s all in the mind,” he said. “That’s what makes you win, makes you lose, makes you not happy with yourself.”

But, he notes, for many, including the weightlifters he trains, the release of endorphins during exercise provides “a serene feeling” that is often compatible with sleep. As for himself, he said, with decades of weight training under his belt, he sleeps “like a baby.”

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Heart Association adds obesity to list of factors of heart attacks (980602)

NEW YORK (AP) — The American Heart Association has declared obesity a “major risk” factor in heart attacks, adding it a list that includes smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a sedentary lifestyle.

Before Monday’s announcement, the heart association listed obesity as a “contributing risk” factor for heart attacks.

Though health officials have long warned that obesity can cause coronary heart disease, which leads to heart attacks, the heart association decided to upgrade its warnings after recent studies found that more and more Americans are overweight.

A study published in the journal Science last month found that 54% of U.S. adults and 25% of the nation’s children are heavier than is healthy.

“Obesity itself has become a lifelong disease, not a cosmetic issue, not a moral judgment, and it is becoming a dangerous epidemic,” said Robert Eckel, vice chairman of the heart association’s Nutrition Committee. “Health care providers and the public need to accept that obesity is a chronic disease, just like high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol.”

Eckel said studies have shown that gradual weight losses of between 5 and 10% of body weight can decrease blood pressure and cholesterol levels, which are often higher in obese people.

The heart association is seeking increased public and private funding for research about obesity. It also wants health care providers and physicians to launch a public information campaign to stress the need for physical activity and a healthy diet.

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Government reducing overweight threshold (980604)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is reducing its threshold for defining who is overweight, determining that someone who stands 5-foot-4 and weighs 145 pounds is facing a health risk.

In guidelines to be formally released later this month, a panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health concluded that a person with a body mass index as low as 25 — 5-foot-4, 145 pounds or 5-foot-10, 174 pounds — should be considered overweight.

Anyone with a body mass index of 30 or above is obese, according to the guidelines, which were released in part Wednesday by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. That translates to a 6-foot person who weighs 221 pounds or a 5-foot-6 inch person who weighs 186 pounds.

Body mass index is a way of measuring body weight, in relation to height, and is closely linked to a person’s body fat.

Using those new guidelines, about 97 millions American adults — or about 55% of the population — would be considered overweight or obese, the heart institute said.

In previous studies, another government agency, the National Center for Health Statistics, has said that a woman with a body mass index of 27 or a man with a BMI of 28 is overweight. And dietary guidelines released by the federal government in 1996 defined anyone with a body mass index of 26 or above as overweight.

That same standard — a body mass index of 26 — was used by outside researchers in a widely publicized report issued last week. Under that definition, about 54% of the population would be considered overweight.

But officials from the heart and lung institute lowered the threshold, concluding that health risks can begin with a body mass index as low as 25. As body mass index levels go up, blood pressure and total cholesterol levels also rise, increasing the risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, the researchers said.

The guidelines are designed to give patients and doctors ways to measure when a person’s weight is hazardous. They recommend that overweight people exercise and eat better to keep from gaining additional weight. Diet drugs should be reserved for those with body mass indexes of 30 or over, or people mass indexes of 27 but with other risk factors such as diabetes or high blood pressure, the researchers said.

In addition to measuring body mass index, the guidelines advise doctors to measure their patients’ waist circumference, a measurement closely associated with the amount of abdominal fat and another predictor of disease risk.

A waist circumference of more than 40 inches in men and more than 35 inches in women indicates an increased risk in people who have a body mass index of between 25 to 34.9, the researchers say.

To determine body mass index, divide body weight (in kilograms) by height (in meters) squared. A kilogram equals 2.2 pounds. A meter is 3.28 feet or about 39 inches.

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Anxiety, depression tied to chronic headache (980701)

Nearly half of people with chronic tension headaches may also have anxiety or depression, a study finds.

But many of the headache study participants who had mood or anxiety disorders didn’t show obvious signs of their problems and were identified only after an interview and evaluation, according to Dr. Gay Lipchik, of Ohio University in Westerville, lead author of the study.

Some 2% to 3% of Americans have chronic tension headaches, in which pain on both sides of the head and neck can last for periods ranging from a half an hour to several weeks.

For the study, 245 people with chronic tension headaches completed questionnaires assessing their psychological condition.

Those who met criteria for depression or anxiety were interviewed further to determine the frequency and severity of problems such as sleep difficulties, poor appetite, lack of concentration, poor self-image, worrying, or feeling anxious.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed said that they felt depressed, hopeless or anxious nearly every day. The researchers diagnosed a mood disorder, such as depression, in 26% of the study participants, while 32% were found to have an anxiety disorder.

Researchers were unable to determine whether the psychological problems arose before the onset of the headaches or were caused by the headaches.

Lipchik noted that many of the patients had been troubled by headaches for so long that they could not remember which symptoms came first.

“A lot of people have a difficult time separating the two and many of the people don’t acknowledge that they have psychological problems or problems managing stress. It’s easier for them to discuss it as a consequence of their headaches,” Lipchik explained in a press release.

This reluctance to discuss psychological difficulties can pose a barrier to treatment. Lipchik recommended that doctors approach the subject by asking patients how their headaches are affecting their daily lives.

The study results were presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Headache, held in San Francisco, California.

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Exercise key to lowering high cholesterol (980701)

NEW YORK, Jul 01 — Regular physical activity, along with a healthy diet, is important in the treatment of high cholesterol levels, according to a report in the July 2nd issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, believe their findings “demonstrate the importance of an exercise program when diet alone has not adequately reduced LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol levels.”

The study, which appears in the July 2nd issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, followed the cholesterol levels of 197 men (averaging 48 years of age) and 180 postmenopausal women (averaging 57 years of age) over the course of a year. All study participants began the study with moderately high blood levels of LDL cholesterol, placing them at high risk for heart disease.

Each participant agreed to adhere to one of four different lifestyle regimens: a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet combined with weekly aerobic exercise; the diet alone; regular exercise alone; or a continuation of their normal lifestyle (the “control” group).

The study authors report that, one year later, blood tests revealed “no significant reductions in total and LDL cholesterol levels for either sex in the diet (only) group.”

However, they say that “when the diet was combined with aerobic exercise... the resulting reductions in LDL cholesterol levels were significant.”

The Stanford team were also concerned about the impact of diet and exercise on blood levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol, which can help lower heart disease risk.

They report that the combo program produced “no adverse effects on HDL cholesterol.” Since blood levels of HDL cholesterol tend to rise as body weight falls, the authors speculate that the weight loss experienced by those in the diet and exercise group may have helped stabilize HDL concentrations, even as daily dietary intake of cholesterol declined.

Overall, the authors believe their findings “strongly support” current expert recommendations that regular exercise become an intrinsic part of any cholesterol-lowering program.

SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine 1998;339:12-20.

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New findings in electric field health debate (980626)

But scientists still disagree on cancer risk

WASHINGTON (AP) — The controversial theory that electric fields like those around power lines can cause cancer is getting a boost from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientific panel. Though divided, the group voted Wednesday that such electromagnetic fields should be considered “possible human carcinogens.”

“This report does not suggest the risk is high,” said Michael Gallo, chairman of the group.

Indeed, the risk “is probably quite small compared to many other public health risks,” said Gallo, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Medical School in Piscataway.

Potential cancer? Vote is 19-9

The new report comes from a National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) panel convened to review scientific research on electromagnetic fields.

Completing 10 days of discussions in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, the group voted 19-9 on Wednesday that electromagnetic fields should be regarded a potential cause of cancer.

Eight members said that, because of conflicting studies, they could not decide whether electrical fields were potential cancer causers. One said they probably are not.

Linda Schoumacher of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the electrical industry, said it would be premature to comment on the report, but that her organization will study it.

Though the link between electricity and disease has long been controversial, some consumer groups have sued power companies or forced utility firms to move power lines or install shielding.

Report at odds with earlier finding

The new finding is at odds with a 1996 report by a National Research Council panel of scientists who evaluated about 500 studies on the health effects of high voltage power lines and found “no conclusive and consistent evidence” that electric and magnetic fields cause any human disease.

The earlier National Research Council report noted that some studies had found a “weak, but statistically significant” link between high voltage electrical transmission lines and the incidence of a rare childhood leukemia. But that committee found the research to be flawed.

Overall, that panel said, there was no conclusive evidence to link electromagnetic fields with cancer, reproductive and developmental abnormalities, learning or behavior.

A 1979 study in Denver, Colorado, that found a group of children who died of leukemia were more likely to live near electrical lines than other youngsters fueled public worry about electrical fields.

The increasing concern prompted Congress in 1992 to fund a research program into electromagnetic fields.

Leukemia, abortion, Alzheimer’s studied

Studies of the incidence of disease analyzed by the new NIH group found a slight increase in childhood leukemia risk for youngsters whose homes are near power lines and an increase in chronic leukemia in adults working in industries where they are exposed to intensive electric fields.

The group said there wasn’t enough evidence to link household exposure to power lines to cancer in adults or to associate electromagnetic fields to such diseases as Alzheimer’s disease, depression and birth defects.

They found no evidence of abortion from video display terminals and no evidence of illness other than leukemia in children.

The panel said it looked at hundreds of studies of animals and cells exposed to electric fields which showed little or no effect, raising some concern about the “weak association” found in the epidemiological studies, which look at the incidence of illness.

The findings completed Wednesday will be used by NIEHS Director Kenneth Olden in preparing a report to Congress later this year.

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Researchers Detail How Folic Acid Prevents Birth Defects (980703)

NEW YORK — Folic acid in a woman’s diet in early pregnancy can prevent up to 70% of human neural tube defects, including spina bifida. Now British researchers report that they have discovered how folic acid prevents these birth defects: the vitamin appears to correct problems in pyrimidine metabolism, a compound which in turn is important for the development of the spinal cord.

Writing in the journal Science, Drs. Angeleen Fleming and Andrew J. Copp of University College London, UK, detail their research, which included using a deoxyuridine suppression test to detect disturbances in folate metabolism in mouse embryos that were developing neural tube defects. In this test, deoxyuridine is administered to the embryos. If folate metabolism is normal, the embryo’s use of thymidine will be suppressed, and the deoxyuridine will be used in its place. But if folate metabolism is abnormal, the embryo’s use of thymidine for biosynthesis will not be suppressed.

The investigators found that in mouse embryos with neural tube defects, thymidine use was not suppressed, suggesting a problem with folate.

A press statement from the publishers of Science explain that folate is needed by the embryo for synthesis of pyrimidine, one of the bases used to form nucleic acid. According to Fleming and Copp, administration of either folic acid or thymidine to the folate-deficient embryos corrected the defect in pyrimidine synthesis and prevented neural tube defects. “(The) abnormality of pyrimidine biosynthesis may (therefore) be functionally important in preventing closure of the neural tube,” they write.

“Our study suggests that thymidine therapy could serve as an adjunct to folic acid supplementation to prevent human (neural tube defects),” the authors conclude.

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Sleep problems harbinger of depression (980706)

Some people with sleep abnormalities — specifically, short episodes of rapid eye movement or REM sleep — appear to be at greater risk for developing depression than those with a normal sleep pattern, a study suggests.

“Abnormal sleep precedes the first episode of depression in people from families with a history of abnormal sleep profiles,” reported Dr. Donna Giles at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies held recently in New Orleans. The finding is further evidence that there may be a genetic basis for depression, she believes.

Giles and colleagues from the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, determined the sleep patterns of the parents and adult siblings of patients diagnosed with depression. The researchers identified 78 relatives with an abnormal sleep pattern — they had 60 minutes or less of rapid eye movement, or REM sleep. The remaining 128 relatives had normal sleep patterns.

After 13 years, families with short REM had an incidence of mood-related disorder of nearly 27% compared with an incidence of about 15% in families with normal sleep profiles. Nearly half of the families with short REM reported episodes of depression compared with 36.7% of families with normal sleep patterns, Giles told Reuters Health.

Subjects with normal sleep patterns who were members of families with normal sleep patterns developed depression less frequently and their depression was most often related to personal events and thoughts rather than abnormal sleep patterns, she added.

The researchers also found that individuals who have normal sleep patterns but are from a family with a high rate of abnormal sleep patterns are at increased risk for mood disorders. These individuals show more negative psychological attitudes, Giles said.

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Report: Americans eating more vegetables, but not enough (981001)

ATLANTA (AP) — Americans eat more fruits, veggies and grains than they did 25 years ago. Hold the applause — cancer researchers say fully one-quarter of those vegetables are french fries.

“We depend on them too much. We need to move from potatoes, particularly fried ones,” said Dr. Susan Krebs-Smith, a research nutritionist with the National Cancer Institute and the author of a study in today’s edition of the journal Cancer.

The explosion of fast-food joints makes potatoes — especially in the form of french fries — the vegetable people eat most, Krebs-Smith said. Half of all vegetable servings eaten by Americans are potatoes, and half of those are french fries.

Fries contain a lot of fat and few nutrients, though they do have small amounts of vitamin C.

“That’s definitely not broccoli we’re chewing down on,” said Karen Collins, a dietitian and consultant for the American Institute for Cancer Research. “In Americans’ minds, if a sandwich isn’t enough, what do you add? Who would think you add some stir-fry vegetables or a piece of fruit?”

To produce the study, Krebs-Smith reviewed national food supply data, alcohol consumption figures and food consumption surveys.

The study said Americans consumed 19% more vegetables, 22% more fruit and 47% more grain products during between 1970 and 1995. While diets have improved, researchers said Americans need to eat even better to help reduce their cancer risk.

Yolanda Williams, 17, eats french fries — loaded with salt and ketchup — about four times a week. But she’d consider giving them up some of the time in exchange for more leafy vegetables if it would reduce her cancer risk.

“My life is more important than french fries,” she said.

At the start of the decade, the government recommended in its Healthy People 2000 program that Americans eat more fruits, vegetables and grain products by the year 2000 and decrease their intake of fat and alcohol to reduce their risk of cancer.

The study said that fat and alcohol consumption have gone down slightly and that Americans may reach many of the objectives in the Healthy People 2000 program.

The program called for people to eat three to five servings of vegetables a day and two to four servings of fruit. The study said that in 1994 — the latest year for which figures are available — Americans ate 3.6 servings of vegetables and 1.5 servings of fruit a day.

“We’re headed in the right direction, but we have a way to go still,” said Cindy Moore, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and director of nutrition therapy at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

The study also backed up previous findings that death rates for colorectal, prostate and breast cancer decreased as people ate better. But the study said those decreases could also be attributed to better screening and treatment.

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New fake fat said good for you (981102)

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — Just like other fat substitutes, Nutrim will not add any inches to your hips. But unlike the others, proponents say, Nutrim is actually good for you.

What is different is that Nutrim, made from the soluble fiber of oats and barley, lowers cholesterol and was specifically designed at a U.S. Agriculture Department laboratory here to meet government standards “heart healthy” labeling.

George Inglett, a chemist with the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, started thinking about making a fiber-based fat substitute in 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration ruled that foods with three grams or more of dietary fiber could be marketed as good for you.

While nutritionists and public health advocates say they are excited by the idea of a healthy replacement for fat, they lament it probably will not mean more nutrition in an already fat-laden American diet.

“These are not magic bullets. Just adding a fat substitute to a candy bar or a cookie doesn’t turn it into a health food,” said Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition watchdog group. “Nevertheless, I think it is a fruitful avenue for the food industry to be working on.”

Inglett has worked on fat substitutes for the last decade. His newest invention joins a generation of fat substitutes, including Oatrim, Z-trim and Olestra. But Inglett says Nutrim transcends the basic “fake fat” concept.

The oat and barley fiber in Nutrim reduces the low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, cholesterol that collects in a waxy buildup inside arteries. High levels of LDL cholesterol can block blood flow to the heart, leading to heart attacks, or to the brain, leading to strokes.

The natural fiber content of Nutrim, and its ability to reduce cholesterol, gives it a big edge over fake fats like Olestra, said Robert Cullen, a professor of nutrition at Illinois State University.

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Garlic preparation affects anticancer effect (981124)

NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters Health) — Garlic can have an antitumor effect — but how the lily-related herb is prepared is important to retaining this health benefit, say US researchers.

Penn State researchers report that studies conducted in rats show that heating garlic just after crushing it causes it to lose its ability to retard a cancer-causing agent. But allowing the crushed garlic to stand for 10 minutes prior to heating enables garlic to maintain its anticancer effects.

The researchers tested garlic’s ability to block the breast tumor-inducing chemical dimethylbenz(a)anthrancene (DMBA) from binding to rat breast cells. Dr. John A. Milner of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and colleagues gave rats corn oil either with or without crushed garlic. Following 2 weeks of treatment, the investigators administered the carcinogen DMBA to the rats.

The rats given crushed garlic that was allowed to stand for 10 minutes prior to heating for 1 minute by microwave oven or roasting for 45 minutes by convection oven showed a 41% and a 21% reduction in breast cell changes linked to cancer, respectively, compared with the rats who did not receive garlic. But Milner also reported that garlic similarly heated without a rest period after crushing showed no anticancer effects.

Resting crushed garlic at room temperature stimulates the enzyme allinase, which stimulates the formation of allyl sulfur compounds. These compounds provide garlic’s protective effect against tumor development, Milner told Reuters Health.

Milner presented his group’s findings last week at a Newport Beach, California, conference on the nutritional benefits of garlic. In another presentation at the meeting, Dr. Yu-Yan Yeh and doctoral candidate Lijuan Liu, also of Penn State, identified the water- and lipid-soluble compounds in garlic that cause a decrease in cholesterol production in rat liver cells. The compounds are some of the same that conferred cancer protection in Milner’s study.

In liver cells exposed to three of the water-soluble allyl sulfur compounds in garlic (S-allyl-, S-ethyl-, and S-propyl-cysteine), cholesterol production decreased by 40% to 60%, while the lipid-soluble compounds “completely blocked cholesterol synthesis by making the liver cells unfunctional,” Yeh told Reuters Health.

Yeh said that S-allyl cysteine is the major component in garlic that causes its hypocholesterolemic effect.

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Making Smart Choices About Herbal Brain-Sharpeners (990826)

NEW YORK — The formula for more brainpower is almost as sought-after as the fountain of youth these days, evidenced by a host of products claiming the ability to boost intelligence and mental performance.

The market leader is ginkgo biloba, one of the top-selling supplements in the United States. Supporters say the herb enhances memory. But doctors warn it’s not always smart to use this product of the Gingko tree.

Ginkgo biloba is just one of several such products on the market, however. And with students headed back to school and employees returning to work after their summer vacations comes increased demand for a mental edge. This month, Fox News looks at the virtues and drawbacks of several brain-boosting herbs.

Think-o Before You Gingko

Ginkgo biloba extract, which has been used in China since the early 16th century, has been shown in scientific studies to improve memory in people with Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive impairments.

Although hordes of people with well-functioning brains have begun taking ginkgo to improve their memory as well, there is little evidence to show it actually does anything for people who are not mentally impaired.

In fact, “There is very little data to suggest that the otherwise biologically healthy brain is going to be enhanced by the use of any” supplements, says Chris Foley, M.D., co-editor of the Journal of the American Neutraceutical Association, a journal devoted to supplements.

This doesn’t mean ginkgo can’t help people achieve optimal brain performance. Many may have reduced brain circulation due to circulation problems or because they smoke, drink or breathe polluted air.

Ginkgo increases bloodflow to the brain and enhances glucose metabolism (energy burning) in the cerebrum, according to Dr. Alan R. Gaby’s review of research on the herb in the July 1996 Alternative Medicine Review.. It also enhances general cell metabolism.

Gingko is also an antioxidant, researchers have found. Antioxidants mop up free radicals, ionized oxygen particles that bounce around the cells. Free radicals are a normal part of cell metabolism, but in excess, they cause DNA damage, cell damage, immune system damage and even reduced circulation.

Ginkgo’s antioxidant effects “may play a role in [its] purported ‘anti-aging’ action,” according to Gaby’s article. Since it cleans up free radicals in the brain, it seems to protect nerve cells from becoming damaged by the passage of time.

The Dangers of Mixing

Ginkgo can be dangerous for some if it acts as a blood-thinner, according to Nancy Cotter, M.D., a New Jersey-based practitioner of alternative and Western medicine. If a person is already taking a blood-thinning medication such as Warfarin, Cotter advises the person see a doctor before taking ginkgo.

This can have a good result for those not on other drugs. Gingko has been shown in some studies to help with diseases that cause constriction of capillaries and other blood vessels, like asthma and anaphylactic shock, as well as those caused by lack of bloodflow to certain areas, like impotence and acute cochlear deafness, according to Gaby.

Studies have also shown ginkgo improves symptoms of cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration — a vision problem caused by age-related retinal damage — radiation damage and vertigo.

Like anything else, gingko may help but it isn’t a cure-all. “Anything that depletes your ability to function in general — from stress to depression to systemic diseases such as cardiovascular ailments — can make you less sharp, Cotter says. “It’s better not to look at ginkgo as nature’s quick-fix remedy for cognitive problems.”

Some Heady Competition

A product of the periwinkle plant, Vinca minor is an alternative to ginkgo. This substance, called Vinpocetine, is an alkaloid found in the lesser form of periwinkle.

Like gingko, Vinpocetine improves bloodflow to the brain and increases metabolism in cerebral cells.

Vinpocetine was shown effective in studies of people with reduced brain blood flow. It seemed to help two-thirds of a group of Japanese stroke victims in one study, according to a June 1999 Alternative Medicine Review article, “A Review of Nutrients and Botanicals in the Integrative Management of Cognitive Dysfunction,” by Pariss M. Kidd, Ph.D.

But Vinpocetine, like ginkgo, is a blood-thinner. It should not be used with other blood-thinning drugs unless a patient is under a doctor’s supervision. It also may cause allergic rashes and flushing.

Brahman Brain Booster

In India, extracts of the leaves of the water hysoop Bacopa monniera have been used for centuries as an herbal remedy for mental illness, according to Dr. Kidd’s article. The herb is commonly called “Brahmi” for Brahma, the Hindu god who created the Hindu Pantheon.

Legend has it Brahmi can help the brain “open up the gate” to the creative power of brahma, and it has traditionally been given to newborns to improve their intelligence, the article said.

Brahmi has been little studied in the West. But in a 1987 trial in India, researchers gave it to 40 schoolchildren and found that it improved learning, without side effects, on mazes as well as memory skills, perceptions and reaction times.

A P.S. on PS

If your brain cells are damaged, Phosphatidylserine (PS) might patch them up. A natural product of cell metabolism in humans and animals, PS serves as a major building block for nerve cell membranes.

In studies of people with dementia, PS helped patients become more attentive to and cooperative with their caregivers. In a 1991 trial on people with age-related cognitive impairments, PS supplements improved learning and recall capacity from a functional age of 64 down to age 52. And two small studies of children ages 4 to 19 found that PS improved learning, behavior, mood and attention.

PS has also been shown to help people adapt to stress because it helps the hypothalamus (the brain’s hormonal control center) better integrate with the pituitary gland and adrenal gland, two glands responsible for secreting stress hormones.

PS supplements originally were made from bovine brains. But due to the mad cow disease scare in Europe, manufacturers began making it from soy, and soy PS has been found to be effective. According to Dr. Kidd’s article, PS dosages of as little as 100 mg per day are effective for children and healthy adults, but it may be taken in 300-mg doses for memory loss and 600-mg daily doses as a mood lifter. There are few reported adverse effects, Dr. Kidd says.

The Whole Concept

When deciding which substance to try for brain health, it’s important to remember that there are no “magic bullets,” cautions Foley. Instead, he says, the whole body works together and the brain will function optimally when the body’s metabolic systems function optimally, he says.

Some people, for instance, don’t properly metabolize B-vitamins, which are important in the metabolic formation of brain neurotransmitters and brain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin. In these cases, Foley advises treatment with B-vitamins.

In other cases, a person may need amino acids such as tyrosine, phenylalanine and 5 HTP, which are all important in the biosynthesis of neurotransmitters.

Still a third nutritional factor is cell membrane health, which can be improved with PS and by increasing the level of omega-3 fatty acids in a person’s bloodstream, Foley says. These acids are found in fish as well as in supplements like blue-green algae.

When a person consumes more omega-3 fatty acids, the person is likely to have healthier cell membranes, Foley says, and thus the person’s brain-cell receptors are likely to be more receptive to messages from neurotransmitters.

Finally, gut problems may cause poor absorption of nutrients such as the previously mentioned ones, leading to poor brain health. Foley recommends patients with cognitive deficiencies check out supplements that promote healthy gut metabolism.

“If you have a baseball or a football team, the successful team never relies on a single star,” Foley says.

“The body is no different. Even when you are looking at a single function such as cognition, you need to look at it in its totality.”

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FDA: Soy foods can be labeled as ‘good for you’ (Foxnews, 991026)

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Claire Dunston popped a carton of carob-flavored soy milk into her cart in the aisle of the Acme grocery store, the latest step in her mission to persuade her boyfriend to try it.

Dunston, who is lactose intolerant, wants her beau — an Air Force mechanic who is fond of fast food — to consider his health.

“I don’t think you’re ever too young to think about that sort of stuff,” the 24-year-old Dunston said Monday.

It becomes easier today for shoppers to check out the pros and cons of eating soy. Food suppliers now have approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use labels on soy-based foods touting a link between eating soy and a lower risk of heart disease.

In order to qualify for the claim, the food must have at least 6.25 grams of soy protein per serving — one-fourth of the 25 grams of soy protein daily that studies have shown is needed to show a significant cholesterol-lowering effect.

Qualifying foods include soy beverages, tofu, tempeh, soy-based meat alternatives and some baked goods.

While bland-tasting tofu comes to mind for some when they think of soy, Sharon Wilson, proprietor of Rainbow Earth Natural Foods in Rehoboth Beach, said there is now a much wider variety of soy-based food that can easily be found on grocery store shelves.

“There is such a diversity to soy, from tofu to tempeh to miso. A lot of snack bars have it, and in the supplement end, there’s powders made from soybean protein,” Wilson said.

The move by the FDA is similar to a move about three years ago, at the request of Quaker Oats Co., to allow food labels which claim that rolled oats, oat bran and oat flour contain enough soluble fiber to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Protein Technologies International, the world’s largest manufacturer of isolated soybean protein and a subsidiary of DuPont Co., made the request to the FDA for the right to label the healthy benefits of soy.

Wilmington-based DuPont bought Protein Technologies last year for $1.5 billion and hopes the new labels will spur growth in sales of soybean protein.

A survey by the United Soybean Board found that only 15% of Americans eat a soy product at least once a week. However, 66% of American consumers already believe soy products are healthful and 67% have tried them at least once.

Wilson said she hopes any new “good for you” labels add up to a ringing cash register.

“A lot of my customers already do browse the labels,” she said. “It’ll be good for people who are looking for healthy foods. I would think it would help sales.”

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Studies: Obesity on rise in U.S., may kill nearly 300,000 annually (Foxnews, 991026)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Obesity is a U.S. epidemic that has surged in the past decade and now affects nearly one in five adults, killing some 300,000 a year, a collection of new studies suggest.

The studies, which will be published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, are the latest to spread the warning that Americans are getting fatter — and that fat kills.

“Obesity is a major cause of mortality in the United States,” concludes one of the surveys.

One study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the number of Americans considered obese — defined as being more than 30% over their ideal body weight — soared from about one in eight in 1991 to nearly one in five last year.

In 1991, four out of 45 participating states had obesity rates of 15% or higher, while the figure for 1998 was 37 states, according to the study.

That data, which was to be announced today at the AMA’s annual Science Reporters Convention, was based on telephone surveys of more than 100,000 participants each year between 1991-98.

Younger adults, people with some college education and Hispanics showed the most drastic increases, but “a steady increase was observed in all states; in both sexes; across age groups, races, educational levels; and occurred regardless of smoking status,” the study found.

Overall, the population of obese men and women increased from 12% in 1991 to 17.9% last year, according to the CDC survey, which said that figure might be conservative.

Other recent research has found that more than 50% of Americans are overweight and 22% are obese, even though weight-loss products and services are a $33 billion-a-year industry.

Being overweight has been strongly associated with greater risk of certain illnesses, including heart disease, high cholesterol and blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and some cancers.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine of more than 1 million Americans concluded that obese people run a significant risk of dying early, even if they don’t smoke and are otherwise healthy.

Another study in this week’s JAMA issue on obesity — all of the studies involved Americans at least the age of 18 — attributed an estimated average of about 280,000 deaths a year to being overweight, but said the figure could be more than 374,000 when the numbers are calculated differently.

The figures were adjusted for sex, age and whether the subjects smoked but did not factor in chronic disease or family histories that might indicate a predisposition to an illness.

An editorial accompanying the obesity issue of JAMA calls for developing a comprehensive national strategy to prevent obesity.

Growth in the marketing of fast food and snack food, as well as lack of exercise, are among the reasons Americans are taking in more calories than they burn, the editorial concluded.

“Children watch more television daily, physical education has been markedly reduced in our schools, many neighborhoods lack sidewalks for safe walking, the workplace has become increasingly automated, household chores are assisted by labor-saving machinery, and walking or bicycling has been replaced by automobile travel,” the editorial said.

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Report: Six Gene Therapy Deaths Kept From NIH, Public (Foxnews, 991103)

WASHINGTON — Scientists and drug companies did not notify the National Institutes of Health about six people who died during gene therapy experiments in the past 19 months, in the latest sign of a possibly finance-driven shift toward secrecy in the research area, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The deaths are the first in gene therapy to come to light that were purposely withheld from the NIH, one of two federal agencies charged with overseeing the safety of the controversial field of medical research that seeks to cure diseases by giving patients new genes, the Post said.

Federal regulations have long held genetic treatments to a higher level of public scrutiny than conventional new therapies because of public discomfort with the idea of manipulating people’s genetic makeup, the report said.

But as the field has become increasingly dominated by private industry, drug companies and scientists with a financial stake in their research are challenging the broad interpretation of that rule. They are filing reports with demands for confidentiality, the Post reported, or maintaining that they do not have to file them with the NIH at all.

Confirmation of the six deaths follows revelations last week of a death and two serious illnesses in gene therapy patients that were reported to the NIH with the unprecedented insistence that they be kept confidential, defying a long-standing agency policy of public disclosure.

In the case of the six deaths, all of the people died during heart studies headed by two leading gene researchers — Ronald Crystal of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan and Jeffrey Isner of Tufts University in Boston, the Post said, citing interviews with researchers and scientists.

The two founded competing gene therapy companies — Isner’s Vascular Genetics of Durham, N.C., and Crystal’s GenVec of Rockville, Md. — and are racing to be the first to grow new blood vessels around blocked ones as an alternative to heart bypass surgery, the report said.

The Post said Crystal was the first to request confidentiality from the NIH for a patient death report in May 1998, just two weeks after his company GenVec announced its initial public offering of stock.

The report reported that NIH staff said at the time Crystal cited concerns about the impact on his business if the death were made public. But Crystal has in the past week, according to the Post, said the public offering had no bearing on his confidentiality request.

Crystal and Isner told the Post they believe the fatalities in their studies were not directly caused by the gene therapy but by complications stemming from the patients’ underlying illnesses.

Because they decided the deaths were not caused by gene therapy, they argued, federal regulations do not require them to notify the NIH — a new interpretation of those regulations that stands in sharp contrast to the one held by NIH officials and a decade of practice, according to the Post report.

The researchers told the Post they reported the deaths to the Food and Drug Administration, which keeps such information secret.

But NIH officials in the federal office that oversees gene therapy were adamant that even deaths not initially believed to have been caused by the therapy must be reported to the NIH and made public, because often it is not clear until later whether the therapy actually caused the deaths.

“It may take five, six, seven patients ill, or 20 patients, before you find out, ‘Hey, this is also happening in other people’s trials,”‘ Amy Patterson, who heads the NIH Office of Recombinant DNA Activities, which oversees gene therapy studies, told the Post.

“And if you don’t know what’s going on in other people’s trials, then you can’t put two and two together,” she said.

Most of the new deaths are coming to light only because federal officials put out a plea for gene researchers across the country to report any undisclosed deaths or illnesses.

They issued the plea after the death of a teenage patient at the University of Pennsylvania in September. His death is thought to be the first directly caused by gene therapy, and NIH officials are looking for indications of similar problems in other studies that may not have been attributed to the treatments themselves.

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Psychologists pessimistic about effects of optimism Attack ‘tyranny of the positive attitude’ (Daily Telegraph, 000816)

NEW YORK - Always looking on the bright side can damage your health, some American psychologists now believe.

Meeting at their annual conference in Washington, they urged their fellow citizens to embrace pessimism and attacked what they termed the “tyranny of the positive attitude”: the kind of relentless optimism preached by self-help gurus, business managers and religious leaders. Countless jaunty songs — such as Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy — T-shirts, bumper stickers and books also peddle that view.

A symposium at the American Psychological Association conference decided to recommend “the overlooked virtues of negativity.”

“I am worried that we are not making space for people to feel bad,” Dr. Barbara Held, a clinical psychologist from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., told The New York Times.

“If you are having a hard time, it can make it harder to cope if you feel pressure to act OK when you are not.”

A growing band of psychologists believes the pressure to be cheerful glosses over a person’s need for a good moan every so often and may make some people very depressed.

Dr. Julie Norem, a social psychologist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, has produced a study on “defensive pessimism.”

This involves people setting absurdly low expectations for themselves to help master difficult situations. Preparing for an interview, for example, the optimist imagines only the best outcome, whereas the defensive pessimist thinks of tripping over the carpet, spilling coffee, garbling answers.

Fearing the worst helps the pessimist to devise means to avoid it: by wearing low shoes rather than heels, refusing coffee when offered and being thoroughly prepared with answers.

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Health System, US and Canada (National Review Online, 021115)

David Frum

ABC News is reporting that Al Gore has endorsed a Canadian-style single-payer health system. There’s something rather brave about a politician picking up a bold idea like this barely two weeks it was crushingly rejected by the voters of Oregon, one of the country’s most liberal states. Brave – or tone-deaf.

But let’s not talk politics: Let’s talk about the merits of the idea. No question, single-payer has many appealing virtues. It is amazingly hassle-free. No Canadian thinks about health insurance before switching jobs. The self-employed get the same treatment as the employees of the country’s biggest bans. There are few forms to fill out, no waiting for checks in the mail. If you are sick, you go to the doctor or hospital, flash your card, and get your medicine.

Or rather – you wait for your medicine. And wait. And wait.

How long can you wait?

Every year Canada’s leading free-market think-tank, the Fraser Institute, compiles waiting times across Canada in a report called “Waiting Your Turn.” Here are some highlights from this year’s edition.

Median waiting time for radiation treatment for breast cancer in province of Ontario: 8 weeks

Median waiting time for angioplasty in the province of British Columbia: 12 weeks

Median waiting time for radiation treatment for prostate cancer in province of Quebec: 12 weeks

Median waiting time for cataract removal in the province of Ontario: 20 weeks.

Median waiting time for cataract removal in the province of Saskatchewan: 52 weeks.

Median waiting time for a tonsillectomy in the province of Saskatchewan: 80 weeks.

Altogether, “the total number of procedures for which people [in Canada] are waiting was 1,094,420 in 2001-2002, an increase of 15% from the estimated 953,420 procedures in 2000-2001.” Assuming each person is waiting for only one procedure, that means that 3.52% of the entire population of Canada was waiting for care in 2001-2002.

What do those waits mean? In the case of the patient waiting for an angioplasty, they mean three months of unnecessary pain – three months when the patient cannot work. “Single payer” is an inaptly named system. In Canada, everybody pays for healthcare – the patient pays in pain, the employer pays in lost worker hours – but only the government’s costs are counted.

For the patient waiting for a hip replacement or a cornea transplant, the waits mean the difference between full active life or life in a wheelchair or without sight.

For the patient waiting for cancer treatment, waits mean the difference between life and death. Canada’s Cancer Advocacy Coalition reports that in Canada’s Atlantic provinces, two cancer patients die of colon cancer for every one patient in Utah, Idaho, or Colorado, three states with ethnic makeups similar to those of eastern Canada. Again comparing like with like, while only 6.8 of every 100,000 men in the U.S. wheat belt die of prostate cancer, 9.8 of every 100,000 men die of that disease in Canadian Saskatchewan.

Canadian doctors are highly skilled and conscientious, if sometimes demoralized, and they do the best they can under difficult circumstances. Every Canadian can tell amazing stories of medical achievement under adverse circumstances. But the circumstances are adverse. A decade ago, the Canadian-American science writer Malcolm Gladwell noted that there were then more CAT scanners in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area than in all of Canada, and since then the technology gap has only grown.

Because Canadian doctors earn so much less than their American counterparts, they cannot afford to invest in equipment for their offices. The ultrasounds that every American obstetrician has are seldom found outside of hospitals in Canada. A woman I know – a highly intelligent, well-informed woman with access to the best medicine that Canada offers – got through nine months of pregnancy without her doctor ever discovering that her baby was in breach position. In the United States, the problem would have been discovered early and the baby safely removed by caesarian section; in Canada, it took hours of heroic effort at the very final hour to save the baby’s life.

Advocates of single-payer in the United States often complain about American medicine’s over-use of tests and technology. In Canada, the government ensures that tests are done much less often and that the results are processed much more slowly. Imagine waiting three weeks for the results of an AIDS test. Or for an analysis of that dark spot on your check. In “single-payer” nobody counts that cost – nor is it permitted to buy yourself a better result.

Well, that last is not quite true. Canadian medicine is in its own way as unequal as American. Cash buys little in Canada – but political influence can get you a better room or a better doctor. And the truly wealthy fly to New York or Dallas or the Mayo Clinic.

How to compare the two systems Canada and the United States? What’s the verdict on the Canadian system’s convenience and zero out-of-pocket costs against America’s often confusing, often costly, administration but superior quality of care? Here’s my conclusion: Canada has the best healthcare system on earth – so long as you don’t get sick!

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Health Care, US vs. Canada (National Review Online, 021118)

David Frum

Single Payer, Part Deux:

Friday’s post on the merits and demerits of single-payer health systems like Canada’s provoked an avalanche of e-mail – far too many to respond to each individually. I’m truly sorry about that. I’m sorry too about the typographical errors in the post, which concerned a number of the e-mailers: I write these diary entries very late at night or very early in the morning, and my fingers do sometimes stumble.

Let me try here to reply to the main criticisms I received.

1. My friends over at the New Republic point out that Canada spends only about 9% of its GDP on healthcare as against America’s 14%. The long delays in treatment that Canadians suffer can therefore be blamed – not on the system itself – but on Canada’s failure to fund the system adequately.

This line of defense is often heard in Canada itself. I sometimes think that the words, “We need more government funding,” should appear on Canada’s coins in the spot where the words “E Pluribus Unum” appear on America’s. Here’s the answer.

a) The gap between America’s spending on patient treatment and Canada’s is not as big as the raw percentages might suggest. For example, America’s 14% figure includes the cost of the vast American medical research program. The budget of the National Institutes of Health alone - $27 billion in fiscal 2003 – is larger than the total healthcare expenditures of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec combined . (The provinces are the main funders of Canadian healthcare; Ontario and Quebec are the two biggest provinces, home between them to more than half of Canada’s population.) Canada does little medical research. In healthcare as in defense, Canada piggybacks for free on America’s costly efforts.

b) Much of the differential between the cost of the Canadian and American systems is achieved by the brutal squeezing of the incomes of doctors and nurses. While this may have some impact on staff morale and may contribute to a reduction in the skill level of medical staff, it has little relevance to the issue of waiting times.

c) The Canadian population is demographically different from America’s in important ways. The average age of the Canadian population is lower than that of the United States. There is less obesity in Canada, fewer premature births, fewer victims of assault and attempted homicide. Canadians also drive fewer miles per year than Americans. These differences impose costs on the United States that the Canadian system does not bear. Even under exactly identical health-care policy regimes, one would expect health-care expenditure in the United States to be significantly higher than in Canada.

d) Advocates of single payer often cite Canada’s lower expenditure on healthcare as an argument in favor of the Canadian system. Then, when confronted with the evidence of the Canadian system’s failure, they admit that America’s 14% is not all frittered away on advertising and obscene HMO profits – that it does indeed buy superior care. But if the American system is not riddled with waste that single-payer will squeeze out, then extending a single-payer system to cover the entire U.S. population will be just as hugely expensive as conservative critics fear.

2. Many readers have pointed to Canada’s high average life expectancy as proof that its healthcare system can’t be all bad. But (see point c above) there’s much more to public health than a healthcare system. Hike cigarette taxes and life expectancy will rise, no matter how lousy the hospitals are. The test of a healthcare system is not life expectancy of the population as a whole – it’s the life expectancy of people once they get sick. Here Canada’s record is not so good.

3. Some cosmopolitan readers note that other single-payer systems, Germany’s usually, deliver more satisfactory results than do Canada’s and Britain’s. That’s true – precisely because the German system is much more decentralized and offers more choice (and demands more responsibility) than do Canadian Medicare or Britain’s NHS. Some socialized healthcare systems are more socialized than others, and the more socialized they are, the worse they do.

4. Yes, yes, yes, America’s healthcare system is flawed. It’s overly litigious, it discourages people from changing jobs, it is often wasteful, and it abandons too many people to charity medicine. Yes, yes, yes, America’s healthcare system – which probably should not be called a “system” at all – is in need of reform. The question is not, “Is America perfect?” The question is, “Would single-payer be an improvement?” And the answer to that question – despite Al Gore – is no, no, no.

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Fatal speed of cold (SARS) that kills (London Times, 030401)

A new and deadly virus is sweeping across the world. The SARS virus began in China which, inexcusably, suppressed the data. It has now spread to Europe and North America and may be unstoppable

A NEW AND nasty enemy is on the loose. While eyes and minds have been focused on Iraq, a killer virus has emerged in the Far East. So far it has has infected more than 1,500 people and killed 54 of them.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was given a head start in China, where officials preferred to turn a blind eye rather than acknowledge that large numbers of people were seriously ill with pneumonia. It then spread around the world at the speed of a jumbo jet.

A doctor sneezing next to a lift on the ninth floor of a Kowloon hotel in Hong Kong infected six other guests, including an elderly Canadian woman, who fell ill on her return to Toronto and died. A single passenger on Air China flight CA112 from Hong Kong to Beijing on March 15 passed on the disease to at least nine others.

SARS is no respecter of persons. Last week Hong Kong was transfixed when the chief executive of the hospital authority, William Ho, developed the condition. Over the weekend SARS claimed the life of Dr Carlo Urbani of the World Health Organisation (WHO), who worked in Hanoi and was the first physician to identify a case of the disease in an American businessman, who also died. Dr Urbani was 46, married, with three children.

For years specialists have been warning that a world flu pandemic is overdue — perhaps one to rival the horrors of the one that struck in 1918-19, which claimed more lives than the First World War. SARS is not flu, but it may be nearly as bad. The best evidence is that its causative agent in a coronavirus, which is normally the second-commonest cause of the common cold. As everybody knows, colds are easily spread and have no cure. SARS looks horribly as if it may turn out to be a cold that kills.

That may be a premature conclusion, because scientists are not yet certain that the coronavirus is the cause. Some laboratories have also found traces of paramyxovirus, which is known to cause respiratory disease. There is speculation that the two viruses might even be conspiring to cause the disease together.

Unfortunately, no drug exists that can eliminate infection with either virus: those who fall victim to them rely on their own immune systems and the help of intensive care to fight off the infection. For a minority of about 3 to 4% — of whom Dr Urbani was one — that is not enough.

How can a new and deadly virus spring from the recesses of China and sweep across the world? Most experts believe that the virus responsible for SARS originated in animals. Coronaviruses were first identified in chickens in 1937, and are also found in cows, pigs, rodents, cats and dogs, where they can cause serious illness. But until now their effect in humans has been modest.

Somewhere in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong one of these animal viruses underwent a genetic shift. Even a tiny change might have been enough to make the virus far deadlier to a human host. People began to fall ill some time late last year, around November.

What happened next was inexcusable. Instead of notifying the rest of the world of a new and dangerous disease, the Chinese suppressed the data. Never very open about health statistics, Beijing decided to say nothing rather than risk a panic. It was the end of February before any infections were admitted, when China told the WHO that 300 people had fallen ill in Guangdong, and five had died.

By the time these figures had been digested, the disease was spreading. Yet it took a further two weeks before China agreed to cooperate fully with the WHO investigation, promising daily figures and acknowledging that the real number infected in Guangdong was more than 800, and that 34, not five, had died. By yesterday, Beijing had still not come up with the promised figures.

From China the disease spread to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore, which are still the three worst-affected areas. Unaware of the danger that they faced, nurses and doctors started to treat patients without taking full precautions to protect themselves from infection. Within hospitals, the spread was rapid. Two of the deaths in Vietnam were of a 43-year-old nurse and a 36-year-old doctor who had cared for the first victims.

But the fact that most of the early spread was hospital-based led people to the comforting conclusion that SARS would not spread in the community as a whole. It might be nasty, but at least it would be hard to catch — more like HIV than flu.

Events in Hong Kong are quickly throwing doubt on that conclusion. Of the 620 patients with SARS, more than a third live in the Amoy Gardens housing complex in the middle of crowded Kowloon, and 120 of them are from a single block of the complex, Block E. This suggests that SARS may have the ability for airborne transmission, hugely increasing the risk it poses. It is one thing to avoid being sneezed over by a stranger with a potent virus; quite another to avoid infection if the bug can be wafted along on a current of air.

The Hong Kong authorities have quarantined Block E, and posted health workers in full protective gear at the doors to the apartments to stop anybody leaving. “We are now examining all possible angles, to see if it is airborne or in the building’s water mains,” a health official said.

Hong Kong and Singapore have also closed schools, but the mood in Beijing remains complacent. “Actually, we don’t have that disease here,” said a Chinese official, reacting to news that the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) had decided to cancel a major event in Beijing. The Rolling Stones have also cancelled their first-ever concerts in China because of concerns about SARS.

This attitude is not shared by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. “The potential for infecting larger numbers of people is great,” said the director of CDC, Dr Julie Gerberding, at the weekend. “We may be in the early stages of what could be a larger problem.”

Her belief remains that the major mode of transmission is through the spread of droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, but she admitted that airborne transmission is a concern, as is the danger that objects in the environment could become contaminated and infectious.

Are epidemics of SARS likely everywhere in the world? Now that physicians and communicable-disease specialists are aware of the risks, containment appears possible, at least in a Western setting. There are 62 cases under investigation in the US, but all but seven of them have been in people arriving from the Far East. There is no evidence of general spread within the country. The same applies in Britain, where there have been three probable cases, all among people who have travelled from SARS areas. Spring and summer are coming, when such infections are far less common, so we may yet escape.

But the long-term prospects are gloomier. On the assumption that SARS is a new virus which arose in animals, it cannot be eliminated; there will always be a reservoir of infection, unless all infected animals are identified and slaughtered. Hong Kong adopted this approach to deal with an outbreak of bird flu, slaughtering millions of birds. But that would require a quick test for the disease — which is not yet available — and the willingness of mainland Chinese authorities to act more decisively that they have so far.

That means that SARS has probably already become a more or less permanent feature of human respiratory disease. The test for Britain and the rest of Europe will come next winter, when such infections invariably rise. Along with flu, colds and respiratory syncytial virus, epidemiologists will be looking out for cases of SARS.

One puzzle is that some SARS victims appear to be much more efficient at spreading the disease than others. In Hanoi, Dr Gerberding said, one patient transmitted the disease to more than half the health-care workers who cared for him, including Dr Urbani. Similar “super-infectors” may have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease in Hong Kong.

“The biggest unknown is, of course, what is going on in China,” Dr Gerberding said. “We are desperate to learn more about the scope and magnitude of the problem there, because that I think will be the biggest predictor of where this will be headed over the next few weeks.

“It is a respiratory virus, it does appear to be transmitted very efficiently, and what we know about respiratory viruses suggest that the potential for infecting large numbers of people is very great.”

HOW THE VIRUS SPREADS

November 2002

Disease surfaces in southern Guangdong province, China. It kills 34 people and infects 800. Guangzhou railway station is being disinfected daily

February

Cases appear in Hong Kong; a medical professor from southern China thought to be infected stayed in the Metropole Hotel. Six other guests infected

March 11

A hospital in Vietnam shuts after two dozen staff fall ill. Outbreak hits after an American businessman travelling from Shanghai via Hong Kong apparently infects the workers

In Singapore the number of people with symptoms reaches 16, and cases have now been reported in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand

March 15

Two people from Hong Kong die in Canada.

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‘Hyper infectors’ fuelled SARS outbreak (Ottawa Citizen, 030409)

TORONTO — Canada’s SARS outbreak was fuelled by three “hyper infectors” who each passed on the disease to 20 or more other people — a phenomenon never before seen with a virus, experts say.

The new information yesterday “helps explain” why the Toronto area was much harder hit by the mysterious, flu-like illness than places such as Vancouver and the United States, said one leading expert.

All three of the men, early sufferers of severe acute respiratory syndrome, have since died, said Dr. Donald Low, one of the lead investigators of the outbreak.

Dr. Low, a key member of the SARS containment team, came out of quarantine yesterday after having been exposed to the virus by another member of the team, Dr. Allison McGeer, who is recuperating from the disease.

Officials say they are worried that some of the people who were infected by the patients haven’t yet come forward, and issued a renewed appeal to find anyone who was at the Toronto’s Scarborough Grace Hospital at the same time as the three contagious men.

“We just didn’t think it was going to be this contagious, (with) individuals who would be able to infect 20, 30 people,” said Dr. Low, head of microbiology at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. “That helps explain why we saw such a rapid acceleration of cases.”

It is unclear exactly why the men were so infectious, although it could relate to the seriousness of their illness, he said.

Individuals who are inordinately infectious have been seen with certain types of bacteria, but not viruses, said Dr. Low.

There was more evidence yesterday that the illness is caused by a type of coronavirus, a family of viruses that can cause the common cold. The theory was argued in a paper published in the medical journal Lancet by a team of scientists from Hong Kong.

But Dr. Low said the evidence is still not conclusive, suggesting that another virus may also play a role. It is also possible that the SARS organism triggers an over-reaction by the body’s immune system, which itself causes serious damage.

Meanwhile, the number of probable and suspect cases across Canada edged up to 232, with 190 in Ontario and smaller numbers in B.C., Alberta, P.E.I., New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. One person suspected of having died from the disease was eliminated from the list, leaving the death toll in Canada at 10. And a patient in Kingston, Ont., was also ruled out as a SARS case, alleviating fears of a new cluster in eastern Ontario.

Also, a coroner’s investigation may be launched into the deaths of two elderly residents of a nursing home in Oakville, Ont., which was cleared out so that it could be turned into a SARS isolation facility.

The residents died around the time of the transfer, but it is not known whether the move had anything to do with their deaths, said Dr. James Young, Ontario’s commissioner of public safety.

Worldwide, 2,888 cases of SARS have been reported, with 104 deaths.

In other developments around the world yesterday:

- Thailand announced it will pay 1 million baht ($34,000 Cdn) to relatives of Thai people who die from locally contracted cases of the disease. So far, Thailand’s seven cases of the disease, which resulted in two deaths, were all imported from other countries, according to the World Health Organization.

- A scientist from the World Health Organization visiting Guangdong, China, said the hunt for the cause of SARS was progressing, but it wasn’t clear when — or if — it would be identified. Dr. Samson Wong, of the University of Hong Kong, warned SARS might infect 80% of the population within two years, and eventually everyone could be infected.

- Hong Kong has been reporting double-digit increases daily in the numbers of people infected. It reported two new deaths yesterday, bringing the toll to 25; there were 45 new cases of infection for a total of 928.

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Beijing is concealing Sars deaths, says doctor (London Times, 030401)

Natural remedy: Beijing residents cram into a pharmacy to buy herbal medicine, which is claimed to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars)

A CHINESE doctor has broken ranks and accused his Government of covering up the number of people killed or infected in Beijing by the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) virus.

Jiang Yanyong, 71, an army doctor, told Western journalists that there have been at least nine deaths and 140 infections at four military hospitals alone.

The Chinese Government’s most recent report said there have been only 19 cases and four deaths in Beijing hospitals and insisted that the outbreak of Sars is under “effective control”.

Dr Jiang wrote a letter, published on Time magazine’s website, saying: “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” when Zhang Wenkang, the Health Minister, reported only 12 cases of Sars and three deaths in Beijing on April 3.

The next day Dr Jiang went to work at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army hospital, where he used to be the chief of surgery and where he continues to see patients. He said he found that “all the doctors and nurses who had seen Mr Zhang’s statement were furious”.

He also alleged that hospital officials had been forbidden by the Ministry of Health from talking about early cases of Sars “in order to ensure (the Government’s) stability”.

Responding to the charges, Deng Haihua, the Health Ministry spokesman, said that military hospitals were not under Mr Zhang’s jurisdiction. “In China, military hospitals are independent. Zhang Wenkang has no control over military hospitals,” he said.

But Dr Jiang’s letter reinforced recent allegations by unnamed doctors at Beijing civilian hospitals who have told journalists they believed that the Government was not reporting all Sars cases.

China has been strongly criticised for a lack of transparency over Sars.

On Monday David Heymann, of the World Health Organisation, told a US Senate committee that the epidemic could have been controlled if China had asked for help in November when Sars first surfaced in the southern province of Guangdong.

Dr Jiang’s move, which is highly unusual for a Communist Party member, could lay him open to being purged or even jailed for criticising leaders publicly. Asked why he did it and whether he was worried he could be dismissed or jailed, Dr Jiang said: “It’s possible. But this has to do with the health of so many people.

“It’s not just China. It’s the whole world. I’m not being bold. This is the most basic responsibility of a doctor.”

In Hong Kong 42 new cases of Sars and two deaths were reported yesterday as attention began to focus on another block of flats close to the ones in Amoy Gardens where there have been at least 283 cases. Concern is now turning to the Lower Ngau Tau Kok flats, which have had 30 cases of Sars, including three new ones on Tuesday.

Officials in the Philippines said yesterday that they were discouraging their citizens from travelling to Hong Kong and Guangdong in order to try to keep the Sars virus from its shores.

Hong Kong is home to about 153,000 Filipino workers, but Manila has not said whether they and people working in other countries affected by the virus will be allowed home.

The first probable case of Sars in South Africa has been announced. A 62-year-old businessman has been admitted to a Pretoria hospital after returning from a trip to Hong Kong last month, health officials said. He is said to be in a critical, but stable, condition, and is being treated in an isolated intensive care unit.

Organisers of this Sunday’s Rotterdam Marathon have asked two Chinese runners to pull out of the race, fearing that they could bring Sars to the Netherlands, and an intellectual property meeting due to be held in Beijing this month has been cancelled.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has cancelled next month’s six-city tour of China. Hugh Macdonald, the orchestra director, said: “After extensive consultation with the tour’s Chinese promoters and the BBC’s chief medical officer we reluctantly decided to cancel this important visit.”

SilkAir flew a Singaporean man home in an empty aircraft after he was turned back in Thailand on suspicion of being infected with Sars. Tests later showed that the man was free of the virus.

A spokeswoman for SilkAir, an affiliate of Singapore Airlines, said that the man was running a temperature when he landed in the tourist resort of Chiang Mai.

Other passengers scheduled to return to Singapore that day were instead given one night’s free accommodation in Chiang Mai, and flown the next day by Thai Airways to Bangkok, and by Singapore Airlines to Singapore.

Thailand, one of the most popular holiday destinations in Asia, has declared that all tourists from countries badly affected by Sars must wear masks at all times or face a six-month jail term and a fine.

The worldwide total of Sars cases now stands at 2,894, and there have been 104 deaths.

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WHO uncovers more Sars cases in China (London Times, 030416)

The World Health Organisation said today that China has as many as 200 previously unreported cases of the Sars virus in Beijing.

The announcement contradicts statements by senior Chinese officials that they had reported all of the country’s Sars cases, including those in military hospitals.

Alan Schnur, a WHO infectious disease expert, said: “I would guess the range would be between 100 and 200 probable cases in Beijing.” China has admitted to four deaths and 40 cases in the capital.

Throughout the country, there have been 65 reported deaths and more than 1,300 cases of infection, mainly in the southern Guandong province.

But WHO investigators said that the unreported cases were the result of a “reporting problem” in the Chinese system and did not consider the newly disclosed cases as evidence of a cover-up.

The WHO team also inspected how Sars is being handled in Beijing. WHO said last week that city authorities were failing to trace people who might have been exposed to the disease, raising fears that the virus could spread.

A senior Chinese military surgeon said last week in an unusual break with traditional secrecy that Beijing had several times as many Sars cases as had been reported.

Worldwide, the toll from Sars is at least 161 people killed, with more than 3,000 infected.

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Toronto Under SARS: A media fever (NRO, 030425)

TORONTO, CANADA — In a chop-suey mood the other day, I was nonplussed to learn that my chosen restaurant was eerily vacant, its owners having fled and closed shop for an early summer. Blame the specter of SARS, which has cast a patina of panic over this generally stoic city of 2.5 million people. The Mexican restaurant next door was bustling, mind you. Mexican and other ethnic restaurants are sopping up business from the General-Tso-chicken crowd, a major constituency here in Toronto, which boasts the second-largest Chinatown in North America.

The World Health Organization, having fired off an incendiary SARS warning — its advisory counsels against non-essential travel to Toronto, Canada’s business capital — has soiled this city’s signature reputation for hygiene and wreaked unforgivable havoc on business. The hotel industry has been devastated. In the weeks since SARS hit the city, tourism has been chopped by 23%, according to the local commissioner of development. Retail sales are down by anywhere from 20-30%.

The WHO’s advisory has been compounded by sometimes histrionic media coverage around the world. Reuters says the city is limping into “leper status.” London’s Independent newspaper has reported that Toronto is in “quasi-quarantine.” The New York Times called local public health-management a “leaky dike.”

As a consequence, economic tremors are rippling through the city. Major League Baseball has even advised players to refrain from signing autographs.

An analysis by J. P. Securities Canada Inc. on Tuesday estimated that the epidemic will cost Canada $30 million a day; the firm then reversed its forecast to 1% from the 2-2.5% national economic growth rate in the current economic quarter, which, pre-SARS, had been reason for economists here to herald Canada’s impending emergence as an economic powerhouse.

Responding to the WHO’s travel warning, an exasperated Dr. Donald Low, one of the world’s leading infectious-disease experts and a member of the SARS containment team here, called it “a bunch of bulls**t.” There’s some rationale for the doctor’s exasperation, which has been echoed by the mayor and by other civic and business leaders. At the same time, it is irresponsible to dismiss the panic as simple hysteria. There is much we don’t know about the etiology of the disease and its mutation patterns.

On the positive side of the ledger, there is no evidence of casual transmission of SARS in Toronto — transmission appears to be by respiratory droplets, not airborne spread — and every case can be linked back to the original index case, a 78-year-old grandmother and immigrant from Hong Kong. Almost half the patients who have been afflicted with presumed SARS in Toronto have recovered and gone home. Tragically, there have been 16 deaths from SARS in Toronto (at the time of writing); but the weekly increase in the number of cases is dipping, and has not manifested the exponential growth seen with uncontrolled epidemics of the past. The deceased suffered from other underlying health problems, such as congestive heart failure. Many of those who have recovered from SARS in Toronto are out of quarantine and there are no reported cases of post-recovery transmission to their families and co-workers.

Whatever the facts, the SARS epidemic will always be more about psychology than epidemiology. If we live in a global village when it comes to the dissemination of news information, then we live in a global cocoon when it comes to the dissemination of fear and rhetoric. The media have a role to play here, and must take it very seriously.

The essential problem is shoddy reporting. In order to make the illness appear more widespread, journalists seldom report on the attack rate within discrete, at-risk populations — SARS in Toronto is a disease affecting health-care workers and elderly patients within hospital settings, and with underlying illness. In the province of Ontario, doctors estimate that the case-fatality rate for those who actually contract SARS is less than one percent for patients under 50.

Journalists habitually lump together “probable” and “suspected” cases, without ever explaining why. Lumping the two categories together can make the picture of SARS appear bleaker than it might otherwise seem, since, at this stage in the outbreak, many suspected cases may be excluded after investigation and follow-up.

Just as disturbing, most media reporting has succumbed to political correctness. Canadians are clueless as to the ethnicity and country of origin of the victims.

Nor do journalists recognize that the rate of new cases is what really matters in measuring an epidemic. The rate of new cases in Toronto seems to be slowing. This is good news and suggests that local transmission in the Toronto area is on the wane — assuming the successful containment of so-called “super transmitters.”

Context and sobriety are crucial in the public-health response to SARS. In a city of 2.5 million, 16 people have died thus far. Lung cancer, heart disease, and automobile crashes have all exacted a far, far heavier toll on human life in the city.

Even so, this is a fast-breaking epidemic that doesn’t lend itself to 24-hour punditry. Some commentators have been quick to suggest that SARS is an example of juvenile media scare-mongering, while others, notably Dr. Patrick Dixon, a “trends” expert at London Business School, reportedly predicted SARS could be more dangerous than AIDS, with up to a billion cases in the next year.

While journalists may be tempted to cite these extremist predictions to craft a colorful story, doing so suggests that we know enough now to make concrete epidemiological predictions about the progression of the disease. But this is a new virus in humans; it could spiral out of control or could mutate such that humans can no longer get it (i.e. SARS may be insufficiently contagious to sustain transmission in the environment).

Since we don’t know what proportion of those exposed to SARS will become infected, it is difficult to fully assess risk at this stage. That is cold comfort to media pundits, who earn their trade on predictions and, in some cases, the serial debunking of health-care scares. It’s certainly true that all the available empirical evidence shows that visitors to Toronto — even if they are in a high-risk category for SARS (i.e., elderly, history of respiratory illness) have, statistically speaking, much bigger things to worry about than SARS, including run-of-the-mill traffic accidents. But that may change rapidly, and it is wrong and disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

— Neil Seeman is director of the Canadian Statistical Assessment Service, a program of The Fraser Institute, an economic and public-policy think tank.

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Sars spreads to three more countries (London Times, 030429)

Three more countries announced their first Sars cases today as leaders from South-East Asia met for an emergency summit on the outbreak.

South Korea, New Zealand and Mongolia joined the list of countries with people infected.

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, travelled to Bangkok to brief leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) about efforts to combat the virus, which has killed 139 people in China.

Tung Chee Hwa, the chief executive of Hong Kong, was also at the first high-level international meeting to discuss severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The World Health Organisation says that the incidence of Sars has probably peaked in many places, but fears that it is worsening in China, which reported nine new cases today.

Protesters in a village east of Beijing ransacked a school amid fears that it was to be used as a Sars isolation ward, a witness and police said today. The violence erupted on Sunday in Chagugang, about 100 km (60 miles) southeast of the capital.

Beijing hospitals treating 1,000 Sars cases were reportedly running short of drugs and surgical masks. Doctors and nurses were overworked and demoralised at the expanding number of hospitals assigned to handle Sars, the Beijing Times reported.

In New York, Asian-American businesses called for help to lure tourists back to the city’s Chinatown that is suffering because of Sars fears.

For weeks China has been criticised for not revealing the true extent of the disease for months after its first appeared there in November and then was spread internationally by air travellers via Hong Kong.

The worldwide toll from Sars reached at least 333 deaths and more than 5,100 infections in more than 20 countries.

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SARS Deadlier Than Thought, WHO Says (Foxnews, 030508)

GENEVA — The SARS virus is even deadlier than previously thought, the World Health Organization said Thursday, sharply raising its estimated death rate from the disease to 14-15% of all victims.

SARS (search ) is particularly deadly for senior citizens, WHO said, estimating that more than half the victims 65 and over are likely to be killed by the flu-like illness.

The bad news came as the worldwide death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome hit at least 507, with China announcing five more fatalities and Hong Kong four more. About 7,000 people have been infected by the disease worldwide. There have been no fatalities in the United States.

The revised death-rate statistics are based on data from Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam, the U.N. agency said. Until now the agency had put the rate at 6-10%, although a study earlier this week of patients in Hong Kong said the death rate was around 20%.

“The likelihood of dying from SARS in a given area has been shown to depend on the profile of the cases, including the age group most affected and the presence of underlying disease,” the health agency said in a statement on its Web site.

The death rate is below 1% for people aged 24 or younger, rising to 6% for those aged 25 to 44, 15% in those aged 45 to 64 and more than 50% for those aged over 65.

Meanwhile, WHO on Thursday extended a SARS travel warning to Taiwan and to two more Chinese provinces.

“WHO is now recommending as a measure of precaution that people planning to travel to Tianjin and Inner Mongolia provinces of China and Taipei in Taiwan ... consider postponing all but essential travel,” the organization said in a statement.

The agency has already issued travel warnings for Hong Kong, Beijing and China’s Guangdong and Shanxi provinces. WHO lifted a similar warning on nonessential travel to Toronto on April 30 after deciding the disease had been sufficiently contained by health authorities in Canada’s largest city.

WHO said so far there are more than 7,000 SARS cases in 29 countries on five continents and that much of it was spread “along the routes of international air travel.”

Warning that its SARS situation was “still grim,” China announced measures to repair mounting economic damage and help airlines, tourism and other industries battered by the illness, state media reported Thursday.

Airlines, hotels and other travel businesses have been devastated by travel bans and warnings to foreigners to avoid China.

China’s Cabinet ordered businesses in SARS-affected areas not to lay off employees and told local officials to adopt policies to help aviation, tourism, restaurants and other businesses damaged by SARS, Xinua said. The orders also asked officials to ensure that farmers plant and harvest their crops.

In determining the death rate, WHO said studying only those cases where the patient has died or made a full recovery could skew the figures while the outbreak is still continuing, because the average time from illness to death is shorter than the average time from illness to recovery.

It’s taking into account the length of time for which patients have survived — looking at the risk of dying in the first week of illness, the risk in the second week, and so on. Using this method, Singapore’s death rate is at 14% and Hong Kong’s is at 15%.

In Vietnam, where the outbreak is apparently under control, the death rate was 8%. “One explanation for this is the large number of total cases that occurred in younger, previously healthy health care workers,” WHO said.

There has been debate for weeks about the true death rate for SARS. It has risen from below 5% in the weeks that SARS was first spreading around the globe to a level as high as 15% in Canada.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so far puts the death rate at 6.6%.

WHO said the figures only cover those who were sick enough to be admitted to hospitals, not those who recovered at home or who had no symptoms, said WHO communicable diseases expert Dr. Nigel Gay.

“It depends on what you define SARS to be. This is ‘severe’ acute respiratory syndrome. It’s not a case fatality rate for coronavirus infection,” he said.

WHO said it also has reviewed the incubation period — the time from exposure to the onset of disease — and continues to conclude that the maximum period is 10 days.

“The incubation period can vary from one case to another according to the route by which the person was exposed, the dose of virus received and other factors including immune status,” WHO said.

It said it based its findings on cases in Singapore, Canada and Europe because patients in badly hit areas like Hong Kong and China could have been exposed to the virus on multiple occasions, making it impossible to establish the incubation period.

The study in Hong Kong said that the incubation period could be as long as 14 days. WHO said it would be looking at that in more detail.

If the incubation period is truly longer than 10 days, people who are being quarantined because they have been in close contact with a SARS patient may not be in isolation long enough.

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Expert: SARS Virus May Mutate Profoundly (Foxnews, 030512)

GLASGOW, Scotland — The SARS virus does not appear to have mutated significantly in the eight weeks since it spread from Asia, but a leading expert said Sunday the virus still could evolve into a more dangerous form if it enters a race of people with a different genetic background, such as sub-Saharan Africans.

So far, most of the world’s 7,200 SARS cases and 536 deaths have been in Asia, with the vast majority in China and its territory of Hong Kong. The biggest outbreak outside Asia has been Canada’s Toronto area, with 22 deaths, though the World Health Organization says the disease has been contained there.

“There may be pressure on the virus to change again. This is what we see in many other viruses,” said Dr. Christian Drosten, a virologist at the Bernhard-Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany.

He was speaking at a conference of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Glasgow.

In a study published in The Lancet medical journal earlier this week, researchers compared the genetic makeup of SARS virus samples taken from 14 people to examine how much the bug is mutating.

The results indicated that the virus has remained surprisingly consistent as it has passed from person to person — even though the SARS virus is a new member of the coronavirus family, a group of viruses known to have a high mutation rate.

Some scientists believe the genetic comparisons of the 14 different samples indicate that the SARS virus mutations have run their course.

But Drosten noted that the virus samples analyzed so far were culled from people who became sick within only a few weeks of each other.

“But it has only been a few weeks. It took decades to get more virulent strains of HIV, and that is a retrovirus, which should mutate more than (SARS),” Drosten said. “What will happen to the virus when it jumps from Asians into a genetically different population, say sub-Saharan Africans?”

There have been a handful of mutations, which led to the virus splitting into two geographically distinct strains that provide signatures to help scientists trace the origin of an individual’s infection. There is no evidence the mutations have altered the seriousness of the disease.

Drosten’s lab belongs to the WHO collaboration investigating the virus.

The consistency of the virus is considered a double-edged sword. While it has not mutated into a more deadly form, it has not mellowed into a weaker germ.

Experts say the SARS virus certainly will keep mutating, but they do not know whether those mutations will change the seriousness of the disease. So far, WHO scientists say there is no evidence that this is happening — the disease looks the same around the world.

The WHO estimates that about 15% of people who contract the disease die, suggesting the illness is more deadly than influenza or other common respiratory infections. For people over 65, the death rate is about 50%, WHO estimates.

The outbreak, which began in November, is waning in some parts of the world, though it still is spreading quickly in China and Taiwan. Vietnam is now SARS-free and health officials hope Hong Kong, Singapore and Toronto will soon follow.

On April 30, the WHO lifted an advisory warning people against unnecessary travel to Toronto.

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Today’s women live faster and die younger (030623)

LIBERATION is a danger to women’s health, official figures suggest. By the end of this century, men are likely to become the longer-living sex.

The rise in alcohol consumption among young women and in smoking levels and stress experienced by the increasing number of working women is feared to have affected female life expectancy.

While the average life expectancy of men and women has risen over the past five years, the rate of improvement among women has declined. Should life expectancy trends continue and factors affecting lifestyle stay the same, men born this century may live longer than women, a think-tank has found.

Tony Leandro, secretary of the Continuous Mortality Investigation Bureau, whose findings are reported in The Journal , the leading insurance publication of the Chartered Insurance Institute, said: “If the trend continues, mortality rates for men and women will cross at some point in the future. You’re looking at some time at the end of this century.”

He explained that using statistics drawn up in 1999, a 35-year-old man could expect to live five years longer compared with predictions made 12 years earlier. However, he said that while women of the same age could also expect to live longer, they could not expect to be able to add as many years on to their lifespan as their male contemporaries.

“The male-female lifespan gap shrank from 4½ to three years in that period,” he said. “Subsequent studies have confirmed that this trend is continuing.”

Mr Leandro said that while it was difficult to identify precise culprits for the findings, “there is evidence that men are smoking less than women, particularly at younger ages, and this may be a significant factor”.

According to Cancer Research UK, between 1940 and 1975 twice as many men smoked as women. After 1975 women began to catch up and now, although both sexes are giving up in large numbers, there are as many female smokers as there are male.

Adam Galop, of the Government Actuaries Department, agreed about the effect of smoking habits, adding: “The effects of stress and more women in the workforce may also have contributed to the recent decline in the differential between life expectations for men and women.”

Martin Baker, editor of The Journal , said: “Stressful work is a killer and the dismal figures for female mortality rate improvement may be partly because of working life and the attendant strains and lifestyle implications. The message is that women at work are women at risk: equality in the job market is a killer.”

According to the Government’s Women and Equality Unit, more women are going to work each year, and Britain has the highest female employment rate in the European Union. From March to May last year, 69% of women of working age were employed, almost 160,000 more than were working during the same period in 2001.

Women start up a third of new businesses in Britain and own 13% of businesses in the country.

Eric Brunner, of University College London, an expert on the effects of stress, said that his studies of civil servants indicated that men and women suffered equal levels of stress, even when the women held lower positions. He said his studies had shown that women said that they were more badly affected by domestic stress than men.

Dr Brunner said: “Women seem to be more badly affected if they have adverse conditions at home and, because people are living longer, the conditions they experience at home are of greater importance to their health.”

The steep rise in alcohol consumption among women is also blamed for the fall in the number of years which a woman can expect to add onto her lifetime.

According to studies by Action on Addiction, a charity devoted to reducing substance abuse, female alcohol consumption has almost doubled in less than 20 years.

In 1984, 25% of men and 9% of women were drinking more than the amount deemed safe by the Department of Health. By 2000, the figure for men had risen to 29% but the statistic for women had increased to 17%.

Lesley King-Lewis, chief executive of the charity, said: “Certainly, women are drinking more than they were ten years ago, and this is bound to have an effect on women’s life expectancy. We are especially concerned about the increasing levels of binge drinking amoung young women, as this has serious social and health repercussions.”

Caroline Instance, chief executive of the Institute of Actuaries, said: “Life experience does impact on when and why we die. It is logical to suggest that, as the lives of men and women become more similar, so will their life expectancy. When they are the same, only biology will make a difference.”

Such logic has made insurers nervous. Life insurers say that the prospect that male life expectancy would continue to rise was the industry’s biggest worry.

John Lawson, senior technical manager at Standard Life, the mutual life insurer, said: “The past five years are showing a faster improvement in men’s life expectancy than you would expect. This looked like a blip but now it’s being said that this is the start of a trend, which is probably the biggest issue in life assurance at the moment.”

Any increase in the amount of time between retirement and death, and thus the amount of pension income drawn, would prove very expensive for insurers, resulting in further falls in annuity rates. The rates, which are set using a complex calculation that incorporates pensioner lifespans and long-term interest rates, decide how much annual income a pensioner will receive after investing upon retirement their lump sum pension pot.

Mr Lawson said that annuity rates had plunged by 20% over the past three years but could fall further if male lifespans continued to increase at their current rate.

That’s life

At present the average life expectancy at birth in the United Kingdom is 75 years for men and 80 years for women. A healthy-living, slim 35-year-old with a good family history might expect to live to 86 if male, or 93 if female, but:

* For smoking more than 10 cigarettes a day subtract 2 years

* For failing to take regular exercise 20 minutes a day subtract 1.4 years

* For not avoiding foods high in saturated fats subtract 2 years

* For regularly eating barbecued food and charred meats subtract 0.4 years

* For drinking more than two units of alcohol (female) or three (male) a day subtract 1.2 years

* For liability to stress subtract 2.8 years

* For not living close to relatives other than immediate family subtract 1.8 years

* For indulging in risky sex subtract 1.6 years

* For not cleaning and flossing teeth regularly subtract 1.2 years

* One way of prolonging life is now thought to be not to take retirement, but to remain at work. Some calculations suggest that at age 65 this can add 1.8 years

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Study: U.S. Teens Fatter Than Peers Elsewhere (Foxnews, 040105)

CHICAGO — Teenagers in the United States have higher rates of obesity than those in 14 other industrialized countries, including France and Germany, a study of nearly 30,000 youngsters ages 13 and 15 found.

Among American 15-year-olds, 15% of girls and nearly 14% of boys were obese, and 31% of girls and 28% of boys were more modestly overweight.

The findings are based on school questionnaires given to youngsters in the 15 countries in 1997 and 1998. The study was led by Inge Lissau, a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was published in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

U.S. teens were more likely than those in other countries to eat fast food, snacks and sugary sodas and were more likely to be driven to school and other activities, contributing to a more sedentary lifestyle, said co-author Mary Overpeck of the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

“The rest of the world may be catching up, but we’re still in first place in a race that unfortunately we shouldn’t want to be winning,” said Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity researcher at Children’s Hospital Boston who was not involved in the study. He led a study published Monday in another journal, Pediatrics, that found that nearly one-third of U.S. youngsters eat fast food on any given day.

Lithuania had the lowest obesity rates in the latest study. Among Lithuanian 15-year-olds, about 2% of girls and 0.8% of boys were obese, and 8% of girls and 5% of boys were overweight.

That is probably because Lithuania has fewer fast-food restaurants and its teens have less money to buy snacks and fast food, Overpeck said.

In some countries, such as Ireland, Portugal and Sweden, 13-year-old girls were more likely than 15-year-old girls to be obese.

Among French 15-year-olds, 4% of girls and almost 3% of boys were obese, and nearly 13% of girls and 10% of boys were overweight. Among German 15-year-olds, about 5% of girls and boys were obese, and nearly 15% of girls and 14% of boys were overweight.

The other countries studied were Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Flemish Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden.

Overpeck said preliminary data from more recent surveys show little if any change in rates among the countries studied.

The World Health Organization last year said obesity is no longer mostly an American problem but is an increasing concern in Europe and other developed nations because people are abandoning traditional dietary habits and adopting more sedentary lifestyles.

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Bird flu spreads to 7th nation (National Post, 040126)

Indonesia accused of attempting cover-up; health agency says vaccine is 6 months away

BANGKOK - Indonesia became the seventh country in Asia to confirm an outbreak of deadly bird flu, as the World Health Organization warned yesterday the virus could be resistant to basic human influenza drugs.

The disease has already affected millions of chickens in Indonesia, said Sofjan Sudardjat, a senior agriculture official. But the virus has not yet crossed over to the country’s humans, he said.

Indonesian officials had earlier denied the disease’s presence, but the Indonesian Veterinarians Association said several independent investigations had revealed that bird flu had already killed millions of chickens over the past several months.

Asia is on a region-wide health alert, with governments slaughtering millions of chickens to contain earlier outbreaks in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Vietnam has slaughtered more than three million chickens while Thailand has exterminated some nine million. Yesterday, the Thai government enlisted hundreds of soldiers and 60 prisoners to help with the mass cull.

Scientists believe people get the disease through contact with sick birds, raising concerns it might mutate and link with regular influenza to create a form that could be transmitted from person to person, fostering the next human flu pandemic.

Concerns are particularly high because the bird flu virus caught by humans appears resistant to amantadine and rimantadine, the cheaper anti-viral drugs used to treat regular influenza.

“This is a disease that’s appearing in the developing world. So what you want is affordable drugs,” WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said. “Should this move from human to human — and it hasn’t yet, I want to stress that — then it’s going to be a real challenge.”

So far, there has been no evidence of person-to-person transmission. Farms across Asia have been devastated but Vietnam and Thailand are the only countries this year where humans have caught the avian flu. There have been six confirmed deaths in Vietnam and one suspected death in Thailand.

According to WHO, the virus is resistant to key anti-influenza drugs, and an effective vaccine is probably more than six months away.

But “that’s too late for the influenza season in Asia,” said Peter Cordingley, a regional spokesman for WHO.

Last night, a senior health official said that one of two Thai boys suspected of having bird flu has died. He was six years old.

“He died last night around midnight because of the bird flu,” Charal Trinwuthipong informed the Reuters news agency today.

The Jakarta Post reports today that Indonesian officials may have covered up the outbreak there at the behest of politically connected businessmen who feared it would harm their interests.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, faced with similar accusations that he covered up the outbreak, said his government had suspected that bird flu had struck his country a “couple of weeks” ago.

But he said he didn’t tell the public because he feared mass panic.

The outbreak has devastated Thailand’s chicken export industry — the world’s fourth largest. Thailand shipped chicken worth $1.7-billion in 2003.

Many countries have imposed bans on poultry products from Thailand, and the Prime Minister said on Saturday that overall exports could drop by as much as 0.4%age points and the gross domestic product could slip by as much as 0.1%age points as a result.

Mr. Thaksin met yesterday hundreds of worried chicken farmers, some of whom alleged his government tried to cover up the outbreak to protect poultry exports. Until Friday, officials had insisted that millions of birds were sick with other diseases.

But Mr. Thaksin acknowledged yesterday officials suspected a bird flu outbreak for weeks, and said he failed to inform the public of the government’s concerns because tests had not yet been completed.

On Wednesday, Thailand will host a meeting of foreign, agriculture and health ministers from bird flu-affected countries and international influenza experts to devise strategies they might use to thwart the spread of the disease.

In Vietnam, an eight-year-old girl was being treated for bird flu in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital. Two boys, aged six and seven, are seriously sick in Thailand and two others are thought to have been exposed.

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Reading Between the Numbers (Foxnews, 040324)

Last week, sociologist Dr. Ellie Lee cast doubt upon the increasingly popular theory that postnatal depression affects as many as one in five new mothers, telling the BBC that the research underlying that claim is “wrong.”

“According to ‘experts,’ growing numbers of women are traumatized by childbirth and are not capable of child-rearing without professional help,” Lee said, prompting a much larger question than the mental status of post-natal women:

How can we trust research?

The question is not trivial, since studies and statistics form the basis for many of the laws under which we live. If they are wrong, then the laws may be as well.

Short of taking a course on statistics and poring over data, the best way to get a sense of which data to trust is through common sense. There are five questions you should demand of any statistic.

Who Says So? The purpose of this question is to discover possible bias on the part of those offering the data. The bias may be conscious — such as research conducted expressly to win a government grant. The bias may be unconscious — such as research conducted by those who have deep ideological convictions that influence the questions asked.

Bias does not invalidate findings. Just because a researcher seeks funds or has a personal opinion doesn’t mean his finding that 2+2=4 is false. But it does mean you should look at the math more closely.

How Does He Know? Imagine a researcher who rang doorbells at random to ask, “Are you a criminal” or “Do you suffer stomach gas often?” That researcher might discover the world to be both crime and gas-free — not because it actually is, but because many people will not admit to either. One of the most common methodological mistakes is to rely upon an unrepresentative sampling, such as polling only Baptists or limiting your sample to 10 people.

“Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer milk to lemonade” is an impressive finding until you realize that only 12 people were sampled, all of whom were Wisconsin dairy farmers. At that point, the surprising statistic is that 25% preferred lemonade. Demand to know the exact question asked or studied, the size of the sampling and whether it was random.

What does the competition say? Many studies contradict past findings or constitute “surprising revelations.” It could be that past or competing studies were flawed; times may have changed. Data, like opinions, can vary and a finding that “eating cheese increases your chance of cancer by 12%” should be considered in light of past or current studies that render different results. It is possible for a multitude of small surveys to be conducted until one of them produces the desired results.

For example, after tossing a coin many times, it will land “heads up” nine times in a row. From that isolated experience, a researcher could conclude that a tossed penny will come up heads 90% of the time. Do other findings contradict him?

What is missing? Does the data tell you enough to evaluate its statements? Consider the statement, “the average salary at this company is $30,000 a year.” Ninety percent of employees may make much less than that amount but, when total incomes are divided by total employees, $30,000 may be the “mean” result. A “median” result reflects what the person at the exact middle of the earning range takes home. The “mode” is nothing more than the most frequently encountered figure. Does the figure $30,000 indicate a mode, a median or a mean?

Did Someone Change the Subject? A newscaster states, “reports of domestic violence have increased” and concludes that “domestic violence is on the rise.” This conclusion is not justified because the increased reporting may reflect nothing more than a greater willingness on the part of women to contact the police or a greater willingness of police to file the reports. The newscaster has changed the subject from increased reporting to increased incidents.

Does It Make Sense? Never allow a statistical finding to override common sense or your own perceptions: guesstimate. That technique involves taking a statistic to its logical conclusion and seeing if it reduces to absurdity. Consider the alarming statement, “over 3,000,000 teenage girls on welfare became pregnant this year.”

Start with the total population of the U.S. — roughly 300 million. Assume that roughly half are male, leaving 150 million. Assume a uniform female age-spread of one to 75 years, with teenagers (13-19) constituting approximately 9.3%, or 14 million. Assume every teenage girl can become pregnant. Divide this figure by the reportedly three million pregnant welfare teens and the ratio you get is 4.67. One in five teenage girls is not only on welfare but has also become pregnant in the last year. Does this make sense, does it accord with your own perceptions?

The research on postnatal depression may or may not be valid. Lee accuses its advocates of constructing a problem, of “medicalizing motherhood.” Lee states, “There is every possibility that … parents will come to experience the normal disruption that parenting brings with it, as highly disabling, and find themselves less able to manage … This risks branding an essential part of life a hazard.”

Our society rewards those who construct problems. They receive financing and media attention, write books and become “experts.” Statistics are tools and those who wield them should be neither glamorized nor ignored. But they should be required to answer basic questions before being included in that rare category: purveyor of truth.

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She lives with her husband in Canada.

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Survival Rates for Many Cancers Improves (Foxnews, 040603)

WASHINGTON — Americans’ risk of getting and dying from cancer continues to inch down, says the nation’s annual report on the disease. For the first time, there are signs that lung cancer in women is starting to decline too.

Not everyone is reaping the gains: Minorities still are more likely than whites to die from cancer, says the report, published Thursday in the journal Cancer.

Death rates from cancer in general have dropped 1.1% a year since 1993, and Thursday’s report confirms that decline continued in 2001. Rates of new cases are declining about half a percent a year, too.

Most striking in this latest tally is what’s happening with the No. 1 cancer killer: Rates of female lung cancer diagnoses have declined about 2% a year since 1998, years after men began a similar improvement. Also, female death rates from lung cancer have leveled off, remaining virtually unchanged since 1995, the report says.

“For the first time, we are turning the corner in the lung cancer epidemic in women,” said Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society, who co-wrote the report with scientists from the National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

“We have been anticipating ... this for a long, long time,” Jemal added. “It has been overdue.”

Smoking became common among men long before women, and the resulting lung cancer consequently struck men sooner.

Lung cancer remains the nation’s top-killing malignancy for both sexes, and the second most common cancer. But it slowly declined among men starting in the early 1990s as older smokers died and fewer young men took up the habit — a pattern doctors expect to eventually see in women.

The report’s other new finding: More people are living at least five years after a diagnosis of most types of cancer.

Five-year survival is a major milestone for cancer patients, and the scientists found significant gains over the past two decades in how often that milestone was met.

For men, survival rates improved the most — more than 10% — for cancers of the prostate, colon and kidney, and for melanoma and leukemia.

For women, the biggest survival improvements came in colon, kidney and breast cancers.

What does that mean? Today, 99.3% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer will live five years, up from 70% in the 1970s. Five-year survival for breast cancer is 88%, up from 75% in the 1970s.

But that survival is strongly connected to how early cancer is caught, stressed co-author Brenda Edwards of the NCI’s cancer-control division.

For example, five-year survival for lung cancer is just 15%, largely unchanged from the 1970s, because more than half of patients are diagnosed after the disease has spread beyond their lungs. In the few cases where tumors are caught early, five-year survival jumps to 49% — but there is no proven early-screening method for lung cancer.

Even with colorectal cancer, where good tests have improved survival, only one of three cases is caught at the earliest stage, Jemal lamented.

Then there’s the racial gap.

When looking at all cancers combined, black men are 26% more likely to die of a malignancy than white men, and Hispanic men are 16% more likely than non-Hispanic whites, said the cancer society’s Jemal. Black women are 52% more likely to die of cancer than white women, and Hispanic women 20% more likely, he said.

Much of the disparity reflects minorities’ poorer access to cancer prevention and early detection services, Jemal said.

But notable differences remain even when scientists examine people diagnosed at the same stage of cancer, said NCI’s Edwards. Black women were more likely to die of breast cancer, even though that disease is more common among whites.

Access to the best treatment options probably plays a role, as may additional illnesses patients have that complicate cancer treatment, Edwards said. “It’s not one simple story as to what is our national cancer burden,” she cautioned.

Added Jemal: “We know much about cancer. We need to apply everything about cancer control equally to all populations.”

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Secrets of Successful Exercisers Revealed (Foxnews, 041206)

Think you don’t have the time or money to exercise as much as you should? Think again.

A new nationwide survey shows at least one-fourth of successful exercisers have full-time jobs, young children at home, or both, and walking is the most popular form of physical activity.

The survey, conducted among more than 20,000 Consumer Reports readers, reveals the secrets of successful exercisers — those people who most closely meet the national recommendations for physical activity by exercising at least a half-hour per day at least three days a week.

The results show that sticking to an exercise routine doesn’t have to be boring or expensive, and it could be a lifesaver. For example:

—58% of successful exercisers report doing three or more different activities per week.

—30% of successful exercisers used a fitness facility or gym at least three times a week. More than half of those who worked out regularly used exercise to treat depression, a heart problem, back pain, or diabetes and said they and their doctors agreed that exercise helped a lot.

Experts say that to reap the most health benefits from exercise, you need to strive for at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, preferably spread out over five days. If you do, the health benefits include a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, some types of cancer, and dementia.

However, if your goal is weight loss, you’ll need to aim for 250 to 300 minutes a week.

Tips from Successful Exercisers

In the survey, which appears in the January issue of Consumer Reports, researchers polled 21,750 readers about their exercise habits.

Thirty-eight percent of the respondents were classified as “successful exercisers” and performed moderate to vigorous exercise for at least 30 minutes at least three days a week (usually more). That group includes 12% the researchers classified as “hard-core” exercisers who exercised at least five days a week and had kept it up for at least five years.

The survey showed that 36% were “unsuccessful exercisers” who did a little exercise but not enough to reap the health benefits. Many people in this group said they wished they exercised more regularly. Fifteen percent of the respondents were considered sedentary.

Researchers found walking was by far the most popular form of physical activity among successful exercisers. In addition, two-thirds of hard-core exercisers walked at least three days a week.

When asked how they fit physical activity into their hectic schedules and stuck to their routines, successful exercisers offered this advice:

—Get out of your car. Many said they walked or bicycled regularly to work. Others arranged their lives so that they could do errands on foot regularly, such as living within walking distance of a grocery store.

—Find activities you enjoy. You’ll be more likely to stick to a routine if you enjoy it. More than half of successful exercisers said they usually or always got “a feeling of joy or exhilaration” from their physical activity.

—Find time to exercise. Successful exercisers recommend working out at the same time of the day, finding a convenient location to exercise, and planning ahead to schedule workouts.

—Use weights. Successful exercisers of all ages were 10 times more likely to use free weights to build muscle strength than those who didn’t exercise regularly.

When starting an exercise program, researchers say it’s important to start slowly, and then gradually increase the intensity and duration of your workout. But the good news is that the survey results also show that once people get into the exercise habit, they naturally gravitate toward longer, more strenuous workouts.

By Jennifer Warner, reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

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Laptop Computers May Affect Male Fertility (Foxnews, 041209)

Male fertility may be affected by perching laptop computers on the lap, according to a new study.

Balancing laptop computers on the lap raises the scrotum’s temperature, say researchers including Yefim Sheynkin, MD, FACS, of the urology department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

About 15-20% of couples that want to get pregnant aren’t able to conceive. Many of those cases trace back to issues relating to the male. Gradually declining sperm production has been noted in recent decades, say the researchers.

Elevated scrotal temperatures have been linked to male infertility. Many factors can raise scrotal temperature, including hot baths, saunas, and tight jockey shorts.

Laptop computers may also belong on that list, say Sheynkin’s team. They studied 29 healthy young men ages 21 to 35 for two, one-hour sessions in a climate-controlled room.

Participants were all similarly dressed in casual clothes. After having their body temperature taken and standing in the room for 15 minutes to adjust to the room’s temperature, they sat down and were given working or nonworking laptop computers.

The researchers used two brands of Pentium 4 laptop computers. The brands aren’t identified in the study, which appears in the European journal Human Reproduction.

The men balanced the computers on their laps. The researchers then removed the nonworking computers, instructing the men to hold the position for the rest of the session. Participants with working laptop computers kept the computers in place throughout the session.

The men’s scrotal temperature was recorded every three minutes. The temperature on the bottom of the working computers was also monitored.

Scrotal temperature rose with the working and nonworking computers. However, the working laptops prompted a greater increase in scrotal temperature — around 37 degrees Fahrenheit on both sides of the scrotum (2.8 degrees Celsius on the right and 2.6 degrees Celsius on the left).

Participants without working laptops had a scrotal temperature increase of just under 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2.1 degrees Celsius).

Technology doesn’t deserve all the blame. The position required to balance a laptop computer in the lap — with thighs close together to balance the computers — also increases scrotal temperature. Still, the heat generated by the laptops adds to the problem.

In the study, the bottom of the laptop computers rose from about 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees Celsius) to almost 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) after an hour. Both brands had similar temperature increases.

“Working on laptop computers in a laptop position causes significant scrotal temperature elevation as a result of heat exposure and posture-related effects,” say the researchers.

Is the increase enough to impair male fertility? The researchers can’t say for sure. However, they note that another study showed that sperm concentration dropped by 40% when median daytime scrotal temperature rose to about 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius).

More than 60 million laptop computers are expected to be in use by 2005, with another 90 million worldwide, the researchers say. Calling for more studies, they suggest that teenage boys and young men may want to limit their use of laptop computers on their laps.

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High-Pressure Deadlines Up Sudden Heart Attack Risk (Foxnews, 041214)

If you are scrambling to meet a high-pressure deadline at work, consider this: Sudden, intense deadlines significantly boost your risk of having a heart attack.

Researchers say increased competition and workload, as well as less job security, have increased the importance of the work environment as a source of potentially harmful stress reactions. Studies have shown that stressful events can precede a heart attack.

Scientists reporting in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health evaluated heart disease data from 1,381 participants of the Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program (SHEEP). All of them had previously suffered one heart attack. The patients were asked about the specific life events preceding their heart attack, both at work and home, and asked to range their significance from “affected me in a very negative way” to “affected me in a very positive way.”

Analysis of the surveys revealed that sudden stress on the job made people six times more likely to suffer a heart attack within the next 24 hours. “Conflict at work” appeared to be a leading risk factor for men. Increased responsibilities on the job, which participants rated “very or fairly negative,” raised the risk of heart attack for both men and women.

Eight percent of those surveyed had experienced intense, job-related stress one day before their heart attack, at a rate much higher than those who faced stressful events unrelated to work.

Severe short-term stress had a larger impact on the heart than a year’s worth of accumulated stress.

“Our conclusion is that work-related life events characterized by high demands, competition, or conflict, have the potential to trigger the onset of myocardial infarction [heart attack],” the researchers from Sweden write in the journal report.

“The results suggest that the induction time is in the range of hours or days rather than weeks.”

Few studies have investigated the link between life events and the onset of a heart attack. This study is the first to establish the link between short-term job stress and one’s risk for heart attack. The authors say more study is needed.

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Sweet Dreams More Common Than Nightmares (Foxnews, 041220)

Most people have sweet dreams, especially with a good night’s sleep. That’s what Gallup pollsters found in a telephone survey conducted earlier this month.

About 1,000 American adults participated. Most (65%) said they usually have good dreams.

The numbers were even higher for people who say they get enough sleep. Almost three-quarters of those satisfied sleepers said their dreams were generally good. Only 10% reported bad dreams.

Those who toss and turn aren’t as fortunate. Good dreams were less common and bad dreams were more frequent among people who say they would feel better with more sleep. A little more than half (57%) of such people had good dreams; about 20% had bad dreams.

Very few American adults — 1 in 9 – say they dream nightly, says Gallup.

If that’s not you, don’t be jealous. Bad dreams affected 28% of those who say they are nightly dreamers, compared with 9% of those who report dreaming a few times per week and 18% of those who say they are rare dreamers.

Why is that? The Gallup poll can’t say. It didn’t pinpoint the origins of dreams. That’s a task that has fascinated — and eluded — people throughout the ages. Plenty of theories have been suggested over the centuries, from foods to psychological issues to prophetic tales. But tracing the science behind dreams is slippery work.

Some surprising findings about slumber were also revealed by the poll.

Contrary to popular belief, America hasn’t lost much sleep since 1990. Most adults sleep six to eight hours a night, with seven hours being most frequent (28%).

That’s almost the same as in 1990. But since then, Americans have increasingly said they need more sleep. Today, 44% say they would feel better if they slept more.

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Constipation Myths Debunked (Foxnews, 050104)

Constipation has been misunderstood for far too long, and it’s high time that changed. So say four doctors who want to set the record straight on constipation.

The doctors come from Germany, England, Italy, and the U.S. They pooled their knowledge to see what does — and doesn’t — make a difference in constipation.

Constipation is one of the most common health problems in the Western world.

But familiarity hasn’t brought scientific insight. Many strong beliefs about constipation haven’t been confirmed through studies.

“Certitude is not the same as correctness,” say the doctors, who included Stefan Müller-Lissner, MD, of Germany’s Park-Klinik Weissensee.

To separate science from folklore, the doctors reviewed studies on constipation. They covered everything from fiber to laxatives to hormones. Here’s a quick look at their findings:

—Laxatives aren’t likely to be addictive.

—Except for the most severe cases, most laxative users don’t develop a tolerance for laxatives that requires them to keep increasing their dose.

—Stimulant laxatives probably don’t harm the colon and haven’t been shown to increase colorectal cancer risk. However, chronic constipation appears to be linked to a higher risk of colorectal cancer.

—Unless someone is dehydrated, drinking more fluids hasn’t been shown to help.

—Increasing dietary fiber helps some patients, but makes other cases worse. For elderly patients, becoming more active can help. But younger people with severe, chronic constipation may not reap the same benefit.

—There is no evidence that diseases are caused by absorbing toxins from stools.

—Women’s sex hormones have little impact on constipation during the menstrual cycle. However, hormones during pregnancy may increase constipation.

—Underactive thyroids can cause constipation, but it’s rarely seen in constipation patients.

The study appears in the American Journal of Gastroenterology January edition.

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High Blood Sugar Raises Cancer Risk (Foxnews, 050112)

A study involving more than a million people offers some of the best evidence of an association between diabetes and an increased risk of cancer.

Researchers have found having elevated fasting blood sugar levels increased the risk of dying from cancers of the pancreas and liver, and several other malignancies.

Obesity has been associated with many negative effects on health, including some types of cancer.

Because investigators took into account obesity, which is the biggest risk factor for type 2 diabetes, the findings indicate that having diabetes or being at risk for it is an independent risk factor for developing cancers.

The study was conducted in Korea, which has a much lower incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes than the U.S. Only about a quarter of the population is overweight or obese, compared with more than half of Americans.

The research is reported in the Jan. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“What this means is that the public health implications of this finding would be much greater for the United States than for Korea,” study author Jonathan Samet, MD, tells WebMD. “Certainly, obesity drives blood sugar and obesity is a known risk factor for certain cancers. So this could be one of the ways in which obesity increases this risk.”

One in 31 Cancer Deaths

Approximately 150 million people worldwide have diabetes, but that number is expected to double within the next two decades as the population ages and becomes more obese and less active. While the association between diabetes and heart disease is well established, the role of diabetes in cancer has been less well understood.

In this study, researchers examined the relationship between fasting blood sugar levels and diabetes and the risk of specific cancers in just under 1.3 million Koreans enrolled in a government-run health insurance plan. During 10 years of follow-up, there were 20,566 cancer deaths among the men in the study and 5,907 cancer deaths among women.

After controlling for known cancer risk factors such as smoking and alcohol use, researchers found that the men in the study with the highest fasting blood sugar levels (those greater than 140 mg/dl) were 29% more likely to die of cancer than men with the lowest levels (those less than 90 mg/dl). The difference among women with the highest and lowest blood sugar levels was 23%.

The association was strongest for pancreatic cancer, with high blood sugar and diabetes (defined as a fasting blood sugar greater than 125mg/dl) almost doubling the risk for men and more than doubling the risk for women. An increased risk with high blood sugar or diabetes was also found for colorectal cancer and cancers of the esophagus and liver in men, and cancers of the liver and cervix in women.

The researchers estimated that 848 of the 26,473 total cancer deaths reported during the 10-year period could be attributed to diabetes and high blood sugar levels.

Lowering Risk

The latest population figures suggest that 64% of Americans are overweight or obese, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or more. Roughly a third of U.S. adults are obese, defined as having a BMI of 30 or more. BMI is determined by calculating height and weight. Being obese is strongly associated with numerous medical conditions and higher death rates.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics rates of obesity have increased from 12.8% in 1976-1980 to 22.5% in 1988-1994 and 30% in 1999-2000.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Kathleen Cooney, MD, and Stephen Gruber, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan Medical School, wrote if current trends continue, 40% of Americans will be classified as obese within five years and type 2 diabetes rates will rise dramatically.

Obesity has long been considered a risk factor for many types of cancer, including postmenopausal breast cancer and cancers of the pancreas, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, gallbladder, and colon.

Cooney and Gruber noted that while the new findings directly implicate diabetes as a risk factor for many of these cancers, they don’t completely explain the obesity/cancer link.

“Several complex physiological changes also result from obesity, including alterations in sex steroid levels,” they wrote.

American Cancer Society epidemiologist Carmen Rodriguez, MD, says the findings strengthen the argument that keeping weight under control is key to preventing disease.

“This study clearly shows that diabetes increases the risk of certain cancers, and being overweight is a big risk factor for diabetes,” Rodriguez tells WebMD. “The message is clear. You can lower your risk for these cancers by controlling your weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes physical activity.”

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A New Great Plague? A Timely Warning (Christian Post, 050302)

The fear of infectious diseases is, for the most part, a relic of times past. In the great age of antibiotics, we fear few diseases, and Americans are more likely to suffer death by accident than death by infectious disease. We can all too easily forget that such diseases have been some of history’s great killers—and can be again.

A powerful word of warning comes in an article by Michael Specter published in the February 28, 2005 edition of The New Yorker. In “Nature’s Bioterrorist,” Specter reports on the deadly avian-flu virus that has killed several people in Asia. While this may hardly look like an epidemic in the making to laypersons, medical authorities are looking at avian influenza with a wary eye.

Why? To date, only a few humans have died of avian flu, and a pandemic is unlikely—at least so long as this virus does not mutate in order to allow easy transmission among humans.

To date, forty-two people have died, and that includes thirteen Vietnamese who have died just since Christmas.

This influenza strain, like virtually all others, has its origin in birds. To date, millions of chickens have been destroyed in Thailand and other Asian nations after testing positive for avian influenza. Millions of other chickens have died of the disease, and hundreds of millions of animals in Asia have also perished, including animals as diverse as ducks and tigers.

Infectious disease experts are sounding an alarm because, as Specter reports, “No such virus has ever spread so quickly over such a wide geographical area. Most viruses stick to a single species. This one has already affected a more diverse group than any other type of flu, and it has killed many animals previously thought to be resistant: blue pheasants, black swans, turtledoves, clouded leopards, mice, pigs, domestic cats, and tigers.”

Periodically, humanity has been besieged by influenza, often adding up to millions of deaths. When an epidemic of influenza occurs, the results can be nothing less than disastrous. A worldwide epidemic, known as a pandemic, is the greatest threat of all. The World Health Organization estimates that a truly severe pandemic in our times could lead to at least a hundred and eighty million deaths worldwide.

As Specter explains, “A pandemic is the viral equivalent of a perfect storm. There are three essential conditions, which rarely converge, and they are impossible to predict. But the requirements are clear. A new flu virus must emerge from the animal reservoirs that have always produced and harbored such viruses—one that has never infected human beings and therefore one to which no person would have antibodies. Second, the virus has to actually make humans sick (most don’t). Finally, it must be able to spread efficiently—through coughing, sneezing, or a handshake.” This strain of avian influenza, known among disease experts as “H5N1,” has already met the first two conditions. Some epidemiologists believe that it is only a matter of time before this strain meets the third condition as well.

A haunting reminder of the truly tragic dimensions of an influenza pandemic comes in The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry. This fascinating book, just recently released in a paperback edition, is truly a frightening read. The 1918 influenza pandemic brought devastation to every land it touched, from the United States to war-torn Europe and distant South Sea islands. In 1927, the American Medical Association estimated that 21 million persons had died. That figure is now known to be ridiculously off-target. Current estimates assign 20 million deaths to the Indian subcontinent alone. As Barry acknowledges, the upper estimates of world-wide deaths from the 1918 pandemic are in excess of 100 million persons—or five percent of the world’s population at that time. A similar pandemic, if experienced today, could lead to as many as 350 million deaths.

“Influenza is a viral disease,” Barry reminds. “When it kills, it usually does so in one of two ways: either quickly and directly with a violent viral pneumonia so damaging that it has been compared to burning the lungs; or more slowly and indirectly by stripping the body of defenses, allowing bacteria to invade the lungs and cause a more common and slower-killing bacterial pneumonia.”

When the 1918 influenza hit, the medical community had few resources with which to respond. Many of the nation’s best and brightest doctors had been sent to Europe with Allied forces. Before the pandemic was over, the killing fields of World War I would be littered with soldiers killed by a virus, rather than by enemy fire.

Most of us assume that the germ theory of disease has been a constant through centuries. After all, it has now become axiomatic to most of us, who fear germs and demand anti-bacterial soap at every sink. It is hard for us to believe that the generation of 1918 was among the first to understand the nature of infectious disease. That generation would relearn those lessons the hard way.

As Barry recalls, “By 1918 humankind was fully modern, and fully scientific, but too busy fighting itself to aggress against nature. Nature, however, chooses its own moments. It chose this moment to aggress against man, and it did not do so prodding languidly. For the first time, modern humanity, a humanity practicing the modern scientific method, would confront nature in its fullest rage.”

The disease first appeared among soldiers mobilizing for war in domestic encampments. The 1918 influenza, known as virus H1N1, was diagnosed by military doctors who noted with horror that the disease, unlike all viruses previously known, was especially deadly to healthy young men.

The reports from medical authorities were ominous. Young men were developing influenza and often dying within hours. “Two hours after admission they have the Mahogany spots over the cheekbones, and a few hours later you can begin to see the Cyanosis extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish the colored men from the white,” Army physician Dr. Roy Grist explained.

The victims were often frighteningly young. President Woodrow Wilson had ordered the mobilization of all young men and boys ages seventeen and older. As the disease quickly spread among the young soldiers, the disease exploded into the general population. Bodies began to pile up by the hundreds in large cities—and soon would amount to thousands. Undertakers and gravediggers—themselves often sick—were simply overwhelmed. Bodies remained unburied as undertakers ran out of coffins. Within weeks, the virus was spreading across the globe.

“Generally in the Western world, the virus demonstrated extreme virulence or led to pneumonia in from 10 to 20% of all cases,” Barry reports. “In the United States, this translated into two to three million cases. In other parts of the world, chiefly in isolated areas where people had rarely been exposed to influenza viruses—in Eskimo settlements of Alaska, jungle villages of Africa, and islands of the Pacific—the virus demonstrated extreme virulence in far more than 20% of cases. These numbers most likely translate into several hundred million severe cases” in a world with a population less than one-third that of today.

Symptoms of the disease included coughing so violent that ribs would often crack, and headaches so severe that patients would fall into a delirium. Eventually, the patient would die quickly of pneumonia or, in some other cases, would fall prey to secondary bacterial infections. Those who survived often carried scars of the disease throughout their lives. Medical authorities now believe that the 1918 influenza epidemic may explain later cases of Parkinson’s disease and other ailments.

Once a virus has invaded the body, the immune system responds with vigor. Usually, this is a positive development. In the case of young adults in 1918, the body’s system for fighting disease became a deadly complication of the disease itself. As Barry explains, “The immune system changes with age. Young adults have the strongest immune system in the population, most capable of mounting a massive immune response. Normally that makes them the healthiest element of the population. Under certain conditions, however, that very strength becomes a weakness.” In this case, the immune system of young adults did mount a massive response to the influenza virus. Unfortunately, that response “filled the lungs with fluid and debris, making it impossible for the exchange of oxygen to take place.” In other words, the immune system actually killed many young victims.

The 1918 influenza pandemic brought death and devastation to most of the world’s nations. Of course, some were harder hit than others. Stories from the era are truly terrifying. Troop ships headed for Europe would be struck by the disease, and young men headed for war would instead be buried at sea before tasting battle. The disease affected almost every family living in America at the time, with thousands of children orphaned and some families virtually wiped out.

Victor Vaughan, then dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, came to believe that the 1918 influenza virus came close to threatening the very end of civilization. As Barry notes, “By nature the influenza virus is dangerous, considerably more dangerous than the common aches and fever leave people to believe, but it does not kill routinely as it did in 1918. The 1918 pandemic reached an extreme of virulence unknown in any other widespread influenza outbreak in history.”

Before the twentieth century would end, the United States would be affected by influenza epidemics two more times—in 1957 and 1968. Those outbreaks killed multiple thousands, but were stopped before reaching anything like the scale of the 1918 pandemic.

Could it happen again? Michael Specter offers a sober warning: “Infectious-disease experts talk about pandemics the way geologists talk about earthquakes; the discussion is never about whether ‘the big one’ will hit.” Scott Dowell, director of the Thailand office of the International Emerging Infections Program of the Centers for Disease Control, warns that the avian influenza now threatening to break out of Asia could lead to a similar pandemic. “The world just has no idea what it’s going to see if this thing comes . . . When, really. It’s when. I don’t think we can afford the luxury of the word ‘if’ anymore. We are past ‘if’s.’ Whether it’s tomorrow or next year or some other time, nobody knows for sure. The clock is ticking. We just don’t know what time it is.”

John Barry’s account of the 1918 influenza and Michael Specter’s sober warning of a new and deadly avian-flu virus, should remind us that we are, after all, frail human beings living the midst of a world of deadly diseases. We place far too much confidence in the ability of doctors and medical researchers to prevent or to tame disease. Just a bit of reflection on the prospect of a new influenza pandemic should give humanity a dose of what it urgently needs—humility. After all, we can be killed by something as miniscule and deadly as a microscopic virus.

Infectious disease experts see trouble on the horizon. Let’s pray that we do not see a “perfect storm” pandemic develop out of Asia.

____________________________________________

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Stroke Warning Signs May Start Days Earlier (Foxnews, 050308)

Warning signs of a stroke may start up to a week before the actual attack, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that almost one out of every three ischemic stroke survivors suffered “ministrokes,” known as transient ischemic attacks, prior to the actual event, and most of these ministrokes occurred within the preceding seven days.

Ischemic strokes account for 80% of all strokes and are caused by blockage of a blood vessel supplying the brain. The remaining 20% of strokes are caused by a burst blood vessel.

Researchers say they have known for some time that TIAs, which produce symptoms similar to a stroke such as numbness or tingling, often precede a major stroke. These ministrokes typically last less than five minutes and do not cause permanent injury to the brain.

“What we haven’t been able to determine is how urgently patients must be assessed following a TIA in order to receive the most effective preventive treatment,” says researcher Peter M. Rothwell, MD, PhD, of the department of clinical neurology at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, in a news release. “This study indicates that the timing of a TIA is critical, and the most effective treatments should be initiated within hours of a TIA in order to prevent a major attack.”

Stroke Warning Signs Start Early

In the study, which appears in the current issue of Neurology, researchers evaluated 2,416 people who had an ischemic stroke.

They found 23% of the stroke patients reported experiencing a ministroke prior to their stroke. Of those who experienced a TIA, 17% had it on the day of the stroke, 9% on the previous day, and 43% at some point during the week leading up to the stroke.

Researchers say given the short time window between TIA and stroke, all people with TIA should be treated urgently to prevent permanent brain damage caused by a stroke.

In many countries, people with TIA are referred to outpatient clinics and often not seen for up to two weeks. But researchers say to be most effective, preventive treatment would need to be started within hours of a ministroke and clinical guidelines should be revised accordingly.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, about one-third of people who suffer a TIA will have a full-fledged stroke in the future.

High blood pressure, cigarette smoking, diabetes, and heavy use of alcohol have been linked to stroke risk. Lifestyle changes reduce these risks.

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Memory Loss and the Aging Mind Remain Mystery (Foxnews, 050308)

Imagine living into your 80s and thinking as clearly as ever, dodging the grasp of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or milder brain problems like memory loss.

Alzheimer’s disease and dementia eventually claim many senior minds, but some people never seem to fall prey to those conditions. You may know someone like that. Perhaps you’ve had a relative whose mind stayed sharp as a tack well into old age.

What’s their secret? It’s a timely question, and not just for scientists. Baby boomers are watching their parents get older — and spotting a few grey hairs of their own in the mirror. What can they expect from the aging brain?

A new study hints at what may be to come. The results are a mix of good and bad news, with a tantalizing hint about mental staying power.

Some studies have suggested that subtle memory problems can progress to Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. This may mean that people with mild memory problems might be at risk for Alzheimer’s or that mild memory problems may be a very early form of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new study says that “memory loss is not an inevitable consequence of aging, but rather is usually the consequence of age-related diseases.”

Inching Toward Alzheimer’s Disease?

First, the bad news. Out of 180 study participants who died in their 80s, autopsies showed that nearly all had some brain changes typical of Alzheimer’s disease.

Soon before dying, 83 participants had dementia, 37 had mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 60 did not have memory problems.

MCI means a person has memory problems greater than average for his or her age. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the person with mild cognitive impairment does not have other signs of dementia like problems with judgment or reasoning.

What’s more, mild memory problems seemed to indicate that patients were heading toward more serious brain problems typically seen in old age, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

“From a clinical standpoint, even mild loss of cognitive function in older people should not be viewed as normal, but as an indication of a disease process,” says David Bennett, MD, in a news release. Bennett worked on the study and directs the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University.

The subjects were not typical Americans. Instead, they were Catholic clergy enrolled in a long-term study of aging and dementia. They took mental tests every year since 1993. After they died, the researchers measured how much disease their brain showed, looking at signs similar in appearance to Alzheimer’s brains.

The study appears in the March 8 edition of the journal Neurology.

Beating the Odds

Now, the good news. A third of the study’s subjects had no memory problems, even though the physical signs of Alzheimer’s disease were quietly gathering in their brains.

Those people may have had some sort of safeguard that kept dementia at arm’s length. Perhaps they had a bigger “neural reserve” that let them withstand brain changes, write the researchers. Their mental powers might have eventually faded, but yearly tests showed clear thinking until death, says the study.

Take-Home Message

Why were some participants unaffected by brain changes? If they had a protective nerve tissue “reserve,” what is it, and how can other people get it?

Those questions are sure to be studied further. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to pay attention to older people’s small mental slipups.

Those glitches might be nothing — we all have our bad moments — or they might be a first sign of trouble. Though Alzheimer’s disease has no cure, early warning can give families more time to prepare. If you’re concerned, ask your doctor for testing or advice.

Evidence of memory loss among people of any age should be taken seriously by individuals, family members, and health care providers alike, say the researchers.

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Obesity Threatens to Shorten American Life Span (Foxnews, 050317)

Americans’ lives soon will grow shorter, researchers calculate. The reason: the accelerating epidemic of childhood obesity.

The U.S. life span has been steadily increasing — although the rate of increase has slowed during the last 30 years. How long can we live? We may not get to find out, suggest S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, of the University of Illinois in Chicago; David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital in Boston; and colleagues.

The researchers calculate that in the first half of this century, U.S. life expectancy will level off or get shorter. Yes, medical advances will reduce death rates from various diseases. But they predict that onrushing disaster will overshadow all these advances.

“The childhood obesity epidemic is an impending catastrophe,” Ludwig tells WebMD. “Nothing like this has happened before. It will overwhelm any other changes we will make to affect longevity.”

The researchers’ special report appears in the March 17 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Child Obesity Threatens U.S. Life Span

Ludwig and colleagues note that two-thirds of American adults are obese or overweight. That dramatically increases our chances of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, and other life-threatening conditions.

But this is child’s play compared with the effects of childhood obesity on life span. America’s childhood obesity problem is growing faster and faster.

“Obesity rates are increasing fastest among children, and they will carry obesity-related health risks throughout their lives,” Ludwig says. “An adult who gains a pound or 2 a year through middle age will be at increased risk. But that is much less dire than the overweight 4- to 6-year-old who gets diabetes at age 14 or 16 and has a heart attack before age 30.”

Ludwig — director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital, Boston — says the childhood obesity epidemic has three phases. The first came in the last decade, when child obesity became common but the public health effects weren’t yet felt. Phase two is right now, as we begin to see serious complications such as type 2 diabetes in very young people. Phase three, Ludwig predicts, is coming soon.

“But we still have a little time before these children become young adults with diabetes and start to have heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure, and increased mortality,” he says. “It is a massive tsunami headed for the United States. One can know it is coming. But if we wait until we see the ocean level rising over the shore, it will be too late to take action.”

Child Obesity: Action Needed Now

In an editorial accompanying the study, University of Pennsylvania demography expert Samuel H. Preston, PhD, agrees that the Olshansky/Ludwig team’s calculations are accurate. But Preston disagrees with their conclusion.

“I am optimistic,” Preston tells WebMD. “The U.S. lifespan has shown remarkably steady progress for a century in the U.S. And we have demonstrated that when we get to a point where lifestyle factors seriously affect national mortality, we are able to move in the proper direction.”

As an example, Preston points to the epidemic of cigarette smoking that set back U.S. life expectancy in the 1950s and 1960s. A huge public effort cut smoking rates — and Americans’ life spans renewed their upward march.

Ludwig hopes Preston is right. But he says the U.S. response to childhood obesity falls far short of the U.S. antismoking effort.

“We continue to condone a multibillion-dollar campaign by the food industry to get children to eat the most unhealthy foods imaginable,” Ludwig says. “We don’t adequately fund schools, so principals have to turn to soda machines in the hallways and fast-food contracts in the cafeterias to close budget gaps. At the same time, lack of funds forces them to close afterschool activities and physical education.”

The childhood obesity expert calls for a ban on food ads aimed at young children. He calls for stronger federal funding of schools — especially for mandatory physical education programs. And he calls for federal laws to force insurance companies to pay for the treatment of childhood obesity.

But Ludwig doesn’t let families off the hook.

“Parents can turn off the TV and have a family meal once a day together — that is at least one opportunity to give children healthy food and model a healthy lifestyle,” he says.

Preston, too, asks Americans to act.

“I think WebMD readers already know what the problem is: You are hurting yourselves and your children via poor diet and inadequate exercise levels,” he says. “The problem is not yet serious enough to impact national mortality figures. So look to yourselves.”

Will we take action before it’s too late? Preston thinks we will.

“On a long-term basis, I do not foresee a cessation in the rate of improvement in mortality,” he says. “Our institutions are well adapted to advancing health and longevity. They have shown an amazing ability to do so over a century. I do not see why that period should come to an end.”

Ludwig says he and his colleagues very much hope Preston is right.

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Europe Rivals U.S. in Obesity (Foxnews, 050317)

At least seven European countries now challenge the United States in size — at least around the waistline. In a group of nations from Greece to Germany, the proportion of overweight or obese men is higher than in the U.S., experts said Tuesday in a major analysis of expanding girth on the European continent.

“The time when obesity was thought to be a problem on the other side of the Atlantic has gone by,” said Mars Di Bartolomeo, Luxembourg’s Minister of Health.

In Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Malta and Slovakia, a higher percentage of men are obese or overweight than the estimated 67% of men in the United States, according to a report from the International Obesity Task Force, a coalition of researchers and institutions.

The analysis was released as the 25-nation European Union announced an initiative to enlist the food and marketing industries in the fight against fat.

Obesity is especially acute in Mediterranean countries, underscoring concerns that people in the southern region are turning away from the traditional diet of fish, fruits and vegetables to fast food high in fat and refined carbohydrates.

In Greece, for example, 38% of women are obese, compared with 34% in the United States, the group said.

Even in countries with low rates of obesity, troubling trends are emerging. In France, obesity in women rose from 8% in 1997 to 11.3% in 2003, and from 8.4% to 11.4% in men.

The change in diets, which the obesity task force said has occurred over the past two decades, affects children most because it is reflected in school lunches.

The task force estimated that among the EU’s 103 million youngsters the number of those overweight rises by 400,000 each year. More than 30% of children ages 7 to 11 are overweight in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Malta, it said.

That matches estimates for American children. Among American adults, about two-thirds are overweight or obese; nearly one-third qualify as obese.

The International Obesity Task Force, which is advising the European Union, had estimated in 2003 that about 200 million of the 350 million adults living in what is now the European Union may be overweight or obese.

However, a closer evaluation of the figures in the latest analysis indicated that may be an underestimate, according to the group.

To counter the worsening trend, the EU is pushing a united effort from the food and marketing industries, consumer groups and health experts.

“The industry is being challenged to demonstrate, transparently, that it is going to be part of the solution,” Philip James, chairman of the IOTF said in a telephone interview after the launch of the program in Brussels.

“They have to say how much more money they will add to help solve the obesity problem. They have to put forward a plan on how exactly they are going to contribute year by year, and their contribution has to get bigger every year,” he added.

The food industry says it will better inform consumers with detailed nutrition labels. The EU office also wants tastier healthy foods to compete with high-calorie, non-nutritious fare.

Studies have shown that being overweight can dramatically increase the risk of certain diseases, such as diabetes. Obesity is also linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, respiratory disease, arthritis and some types of cancer.

“We can have disastrous effects from (obesity) on health and the national economy,” EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said.

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CDC says obesity deaths overestimated (Washington Times, 050420)

The federal government greatly overestimated deaths from obesity in the United States, according to new CDC estimates, which now ranks it as the No. 7 most-preventable cause of death, rather than No. 2.

As recently as January, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated obesity as being responsible for 365,000 deaths per year in the United States. But the new estimate, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), puts the annual death toll at only 25,814 — the earlier estimate was about 14 times greater.

The CDC announcement comes as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its effort to stem rising obesity rates, yesterday introduced an updated and more tailored version of the food guide pyramid to help Americans live healthier.

Trial lawyers have latched onto rising obesity rates to push for class-action lawsuits against the fast-food industry, saying the industry should share some of the blame for America’s girth and calling fast food the new tobacco.

But George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf III, who has led the effort in supporting obesity-related litigation, said the new death statistic is irrelevant and would not affect obesity litigation.

“Any time a study comes from an organization, which is basically beholden to industry studying the case, one is suspicious,” he said.

The study, led by Katherine M. Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the CDC, analyzed mortality according a person’s to BMI, or body mass index, which measures weight and height. It determined that being modestly overweight, but not obese, “was not associated with excess mortality” or a shorter life expectancy. In fact, the research shows that being overweight is actually less of a mortality risk factor than being of normal weight.

“The major reason our numbers are lower is that we used some new data sets that provide more recent, better information,” said David Williamson, senior epidemiologist for the CDC, who was an investigator in the study.

CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said the CDC doesn’t plan to use the much-lower obesity mortality figure in its public-awareness campaign, nor does it plan to reduce its fight against obesity.

But this is the second time in nine months that the CDC has experienced trouble with its obesity death data. In July, it said obesity causes 400,000 deaths yearly, but scientists questioned the figure.

In January, the CDC admitted making calculation errors and lowered its death estimate to 365,000. Dr. Gerberding said yesterday the CDC will strive to improve its methods for calculating the health consequences of obesity.

Currently, obesity follows smoking as the second leading cause of preventable death. But the new estimate of less than 26,000, offered today, would rank it seventh behind such killers as vehicular crashes and gunshot wounds.

At this time, a BMI of less than 18.5% is defined as underweight. From 18.5% to 24.9% is considered normal, while a BMI of 30% or greater is considered obese.

But Mary Grace Kovar, a biostatician for the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, said “normal” may be set too low for today’s population. She said Americans classified as overweight are eating healthier foods, exercising more and controlling their blood pressure better.

“The findings are consistent,” Mr. Williamson said.

The Flegal study was one of two in this week’s JAMA that concluded the impact of obesity on cardiovascular disease risk or overall mortality has decreased over time.

Edward W. Gregg, another CDC epidemiologist, authored a second study that examined trends in heart disease over a 40-year period.

“Certainly, obese people today have a lower risk for CVD [cardiovascular disease] than those in previous decades,” he said.

“Our findings tell people that if they pay attention to other risks for cardiovascular disease and do good things,” such as quitting smoking and lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, “they can have an impact, whether or not they are obese,” Mr. Gregg added.

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Tylenol Linked to Hypertension in Women (Foxnews, 050815)

DALLAS — Women taking daily amounts of non-aspirin painkillers — such as an extra-strength Tylenol — are more likely to develop high blood pressure than those who don’t, a new study suggests.

While many popular over-the-counter painkillers have been linked before to high blood pressure, acetaminophen, sold as Tylenol, has generally been considered relatively free of such risk.

It is the only one that is not a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug or NSAID, a class of medications the federal government just required to carry stricter warning labels because of the risk for heart-related problems. Those include ibuprofen (sold as Advil and Motrin) and naproxen (sold as Aleve). Many had turned to those painkillers in the wake of problems with prescription drugs, such as Vioxx.

However, the new study found that women taking Tylenol were about twice as likely to develop blood pressure problems. Risk also rose for women taking NSAIDS other than aspirin.

“If you’re taking these over-the-counter medications at high dosages on a regular basis, make sure that you report it to your doctor and you’re checking your blood pressure,” said Dr. Christie Ballantyne, a cardiologist at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston who had no role in the study.

The research found that aspirin still remains the safest medicine for pain relief. It has long been known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems and was not included in the government’s requirement for stricter labels for NSAIDs.

The study involved 5,123 women participating in the Nurses Health Study at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. None had had high blood pressure when it began.

Results were published online Monday in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.

“It certainly sets the basis for more studies,” said Dr. Stephanie Lawhorn, a cardiologist at St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City. “Most of the time we think that things like acetaminophen are fairly safe drugs.”

In this study, the risk of developing high blood pressure for women who weren’t taking painkillers was about 1 to 3% a year, researchers said. They found that that women ages 51-77 who took an average daily dose of more than 500 milligrams of acetaminophen — one extra-strength Tylenol — had about double the risk of developing high blood pressure within about three years.

Women in that age range who take more than 400 mg a day of NSAIDS — equal to say two ibuprofen — had a 78% increased risk of developing high blood pressure over those who didn’t take the drug.

Among women 34-53 who take an average of more than 500 mg of acetaminophen a day had a two-fold higher risk of developing high blood pressure. And those who took more than 400 mg of NSAIDS a day had a 60% risk increase over those who didn’t take the pills.

“We are by no means suggesting that women with chronic pain conditions not receive treatment for their pain,” lead author Dr. John Phillip Forman, of Harvard Medical School and associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said in an e-mail. “By pointing out risks associated with these drugs, more informed choices can be made by women and their clinicians.”

Previous research linking these drugs to blood pressure problems did not look at dose.

The results in this study held up even when researchers excluded women who were taking pills for headaches, something that could itself be a result of very high blood pressure, said Dr. Gary Curhan, another study author also of Harvard Medical School.

As for why aspirin didn’t raise risk, it might be because “aspirin has a different effect on blood vessels than NSAIDS and acetaminophen have,” said Dr. Daniel Jones, dean of the school of medicine at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

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Nation’s boomers live long but suffer (Washington Times, 051209)

Aging baby boomers are battling major health problems, but Americans are living longer, according to a federal report on the health of the nation.

“The late 50s and early 60s are a crucial time to focus on disease prevention. It’s never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle to enjoy a longer, healthier life,” said Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Overall, the “Health, United States 2005” report is “not dismal at all,” said Amy Bernstein, director of the study by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The number of fatalities from heart disease, the leading cause of death, fell almost 4% in 2003, continuing a long-term downward trend. Mortality from cancer, the second leading killer, fell more than 2%, while the number of stroke deaths declined nearly 5%.

The 535-page report, which includes a special section on baby boomers, says half of the oldest boomers, ages 55 to 64, have high blood pressure, and nearly 40% are obese.

Both conditions are major risk factors for heart disease and stroke, which are the nation’s first- and third-ranked disease killers, respectively, the report said. Obesity also elevates the risk for diabetes, ranked sixth, and diabetes and heart disease are “highly correlated,” Miss Bernstein said.

The nation has about 77 million aging baby boomers, born in the post-World War II period between 1946 and 1964. The first of them will reach age 65 and qualify for Medicare in 2011. Some, but not most, are expected to retire at age 62 in 2008.

The 55-to-64 age group is projected to be the fastest-growing segment of the adult population during the next decade. In 2004, an estimated 29 million Americans were in that age bracket. In 2014, the total is projected to reach 40 million.

The report found that many thousands of people ages 55 to 64, as well as those in older age groups, are living with chronic medical conditions or disabilities that cause limitation of activity and, in some cases, severe pain. Examples include heart disorders, arthritis, fractures, diabetes, lung disease and “senility.”

The report also shows that Americans are living longer. In 2003, life expectancy at birth for the total population is pegged at a record high of 77.6 years, up from 75.4 years in 1990.

Life expectancy and infant mortality rates often are used to gauge the overall health of a society and just as life expectancy “shows a long-term upward trend, infant mortality shows a long-term downward trend,” except in 2002, the report found.

Preliminary data for 2003 put the rate at 6.9 infant deaths per 1,000, similar to the rate the previous year. The rate increase in 2002 was the first in 40 years and largely resulted from an increase in the number of newborns that weighed less than 2 pounds.

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Cancer Deaths Fall for First Time in 70 Years (Foxnews, 060209)

ATLANTA — The war on cancer may have reached a dramatic turning point: For the first time in more than 70 years, annual cancer deaths in the United States have fallen.

The number of cancer deaths dropped to 556,902 in 2003, down from 557,271 the year before, according to a recently completed review of U.S. death certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics.

It’s the first annual decrease in total cancer deaths since 1930, when nationwide data began to be compiled.

The decline is welcome news in the medical community, said Arthur Caplan, University of Pennsylvania bioethicist.

“The war on cancer” has not always gone well in the public’s eyes, Caplan noted. Despite decades of scientific research and screening campaigns, radiation and chemotherapy cancer treatments remained harsh and total deaths continued to rise, he noted.

“It’s no surprise this dip in numbers would be greeted with joy by ‘the commanders,’ if you will, in the war on cancer,” Caplan said.

For more than a decade, health statisticians have charted annual drops of about 1% in the cancer death rate — the calculated number of deaths per 100,000 people. But the actual number of cancer deaths still rose each year because the growth in total population outpaced the falling death rates.

“Finally, the declining rates have surpassed the increasing size of the population,” said Rebecca Siegel, a Cancer Society epidemiologist.

Experts are attributing the success to declines in smoking, and the earlier detection and more effective treatment of tumors. Death rates have fallen for lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, according to American Cancer Society officials, who analyzed the federal death data.

Those are the four most common cancers, which together account for 51% of all U.S. cancer deaths.

The breast cancer death rate has been dropping about 2% annually since 1990, a decline attributed to earlier detection and better treatment. The colon and rectum cancer death rate, shrinking by 2% each year since 1984, is also attributed to better screening. The prostate cancer death rate has been declining 4% annually since 1994, though the reasons for that are still being studied.

The lung cancer death rate for men, dropping about 2% a year since 1991, is because of reductions in smoking. The lung cancer death rate for women, however, has held steady, a sign that reflects a lag in the epidemic among women, who took up smoking later.

The total number of cancer deaths among women actually rose by 409 from 2002 to 2003. Among men, deaths fell by 778, resulting in a net decrease of 369 total cancer deaths.

With such a small drop in deaths, it’s possible they will rise again when 2004 data is tabulated, said Jack Mandel, chairman of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Cancer is diagnosed more often in older people than younger people, and the large and aging population of Baby Boomers may push cancer statistics a bit. Even so, that should be offset by treatment improvements and declines in smoking and cancer incidence.

“I still think we’re going to see a decline,” Mandel said.

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AIDS Drug Found to Prevent Mother-to-Child Transmission (Foxnews, 060209)

ATLANTA — The drug nevirapine prevents the spread of the AIDS virus from mother to child time after time, a new study suggests, challenging earlier findings.

The new research presented Wednesday at a scientific meeting in Denver found that in Ugandan women who received the drug during a first pregnancy, HIV transmission was prevented during second pregnancies as well.

The research may ease concerns raised in previous studies that HIV develops resistance to the drug, said Dr. Michael Thigpen, a medical epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Based on these findings, we believe nevirapine in repeat pregnancies remains an effective option in these resource-limited countries,” said Thigpen, who is part of the research team.

The study looked at 198 women treated in 2004 and 2005 at a hospital in Kampala, Uganda.

Nevirapine is an inexpensive and easy-to-take medication that has become a mainstay in the effort to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission in poor countries. Proponents say the drug cuts the transmission risk in half.

Mothers receive a pill when they go into labor, and their newborns get the medication in a syrup within 72 hours of birth.

The drug came into question in earlier studies done in South Africa and Uganda, which found that 20% to 40% of HIV-infected women developed resistance to nevirapine after taking one dose to protect their newborns from getting the infection.

The new research found that the HIV infection rate was 14.6% for babies born to nevirapine-treated women who also took the drug during a previous pregnancy. The rate was 17.6% for nevirapine-treated women who were not given the drug during an earlier pregnancy.

The research is good news, said Mark Isaac, a vice president for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which funds HIV/AIDS research and worldwide treatment programs.

A study of multiple pregnancies in South Africa and Ivory Coast, also announced Wednesday, produced similar results. Three other studies showed low risks of nevirapine resistance in women who took the medicine more than a year after the initial dose.

“It’s fair to say we’re breathing a sigh of relief,” Isaac said.

Thigpen said there are different subtypes of HIV, and one that circulates in southern Africa appears especially resistant to nevirapine.

“In Uganda, there are a couple of different subtypes. That (fact) may limit our ability to associate these findings with other areas of Africa,” Thigpen said, referring to his study’s findings.

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Sayonara Sushi? (townhall.com, 060314)

by Jennifer Biddison

Ah, fish. Not only are they tasty and usually low-fat, they’re chock-full of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality protein, essential nutrients, and… poisonous levels of mercury?

After reading recent media reports, you’d think we all need to give up fish right now in order to avoid dying from too much mercury consumption. Eat too much sushi, and you might as well be the next one chopped up and dipped in soy sauce. But how much faith should we really put into these reports?

The problem is that two interest groups are fighting to control the debate. On the one side, industry-hating Greens are hyping the dangers of mercury as part of a campaign to insert more regulations into the Clean Air Act. After all, some of the mercury in the world’s water supply is a result of contamination by power plants.

On the other side, the food industry is looking out for its own. Some of these groups are out to convince Americans that there’s nothing to be worried about. In the end, consumers should be thoughtful and educated. By examining the facts and not overreacting, we can have our fish and eat it too.

The Facts

The Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency tend to lean on different sides of the fish debate – the FDA on the side of consumption, and the EPA on the side of caution. But in 2004, they issued a joint report for those most at risk of mercury harm (mothers-to-be, nursing moms, and young children). The agencies offered three common-sense recommendations that will allow women and children to “receive the benefits of eating fish and shellfish and be confident that they have reduced their exposure to the harmful effects of mercury.” These recommendations are what doctors often hand to their pregnancy-minded patients.

In addition to heeding the recommendations in this report, we can look at the guidelines of what constitutes a risky level of mercury consumption. The environmental groups panic when tests show that mercury levels exceed the FDA and EPA’s recommended limits – but those limits have a 1000% safety margin built into them. In other words, there’s probably no reason to worry if you’re above the limit – unless you’re 800% over it. And you’ll rarely find someone with that level unless her legs turn into fins in the bathtub.

The FDA has written that its mercury “Action Level” of 1.0 part-per-million “was established to limit consumers’ methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects.” The same goes for the EPA’s recommended “Reference Dose.” As David Martosko of the the Center for Consumer Freedom said about the recent sushi scare, “Sounding health alarms about mercury levels this low is like worrying about driving a car at one-tenth the speed limit.”

Debunking the Hype

Armed with these basic facts, you’ll be able to debunk most of the scare reports yourself. For instance, when you hear that a Greenpeace report has found that “one in five women of childbearing age that were tested have mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit,” you’ll be able to ask: “How much were the levels exceeded – 1% or 800%?”

Then, even if you didn’t realize that Greenpeace only published part of that study that it had funded (and not the part that found that “the current results do not provide evidence of an increasing or decreasing trend… in mercury concentrations for a given amount of fish consumption), you’ll still be one step ahead of any of your neurotic friends.

Let’s look at what else the media is missing:

* A new study of Seychelles Islands indicates that mothers who ate a lot of fish during pregnancy had children who outperformed other kids whose mothers ate less fish.

* Alaska’s Public Health Department tested the hair of eight 550-year-old Alaskan mummies for mercury and found levels averaging twice the blood-mercury concentration of today’s Alaskans. (I love the Center for Consumer Freedom’s response: “Perhaps those paleo-Inuits should have spent their time picketing mercury-spewing undersea volcanoes instead of fishing.”)

* Dr. Joshua Cohen of Harvard University believes the health benefits of fish outweigh any potential risk, noting recently on Good Morning America, “If people ate more fish, then the number of heart attacks and strokes would decrease.”

Now, I’m not going to tell you to throw caution to the wind and adopt an “eat, drink, for tomorrow we die” mentality. Those of you who are pregnant, nursing, or thinking of becoming pregnant in the next year should follow your doctors’ recommendations, since children are at the most risk of having brain development affected by high doses of mercury.

The rest of you, however, should be able to eat your sushi, crab cakes, shrimp cocktails, and tuna fish sandwiches in moderation and with clear consciences. No need to miss out on the tastiness and health benefits of fish and shellfish because of a few nervous ninnies in the media.

==============================

Ready or Not, Bird Flu Is Coming to America (ABC News, 060313)

Officials Advise Stocking Up on Provisions — and Warn That Infected Birds Cannot Be Prevented From Flying In

March 13, 2006 — - In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

Ready or not, here it comes.

It is being spread much faster than first predicted from one wild flock of birds to another, an airborne delivery system that no government can stop.

“There’s no way you can protect the United States by building a big cage around it and preventing wild birds from flying in and out,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns said.

U.S. spy satellites are tracking the infected flocks, which started in Asia and are now heading north to Siberia and Alaska, where they will soon mingle with flocks from the North American flyways.

“What we’re watching in real time is evolution,” said Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And it’s a biological process, and it is, by definition, unpredictable.”

Industry Precautions

America’s poultry farms could become ground zero as infected flocks fly over. The industry says it is prepared for quick action.

“All the birds involved in it would be destroyed, and the area would be isolated and quarantined,” said Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council. “It would very much [look] like a sort of military operation if it came to that.”

Extraordinary precautions are already being taken at the huge chicken farms in Lancaster County, Pa., the site of the last great outbreak of a similar bird flu 20 years ago.

Other than the farmers, everyone there has to dress as if it were a visit to a hospital operating room.

“Back in 1983-1984, we had to kill 17 million birds at a cost of $60 million,” said Dr. Sherrill Davison, a veterinary medicine expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Can It Be Stopped?

Even on a model farm, ABC News saw a pond just outside the protected barns attracting wild geese.

It is the droppings of infected waterfowl that carry the virus.

The bird flu virus, to date, is still not easily transmitted to humans. There have been lots of dead birds on three continents, but so far fewer than 100 reported human deaths.

But should that change, the spread could be rapid.

ABC News has obtained a mathematical projection prepared by federal scientists based on an initial outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm in which humans are infected. Within three months, with no vaccine, almost half of the country would have the flu.

That, of course, is a worst-case scenario — one that Lobb says the poultry industry is determined to prevent with an aggressive strategy to contain and destroy infected flocks and deny the virus the opportunity to mutate to a more dangerous form but one that experts say cannot be completely discounted.

The current bird flu strain has been around for at least 10 years and has taken surprising twists and turns — not the least of which is that it’s now showing up in cats in Europe, where officials are advising owners to bring their cats inside. It’s advice that might soon have to be considered here.

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For the Birds or Sleeping with the Fishes? What to make of the avian-flu threat. (National Review Online, 060314)

This past weekend the secretary of Health and Human Services issued some dire-sounding warnings about bird flu, encouraging Americans to stock up on canned tuna and powered milk. Should you be getting your bird-flu survival rations together or is it a lot of hype? What should we be thinking about bird flu? National Review Online asked some health-care and science experts. Here’s what they had to say.

John E. Calfee

Almost everyone survives the common flu because our immune systems are reasonably well prepared for it even without the latest vaccine. But a virus to which our body is completely naive could make most people very sick and a nasty one could kill 10 or 20 or even 40% of those who get it.

Wild birds also get the flu. They travel everywhere and infect birds living with humans — such as chickens in Asia. If an avian bug mutates to infect and easily spread among humans, we get an avian pandemic flu, i.e., a worldwide epidemic against which most of us have little resistance.

The odds of a virulent pandemic flu are very small. Pandemics occur a few times percentury on average, but the only really dangerous recent one came in 1918 in the unique conditions of World War I. H5N1, the virus that to great acclaim has been killing thousands of birds and a few dozen humans, has circulated for nearly a decade with no evidence of mutating into a human-communicable virus.

But if we do get hit with pandemic avian flu, the consequences would be both extraordinary and unpredictable. No one knows how fast the flu would spread, how susceptible it would be either to existing drugs (such as Tamiflu, now being stockpiled around the world) or to quarantine, how quickly a vaccine could be put into play, or even what proportion of workers (including doctors and nurses) will show up for work as the bug spreads.

— John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Senator Bill Frist

As H5N1 avian flu continues its spread around the globe, the United States remains unprepared to face a potential pandemic. The disease has already hit Asia, Europe, and Africa; it may soon arrive on U.S. soil. Today, we’re short on hospital beds, ventilators, protective masks, and health-care personnel. To make things worse, we still don’t have an effective vaccine or antivirals. Humans have no natural immunity to H5N1 and infected people spread the disease before they show symptoms.

Even healthy people will see consequences. An avian-flu pandemic, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, would lead to an 80% drop in economic activity for the entertainment, arts, and dining sectors and a severe reduction in travel. The total bill, the CBO found, would come in at $675 billion and a typical household would loose about $2,200.

We can mitigate a pandemic’s consequences, however, if we prepare beforehand. The Department of Health and Human Services has planning checklists at www.pandemicflu.gov; anyone who has responsibility for a school, church, home, business, or family ought to check them out. Every American, indeed, has both a responsibility and a duty to plan for a pandemic.

— Bill Frist is the U.S. Senate Majority Leader.

David Gratzer

H5N1, a virulent bird flu, was once endemic to Southeast Asia — but cases are now found as far away as Afghanistan and Turkey. There is plenty to be concerned about. HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt advises us to stockpile tuna and powered milk.

The raw anxiety stems from new research suggesting that America’s deadliest flu came from birds. Eighty-eight years ago, just weeks after Babe Ruth lifted the Boston Red Sox to victory in the World Series, his hometown plunged into the hell of the Spanish flu. That horror would, in the coming days, claim the lives of 600,000 Americans; the worldwide toll exceeded the casualties of World War I.

But let’s pause for a moment. Subsequent influenza pandemics didn’t cause that type of devastation. And to date, there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission of H5N1.

What then to do? Back in the fall, the White House released a national strategy, including investing in vaccine research, coordinating with state and local levels of government, and working with foreign countries to detect viral outbreaks. These ideas were relatively modest but important. Unfortunately, Congress has been slow to act. Rather than having Americans stockpile tuna, congressional action would be more productive.

— Dr. David Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Henry I. Miller

Vaccination to prevent viral and bacterial diseases is modern medicine’s most cost-effective intervention. Were a vaccine to be available quickly after the onset of the widely predicted pandemic from an H5N1 strain of avian influenza (that is, a variant readily transmissible from person to person), it might save scores of millions of lives worldwide — but that’s not now feasible.

The reason is flawed public policy. The Vaccines for Children Program, for example, was a do-gooder innovation of the Clinton administration that disrupted market forces and dealt a blow to vaccine producers. Established in 1994, it created a single-buyer system for children’s vaccines, making the government by far the largest purchaser of childhood vaccines — at a mandated, extortionate discount of 50%.

Arbitrary and excessive regulation is another obstacle. The highly risk-averse FDA has been especially tough on vaccines.

Innovation has suffered and vaccine producers have abandoned the field in droves. We are woefully short of capacity to manufacture a vaccine against the pandemic strain, which cannot actually begin until we have it in hand (and have “reverse engineered” the virus to prevent it from killing the chicken embryos in which it is grown). Moreover, when a pandemic strain of H5N1 avian flu actually appears, virtually all of the world’s flu-vaccine development and production capacity will shift to producing a vaccine against it, which will leave us vulnerable to non-pandemic strains that cause the usual annual, or seasonal, flu. (The flu bug kills, on average, 30,000-40,000 Americans each year — even when we have an effective, widely used vaccine.)

We need a variety of incentives to revitalize the portion of the private sector that has been battered by policymakers and regulators — both to push forward good scientific ideas and to pull big drug makers into the field. But that won’t happen overnight, and if the pandemic begins soon — say, within 18-24 months — the death toll could be horrific.

— Dr. Henry I. Miller, a physician and fellow at the Hoover Institution, was director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology from 1989 to 1993.

Steven Milloy

Pandemic flu caused by the current bird virus-of-interest (H5N1) is unlikely to occur.

The virus has remained largely confined to birds for years. Only about 120 people in Asia have been hospitalized due to the virus. Although about 60 deaths have been attributed to the virus, no pandemic is likely to result from a virus that apparently kills such a high percentage of its hosts, since the hosts will have less opportunity to spread the disease.

Given that uncounted numbers of Asian poultry and other birds have harbored the virus, it’s likely that many people have been exposed to H5N1 but haven’t been made ill or at least haven’t required hospitalization. It doesn’t appear that mere exposure to the virus necessarily leads to illness. No one knows why some people are sickened after handling diseased birds but others aren’t.

The virus is not known to be transmitted human-to-human — a requirement for pandemic status. H5N1 would have to acquire significant genetic mutations before that could become a possibility.

None of this is a secret among government and public-health officials. But for petty political and financial reasons, they willfully ignore the facts in favor of fomenting fear. Sure, the public ought to be inoculated — but against the fearmongering politicians and profiteers, not H5N1.

— Steven Milloy is publisher of JunkScience.com.

Iain Murray

Avian flu is the perfect storm of health scare stories. Over the past few years we have been told of an unstoppable succession of diseases that will kill millions and that we had better prepare for the worst — heterosexual AIDS, human mad-cow disease, the Ebola virus, SARS. This current one shares with mad-cow disease the idea that our food will kill us — something seen in health scares from Alar onwards. And unlike most of those other diseases it relates to an illness we are all familiar with — the flu. Yet, although a truly mutated human version of the disease could be something terrible — just as was plausible in all those other scares — the disease doesn’t even exist yet. The current form has killed only 1 in 31 million of the world’s population.

The reaction of the administration to the threat is forced on them, however. Regulatory bodies such as the EPA and FDA live by the Precautionary Principle, which seeks to spare no expense to reduce risk to zero, even from 1 in 65 million. Add to that the political calculus that, after Katrina, the administration cannot afford to be seen to be ill-prepared in the face of another potential natural disaster, and you have a perfect recipe for a mammoth diversion of resources.

— Iain Murray is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute

Elizabeth M. Whelan

Scary rhetoric about “deadly bird flu” is intensifying. Predictions that infected birds will soon show up in the U.S. are likely correct. But there is a big difference between a virus that infects birds and one that spreads easily among humans. Unless mutations allowing such spreading occur, human deaths from bird flu will remain rare, occurring (as has been the case thus far) only among a tiny handful of people in constant contact with infected birds.

Still, there are reasons to be wary: Among humans infected with H5N1 (fewer than 200), over half died, which is a high mortality rate; also, the devastating flu pandemic of 1918 probably began in birds. Preparation is prudent, but panic is not: no need to hoard food as Secretary Leavitt recently suggested. And no need to worry about eating cooked chicken — even if infected birds appear in the U.S.

Defensive measures are underway: research into new antiviral drugs, faster techniques to make vaccines (though we can’t produce an effective vaccine until we identify the mutated virus), and stockpiling of existing antivirals (Tamiflu and Relenza). And while worst-case scenarios grab headlines, there is a possibility that any mutated virus will be far less lethal in humans than the current virus.

— Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health, which has just published the report Avian Influenza, or “Bird Flu”: What You Need to Know.

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GLUG! Americans are drowning in a watery medical myth! (WorldNetDaily, 060711)

http://www.isecureonline.com/Reports/RHB/W6RHG703/

Next time anyone pesters you to drink 8 glasses of water a day, turn the table on your tormentor with one simple question. WHY?

Know what? NOBODY KNOWS WHY. In the words of a famous nutritionist at Penn State University, ‘I can’t tell you...and I’ve written a book on water.’

Maybe your kidneys need it? No, according to a kidney expert at the National Institute of Health, the average adult gets all the water he or she needs from solid food alone. And, in fact, drinking too much water stresses your kidneys and encourages renal failure!

More water myths to flush away...

* ‘If you get thirsty, it means you’re already dehydrated.’ HOW COULD IT? If this were true, every animal on earth would have collapsed and died long ago. Have you ever seen a dog that drinks when he’s not thirsty? Of course not, he hasn’t read the articles telling him to drink until he bursts.

* Drinking lots of water is good for your circulation. NOPE. In fact, drinking too much water can dilute the potassium levels in your blood, raising your stroke risk.

* Coffee and tea dehydrate you. THEY DON’T! This tactic is designed to sell you bottled water at a 1,000% markup. But bottled water’s okay by me, because the most

dangerous myth of all is that...

‘Fluoridated water prevents tooth decay.’

THIS IS A DEADLY, DISGRACEFUL LIE...

First of all, the reverse is true. One of the last cities in Europe to permit fluoridation was Basel, Switzerland, and they just stopped. Why? Because after they started fluoridating, kids’ cavity rates increased. By contrast, rates in the rest of fluoride-free Europe declined. So why, you may ask, did anyone fluoridate in the first place?

FOLLOW THE MONEY. Fluoride is a byproduct of aluminum production ...

And aluminum producers must dispose of it. But this was a very expensive proposition prior to fluoridation. Back then, the only approved uses for fluoride were as an INSECTICIDE or a RAT POISON.

So what did they do? I don’t exactly have a smoking gun (yet), but one of the first studies ‘proving’ the anti-cavity power offluoridated water was funded by the aluminum industry.

Ingenious, huh? If you can’t dispose of a toxin, just delude health authorities that it’s healthy, and presto....

Now we pay them to pour rat poison into our water supply...

And what’s the result? Fluoridated water doesn’t prevent cavities, but it definitely can prevent a long, healthy life. I could show you evidence linking it to cancer, osteoporosis...

Plus, if you want to slash your Alzheimer’s risk overnight...

Starting tomorrow, drink no fluoridated water.

Why? Because fluoride makes your body absorb extra aluminum. And where does the aluminum go? Your brain. And what metal shows up alarmingly in the brains of Alzheimer’s victims? You guessed it.

==============================

Autism rate in children has doubled, say doctors (Times Online, 060714)

THE number of children suffering from autism and related disorders may be twice as high as thought, with the condition likely to affect one percent of British children.

A study by scientists at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals indicates that the prevalence of autism is much higher than current rates suggest. They said that improved diagnosis, a broader definition of the condition or an increase in the number of children affected could be responsible for the rise.

Autism is a lifelong disability affecting the way that a person communicates and relates to other people. All people with autism have impaired social interactions, communication and imagination.

People with related disorders, known as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), usually have a mixture of autistic features. The doctors said that accurate estimates of ASD prevalence were essential for the planning of educational, social and medical services.

Before the 1990s, researchers estimated that there were four to five cases of autism per 10,000 people, but recent reports suggest that those figures are far too low.

Gillian Baird, of Guy’s and St Thomas’, and her colleagues calculated the prevalence of ASDs in children in South London aged 9 and 10. They identified 255 with any form of ASD, while 1,515 children with special educational needs were categorised as possible cases of ASD. Of this second group, gathered from a special-needs register, 255 children were selected for in-depth clinical assessment.

The researchers found that 39 children per 10,000 had autism and 77 per 10,000 had ASD, making the total prevalence of all types of ASD 116 per 10,000. They then calculated the prevalence based on children previously identified as having ASD, which they found to be only 44 per 10,000.

Professor Baird said the findings indicated that children with some form of ASD constituted 1% of the child population in Britain.

“Prevalence of autism and related ASDs is substantially higher than previously recognised,” she said. “Whether the increase is due to better ascertainment, broadening diagnostic criteria or increased incidence is unclear. Services in health, education and social care will need to recognise the needs of children with some form of ASD.”

Various studies have failed to find any evidence of a suggested link to the combined MMR vaccine given to children. A Canadian study published this month in the journal Pediatrics also rejected the link between autism and MMR. Researchers at the Montreal Children’s Hospital dismissed suspicions that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in some vaccines, was behind increased rates of the disorder.

Many scientists attribute the rise to a broader definition and greater awareness of the disorder.

Writing in The Lancet, Hiroshi Kurita, of the Zenkoku Ryoiku Sodan Centre in Tokyo, suggests that the recent surge in cases can be attributed to improved diagnosis.

“Such progress seems to have resulted in the identification of a greater number of high-functioning pervasive developmental disorders, which are harder to detect than those disorders with mental retardation because of their milder autistic symptoms,” he wrote.

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Health News: Dangers of Soy (newsMax.com, 060805)

1. The Dangers of Soy

Studies have touted the benefits of soy products for years. Babies drink it, vegetarians can’t do without it, and supposedly “healthy” protein shakes and energy bars are full of it. But tests are now finding negative consequences to the consumption of the curdled bean.

At the very least, the journal of the American Heart Association reports, there is neither an indication that soy significantly lowers cholesterol, nor is there evidence that it mitigates the effects of osteoporosis or reduces hot flashes.

At the very worst, soy may do things like increase “toxicity in estrogen-sensitive tissues and in the thyroid,” according to FDA scientists Daniel Doerge and Daniel Sheehan. It could bind zinc and other minerals crucial to the body’s immune and autoimmune function, and increase inflammation and the risk of autoimmune diseases, according to NewsMax’s Dr. Russell Blaylock, author of the Blaylock Wellness Report.

In fact, the Royal Society report on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in 2002 stated that soy milk should not be given to infants, even when they had cow’s milk allergies, except on strict medical advice, according to the Guardian UK newspaper.

Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick, a New Zealand toxicologist estimated that babies fed a strict diet of soy milk “ingested the estrogenic equivalent, based on body weight, of five birth control pills a day.”

U.S. infants are at particular risk since 30% to 40% of them are sustained by soy, partially due to the fact that it is provided by welfare programs.

Soy is the main source of omega-6 oil, which is fine when consumed in moderation and balanced with a ratio of healthy omega-3 fatty acids that are often found in fish, plants, algae and flaxseed. However, that ratio should be a maximum of 3-(omega-6) to-1 (omega-3). (Ideally, the ratio is 1-to-1.)

The modern American diet’s ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 stands at something around 20-to-1, and can be as much as 45-to-1. “It worries me that soy is being pushed as a health food by big soy and supplements industry. We ought to be taking a more cautious approach,” said Sue Dibb, food policy expert at the National Consumer Council.

Recent research has found direct links between high soy intake, in a pregnant or nursing mother or in a child, with a multitude of physical problems such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, pre-eclampsia and premature births.

Adults with soy overload may experience higher rates of depression, infertility, heart attacks, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, among other disorders.

In Dr. Blaylock’s report on the importance of omega-3, he cites one study of boys ages 6 to 12, which found that those with the lowest omega-3 levels demonstrated more episodes of violent and angry behavior, plus problems with impulse control. [Editor’s Note: To get the Blaylock Wellness Report on omega-3, click here.]

What about those reports that say soy is good for us? Most are underwritten by the American soy industry with a price tag of $80 million a year. Additionally, the majority of the studies are based on the Asian population, which eats mostly fermented soy products along with a diet high in fish and plants. In other words, they balance their intake with the healthy omega-3 oils.

To protect ourselves, the simple answer would be to avoid soy. Unfortunately, that is not so simple.

Peruse your kitchen and read the ingredients on your favorite foods. Look at the breakfast cereals, crackers, breads, pastas, margarines, cheeses, soups, cakes, soft drinks, ice creams, processed meats and sauces. Search for names like soy, soy flour, hydrolyzed vegetable oils, hydrogenated fats, soy oils, plant sterols, emulsifier lecithin and MSG, all soy products.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that an abundance of our livestock is fed a soy-based diet.

Your best line of defense? Stay away from as many processed foods as possible (decrease the omega-6 intake). Add fish, vegetables, and flaxseed to your diet. Dr. Blaylock suggests taking a highly purified DHA supplement, or an omega-3 supplement along with natural vitamin E to protect the oil from oxidizing. And remember, a balanced diet that includes fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grains will never let you down. That should come as no surprise to anyone.

2. Turmeric and Onions Fight Colon Cancer

Eating turmeric, a main ingredient in curry, may be a weapon in the fight against cancer. A clinical trial at Johns Hopkins found that when volunteers were given curcumin, the main chemical in turmeric, along with quercetin, an antioxidant found in onions, the size and number of polyps in the colon were drastically reduced. Curcumin is the chemical that gives turmeric its distinctive bright yellow color.

The Johns Hopkins trial involved victims of familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), an inherited form of precancerous polyps that causes hundreds of polyps to develop in the intestinal tract. Eventually, they progress into cancer.

The researchers gave patients 480 milligrams of curcumin and 20 milligrams of quercetin three times a day for six months. Before beginning the regimen, they were examined using a flexible sigmoidoscope and then reexamined at three month intervals. At the end of six months, all patients who finished the study showed a decrease in the number of polyps. The average number dropped by 60% and their average size shrank by half.

“We believe this is the first proof that these substances have significant effects in patients with FAP,” said Francis M. Giardiello, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Even though quercetin has been shown to inhibit the growth of colon cells, Dr. Giardiello believes that curcumin is the more powerful cancer fighter of the two. “The amount of quercetin we administered was similar to what many people consume daily; however, the amount of curcumin is many times what a person might ingest in a typical diet,” he said.

Previous studies in rats as well as observation of groups of people who eat large amounts of curry also suggest that curcumin might be effective in preventing and treating colon cancer.

Recent studies indicate that curcumin might be effective in treating and preventing not just colon cancer but a wide range of cancers. A study at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center found that curcumin inhibited the spread of breast cancer to the lungs of mice, and another Anderson study found curcumin inhibited the growth of melanoma cells. An additional study at Rutgers’ Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy found that curcumin, when combined with phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC), a substance found in crucifer vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage, significantly reduced the growth of cancerous prostate tumors in mice.

3. Do Arthritis Supplements Work?

Many people who suffer from joint pain and arthritis have been discouraged by the National Institutes of Health’s latest finding that the over-the-counter supplements glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate not as effective as originally reported.

But don’t throw those bottles away just yet.

In the newest research experiment, which involved nearly 1,600 patients with knee osteoarthritis, the verdict is that the supplements do help those with moderate to severe pain. (Moderate to severe pain is described as pain that interferes with daily life.)

“The majority of this group experienced a 20% or greater pain reduction,” said Dr. Daniel Clegg, a professor of medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City.

The most recent study was orchestrated in 13 different European hospitals with a daily dose of 1,500 milligrams of glucosamine sulfate in a randomized, double blind study. The supplement proved to be an effective relief against certain types of arthritis.

Clegg recommends that those afflicted “Take [the supplements] for six months, and if you feel better, keep taking them. But stop if you don’t see results.”

4. 12-Step Programs No Better Than Other Treatments

Alcoholics Anonymous - Narcotics Anonymous - Gamblers Anonymous. They are all 12-step programs that are well-known for helping to end addictive behaviors.

However, the latest studies reviewed by the Italian Agency for Public Health in Rome has found that the famous 12-step programs may be no more successful than other addiction treatments. The “steps” are part of a self help program that offers emotional support and spiritual guidance while advocating abstinence from the offending activity.

“AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] has helped a lot of people. Some of the wisdom embodied in AA, such as the notion of persons, places, or things that trigger drinking are very much a part of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is scientifically driven,” said Dr. Edward Nunes, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University. “On the basis of that, we have to take it seriously.”

Dr. John F. Kelly, a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School agreed. “At a minimum, they help,” he said, adding that “they are not cure-alls.”

In some of the studies reviewed by the Italian agency, AA was compared to other treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, and relapse prevention therapy. In all, eight trials involving 3,417 men and women over the age of 18 were examined.

The results were published late July in The Cochrane Library, a journal devoted to systematic reviews of health-care interventions.

None of the studies compared AA to no treatment at all. However, researchers found that nearly 20% of all alcoholics achieve long-term sobriety without any type of therapy.

Additionally, the scientists agreed that there is no known cause of alcoholism. Still, two-thirds are attributable to genetic factors and one-third of the cases are due to stress or emotional problems.

5. A Few Extra Pounds May Add to Longevity

Those few pounds you’ve wanted to get rid of may not necessarily be a health hazard, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Data was collected over a 30 year period, from three separate studies, each involving 9,000 to 12,000 people. The results showed that those who were moderately overweight lived longer than subjects who were underweight or obese.

“There are overweight people who are fit, and normal weight people who have too much fat,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, the director of the Comprehensive Weight Control program at the Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Research by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital supported the research.

But a Harvard’s Women’s Health Study noted that obesity carries significant risk and that the risk seems to increase with age. And some researchers criticized the CDC for looking only at the length of time that overweight people lived - not at their level of health.

“We’re recognizing conditions like cardiovascular disease earlier,” Aronne said. And while (with aggressive treatment) it may not necessarily shorten someone’s life, it does limit their enjoyment of their later years.”

6. Air Fresheners Harm the Lungs

A new study found that a chemical compound called 1,4 DCB (1,4-dichlorobenzene) found in many common household deodorizing products such as air fresheners and toilet bowl cleaners, may harm lungs.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) studied blood samples and measured the lung function of 953 adults. When the blood samples were tested for exposure to volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, 96% tested positive for the chemical 1,4 DCB. When they compared the lung function of those exposed to the chemical, they found a decrease in function that was tied to an increase in exposure. While the decrease was modest, it could have important implications in those who are vulnerable to respiratory problems, such as children.

The chemical 1,4 DCB has an odor similar to mothballs and is used in room deodorizers, odor blocks for toilet bowls and urinals, deodorants for diaper pails, and moth repellants.

“Because people spend so much time indoors where these products are used, it’s important that we understand the effects that even low levels might have on the respiratory system,” said researcher Leslie Elliott, Ph.D.

“Even a small reduction in lung function may indicate some harm to the lungs,” said Stephanie London, M.D., the study’s lead investigator. “The best way to protect yourself, especially children who may have asthma or other respiratory illnesses, is to reduce the use of products and materials that contain these compounds,” she said.

Source: National Institute of Health

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U.S. Will Stop Seizing Small Quantities of Prescriptions Imported from Canada (Foxnews, 061004)

ORLANDO, Fla. — The federal government will stop seizing small amounts of lower-priced prescription medications mailed from Canada, officials said.

Since November 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have seized prescription drugs that 40,000 Americans had ordered from Canada, Sen. Bill Nelson noted on Tuesday. The new policy, which takes effect Oct. 9, was announced in an e-mail from the Department of Homeland Security to congressional staff Monday, Nelson said.

Customs spokeswoman Lynn Hollinger confirmed the policy change Tuesday, saying the agency would no longer intercept the drugs or issue letters to postal carriers indicating it is illegal to import prescription medications. She said the policy change was due to political pressure from lawmakers and people who complained they were no longer receiving their medicine.

Nelson said that the new policy will allow Americans to import small amounts of prescription drugs — roughly a 90-day supply.

“It’s a great victory, particularly for the senior citizens who are having difficulty making financial ends meet in a time in which, sadly, some senior citizens have to make a decision between buying their prescription drugs and buying their groceries,” Nelson said.

The change means that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will resume oversight of the importation of prescription drugs. Before Customs took over enforcement the FDA largely ignored the importation of small amounts of prescription drugs.

It is still illegal to import prescription drugs from abroad, but Nelson said he received assurances from the FDA that the agency will not act on small drug shipments for individuals.

Nelson, a Democrat who is running for re-election against Republican challenger Katherine Harris, has railed against Customs’ involvement since receiving a complaint from a couple whose shipments were intercepted.

He and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., tried to amend a Homeland Security appropriations bill to allow U.S. residents to import small amounts of prescription drugs for personal use. But that bill, which was sent to President Bush this weekend, would only allow Americans crossing the Canadian border to bring back small amounts of prescription drugs.

Nelson said the FDA will focus on large shipments of drugs that are likely being imported for illegal purposes.

The FDA, however, could not yet say whether it will step up oversight of mail-ordered drugs from Canada.

“We haven’t heard from Customs yet — and when we do, we can decide what our next course of action is,” FDA spokeswoman Cathy McDermott said. “We continue to be concerned about the risk of importing foreign drugs.”

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Study Suggests Link Between Cell Phone Use, Low Sperm Count (Foxnews, 061024)

If you’re man thinking about having kids, you might want to cut back on your cell phone use.

That’s the preliminary finding of a study done by The Cleveland Clinic, which found statistically that men who used their cell phones the most had poorer sperm quality than those who used them the least.

The lowest average sperm counts seemed to be in men who had the most cell phone use (more than four hours a day); those who didn’t use cell phones seemed to have the highest. Although the sperm count appears to go down with increasing cell phone use, the difference in numbers wasn’t significant.

The findings, however, do not prove a link between cell phone use and semen quality, researcher Ashok Agarwal, PhD, said.

“This is still very preliminary and I would not want these findings misinterpreted as showing that cell phone use is a definite cause of decreased [male] fertility,” he said. “There are still many unanswered questions.”

About a billion people worldwide now use cell phones, and some projections suggest that within the next five years that number could double.

A link between cell phone use and reduced sperm counts has been suggested in several earlier studies, but none has been considered conclusive.

The new study included 364 men being evaluated for infertility between September 2004 and October 2005.

In addition to undergoing tests to determine sperm quantity and quality, the men answered questions about their cell phone habits.

Most of the men had sperm counts that were well above the 20 million sperm per milliliter level that is considered the lower limit of normal. The more the men in the study used their phones, the lower their sperm count tended to be.

The average sperm count among men who said they did not use cell phones was 86 million per milliliter (mL), compared with 76 million/mL for men who used cell phones less than two hours a day and 71 million/mL for men who used cell phones two to four hours a day.

Men who reported using their cell phones more than four hours a day had the lowest average sperm counts — 66 million/mL.

Significant downward trends were seen when other sperm-quality parameters were measured, such as percentages of sperm swimming well, living and viable sperm, and normal sperm shape.

Cell phones are not the only modern conveniences suspected of influencing sperm counts. At least one study has suggested that wearing disposable diapers as a baby can influence adult fertility, and another proposed a link between laptop use and sperm quality.

None of these suspected environmental influences, however, has been proven to influence male fertility, said Rebecca Sokol, MD, PhD, president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology.

Her own research suggests a link between air pollution and declining sperm quality.

Sokol calls the cell phone study “provocative,” but far from conclusive.

“This is an interesting observation that may lead to larger, more controlled studies to see if the observation holds up,” Sokol said.

An infertility specialist at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, Sokol said there isn’t a lot she can tell patients when they ask about suspected environmental influences on male fertility.

“I tell them what we know, which isn’t a lot,” she said. “We know that high (scrotal) temperature is bad for sperm, and we think that smoking, drinking, and marijuana use are probably bad. But we still have a lot to learn.”

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Study: Vegetables May Keep Brains Young (Foxnews, 061024)

CHICAGO — New research on vegetables and aging gives mothers another reason to say “I told you so.” It found that eating vegetables appears to help keep the brain young and may slow the mental decline sometimes associated with growing old.

On measures of mental sharpness, older people who ate more than two servings of vegetables daily appeared about five years younger at the end of the six-year study than those who ate few or no vegetables.

The research in almost 2,000 Chicago-area men and women doesn’t prove that vegetables reduce mental decline, but it adds to mounting evidence pointing in that direction. The findings also echo previous research in women only.

Green leafy vegetables including spinach, kale and collards appeared to be the most beneficial. The researchers said that may be because they contain healthy amounts of vitamin E, an antioxidant that is believed to help fight chemicals produced by the body that can damage cells.

Vegetables generally contain more vitamin E than fruits, which were not linked with slowed mental decline in the study. Vegetables also are often eaten with healthy fats such as salad oils, which help the body absorb vitamin E and other antioxidants, said lead author Martha Clare Morris, a researcher at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center.

The fats from healthy oils can help keep cholesterol low and arteries clear, which both contribute to brain health.

The study was published in this week’s issue of the journal Neurology and funded with grants from the National Institute on Aging.

“This is a sound paper and contributes to our understanding of cognitive decline,” said Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard’s School of Public Health.

“The findings specific for vegetables and not fruit add further credibility that this is not simply a marker of a more healthful lifestyle,” said Stampfer, who was not involved in the research.

The research involved 1,946 people aged 65 and older who filled out questionnaires about their eating habits. A vegetable serving equaled about a half-cup chopped or one cup if the vegetable was a raw leafy green like spinach.

They also had mental function tests three times over about six years; about 60% of the study volunteers were black.

The tests included measures of short-term and delayed memory, which asked these older people to recall elements of a story that had just been read to them. The participants also were given a flashcard-like exercise using symbols and numbers.

Overall, people did gradually worse on these tests over time, but those who ate more than two vegetable servings a day had about 40% less mental decline than those who ate few or no vegetables. Their test results resembled what would be expected in people about five years younger, Morris said,

The study also found that people who ate lots of vegetables were more physically active, adding to evidence that “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain,” said neuroscientist Maria Carillo, director of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer’s Association.

The study examined mental decline but did not look at whether any of the study volunteers developed Alzheimer’s disease.

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Miscellaneous Health News (NewsMax, 061111)

1. Regular Sex Means Longer Life, Heart Health

Regular and enthusiastic sex is good for you, finds a 10-year study conducted by the Irish and published by the Brits in the British Medical Journal. Sex offers a host of benefits including increasing life span, boosting the immune system, and aiding pain relief, urinary control, and weight loss.

For over a decade, researchers from Queens University in Belfast followed the sexploits of about 1,000 middle aged men of comparable health and financial backgrounds. They discovered that men who had the highest frequency of orgasm had half the death rate. A follow-up to the Queens study found specifically that men can reduce their risk of stroke or heart attack by half by having sex three or more times a week.

Other studies have claimed additional benefits of intercourse several times a week for women as well as men:

Improved sense of smell. It seems that after sex, there is a surge in the production of a hormone that makes stem cells in the brain develop new neurons in the brain’s olfactory bulb.

Better fitness. Intercourse burns about 200 calories, which is the equivalent of running 15 minutes on a treadmill.

Depression relief. An American psychologist reported that sexually active women whose male partners did not use condoms were less prone to depression than those whose partners did. The theory is that prostaglandin, a hormone found only in semen, is absorbed in the woman’s genital tract and modulates female hormones.

Pain relief. Levels of the hormone oxytocin surge to five times their normal level during sex, triggering the release of endorphins and thereby relieving the pain of everything from headaches to arthritis to migraine. It even prompts the production of estrogen, which reduces pain from PMS.

Immune system boost. A study from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania shows that individuals who have sex several times a week have a 30% higher level of an antibody called immunoglobulin A, which boosts the immune system.

Bladder control. Sex has been shown to improve bladder control because the same muscles used for bladder control are exercised during sex.

Lessens cancer risk. Sex makes prostate glands less vulnerable because it flushes out any concentrated carcinogens that might be hanging around.

One doctor, in typical British understatement, summed everything up when he said, “The relationship found between frequency of sexual intercourse and mortality is of considerable public interest.”

2. High Blood Sugar Levels Add to Heart, Stroke Deaths

High blood sugar levels cause about three million deaths worldwide each year linked to heart disease and strokes as well as diabetes, researchers said on Friday.

Scientists in the United States and New Zealand have calculated that in addition to the 960,000 diabetes deaths worldwide each year, raised blood sugar levels are linked to 1.5 million deaths from heart disease and 700,000 from strokes.

“A lot of people are dying as a result of their blood glucose being elevated even though many may well be below the clinical threshold of what we call diabetes,” Dr Majid Ezzati, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass., said in an interview. Blood sugar level is the amount of glucose in the blood. People with higher than optimum levels fall below the limit of being diagnosed as diabetic but can still suffer damage to blood vessels and have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Ezzati and his team analyzed the impact of higher than optimum glucose levels on deaths in 2001 from heart disease and strokes by gathering data from 52 countries around the world.

Their findings, published in The Lancet medical journal, put the total mortality figure from high blood sugar at 3.1 million.

It is more than the 2.4 million deaths attributed to being overweight or obese but less than 4.8 million caused by smoking and 3.9 million by high cholesterol, according to the researchers.

“Even people who are in pre-diabetes level have blood glucose levels that from a cardiovascular perspective has some risk associated with it,” said Ezzati.

“The small risks are accumulating and causing a lot of deaths even though they don’t fall into any clinical classification,” he added.

3. Why It’s Good to Be a Health ‘Nut’

The nutritional value of nuts has been established for decades, but their high-caloric content has made many weight-conscious dieters shy away from them. New research, however, shows that not only do the benefits of nuts far outweigh the calories, eating them may even help you lose weight.

Walnuts, for instance, might be called the “king” of nuts in many ways, because they are high in vitamin E, folate, and B vitamins, as well as a heart-healthy plant-derived omega-3 fatty acid. They are also rich in melatonin, which can contribute to a good night’s sleep. Walnuts can even help people lose weight if eaten in the proper amounts at the proper time, according to a new study out of Loma Linda University School of Public Health. Joan Sabate, M.D., and a professor at Loma Linda said, “Walnuts help alleviate hunger [providing] many essential nutrients for a relatively small percentage of daily calories.” The study showed that eating a few walnuts before meals decreased hunger levels in subjects and led to the consumption of fewer total calories at the dinner table.

If walnuts are “king,” almonds are perhaps “queen.” The Almond Board of California cites one study, for instance, that shows almonds help reduce inflammation of blood vessels by about the same amount as taking some drugs. The Almond Board also pointed to studies showing almonds contain a unique combination of antioxidants that feature 20 different flavonoid compounds, including some that are like those found in highly-touted green tea.

The nut most eaten in the American diet, however, is neither the walnut nor the almond, but the pedestrian peanut, which is really not a nut at all but a legume. One of the most popular ways of consuming peanuts is in peanut butter, and research on peanut butter indicates a probable protective effect against gallstone risk and diabetes. The risk of Type 2 diabetes, for instance, can be reduced by over 20% by eating just five or more serving of peanuts or peanut butter per week.

Much of the research on nuts and peanuts centers on their benefits to heart health. Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., and a distinguished professor of nutrition at Penn State University said, “There is a large database showing a dose-response relationship between nut consumption and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease [CVD]. In fact, consuming nuts and peanuts five times a week or more decreases risk of CVD 40 to 50%. A recent study has shown as little as two servings per week decreases risk of sudden death.”

Also, according to Kris-Etherton, research shows “High consumers of nuts and peanuts have a lower body mass index — not a higher one — compared with non-nut and non-peanut consumers,” she said. “When eaten in moderation and incorporated in the diet to meet energy needs, there is no reason to expect weight gain.”

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Cancer deaths decline for second year in a row (Washington Times, 070118)

U.S. cancer deaths are down for the second year in a row, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).

There were 3,014 fewer cancer deaths in 2004 than the previous year, an even larger decrease than the 369 fewer deaths reported in 2003 than in 2002.

“The second consecutive drop in the number of actual cancer deaths, much steeper than the first, shows last year’s historic drop was no fluke,” said ACS Chief Executive Officer John Seffrin yesterday, when the statistics were released.

He credited trends in prevention, earlier diagnoses and more effective treatment for the “dramatic, lifesaving dividends.”

Never before in the more than 70 years since researchers began tracking national cancer statistics has the number of deaths declined for two years in a row.

Indeed, the five-year survival rate for all cancers diagnosed from 1996 to 2002 is 66% — up from 51% when compared with diagnoses made from 1975 to 1977. The most significant decline was found in colon and rectal cancer, which the ACS attributed to increased screening and early detection.

Lung cancer remains the top cancer killer among both men and women. Lung cancer has declined in men and has only risen by less than 1% in women, the study found. After continuously increasing for more than two decades, breast-cancer rates have “leveled off,” according to the report. About 77% of all cancers are diagnosed in people 55 or older.

In an appearance at the National Institutes of Health yesterday, President Bush applauded the good news and noted that federal funding for cancer research was up by 25%

“It’s a commitment we’re keeping,” Mr. Bush said. “There are tangible results as a result of the research that takes place around the country, and a lot of it focused here at the NIH.”

He also praised the development of a vaccine for human papillomavirus, which causes 70% of cervical cancers, and said the vaccine will be dispensed by the government “to those who qualify.”

Cancer accounts for one-quarter of the nation’s deaths. An estimated 1,444,920 new cases of cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, and about 559,650 people — or some 1,500 a day — are expected to die of cancer.

The disease has a big price tag, costing about $206 billion in combined medical costs and lost productivity because of illness or premature death, according to NIH figures.

Blacks continue to be more likely to develop cancer than any other racial or ethnic population. The death rate from cancer among black men is 38% higher than white men and among black women, it is 17% higher than in white women. While Hispanics generally have a lower incidence of cancer compared to whites, the incident of liver cancer is twice as high in Hispanic men and women than in the white population.

Almost one-third of all cancer deaths — 168,000 people — are caused by smoking or tobacco use, the ACS report said. Another one-third of cancer deaths are linked to obesity, poor nutrition and inactivity. Other causes include environmental factors, infections and exposure to the sun. The report attributed only 5% of cancers to hereditary causes.

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Experts: Women Taking Hormones at Higher Risk for Breast Cancer (Foxnews, 070419)

ATLANTA — Research on two continents signaled more bad news for menopause hormones, offering the strongest evidence yet that they can raise the risk of breast cancer and are tied to a slightly higher risk of ovarian cancer.

New U.S. government numbers showed that breast cancer rates leveled off in 2004 after plunging in 2003 — the year after millions of women stopped taking hormones because a big study tied them to higher heart, stroke and breast cancer risks. Experts said the leveling off shows that the 2003 drop in the cancer rate was real and not a fluke.

From 2001 to 2004, breast cancer rates fell almost 9% — a dramatic decline, researchers report in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. The trend was even stronger for the most common form of the disease — tumors whose growth is fueled by hormones. Those rates fell almost 15% among women ages 50 to 69, the group most likely to have been on hormone pills.

At the same time, a study of nearly 1 million women in the United Kingdom showed that those who took hormones after menopause were 20% more likely to develop ovarian cancer or die from it than women who never took the pills. That study was published online by the London-based journal The Lancet.

For consumers, the new research doesn’t change the advice to use the lowest dose for the shortest time possible for hot flashes and other menopause symptoms that can’t otherwise be controlled.

For cautious scientists, the new breast cancer numbers were more evidence of the hormone-breast cancer link.

“The story has gotten stronger,” said Dr. Peter Ravdin, a biostatistician at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who led the research.

Some were skeptical several months ago when Ravdin and National Cancer Institute researchers first reported the 2003 drop in the breast cancer rate. The new numbers, which add 2004, prove this was no fluke, said Dr. Julie Gralow, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Clinical Oncology and cancer expert at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Because it didn’t bump back up again,” it supports the idea that the rate has stabilized at a new lower level, said Gralow, who had no role in the study.

Brenda Edwards, one of the journal authors who is a National Cancer Institute researcher, agreed. “Now we have a statistically significant decline” over three years and clear proof of a trend, she said.

Although some recent analyses suggest heart risks from menopause hormones are not as great as had been believed for younger, newly menopausal women, the statistics out this week add to the worries about cancer.

After rising steadily through the 1990s, the breast cancer rate dipped from 2001 to 2002, from 138 cases to 135 cases per 100,000 women. After the federal Women’s Health Initiative study reported in July 2002 on the health risks of hormones, use of the pills plunged.

So did the breast cancer rate the following year — to 126 cases per 100,000 women. It was the steepest fall since the government started keeping records in the 1970s.

The drop was seen in all of the cancer statistics registries reviewed in the study, and no other cancer rate changed as dramatically — strong signs that hormones were playing a role, specialists said.

The 2004 rate held steady at about 126 cases per 100,000.

Stopping hormone use may have stopped some cancers from growing and caused them to disappear, scientists speculate. Or it may have just slowed them down so that they won’t appear until years later, said Ahmedin Jemal, an American Cancer Society researcher. Only time will tell which is true, he said.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which makes top-selling hormone pills Prempro and Premarin, criticized the study as overly speculative. Company spokesman Dr. Joseph Camardo said hormone prescriptions continued to fall in 2004 but breast cancer rates did not decline proportionately.

Ravdin said the company’s criticism does not invalidate the cancer trends.

Breast cancer is the most common major cancer in American women and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. About 180,000 new cases are expected to occur in the United States this year and more than 1 million worldwide.

Ovarian cancer is far less common. The British study found that even with the 20% greater risk from hormones, the actual risk was very low: 2.6 of every 1,000 hormone users developed ovarian cancer over five years compared to 2.2 in 1,000 non-hormone users.

Still, that means about 1,000 extra ovarian cancer deaths from 1991 through 2005, said study leaders at the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit in Oxford.

Hormone use has declined already, and the new report should cause it to fall further, Dr. Steven Narod of the University of Toronto wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in The Lancet.

“We hope that the number of women dying of ovarian cancer will decline as well,” he wrote.

Camardo, Wyeth’s spokesman, said hormone labels already warn about an elevated risk of ovarian cancer.

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Abdominal fat greater health risk for Chinese, South Asians: study (National Post, 070822)

Everyone knows being overweight is bad for your health. But a new study by B.C. scientists suggests it is especially dangerous for those of Chinese and South Asian descent — who, the study found, actually accumulate fat differently than Caucasians.

Researchers measured the body fat of more than 800 volunteers in Greater Vancouver of various ethnic backgrounds. What they found is that, for the same amount of total body fat, Chinese and South Asian people had a far greater concentration of fat in their inner abdomen — where it poses the greatest risk for diabetes and heart disease.

For example, the study found that a moderately overweight Chinese person has, on average, 36% more inner-abdominal fat than a Caucasian person of the same size. And a South Asian of average weight has 23% more inner-abdominal fat than someone Caucasian.

Aboriginals showed no difference from Caucasians.

Scott Lear, a kinesiology professor at Simon Fraser University who led the study, said the ethnic gap is so profound that it may be necessary to redefine what obesity means for Asians.

At the moment, regardless of ethnic background, you are considered at risk of health problems if you have a waist circumference larger than 102 centimetres (40 inches) for men or 88 centimetres (35 inches) for women.

Given the added health risks weight seems to pose for Asians, said Lear, it may make sense to create new, ethnic-specific weight standards for them — such as 90 centimetres (35 inches) for men and 80 centimetres (32 inches) for women.

Lear said the definition of overweight under the Body Mass Index, a calculation based on height and weight, may also need to change for Asians, dropping from 25 to 23.

“We’re in the process of coming up with some guidance for what the [new] targets should be,” he said.

Lear doesn’t know why Asians accumulate fat differently. But the ethnic gap persists even after controlling for things like diet, height and level of exercise, suggesting it has something to do with genetics.

One theory, said Lear, is that Asia underwent more famines than Europe — causing its people to evolve the ability to store fat more easily.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that overall weight is far less important for good health than where that weight is distributed — with abdominal, or belly, fat most closely linked with heart disease and diabetes.

And while most people focus on subcutaneous fat, the belly fat they can pinch under their skin, it is actually the abdominal fat deep within the body that is the most dangerous. It is this fat that Lear’s team studied by taking CT scans of people’s bellies.

Exactly why inner-abdominal fat is so unhealthy is not known, though it may be that it puts greater stress on the liver.

Rema Sanghera, a dietitian at BC Women’s Hospital, works with pregnant women from various ethnic backgrounds to reduce their risk of diabetes.

“Our hope is that, since mom is the chief cook in the family, that changes she makes will have a trickle-down effect for other family members as well,” she said.

Sanghera said the incidence of diabetes among South Asians is several times that of the general population. She said she hopes Lear’s study results in new guidelines for health workers like herself — so they can do a better job of identifying unhealthy weight in Asians.

Lear’s study is published in the current edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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Heart trouble likely begins at home (Washington Times, 071009)

Fighting with a spouse or another close family member is literally bad for the heart.

People whose primary personal relationships have a lot of negative interaction are 34% more likely to suffer coronary events, such as chest pain and heart attacks, scientists said in a study published yesterday in a leading medical journal.

“A person’s heart condition seems to be influenced by negative intimate relationships,” wrote Roberto De Vogli of University College London in a study published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association.

Mr. De Vogli and his colleagues studied 9,000 British civil servants over a 12-year period and compared how harmonious their primary relationships were.

The elevated risk remained even after age, employment, weight, cholesterol, smoking, work stress and other characteristics were considered, they wrote.

The De Vogli study was not restricted to marriage — more than a third of the British study participants named someone other than a spouse as their primary close relationship — but it adds to the literature about how the quality of a marital relationship affects people’s health and well-being.

“Married people are generally healthier than unmarried people,” the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation said in a June report on the effects on marriage on health. But when it comes to specific physical health outcomes, “the effects of marriage remain largely unaddressed by rigorous research,” the report said.

“It makes sense that [human relationships] affect our physical health,” said Karen Blaisure, a professor in Western Michigan University’s family and consumer sciences department and a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Relationships researcher John Gottman recommends that fighting couples avoid letting their heart rates exceed 100 beats a minute, she said.

When the heart rate gets that high, “we get less blood to the brain, we can’t hear as well, we may start interpreting what the person is saying as negative even when it’s not,” she said. “The calmer we can stay, the more we have access to our decision-making” skills.

Ms. Blaisure advises couples who aren’t dealing well with conflict to seek help as quickly as possible. Like a physical ailment, she said, “it’s usually easier to treat the sooner you get in.”

The De Vogli study suggested that negative relationships affect heart health because of “cumulative ‘wear and tear’ on organs and tissues.” It also noted that people tend to “mentally replay negative encounters more than they replay positive ones” and that “negative relationships activate stronger emotions” such as worrying and anxiety more than less-conflicted relationships.

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After Years of Declines, Cancer Death Rate Increases (Foxnews, 080220)

U.S. cancer deaths rose by more than 5,000 in 2005, a somewhat disappointing reversal of a two-year downward trend, the American Cancer Society said in a report issued Wednesday.

The group counted 559,312 people who died from cancer.

The cancer death rate among the overall population continued to fall, but only slightly, after a couple of years of more dramatic decline.

In 2005, there were just under 184 cancer deaths per 100,000 people, down from nearly 186 the previous year. Experts said it wasn’t surprising that the rate would stabilize.

The cancer death rate has been dropping since the early 1990s, and early in this decade was declining by about 1% a year. The actual number of cancer deaths kept rising, however, because of the growing population.

So it was big news when the rate dropped by 2% in both 2003 and 2004, enough to cause the total number of cancer deaths to fall for the first time since 1930.

President Bush and others hailed that as a sign that federally funded research was making strides against the disease.

But now the death rate decline is back to 1%. And the 2005 numbers show annual cancer deaths are no longer falling, but are up more than 5,400 since 2004.

“The declining rate was no longer great enough to overcome the increase in population,” said Elizabeth Ward, a co-author of the cancer society report

Officials with the organization say they don’t know why the decline in the death rate eased.

It may be that cancer screenings are not having as big an effect as they were a few years ago, said Dr. Peter Ravdin, a research professor in biostatistics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

One possible example: In 2004, the largest drop in deaths among the major cancers was in colorectal cancer. Experts gave much of the credit to colonoscopy screenings that detect polyps and allow doctors to remove them before they turn cancerous. They also mentioned “the Katie Couric effect” — a jump in colonoscopy rates after the “Today” show host had the exam on national television in 2000.

In the new report, the colorectal cancer death rate decreased by about 3% from 2004 to 2005, after plunging 6% from 2003 to 2004.

Colorectal cancer screening rates through 2003 did not show a decline. But it’s possible they have fallen since then, Ravdin said.

Cancer society officials have also voiced concern that cancer deaths may increase as Americans lose health insurance coverage and get fewer screenings.

The good news is the cancer death rate is still declining, and that since the early 1990s is down more than 18% for men and more than 10% for women. Those reductions translate to more than half a million cancer deaths avoided, according to the cancer society.

Experts attribute the success to declines in smoking and to earlier detection and more effective treatment of tumors.

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What Canada Tells Us About Government Health Care (townhall.com, 080225)

By Doug Wilson

Americans may not agree on much between now and November, but we have reached a consensus about the importance of at least one issue: health care.

In a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 76% of registered voters said that health care was very important to their vote. Democrats ranked health care their most important issue; Independents slotted it as their second most important issue. Republicans, meanwhile, positioned health care as more important than social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research.

This public concern has prompted political action—or at least political posturing. It seems every politician has a plan to solve our health care woes. For Democrats, the silver bullet remains universal, government-funded coverage. Both Senators Obama and Clinton have proposed regulation and tax-heavy programs to offer cradle-to-grave health care for Americans.

Ironically, these proposals come at a time when some of our other entitlements—Social Security and Medicare—stand on the brink of collapse. For example, most experts agree that Social Security will be entirely bankrupt by 2041, and that the system will show serious financial strain as early as 2017. If a business faced such dire financial straits it would cut costs, but the government continues its perpetual spending spree.

Before we allow the government to burden us with another mammoth entitlement program, however, we might well consider the plight of countries currently employing socialized medicine. And we need not look very far for an example. Since the 1960s, Canada has operated a system of socialized medicine, while also forbidding the private sector from insuring medically necessary care.

The verdict: Canadians pay more for their health care and get less. That’s according to the Fraser Institute, an independent research and educational organization based in Canada. Fraser’s recently released study, “Paying More, Getting Less: Measuring the Sustainability of Government Health Spending in Canada” calls our attention to the painful realities of government-funded health care.

How, exactly, do Canadians pay more for their health care? Taxes, naturally—and higher and higher ones at that, for there is no other way to maintain such an enormous entitlement. Consider that by 2035, six of 10 Canadian provinces will spend half of their taxpayer-generated revenue on health-related expenses.

In slow economic times, health spending tends to exceed revenue. The government responds by raising existing taxes or creating new ones; to do otherwise would lead to the neglect of other government programs like schools and roads.

By restricting the market, public health care programs create long waits for specialists and often prevent patients from pursuing new treatments. Indeed, the median wait times between a referral from a family or general doctor to a specialist for further treatment increased significantly in every Canadian province between 1997 and 2006. For many treatments and procedures, Canadians are forced to wait twice as long as doctors believe is medically advisable.

Canada’s restrictive policies have also reduced the number of various types of health professionals, limited the availability of advanced equipment and severely restricted the prescription drug choices. Consider that even after Health Canada certifies a new drug, it takes over a year for that drug to actually reach the patients who need it. Between 2004 and 2005, it took an average of 439 days for provinces to receive reimbursement for drugs, forcing patients to wait months for necessary medications.

The list could go on, but it need not. We get the picture. The question is: What are we going to do about it?

The answer lies in the marketplace. Among the more promising proposals currently before Congress is the Health Care Choice Act. The Act would allow individuals to compare and purchase health insurance across state lines. This is a very important, if often misunderstood, way of reducing health care costs. Here’s a quick primer: Because health care is primarily regulated at the state level, states can force providers to cover services and procedures (e.g., chiropractic care or fertility treatments) regardless of necessity or patient demand. Insurance companies then pass these higher costs along to every consumer, regardless of whether they want or need coverage for such procedures.

A more efficient system would allow individuals to select the health care plans of their choice. Such a plan recognizes that a 20 year old male typically has very different medical needs than a 60 year old woman. Freeing consumers to select a health care plan that meets their needs and budget, even if it is in a different state, is a common sense solution that would ease the budget crunch facing many American families. And, thankfully, the Health Care Choice Act is just one of many promising ways in which we can address our health care needs without burdening our children with another entitlement that we can’t afford.

In the end, our financial and medical futures are simply too important to be left exclusively to government control. Few people know this lesson better than Canadians themselves. Just ask the many pregnant Canadians who are forced to travel to the U.S. to deliver their children because their country has—wait for it—too few hospital beds.

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13-Year-Old Girl Allergic to Almost Everything (Foxnews, 080228)

A 13-year-old girl from Hereford, England, suffers from a rare skin condition that has left her allergic to just about everything – meaning she has to wear bandages 24 hours a day and apply creams every hour, it is being reported by the Daily Mail.

Laura Weaver’s condition is due to a breakdown in her immune system, which has made her skin ultra-sensitive, doctors said.

Her skin is constantly covered in eczema rashes, which is itchy and painful, the report said.

Laura, who was born with the condition, was recently allowed to go back to school after teachers created a “clean room,” which protects her from irritants. Her skin will flare up after a whiff of perfume, or even if she lightly brushes up against someone else.

In fact, she is even allergic to dairy products, some fruit and wheat, and can react to non-cotton clothing and plastic furniture, the Daily Mail reported.

A tiny peanut can send her into anaphylactic shock and central heating can give her a fever.

Doctors explained Laura’s condition as “living with sunburn all the time.”

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Hong Kong Orders 560,000 Kids to Stay Home for Two Weeks Amid Flu Outbreak (Foxnews, 080312)

HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s government on Wednesday ordered all kindergartens and primary schools to close for two weeks amid a growing flu outbreak.

It also asked one of its top scientists to study the deaths of three children over the past week.

Health secretary York Chow said Yuen Kwok-yung, who helped study Hong Kong’s outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, or SARS, about four years ago, will head a panel of scientists studying the recent deaths.

Chow said it was not clear if the three cases were linked but that he became concerned after the most recent death — that of a 7-year-old boy on Tuesday — because five of his classmates had also been hospitalized.

Chow also announced at a late-night news conference that all kindergartens, primary schools and special education schools will begin the Easter holiday early to prevent the spread of influenza in classrooms.

The closure affects nearly 560,000 students at 1,745 schools, according to enrollment figures from the 2006-2007 academic year.

Classes will resume March 28, Chow said.

Chow said a growing number of people have been suffering from flu and that bringing the Easter break forward would help reduce infections and calm public fears.

“We estimate this peak season of influenza will continue for a few weeks,” Chow said.

The cause of the 7-year-old boy’s death has not been determined. Officials said some of his classmates were believed to be suffering from flu, and the government closed the school earlier this week.

The five hospitalized classmates were in stable condition, Chow said.

No cause has been determined either in the two other deaths — of girls aged 2 and 3 — officials said.

The deaths came amid a series of flu outbreaks in Hong Kong over the past several days. Health officials have confirmed a total of six outbreaks at schools, a hospital and a nursing home for the elderly since March 6.

The flu outbreaks also have led to crowding at some hospitals, while the number of patients seeking walk-in treatment at emergency rooms has risen 16% from the same period last month, Hospital Authority Chief Executive Shane Solomon told reporters.

None of the cases has been linked to bird flu, which was recently detected in birds in Hong Kong.

Bird flu remains difficult for humans to catch, but scientists fear the virus that causes it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans and trigger a pandemic that some say could kill millions.

SARS infected 1,755 people in Hong Kong and killed 299.

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New spread of superbug alarms doctors (National Post, 070327)

The number of cases of a superbug that spreads through the body, causing everything from painful boils to bleeding in the lungs, is increasing in Canada.

And while most are acquired in hospital, one in six is now coming from the wider community — in otherwise healthy people, even children.

This represents a new means of infection for a disease that has been in hospitals for years, but has been largely unknown beyond their walls.

What’s more, the new community strain of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a different kind of animal, doctors say — a “fully-loaded,” more virulent, more aggressive pathogen than the “old-style” hospital germ and one that’s capable of causing more severe infections.

“This really worries me. This is very serious stuff,” says Dr. Dick Zoutman, head of infectious diseases at Kingston General Hospital in Ontario. “It tends to be resistant to some drugs, but not all, it attacks very aggressively and makes very healthy people in the community very sick.”

The superbug can cause aggressive infections of the bone and spine as well as severe pneumonia. Dr. Zoutman said he was hearing “shocking stories” from colleagues in the United States — where community-acquired Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is spreading rapidly — of what the bug is capable of doing to otherwise healthy children, including severe soft-tissue infections and infections in multiple joints. Deaths have been reported in Texas involving teens who developed a rare form of pneumonia due to MRSA, including a healthy 14-year-old Dallas boy who died last year, four days after he went home from school with a mild fever.

Now, the latest results from the national surveillance for MRSA to be released today, based on data from 48 large adult and pediatric hospitals in all provinces except Prince Edward Island, shows that for every 1,000 people admitted to hospital in Canada, eight are either infected with or carrying MRSA.

There were a total of 5,787 “newly identified” MRSA cases during the 2006 surveillance period, of which 3,561, or 62%, were acquired in the hospital, 7% in other acute-care hospitals and 8% in long-term care facilities.

Community-acquired MRSA accounted for 893, or 15%, of the reported cases, meaning the patients arrived at the hospital already infected. The remaining 7% of cases were of unknown origin, according to the report being released by Public Health Agency of Canada.

The infection begins with what looks like a spider bite, a red, very tender area that rises up and comes to a head just like a small boil. If not treated promptly, the lesions can develop into large, spreading abscesses in the soft tissues that can grow to the size of a baseball, or even a grapefruit.

People develop fever, malaise and flu-like symptoms. In some cases, MRSA can cause hemorrhagic pneumonia, or bleeding in the lungs.

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Critics Slam Boston Doctor Who Offers Sex Change Treatment to Kids (Foxnews, 080519)

Boston’s Children’s Hospital bills itself as the hospital for children — and now it’s also the hospital for children who want a sex change, a procedure some critics are calling “barbaric.”

Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric specialist at the hospital, has launched a clinic for transgendered kids — boys who feel like girls, girls who want to be boys — and he’s opening his doors to patients as young as 7.

Spack offers his younger patients counseling and drugs that delay the onset of puberty. The drugs stop the natural flood of hormones that would make it difficult to have a sex alteration later in life, allowing patients more time to decide whether they want to make the change.

Spack also offers some teenagers hormone therapy, a drastic step that changes the way they grow and develop. While the effects of drug treatments can be stopped, long-term hormone therapy can be irreversible, causing permanent infertility in both sexes.

For some, that trade-off is worth it. Transgendered children are deeply troubled and have a “high level of suicide attempts,” Spack told the Boston Globe. “I’ve never seen any patient make [a suicide attempt] after they’ve started hormonal treatment,” he said.

But not all doctors are convinced, and some say the treatments do much more harm than good.

“Treating these children with hormones does considerable harm and it compounds their confusion,” said Dr. Paul McHugh, University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University. “Trying to delay puberty or change someone’s gender is a rejection of the lawfulness of nature.”

McHugh said gender reassignment for children harkens back to the dark ages, when choir boys were castrated to retain their high-pitched voices. “It’s barbaric,” he said.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal charity affiliated with the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, says that transgender disorder is a mental disorder, not a medical one, and that it should be treated with behavior modification, not hormones or surgery.

“Just as you don’t give liposuction to an anorexic, you don’t do sexual reassignment surgery on men who think that they are women and vice versa,” Staver said.

“At some point in childhood,” McHugh said, “many children role play as the opposite sex, but it is a social, not a medical issue.”

But other doctors say there is a transgender “gene.”

Dr. Irene Sills, an physician and Senior Professor of Pediatrics at the State University of New York, has treated 15 transgender children in the last 6 years, and considers the condition innate as a result of her study.

“We have had a case of identical twins that seems to disprove [other] theories,” she told FOXNews.com. “The twin girls were brought up in exactly the same environment, but by the age of 3, one of them kept insisting that she was a boy and kept mimicking masculine dress and behavior.”

Dr. Sills reported that her patients and their families have all been pleased with her therapy and support. She said she never asks families to sign a waiver before treating their children. “I trust our procedures and I trust my patients,” she said in an interview.

But some experts expect legal challenges to mount in the face of further treatment. According to Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense, parents and doctors may not be safe from litigation if children are made sterile due to hormonal treatments — even if they do sign waivers.

“We will eventually start to see such parents and doctors sued and possibly arrested for what is essentially child abuse,” Nimocks told FOXNews.com.

Still, some think transgender medical therapies for children, which have been used for many years in Europe, Asia and Australia, may soon gain more acceptance in the U.S.

“Most medical professionals know very little about transgender treatments for children, so I do grand rounds at hospitals to educate them,” said Stephanie Brill, co-author of “The Transgender Child,” which will be published in June. “The doctors are very receptive, so I believe that we will see transgender medicine become much more prevalent over the next decade.”

Yet even as such procedures are introduced to a wider public and offered to younger patients, it remains to be seen whether proponents of the procedure will find much support.

“Just because modern medicine can accomplish certain things does not mean that these procedures should be done,” said Nimocks. “That’s the mindset of a Dr. Kevorkian, and he wound up in jail.”

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Superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile killing record numbers of patients (Daily Telegraph, 080522)

MRSA and Clostridium difficile were linked to more than 8,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2006, up from 5,300 the previous year.

The first ever breakdown of deaths from both infections by location released by the Office for National Statistics shows that the vast majority of patients died from the bugs in hospital.

The deadly infections also killed small numbers of patients in nursing homes and hospices.

In total there were 6,424 deaths from C difficile in all three locations in 2006, almost double the 3,719 deaths caused by the infection in 2005.

MRSA was responsible for 1,625 deaths, up from 1,621 the previous year.

The worst hospital for C difficile deaths in England or Wales was the Royal United Hospital in Bath, which had 268 deaths from the infection between 2002 and 2006.

The George Eliot hospital in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry and the Royal Infirmary in Leicester all had more than 200 deaths caused by the infection over the same period.

Maidstone hospital in Kent, which was part of one of the worst outbreaks of the infection in the country when more than 90 patients died at three hospitals run by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust died from the bug, had 113 cases over the same period.

With 94 deaths Derriford Hospital in Plymouth had the highest number of deaths from MRSA cases between 2002 and 2006.

Over the same period, The Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth recorded 81 deaths from MRSA, Maelor Hospital Wrexham 79 deaths and the Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset 77 deaths.

More than 1,100 hospitals, hospices and nursing homes had at least one death from C difficile in the last five years and more than 900 had at least one death from MRSA.

The Office for National Statistics cautioned that many of the hospitals who recorded large numbers of deaths from both infections were also more likely to have high patient numbers generally. The data, collected from death certificates, also shows only where patients died, not where they acquired the infections initially or where they received other treatment before their death.

A spokesman for Help the Aged said he was “concerned” at the wide variation between hospitals.

He added: “We know that older people are at greater risk of hospital acquired infections, so any rise will affect them more heavily.”

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Pittsburgh Cancer Center Warns of Risk From Cell Phone Use (Foxnews, 080723)

PITTSBURGH — The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don’t find a link between increased tumors and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early, unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science and he believes people should take action now — especially when it comes to children.

“Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn’t wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later,” Herberman said.

Herberman’s advice is sure to raise concern among many cell phone users and especially parents.

In the memo he sent to about 3,000 faculty and staff Wednesday, he says children should use cell phones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.

Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use the speakerphone or a wireless headset, he says. He even warns against using cell phones in public places like a bus because it exposes others to the phone’s electromagnetic fields.

The issue that concerns some scientists — though nowhere near a consensus — is electromagnetic radiation, especially its possible effects on children. It is not a major topic in conferences of brain specialists.

A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies — including some Herberman cites — with thousands of brain tumor patients and concludes “we found no overall increased risk of brain tumors among cellular phone users. The potential elevated risk of brain tumors after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies.”

Studies last year in France and Norway concluded the same thing.

“If there is a risk from these products — and at this point we do not know that there is — it is probably very small,” the Food and Drug Administration says on an agency Web site.

Still, Herberman cites a “growing body of literature linking long-term cell phone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer.”

“Although the evidence is still controversial, I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use,” he wrote in his memo.

A driving force behind the memo was Devra Lee Davis, the director of the university’s center for environmental oncology.

“The question is do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain,” she said in an interview that she did from her cell phone. “I don’t know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don’t know that they are safe.”

Of concern are the still unknown effects of more than a decade of cell phone use, with some studies raising alarms, said Davis, a former health adviser in the Clinton Administration.

She said 20 different groups have endorsed the advice the Pittsburgh cancer institute gave, and authorities in England, France and India have cautioned children’s use of cell phones.

Herberman and Davis point to a massive ongoing research project known as Interphone, involving scientists in 13 nations, mostly in Europe. Results already published in peer-reviewed journals from this project aren’t so alarming, but Herberman is citing work not yet published.

The published research focuses on more than 5,000 cases of brain tumors. The National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., which isn’t participating in the Interphone project, reported in January that the brain tumor research had “selection bias.” That means it relied on people with cancer to remember how often they used cell phones. It is not considered the most accurate research approach.

The largest published study, which appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 2006, tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including thousands that had used the phones for more than 10 years. It found no increased risk of cancer among those using cell phones.

A French study based on Interphone research and published in 2007 concluded that regular cell phone users had “no significant increased risk” for three major types of brain tumors. It did note, however, that there was “the possibility of an increased risk among the heaviest users” for one type of brain tumor, but that needs to be verified in future research.

Earlier research also has found no connection.

Joshua E. Muscat of Penn State University, who has studied cancer and cell phones in other research projects partly funded by the cell phone industry, said there are at least a dozen studies that have found no cancer-cell phone link. He said a Swedish study cited by Herberman as support for his warning was biased and flawed.

“We certainly don’t know of any mechanism by which radiofrequency exposure would cause a cancerous effect in cells. We just don’t know this might possibly occur,” Muscat said.

Cell phones emit radiofrequency energy, a type of radiation that is a form of electromagnetic radiation, according to the National Cancer Institute. Though studies are being done to see if there is a link between it and tumors of the brain and central nervous system, there is no definitive link between the two, the institute says on its Web site.

“By all means, if a person feels compelled that they should take precautions in reducing the amount of electromagnetic radio waves through their bodies, by all means they should do so,” said Dan Catena, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society. “But at the same time, we have to remember there’s no conclusive evidence that links cell phones to cancer, whether it’s brain tumors or other forms of cancer.”

Joe Farren, a spokesman for the CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group for the wireless industry, said the group believes there is a risk of misinforming the public if science isn’t used as the ultimate guide on the issue.

“When you look at the overwhelming majority of studies that have been peer reviewed and published in scientific journals around the world, you’ll find no relationship between wireless usage and adverse health affects,” Farren said.

Frank Barnes, who chaired a recent National Research Council report looking into what studies are needed to assess the health effects of wireless communications, said Wednesday that “the jury is out” on how hazardous long-term cell phone use might be.

Speaking from his cell phone, the professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder said he takes no special precautions with his own cell phone. And he offered no clear advice to people worried about the matter.

It’s up to each individual to decide what if anything to do. If people use a cell phone instead of having a land line, “that may very well be reasonable for them,” he said.

Susan Juffe, a 58-year-old Pittsburgh special education teacher, heard about Herberman’s cell phone advice on the radio earlier in the day.

“Now, I’m worried. It’s scary,” she said.

She says she’ll think twice about allowing her 10-year-old daughter Jayne to use the cell phone.

“I don’t want to get it (brain cancer) and I certainly don’t want you to get it,” she explained to her daughter.

Sara Loughran, a 24-year-old doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, sat in a bus stop Wednesday chatting on her cell phone with her mother. She also had heard the news earlier in the day, but was not as concerned.

“I think if they gave me specific numbers and specific information and it was scary enough, I would be concerned,” Loughran said, planning to call her mother again in a matter of minutes. “Without specific numbers, it’s too vague to get me worked up.”

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Autism breakthrough as study identifies genetic defect link (Times Online, 080710)

Many cases of autism are caused by genetic defects that disrupt the brain’s ability to learn, according to groundbreaking research that promises to lead to new therapies.

A set of six genes that are strongly linked to brain development in the first year of life have been found to be abnormal in many autistic children, suggesting a neurological pathway that may underlie a significant proportion of cases.

The findings are particularly significant because some of these genes are not deleted entirely in autistic children, but are kept switched off by mutations in surrounding control regions of their DNA.

This raises the prospect that critical genes could be activated by drugs or behavioural and educational therapies, so that their brains develop more normally.

“We would not need to replace the gene, if we could only figure out how to reactivate it, perhaps with medications,” said Eric Morrow, who led the research team with his Harvard University colleague Christopher Walsh.

Such genes could also be activated by environmental factors, such as specialised education programmes, and it may ultimately even be possible to use genetic tests to determine which approach will work best for individual children.

Dr Walsh said: “By being able to characterise more about the genetic mutations at work in various forms of autism, we may be able to predict which kids need gene therapy, and which just need some form of training.”

Autism is a developmental disorder that is diagnosed in up to one in 100 children, and has a triad of symptoms. People who are affected have impaired social and communication skills, and show restricted or repetitive behaviour.

The condition has long been known to be heavily influenced by genetics, from twin and family studies, but few genes have been definitively associated. Most cases are thought to be influenced by combinations of dozens of defective genes, or by rare spontaneous mutations.

It also occurs on a spectrum, ranging from high-functioning forms such as Asperger’s syndrome to highly disabling conditions. Dr Walsh likened it to Leo Tolstoy’s line in Anna Karenina, that: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Research into autism genetics has been hampered by the difficulty of finding autistic and non-autistic siblings in the same family to study. To get around this, the new study investigated 88 families from the Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan, where the average number of children is much larger than in Europe and America. The scientists also concentrated on families in which the mother and father were cousins, which is a risk factor for autism.

In five families, they found large segments of the genome were missing. Non-autistic members still had one working copy of these regions, but those with autism lacked working copies altogether.

Most of the deletions were in sections of DNA that switch other genes on and off, and affected genes that are important in the developing brain. They appear to be vital to the process by which brain connections known as synapses become modified during the first year of life, influenced by exposure to the outside world.

Details of the research are published in the journal Science. Dr Walsh said: “Autism symptoms emerge at an age when the developing brain is refining the connections between neurons in response to a child’s experience. Whether or not certain important genes turn on is thus dependent on experience-triggered neural activity. Disruption of this refinement process may be a common mechanism of autism-associated mutations.”

The work suggests that many genes, some yet unidentified, that contribute to this early learning process may be involved in autism.

Michael Greenberg, another member of the Harvard team, said: “Taken together, our findings suggest that experience-dependent learning could be relevant to autism, and that autism might result from any one of a number of genes that are part of the same signalling pathway.”

Thomas Insel, director of the US National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the research, said: “The emerging picture of the genetics of autism is quite surprising. There appear to be many separate mutations involved, with each family having a different genetic cause.

“The one unifying observation from this new report is that all of the relevant mutations could disrupt the formation of vital neural connections during a critical period when experience is shaping the developing brain.”

Clarence Schutt, of the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, another funder, said: “This publication a big event in the world of autism research.”

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New Study Firmly Ties Hormone Use to Breast Cancer (Foxnews, 081214)

SAN ANTONIO — Taking menopause hormones for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer, according to a new analysis of a big federal study that reveals the most dramatic evidence yet of the dangers of these still-popular pills.

Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting cancer. And when they stopped taking them, their odds quickly improved, returning to a normal risk level roughly two years after quitting.

Collectively, these new findings are likely to end any doubt that the risks outweigh the benefits for most women.

It is clear that breast cancer rates plunged in recent years mainly because millions of women quit hormone therapy and fewer newly menopausal women started on it, said the study’s leader, Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

“It’s an excellent message for women: You can still diminish risk (by quitting), even if you’ve been on hormones for a long time,” said Dr. Claudine Isaacs of Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. “It’s not like smoking where you have to wait 10 or 15 years for the risk to come down.”

Study results were given Saturday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

They are from the Women’s Health Initiative, which tested estrogen and progestin pills that doctors long believed would prevent heart disease, bone loss and many other problems in women after menopause. The main part of the study was stopped in 2002 when researchers saw surprisingly higher risks of heart problems and breast cancer in hormone users.

Since then, experts have debated whether these risks apply to women who start on hormones when they enter menopause, usually in their 50s, and take them for shorter periods of time. Most of the women in the federal study were in their 60s and well past menopause.

So the advice has been to use hormones only if symptoms like hot flashes are severe, and at the lowest dose and shortest time possible. The new study sharpens that message, Chlebowski said.

“It does change the balance” on whether to start on treatment at all, he said.

Even so, most women will not get breast cancer by taking the pills short-term. The increased cancer risk from a couple of years of hormone use translates to a few extra cases of breast cancer a year for every 1,000 women on hormones. This risk accumulates with each year of use, though.

The Women’s Health Initiative study had two parts. In one, 16,608 women closely matched for age, weight and other health factors were randomly assigned to take either Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ Prempro — estrogen and progestin — or dummy pills.

This part was halted when researchers saw a 26% higher risk of breast cancer in those on Prempro.

But that was an average over the 5 1/2 years women were on the pills. For the new study, researchers tracked 15,387 of these women through July 2005, and plotted breast cancer cases as they occurred over time.

They saw a clear trend: Risk rose with the start of use, peaked when the study ended and fell as nearly all hormone users stopped taking their pills. At the peak, the breast cancer risk for pill takers was twice that of the others.

Think of it as President Bush’s public approval rating, said another study leader, Dr. Peter Ravdin of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“Bush’s popularity may be 50% on average, but it might have been descending the whole time he was president,” Ravdin said.

In the second part of the federal study, researchers observed just 16,121 women who had already been on hormones for an average of seven years and another group of 25,328 women who had never used them. No results on breast cancer risk in these women have been given until now.

Plotting cases over time, researchers saw in retrospect that hormone users had started out with twice the risk of breast cancer as the others, and it fell as use declined. Among those taking hormones at the start of the study, use dropped to 41% in 2003, the year after the main results made news.

In the general population, use of hormone products has dropped 70% since the study, said another of its leaders, Dr. JoAnn Manson, preventive medicine chief at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

That corresponds with big drops in breast cancer cases, but some scientists have said this could be due to a fall-off in mammograms, which would mean fewer cancers were being detected, not necessarily that fewer were occurring.

The new study puts that theory to rest. Mammography rates were virtually the same among those taking hormones and those not.

“It is clear that changing mammography patterns cannot explain the dramatic reductions in breast cancer risk,” Manson said.

“The data are getting stronger,” said Dr. C. Kent Osborne, a breast cancer specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Women who do need the pills should not panic, though the doubling of risk — a 100% increase — for long-term users is quite worrisome, cancer specialists say. Although the new study does not calculate risks in terms of actual cases, previous research showed that the average increased risk of 26% meant a difference of a few extra cases a year for every 1,000 women on hormone pills, compared with nonusers.

“Hormone therapy remains a good health care choice to relieve moderate to severe menopausal symptoms,” says a statement from Wyeth, which made the pills used in the study.

“Most women should be able to discontinue hormones in three to four years,” or at least reduce their dose, Manson said.

A future analysis will look at other women in the study who took only estrogen, generally women who have had hysterectomies.

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World’s oldest person dies at the age of 115 (National Post, 090102)

LISBON — The world’s oldest living person, Portuguese national Maria de Jesus, died Friday at the age of 115, the Lusa news agency reported.

Born Sept. 10, 1893, Maria de Jesus became the world’s oldest living person after the death of American Edna Parker on Nov. 26, also aged 115.

A family member told the Lusa news agency that de Jesus died while en route to hospital.

De Jesus was born in a poor area in Urquiera, close to Ourem in central Portugal. She started working in agriculture at the age of 12 and never went to school, remaining unable to write and read for her entire life.

After marrying, she moved to the town of Corujo with her husband where she brought up her six children.

De Jesus never “fell ill, nor took any medication,” her daughter Maria Madalena told Lusa.

After the death of Maria de Jesus, American Gertrude Baines, born April 6, 1894, becomes the world’s oldest person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

The Los Angeles-based organization keeps a database of people worldwide who are more than 110 years old.

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Morbid H1N1 Video Game Features Graveyards, Bedridden Patients (Foxnews, 090817)

Since swine flu first emerged in April, it has sparked panic, vaccine production and now, a video game.

In an effort to further raise awareness, Dutch researchers have created a game that challenges players to control a new pandemic.

“It is actually what is happening now, what is happening in the real world,” said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center, who designed “The Great Flu” game with colleagues.

The game can only be played online at http://www.thegreatflu.com and it is free. A World Health Organization spokesman said Monday the agency was not familiar with the game and had not had time to play it.

WHO has reported nearly 178,000 cases of swine flu including 1,462 deaths worldwide, though those numbers are believed to be a gross underestimate of the actual caseload, since hard-hit countries no longer test all cases with flu-like symptoms.

As the virus has spread worldwide, countries have tried different methods to slow it down and pharmaceutical companies are now racing to produce a swine flu vaccine.

The game begins with images of bedridden patients and graveyards from the 1918 Spanish flu. As the head of the fictitious “World Pandemic Control,” players pick a flu strain, and then monitor that strain’s spread around the world.

To fight the emerging outbreak, players use measures including setting up surveillance systems, stockpiling antivirals and vaccines, and closing schools and airports. Players also have a limited budget and are warned that “your actions to control the virus cost money, so keep an eye on it.”

A running tally of the numbers of people infected and those who have died sit above the budget. Newspaper stories about the deadly virus and the global response to it — like riots breaking out worldwide — pop up to help players monitor the outbreak.

Messages from governments mirror the difficulties faced by international agencies like WHO. For instance, when players set up costly surveillance systems, the game often relays a message from governments that “we will comply with your directions...but we must inform you that the political support for this action is low in this region. Therefore, the effectiveness of the system may differ from your expectations.”

Osterhaus said the video game’s approximation of combating a pandemic, choosing between various interventions yet still watching the outbreak spread, gives people a sense of how difficult it is to make decisions in the public health world.

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H1N1 Could Kill as Many as 30,000 to 90,000 in U.S., Report Says (Foxnews, 090824)

The H1N1 flu virus could cause as many as 30,000 and 90,000 deaths in the United States and "poses a serious health threat" the Obama administration's advisory group on Science and Technology said in a report released Monday.

Deaths would be concentrated among children and young adults, according to the report. In contrast, the typical seasonal flu kills between 30,000 and 40,000 annually — mainly among people over 65.

The report predicts 1.8 million will be hospitalized during the epidemic, with up to 300,000 patients requiring intensive care units.

These patients could occupy 50-100% of all ICU beds in affected regions at the peak of the epidemic and would place "enormous stress" on ICU units.

More needs to be done to speed up the "preparation of flu vaccine for distribution to high-risk individuals," otherwise the vaccine campaign – currently scheduled to begin in mid October — will have potentially missed the peak of the epidemic, according to the report.

Monday’s report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, PCAST, shows a sober assessment of the dangers of a pandemic, but also serves as a pat on the back for a White House preparing for its first public health crisis.

"Based on the history of influenza pandemics over the past hundred years, PCAST places the current outbreak somewhere between the two extremes that have informed public opinion about influenza," states the report. "On the one hand, the 2009-H1N1 virus does not thus far seem to show the virulence associated with the devastating pandemic of 1918-19. On the other hand, the 2009-H1N1 virus is a serious threat to our nation and the world."

This is due to the likelihood that more people will be infected because so few people have immunity to the strain.

As a result, PCAST recommends that the Food and Drug Administration "accelerate a decision about the availability of antiviral drugs for intravenous use." The current expectation is that the vaccine will be available in mid-October.

PCAST says under its model scenario, "the resurgence of the epidemic would start in September and peak in mid-October. If this model is approximately correct with respect to timing, a vaccination campaign would not begin to protect vaccines until well after the epidemic had peaked."

Other recommendations include:

—- designating an individual, preferably the Homeland Security Advisor, to be responsible for coordinating all policy development for the 2009-H1N1 response;

—- identifying and protecting high risk groups;

—- that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) clarify and strengthen its guidelines for use of antiviral drugs, including for treatment, pre-exposure, and post-exposure prophylaxis etc;

— that the CDC launch a "robust communications plan" prior to September 1 for public messages regarding medical and non-medical interventions.

Despite the long ‘to-do’ list, the Obama administration has thus far done a good job of preparing for a national outbreak, according to Harold Varmus, PCAST co-chair and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

"The Federal Government’s response has been truly impressive and we’ve all been pleased to see the high level of cooperation among the many departments and agencies that are gearing up for the expected fall resurgence of H1N1 flu," he said.

PCAST is an advisory group made up of scientists and engineers that advise the President. Earlier this summer, President Obama asked PCAST to evaluate the 2009 H1N1 epidemic and the federal government’s response.

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Black Pastors Criticized for Endorsing Obama Health Care Plan (Christian Post, 090929)

A group of black pro-life ministers were blasted by fellow pastors Monday for endorsing President Obama’s plan to reform the health care system.

In a statement distributed to various news outlets, the black pastors expressed their “outrage” over last week’s endorsement by ministers in the historically black Church of God in Christ (COGIC), who they criticized for “merely parroting” Obama’s claim that federal funding of abortion is not included in his health care plan, rather than reading and evaluating for themselves the legislation he is pushing.

“If unborn children cannot depend on the Church to carefully examine this bill to see if their lives will be protected from state-funded genocide, on whom can they depend?” said the church leaders.

Signers of the statement included Dr. Johnny Hunter of L.E.A.R.N. (Life Education and Resource Network), the Rev. Walter B. Hope of Issues4Life Foundation, Dr. Levon R. Yuille of National Black Pro-Life Congress, and Pastor Stephen E. Broden of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, among others.

Monday’s statement was in direct response to the actions of Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., head of the six-million-member Church of God in Christ, who last week led a group of black ministers in endorsing the president’s embattled health care reform plan.

Though Blake had carefully addressed the issue of abortion funding in the plan by echoing Obama’s statement that no tax dollars will fund the procedure, a number of public policy experts have noted that such a plan remains to be seen.

Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission noted earlier this month that the features Obama has described in “my plan” and “my health care proposal” do not exist in any of the bills Congress is working on.

“I don’t know what plan the president is talking about,” Duke wrote in a column following Obama’s address to Congress. “They (the features) aren’t in the liberal Democrats’ bills. They aren’t in any bill from the Blue Dog Democrats, who haven’t written one. They aren’t in the Republicans’ bills, and there are at least five that Republicans are trying to get people to notice.”

In the statement Monday, the black leaders encouraged COGIC leaders to read and evaluate the president’s plan, including the Capps-Waxman Amendment, rather than “merely parroting his words.”

“We recommend in the strongest terms possible that this endorsement be withdrawn until such time that the Obama administration adds language to the health care proposal that specifically prohibits taxpayer funded abortions,” they concluded.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion and an average of 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States

Notably, Blake and the other ministers who endorsed the health care bill are against abortion and are considered social conservatives.

With a membership of over five million, COGIC is the largest African-American and largest Pentecostal church body in the United States. [KH: ??] Internationally, the denomination has up to seven million members.

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FOX News Poll: Opposition to Health Care Reform Grows (Foxnews, 091002)

A majority of Americans oppose current health care legislation and think the plans being considered cost too much, give too much power to Washington and take decisions away from them and their doctors.

As Congress takes action on health care reform, public opinion on the issue remains divided and, at times, contradictory. The latest FOX News poll shows a decline in support for health care reform over the past two weeks.

Currently, one-third favors the legislation being considered (33%) and a slight majority (53%) opposes it. This compares to 38% favoring and 48% opposing the legislation two weeks ago (15-16 September 2009).

Americans are split along party lines in their support of health reform. A majority of Democrats favors the legislation (60%) while a large majority of Republicans opposes it (85%). Independents, an important swing group, are more likely to oppose health reform than favor it (57% oppose and 27% favor).

The poll was conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corp. from September 29 to September 30 for FOX News among 900 registered voters. The poll has a 3-point error margin.

Americans' beliefs about what would happen if health care reform legislation were to pass sheds light on why opposition may be growing. Majorities agree the plans being considered cost too much money (62%), give too much power to Washington (60%) and take decision-making away from them and their doctor (54%).

This last number is particularly important. The failure of President Clinton's attempt at health care reform is often attributed to the public's belief that it would lead to a loss of personal control over health care decisions.

However, while Americans are concerned about what will happen to their own health care if reform passes, they are also concerned about what will happen to others if reform does not pass. Three out of four are concerned that Congress will pass reform legislation that is bad for them and their family (49% very concerned and 25% somewhat concerned).

At the same time, a large majority (70%) is concerned that if Congress fails to pass health reform, many Americans will be left without insurance (41% very concerned and 29% somewhat concerned).

A majority of Americans are also willing to pay more for their health insurance in order to provide insurance for all Americans (60%). Just over one in three would pay $100 more per year (35%), while about one in five would pay $500 or more (25%). One-third of Americans (33%) volunteer the fact that they would pay nothing extra.

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Morbid H1N1 Video Game Features Graveyards, Bedridden Patients (Foxnews, 090817)

Since swine flu first emerged in April, it has sparked panic, vaccine production and now, a video game.

In an effort to further raise awareness, Dutch researchers have created a game that challenges players to control a new pandemic.

As the virus has spread worldwide, countries have tried different methods to slow it down and pharmaceutical companies are now racing to produce a swine flu vaccine.

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National Post editorial board: Canadian health care is no model (National Post, 090818)

The last two presidents of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) have both been staunch advocates of increased private care. The incoming president, Anne Doig of Saskatoon, who will be installed this week, says our health-care system is “imploding.” While not as committed to private options as her predecessors, Dr. Doig acknowledges our current universal public system is “unsustainable.” She also argues we should not fear private options, but rather should implement whatever models from around the world — be they public or private — that produce the best results for patients. On the other hand, the physician who will replace Dr. Doig next summer, Ottawa’s Dr. Jeff Turnbull, promises to be a passionate defender of the government health monopoly during his one-year term.

Overall, then, three of the four most-recent CMA presidents and presidents-elect have argued to varying degrees that private options for patients are inevitable; just one believes our current government-administered system can be prolonged. Only a dogmatic left-wing outlet such as the Toronto Star editorial page would view this —as it argued in an editorial on Sunday — as proof that a “fresh [pro-medicare] approach may be taking hold” at the CMA, an approach that will “ensure the reactionary American debate over the future of its health care does not poison our own.”

Like most defenders of Canada’s health monopoly, the Star misses the point of what is going on Stateside. Contrary to what one might conclude from the clucking and preening exhibited by Canada’s friends of medicare, not even those Americans backing guaranteed care for all are holding out our system as their ideal.

No one in the United States, for example, is calling for a Canada Health Act-like ban on private insurance. Even Barack Obama, while allowing that our system may work for us, was emphatic that the Canadian system “would not work for the United States.” No mainstream U. S. politician is calling for the closure of private clinics.

Indeed, fewer and fewer countries believe, as medicare’s defenders do, that it should be illegal for ordinary citizens to use their own after-tax dollars to buy supplemental care. Even major countries with cradle-to-grave social benefits such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain, all permit their citizens private options. All allow user fees. Most also permit surgeons to charge thousands of dollars extra for non-emergency, non-life threatening operations, including hip replacements. Even Sweden, long the utopian ideal of the Canadian left, has recently permitted private clinics and hospitals to compete to provide publicly funded procedures. And the Scandinavian sky has not fallen.

Dr. Doig is neither categorically in favour of private options nor fundamentally opposed. She wants Canadians instead to debate what care they want and how they want it paid for. That strikes us as quite sensible. It is unfortunate her successor is not similarly enlightened.

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Jump in number of global swine flu deaths (Foxnews, 091127)

The global number of swine flu deaths has jumped by more than 1,000 in a week, latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show.

At least 7,826 people are now known to have died following infection with the H1N1 virus since it first emerged in Mexico in April.

Europe saw an 85% increase in the week, with the total number of deaths rising from at least 350 to at least 650.

However, in most cases the virus continues to produce mild symptoms.

An overwhelming majority of patients usually recover, even without medical treatment, within a week.

The biggest rise in deaths was recorded in the Americas, where the death toll rose to 5,360 - a rise of 554 cases in one week.

Health authorities in Norway and France have each recorded two fatalities from a mutated strain of H1N1.

China, Japan, Norway, Ukraine and the US have also recorded cases of people being infected with a mutated strain.

Uncertainty

French health officials confirmed that two patients infected by a mutation that was also recently detected in Norway had died in two different cities in France.

SWINE FLU SYMPTOMS

Human body with internal organs

1. High temperature, tiredness and lowered immunity

2. Headache, runny nose and sneezing

3. Sore throat

4. Shortness of breath

5. Loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhoea

6. Aching muscles, limb and joint pain

“This mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue,” said a statement from the government’s Health Surveillance Institute.

The French institute added that, in the case of one of the patients who died, the mutation was accompanied by another mutation known to confer resistance to the main drug being used to treat swine flu, which is sold under the brand name Tamiflu.

It was the first drug-resistant strain found in France among the 1,200 strains experts have analysed here, it said.

Speaking on Thursday, Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s special adviser on pandemic influenza, said that conclusions had still to be drawn about the reported mutations.

“The question is whether these mutations suggest that there is a fundamental change going on in viruses out there - whether there’s a turn for the worse in terms of severity,” he said.

“The answer right now is that we are not sure.”

Dr Fukuda noted that mutations were common in influenza viruses.

“If every mutation is reported out there it would be like reporting changes in the weather,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do when we see reports of mutations is to identify if these mutations are leading to any kinds of changes in the clinical picture - do they cause more severe or less severe disease?

“Also we’re trying to see if these viruses are increasing out there as that would suggest a change in epidemiology.”

In his latest survey of swine flu developments, the WHO notes that many countries have stopped counting individual cases of swine flu, particularly of milder illness, and the case count is likely to be significantly lower than the actual number of cases that have occurred.

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Study: H1N1 May Be Less Severe than Feared (Foxnews, 091209)

The theoretical worst case scenarios associated with this year’s H1N1 pandemic taught us not to take influenza for granted. However, a new study suggests the worst case scenario for H1N1 may be only slightly more deadly than a typical outbreak of seasonal flu — and, in a best case scenario, much less.

In the study, published in the Public Library of Science journal, “PLoS Medicine,” researchers analyzed extensive data from outbreaks in Milwaukee and New York from April to July to get a more accurate picture of the risks associated with the virus.

Among their major findings, approximately 1 in 70 people with symptoms of pandemic H1N1 required hospitalization. About 1 in 400 symptomatic cases required treatment. And approximately 1 in 2,000 people who had H1N1 symptoms died.

Estimates of severity fell even lower (by 7 to 9 times) when researchers took into account a New York telephone survey in which respondents self-reported incidence of flu-like illness in their families.

The study’s authors conclude, “These estimates suggest that an autumn-winter pandemic wave of pH1N1 with comparable severity per case could lead to a number of deaths in the range from considerably below that associated with seasonal influenza to slightly higher.”

Each year, seasonal flu claims an estimated 36 thousand lives in this country. The elderly are at highest risk. Whereas, H1N1 disproportionately affects people under 65.

Public health officials say vaccination is the best way to avoid getting influenza and spreading it to others. After weeks of shortages, H1N1 vaccine supplies are plentiful enough that some states and municipalities have expanded immunization campaigns beyond the groups at highest risk for the disease.

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Scientists Crack Genetic Codes of 2 Cancers in Giant Step Forward (Foxnews, 091217)

The complete genetic codes of two human cancers have been mapped for the first time. The move could herald a medical revolution in which every tumor can be targeted with personalized therapy.

The exhaustive genetic maps, which catalogue every DNA mutation found in two patients’ tumors, will transform treatment of the disease. It has been described as the most significant milestone in cancer research in more than a decade.

Scientists predict that by about 2020 all cancer patients could have their tumors analyzed to find the genetic defects that drive them. This information would then be used to select the treatments most likely to work.

Insights from the genomes will also lead to the development of powerful drugs to target DNA errors that cause cancer and highlight ways in which the disease can be prevented. Cancers would be diagnosed and treated according to their genetic profiles rather than their position in the body.

“The pace at which genomics is moving is probably the most exciting thing that’s gone on in cancer research in more than a decade,” said Professor Sir John Bell, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences. “These cancer genome projects are a major landmark, as significant as the sequencing of the human genome itself.”

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Certain Chinese herbs linked to increased cancer risk (National Post, 091221)

The consumption of popular Chinese herbal products containing aristolochic acid is associated with an increased risk of urinary tract cancer, a study in Taiwan has found.

Aristolochic acid, known as Mu Tong in Chinese, is found naturally in some herbs that are used in Chinese herbal products to treat hepatitis, urinary tract infection, rhinitis, dysmenorrhea and eczema.

While studies in the past have linked urothelial cancer to the use of aristolochic acid, this is the first study to see if the same association can be made between cancer and herbal products containing aristolochic acid.

In the new study, researchers in Taiwan analyzed the medical history of 4,594 patients with urinary tract cancer and compared the findings with those of 174,701 other people without the disease.

In a paper published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the researchers said those who consumed Mu Tong had a far higher risk of developing urinary tract cancer, and the level of risk rose the higher the dosages prescribed.

Led by Jung-Der Wang at the Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene in National Taiwan University, the researchers called for a ban on products containing Mu Tong.

“In addition to a ban on products that contain any amount of aristolochic acid, we also recommend continued surveillance of herbs or Chinese herbal products that might be adulterated with aristolochic acid-containing herbs,” they wrote.

“Finally, patients with a history of aristolochic acid nephropathy or consumption of Mu Tong or Fangchi before they were banned should be monitored regularly for urinary cancer.”

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Sugary soft drinks linked to pancreatic cancer: study (Yahoo news, 100208)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - People who drink at least two sugary sodas a week have an increased risk of developing cancer of the pancreas, and researchers suspect the culprit is sugar, a new study shows.

Analyses of data collected on 60,524 Singapore Chinese adults showed that people who drank two or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks a week were at greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared with individuals who did not, the study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention says.

No link was found between drinking juice and pancreatic cancer, which is one of the most rapidly fatal cancers in adults, with less than five percent of patients surviving five years or more after being diagnosed with the illness.

The study was the first to look at the role fizzy drinks and juice play in the development of pancreatic cancer in Asians, whose diet and lifestyle are becoming more and more Western, the study says. Previous studies had looked at Europeans and Americans.

Participants in the study who consumed two or more sodas per week tended to be younger men who smoke, drink alcohol, eat higher-calorie diets and are less physically active.

They also ate more red meat, the study found.

The findings of the study were adjusted for other dietary factors which have been linked with pancreatic cancer, such as consumption of red meat.

“But the adjustments did not change the link between soda and the risk of pancreas cancer,” said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota’s division of epidemiology and community health, one of the authors of the study.

“We suspect sugar is the culprit, but we cannot prove it from this study,” Pereira told AFP, adding that the researchers only looked at carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages, not sports drinks or diet soft drinks.

“A typical serving of soda is 20 ounces and contains 65 grams of sugar. By comparison, a typical serving of orange juice is eight ounces and contains 21 grams of sugar,” Pereira said.

Fizzy drinks are “the leading sources of added sugar in the US diet” and greatly contribute to hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, and hyperinsulemia — when the amount of insulin in the blood is higher than normal — the study says.

Insulin is produced by the pancreas and helps regulate blood sugar.

If the findings of the study are confirmed, then cutting out sugar-sweetened sodas would be a way to reduce the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, and this would be “important due to the poor prognosis and minimal effect of conventional treatment methods” for the cancer, the study says.

The data analyzed for the soda study came from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, which enrolled more than 63,000 Singapore Chinese who lived in government housing estates — as nearly nine in 10 people in Singapore do — and looked at their diets, physical activity and medical history, among others.

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Red wine and dark chocolate cancer killers: researcher (Yahoo news, 100211)

LONG BEACH, California (AFP) - Cabernet and chocolate are potent medicine for killing cancer, according to research presented here Wednesday.

Red grapes and dark chocolate join blueberries, garlic, soy, and teas as ingredients that starve cancer while feeding bodies, Angiogenesis Foundation head William Li said at a prestigious TED Conference.

“We are rating foods based on their cancer-fighting qualities,” Li said. “What we eat is really our chemotherapy three times a day.”

The Massachusetts-based foundation is identifying foods containing chemicals that evidently choke-off blood supplies to tumors, starving them to death.

Li cited a Harvard Medical School study showing that men who ate cooked tomatoes several times weekly were 30 to 50% less likely to have prostate cancer.

“There is a medical revolution happening all around us,” Li said. “If we’re right, it could impact on consumer education, food service, public health, and even insurance agencies.”

About a dozen drugs are already in use to deprive tumors of blood supplies in a treatment tactic called “anti-angiogenesis”.

The foundation pitted some foods against approved drugs and found that soy, parsley, red grapes, berries and other comestibles were either as effective or more potent in battling cancer cells.

Eaten together, the foods were even more effective in fighting cancer.

“We discovered that Mother Nature laced a large number of foods and herbs with anti-angiogenesis features,” Li said. “For many people around the world, dietary cancer treatment may be the only solution because not everyone can afford cancer drugs.”

The foundation also discovered that anti-angiogenesis properties of foods melt away fat, which relies heavily on blood flow to sustain itself.

Tests showed that mice genetically prone to be chubby could be trimmed to average mouse size using the approach. “It got weight down to a set point for normal mice,” Li said. “In other words, we can’t create supermodel mice.”

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Relatives Claim Cuban Woman Just Turned 125-Years-Old (Foxnews, 100209)

HAVANA — Relatives in eastern Cuba claim to have held a 125th birthday party for a woman named Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez, but it is not clear if she is really that old.

The state-run news agency Prensa Latina reported on the party last weekend in the city of Bayamo in Granma province, attended by Rodriguez’s family, including 15 great-grand children and four great-great-grandchildren.

Prensa Latina said Rodriguez, known affectionately as “Candulia,” is “presumably the oldest person on the planet, although that has not been confirmed.”

In a phone interview with Cuban media, Rodriguez said she was happy and looking forward to many great years ahead.

The agency added that civil registry documents confirm she was born on Feb. 2, 1885, in the village of Santa Rosa, where she continues to live.

The Guinness Book of World Records says it has never heard of the case.

“We currently have not received a claim relating to the individual,” spokesman Philip Robertson told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Robertson said Guinness gets claims via its Web site about once a week involving people who say they or someone they know have broken age records. After an especially old person’s age is verified, or death is reported, the number of claims usually spikes.

He said the company only sends genealogists and other experts to trace family histories for the most promising reports, however, and few are authenticated.

Guinness is currently reviewing claims for the oldest living person after Georgia-native Gertrude Baines died last year at 115.

The highest fully authenticated age was 122 years, 164 days by Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in 1997 in Arles, France.

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Studies: Belief in God relieves depression (Washington Times, 100225)

The “Big Man Upstairs” is getting accolades from mental health specialists who say they are finding that a belief in God plays a positive role in the treatment of anxiety and depression.

University of Toronto psychologists reported last year that “believing in God can help block anxiety and minimize stress,” their research showcasing “distinct brain differences” between believers and nonbelievers.

A new study released Wednesday by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago took the idea a step further.

In patients diagnosed with clinical depression, “belief in a concerned God can improve response to medical treatment,” said the new research, which has been published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

The operative term here is “caring,” the researchers said. “The study found that those with strong beliefs in a personal and concerned God were more likely to experience an improvement.”

The researchers compared the levels of melancholy or hopelessness in 136 adults diagnosed with major depression or bipolar depression with their sense of “religious well-being.” They found participants who scored in the top third of a scale charting a sense of religious well-being were 75% more likely to get better with medical treatment for clinical depression.

“In our study, the positive response to medication had little to do with the feeling of hope that typically accompanies spiritual belief,” said study director Patricia Murphy, a chaplain at Rush and an assistant professor of religion, health and human values.

“It was tied specifically to the belief that a Supreme Being cared,” she said.

“For people diagnosed with clinical depression, medication certainly plays an important role in reducing symptoms,” Ms. Murphy added. “But when treating persons diagnosed with depression, clinicians need to be aware of the role of religion in their patients’ lives. It is an important resource in planning their care.”

Public opinion polls — from Gallup to the Pew Research Center — reveal that large majorities of Americans believe in God. It is a factor among the researchers as well.

Data released last year by sociologists from the University of California at Berkeley, in fact, revealed that 93% of the nation believes in God, a finding that has remained unchanged since 1988.

The Canadian researchers who found that belief in God lowers anxiety and stress also based their conclusions on measurements — monitoring the brain activities of believers and nonbelievers charged with some challenging tasks.

“We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors,” said Michael Inzlicht, assistant psychology professor at the University of Toronto, who led the research.

“They’re much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error,” he said.

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Oba-Kabuki: A Box-Office Bomb (townhall.com, 100226)

by Michelle Malkin

The Oba-Kabuki health care show at Blair House kicked off with a big lie on Thursday morning — and it all went downhill from there. The taxpayer-funded infomercial backfired by exposing the president’s thin skin, the Democrats’ naked disingenuousness and the ruling majority’s allergies to political and policy realities.

Responding to Sen. Lamar Alexander’s opening call for Democrats to renounce parliamentary tactics designed to limit debate, circumvent filibusters and lower the threshold for passage of health care reform to a simple 51-vote majority, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sputtered indignantly: “No one’s talking about reconciliation!” Everybody and their mother has been invoking the “R” word on Capitol Hill, starting with Reid.

In a letter on Feb. 16, four Democratic senators pushed Reid to adopt the procedure, normally reserved for budget matters. A few days later, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs discussed the option. Then Reid himself talked up reconciliation on a Nevada public affairs show as an option to ram the government health care takeover through in the next 60 days.

According to The Hill, Reid said that “congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make final changes to its health care bill with only a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster.” A few days after that, Reid snapped that Republicans “should stop crying” about the abrogation of Senate minority rights, since the GOP had used the reconciliation process in the past.

So, the cleanest, most ethical holier-than-thou Congress ever is now defending the unprecedented adoption of ram-down rules for a radical, multitrillion-dollar program to usurp one-seventh of the economy on the grounds of “two wrongs make it right”? Hope and change, baby.

For his part, President Obama responded with one part pique and two parts diffidence. After the summit lunch break, Republicans pushed the reconciliation issue again in the face of the Democrats’ refusal to disavow the short-circuiting of the deliberative process. “The American people,” an annoyed Obama asserted, “are not all that interested in procedures inside the Senate.” Oh, really? A new USA Today/Gallup poll reports that 52% of Americans oppose using the procedural maneuver to pass the health care bill in the Senate.

The survey also showed that Americans oppose Demcare-style health care “reform” by 49% to 42% — with those “strongly” opposed outnumbering those “strongly” in favor by 23% to 11%. Obama’s best and brightest team of Chicago strategists, new-media gurus and communications specialists still hasn’t figured it out: Voters are as fed up with the corrupt process in Washington as they are with the White House’s overreaching policies. It’s both, stupid.

When he wasn’t cutting off Republicans who stuck to budget specifics and cited legislative page numbers and language instead of treacly, sob-story anecdotes involving dentures and gallstones, Obama was filibustering the talk-a-thon away by invoking his daughters, rambling on about auto insurance and sniping at former GOP presidential rival John McCain. “We’re not campaigning anymore,” lectured the perpetual campaigner-in-chief.

After ostentatiously disputing the GOP’s claims that health care premiums would rise under his plan, Obama walked it back. Confronted with more GOP pushback on the failure of Demcare to control costs, Obama told GOP Rep. Paul Ryan that he’d rather not “get bogged down in numbers.” Not numbers that he couldn’t cook on the spot without staff consultation, anyway.

Obama and the Democrats labored mightily to create the illusion of almost-there bipartisanship by repeatedly telling disagreeing Republicans that “we don’t disagree” and “there’s not a lot of difference” between us. But the dogs weren’t riding the ponies in this show.

This was a set-up from the start. The “we’re so close” mantra is the rhetorical wedge the White House will use to blame Republicans for fatal obstructionism, while whitewashing festering opposition from both pro-life Democrats who oppose the government funding of abortion services still in the plan and left-wing progressives in the House who are clinging to a full, unadulterated public option.

While Republicans came off well, the six-hour blowhard-fest was a monumental waste of time. Obamacare Theater tied up GOP energy and resources as the White House readies its “Plan B” (expanding government health care coverage, just at a slower pace) and Democratic leaders prep their reconciliation ram-down for early next week. This Washington box-office bomb is a prelude to much bigger legislative horrors still to come. Don’t you love farce?

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U.S. Reps, Christians Assure Senate Health Bill Is Pro-Life (Christian Post, 100319)

Ahead of the expected health care bill vote this weekend, pro-life Christian leaders and members of Congress assured Americans that there is no federal funding for abortion in the Senate version.

Catholic and evangelical leaders joined pro-life congressmen Thursday in support of the Senate health care bill, which they touted as pro-life on many fronts. The bill would cover more than 30 million uninsured Americans, provide critical support for pregnant women and does not provide federal funding for abortion, the leaders asserted.

“We must not lose sight of what is at stake here – the lives of 31 million American children, adults, and seniors who don’t have health insurance,” said Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.). “I will be 81 years old in September. Certainly at this point in my life I’m not going to change my mind and support abortion and I’m not going to risk my eternal salvation.”

Congress, Washington and the nation have been divided by the question of whether the Senate health care bill allows for tax dollars to pay for elective abortion. Within Congress the question has not only divided members along party lines but even within the Democratic Party.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is leading a band of pro-life House Democrats who threaten to oppose the bill because of the abortion issue. Stupak said his group wants the Senate version to add language similar to the House’s Stupak-Pitts amendment, which clearly bans tax dollars from paying for abortion.

“My group of 12 [Democrats] here can make the difference on this vote,” he said Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Many pro-life and conservative groups likewise oppose the Senate bill because it lacks the Stupak-Pitts language on abortion. These groups have mobilized pro-life Americans across the nation to flood the offices of members of Congress with letters and phone calls expressing their opposition to the bill in its current form.

But Francis Xavier Doyle, former associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Morna Murray, president of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good; and Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action believe the Senate version is pro-life. They joined the pro-life congressmen on Thursday to show support for the Senate health bill.

“It is a moral outrage for the richest nation in history to leave 47 million of its people without health insurance,” said Sider. “This legislation substantially extends coverage and also retains the long-standing stance of the Hyde Amendment against federal funding of abortion. It will save thousands of lives, cover millions of people, and prevent federal funding of abortion.”

Sider was among the evangelical leaders that signed a letter last week to members of Congress that details how the Senate bill is pro-life.

Other evangelical leaders that signed the letter included the Rev. Jim Wallis, president and CEO of Sojourners; Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church; Dr. David P. Gushee, chair of New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good; and Brian McLaren, author and founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church. [KH: mostly liberals]

Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-Ohio) said Thursday, “I’m opposed to abortion, and I think the language in the Senate bill ensures that there will be no federal funding of abortions.”

“As a pro-life Catholic, I want to thank the religious leaders gathered today for making this issue even clearer,” he said.

President Obama is scheduled to speak about health care reform Friday afternoon in Virginia. He has traveled to several cities in the past two weeks to rally public support for the health care legislation in the House. Health care reform is President Obama’s top domestic priority.

The House will likely vote on the health care legislation Sunday.

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The Coming Consequences of Obamacare (townhall.com, 100323)

by Byron York

For some of the brightest, most politically aware people in the country, the yearlong debate over the Democrats’ national healthcare plan has been an inspiring experience. It has inspired them to run for Congress as Republicans. Dr. Larry Bucshon is one of them. A heart surgeon in Evansville, Ind., Bucshon watched the first months of Barack Obama’s presidency with growing alarm. “It became clear to me that what he said in the campaign — big government, more spending, more federal-government control — was what he was really going to do,” says Bucshon. By last summer, as the president and congressional Democrats turned to health care, Bucshon was thinking about running for the House from Indiana’s 8th District. By October, he had joined the race. Bucshon is just one of what House GOP leaders believe is the best class of new candidates in many years. “So far, our successful recruitment efforts have helped produce over 95 top GOP recruits,” says Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is leading the recruitment drive for the National Republican Congressional Committee. And those are just the hot prospects in potentially winnable districts; there will also be Republican challengers for even the safest Democratic seats. Talk to the new candidates, and they’re worried about the entire scope of Obama policy. But an indicator of the specific effect of Obamacare is the unusually large number of new recruits — 31 — who come from the medical profession. Twenty-four are doctors. The GOP already has a significant advantage in the number of physicians-turned-lawmakers — at the Obama healthcare summit, the Republicans brought three doctors to the table, while the Democrats brought none — and that advantage will probably grow in 2011. That gives them a special authority on what will surely be a continuing debate over Obamacare. “I think it will basically decimate the healthcare system in America,” Bucshon says. “The number of doctors who are going to retire, and the number of young people who are no longer going to go into medicine, will be massive.” But no matter what line of work the candidates come from, Republicans are growing more and more confident. “When we started out recruiting, right after the Obama win, the president had an approval rating of about 72% and we had just gotten through losing about 50 seats in the last two cycles,” says Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, who is playing a key role the GOP effort. “It wasn’t easy to recruit anybody.”

Then came Democratic overreach — stimulus, cap and trade, health care. After that came GOP victories in the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races. And then came Scott Brown’s Senate win in Massachusetts. A trickle of good candidates turned into a flood. There is Stephen Fincher in Tennessee, Cory Gardner in Colorado, Dennis Ross in Florida, Vaughn Ward in Idaho, Andy Harris in Maryland, Steve Stivers in Ohio, Pat Meehan in Pennsylvania, Tim Griffin in Arkansas and others. Westmoreland has talked to a lot of potential candidates in recruiting trips across the country. He hears the same thing over and over again. “Ninety-five percent say, ‘I never really thought about running for Congress,’” says Westmoreland. “They say, ‘I’m doing this to try to right the ship, to put the country back on the right course.’”

What are their chances? By historical standards, the party out of power would probably pick up seats this November, but all signs point to something much bigger than that. Last month, the respected political analyst Charlie Cook raised a lot of eyebrows when he told National Journal, “It’s very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don’t lose the House.” Democrats bristle when Republicans tell them they’re committing political suicide by pushing so hard on health care. Democratic strategists point out that Republicans don’t exactly have their best interests at heart. But don’t listen to what Republicans say. Watch what they do. The new candidates deeply believe the Obama administration has put the country on the wrong track. They sense weakness in Democrats who had to be strong-armed into voting for Obamacare. They feel the support of growing numbers of voters in their districts. They’re running hard, and they’re most likely going to leave a bunch of Democrats without jobs. Obamacare will have consequences.

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Cold Weather in Northern Climates Linked to Prostate Cancer (Foxnews, 100422)

A colder, cloudy climate could increase the risk of prostate cancer for men in northern regions of the globe, according to a study from Idaho State University.

Dr. Sophie St-Hilaire and her colleges found that the combination of the lack of sun and cold temperatures are what explain the higher rates of prostate cancer in the northern part of the world.

Low exposure to the sun can lead to vitamin D deficiency in men, which contributes to their prostate cancer risk.

The study, published in the International Journal of Health Geographics, showed that cold temperatures play a role by slowing the breakdown of industrial pollutants in the in environment that could trigger cancer. In addition, the frigid air is believed to pull chemicals from the atmosphere to the earth.

“We found that colder weather, and low rainfall, were strongly correlated with prostate cancer,” the Daily Express quoted St-Hilaire as saying.

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FDA Approves Breakthrough Cancer Vaccine (Foxnews, 100430)

A first-of-a-kind prostate cancer treatment that uses the body’s immune system to fight the disease received federal approval Thursday, offering an important alternative to more intensive treatments like chemotherapy.

Dendreon Corp.’s Provenge vaccine trains the immune system to fight tumors. It’s called a “vaccine” even though it treats disease rather than prevents it.

Doctors have been trying to develop such a therapy for decades, and Provenge is the first to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

“The big news here is that this is the first immunotherapy to win approval, and I suspect within five to ten years immunotherapies will be a big part of cancer therapy in general,” said Dr. Phil Kantoff, a professor of Harvard Medical School who helped run the studies of Provenge.

Currently doctors treat cancer by surgically removing tumors, attacking them with chemotherapy drugs or blasting them with radiation. Provenge offers an important fourth approach by directing the body’s natural defense mechanisms against the disease.

The drug is intended to treat prostate cancer that has spread elsewhere in the body and is not responding to hormone therapy.

Medical specialists hailed the approval as an important milestone, but stressed it will serve as an addition to current practice, not a replacement.

“This is just one step in a new pathway for treating patients,” said Dr. Simon Hall, chairman of urology at Mt. Sinai Hospital “We have to make them realize this isn’t a cure, it’s very variable.”

Company studies showed that taking Provenge added four months to the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer.

That may not sound like a lot, but it is longer than the three months afforded by Taxotere, the only chemotherapy approved for men in this situation. Doctors hope for even greater benefit if they give the drug earlier in the course of the disease.

Dendreon would give no cost estimate for Provenge, but analyst estimates range from between $60,000 to $100,000.

The approval marks a remarkable turnaround for Seattle-based Dendreon, whose shares plummeted three years ago when the FDA delayed a decision on the therapy, asking for more proof of safety and effectiveness.

Dendreon shares jumped 19% to new highs ahead of the news, rising to an all-time high of $47.32. Trading of the stock was halted at 12:34 p.m. Eastern, 35 minutes before the FDA announced its decision. At the time, Dendreon shares were up $5.88, or 14.8%, at $45.50.

The company does not have any products on the market.

Analysts expect the product to reach blockbuster sales status — over $1 billion — by 2016, as the company expands capacity.

Each regimen of Provenge must to tailored to the immune system of the patient through a time-consuming formulation process.

Doctors collect special blood cells from each patient that help the immune system recognize cancer as a threat. They are mixed with a protein found on most prostate cancer cells and another substance to rev up the immune system. The resulting “vaccine” is given back to the patient as three infusions two weeks apart.

About 192,000 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in 2009, and 27,000 men died of the disease, according to the FDA. Prostate cancer most often affects older men.

Side effects of Provenge include chills, fatigue, fever, back pain, nausea, joint ache, and headache, the FDA said.

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Short people might be more susceptible to heart problems, new study says (Foxnews, 100609)

LONDON (AP) — Short people have a 50% higher risk of having a heart problem or dying from one than tall people, a new study says, though weight, blood pressure and smoking habits remain more important factors.

Previous studies have suggested a link between height and heart problems like angina, heart attacks and angioplasties. This is the first major review of such studies, including research from around the world, confirming the relationship.

Researchers in Finland looked at 52 previous papers with data on height and heart problems in more than 3 million men and women.

Experts did not consider patients’ heights objectively, but within the context of a particular country’s population. They found the shortest people in the population were one and a half times more likely to have heart problems or die from them than the tallest people.

On average, short people were under 161 centimeters (5 feet 3 inches) and tall people were at least 174 centimeters (5 feet 9 inches).

The study was paid for by the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research and others. It was published online Wednesday in the European Heart Journal.

“We don’t want to scare short people, but perhaps they should be extra cautious about their lifestyle,” said Borge Nordestgaard, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen. He was not connected to the study.

Height’s impact on heart disease was still less important than things like smoking, which increases the chance of a heart ailment by up to four times, he said.

Scientists aren’t sure why short people might be more susceptible to heart problems, but think there could be several explanations. Being short might be a result of being poor, meaning people of small stature could be undernourished and vulnerable to health problems in general.

Experts also suggested there could be a biological explanation, such as a hormone imbalance that hurts the heart. Scientists also suspect that because short people have smaller arteries, those could theoretically get clogged quicker with cholesterol and be more easily damaged by any changes in blood pressure.

But Joep Perk, a professor of health sciences at Linnaeus University in Sweden and a spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, said it was too early to conclude short people had potentially problematic hearts.

“We should be very cautious to tell short people they’re at risk,” he said. “This could unfairly stigmatize them.” [KH: political correctness again]

He said it was premature for cardiologists to consider height as a risk factor. “We need to understand the mechanism behind it before we can do anything with this information,” he said. “This is an interesting observation, but I want to know what I can do for my patients.”

Tuula Paajanen, the study’s lead author from Tempere University Hospital in Finland, said short people shouldn’t be alarmed about the findings.

“Height is only one factor (among many) that may contribute to heart disease risk,” she said.

Paajanen recommended people focus on other things like not smoking, eating a balanced diet and exercise. “Those are easier to change than your height.”

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Calcium Supplements May Raise Risk of Heart Attack (Foxnews, 100730)

Calcium supplements, which many people consume hoping to ward off osteoporosis, may increase the risk of heart attack by as much as 30 percent, researchers reported Friday.

These tiny tablets which carry concentrated doses of calcium were also associated with higher incidences of stroke and death, but they were not statistically significant.

The researchers advised people consuming calcium supplements to seek advice from their doctors, take more calcium-rich foods and try other interventions like exercise, not smoking and keeping a healthy weight to prevent osteoporosis.

“People regard calcium supplements as natural but they are really not natural at all,” Ian Reid, professor of medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, said in a telephone interview.

Reid and colleagues in Britain and the United States conducted a meta-analysis encompassing 11 studies that tracked nearly 12,000 elderly people over four years.

Half of them were given calcium supplements and the other half placebo or dummy pills with no therapeutic content. The results were published in the British Medical Journal.

“What we found was a 30 percent increase in heart attacks in the people who were randomized to take calcium,” Reid said.

“If you have 1,000 people taking calcium for five years, we will expect to find 14 more heart attacks, 10 more strokes and 13 more deaths in the people given calcium than they would have had if they hadn’t been treated with calcium,” Reid said.

“That is 37 more adverse events and we expect 26 fractures being prevented. So calcium is associated with more bad things happening than with bad things prevented.”

While experts are not certain about the biological mechanism by which calcium supplements may damage the body, studies in the past have linked high levels of blood calcium to more heart attacks and damage to blood vessels, Reid said.

“When you take calcium supplements, your blood calcium level goes up over the following four to six hours and goes up to the top end of the normal range,” he said.

“That doesn’t happen when you have calcium to eat in your diet because the calcium from food is very slowly absorbed and so the blood calcium level hardly changes at all.”

Higher blood calcium may lead to the formation of plaques in blood vessels, which can lead to heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases, Reid explained.

“People have always focused on fat levels in the blood as driving that process (plaque formation) but there is increasing evidence now that calcium levels in the blood might drive that as well,” he added.

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Egg Recall Expands to More than Half-Billion Eggs (Foxnews, 100821)

WASHINGTON — More than a half-billion eggs have been recalled in the nationwide investigation of a salmonella outbreak that Friday expanded to include a second Iowa farm. The outbreak has already sickened more than 1,000 people and the toll of illnesses is expected to increase.

Iowa’s Hillandale Farms said Friday it was recalling more than 170 million eggs after laboratory tests confirmed salmonella. The company did not say if its action was connected to the recall by Wright County Egg, another Iowa farm that recalled 380 million eggs earlier this week. The latest recall puts the total number of potentially tainted eggs at about 550 million.

FDA spokeswoman Pat El-Hinnawy said the two recalls are related. The strain of salmonella bacteria causing the poisoning is the same in both cases, salmonella enteritidis.

Federal officials say it’s one of the largest egg recalls in recent history. Americans consume about 220 million eggs a day, based on industry estimates. Iowa is the leading egg producing state.

The eggs recalled Friday were distributed under the brand names Hillandale Farms, Sunny Farms, Sunny Meadow, Wholesome Farms and West Creek. The new recall applies to eggs sold between April and August.

Hillandale said the eggs were distributed to grocery distribution centers, retail groceries and food service companies which service or are located in 14 states, including Arkansas, California, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Thoroughly cooking eggs can kill the bacteria. But health officials are recommending people throw away or return the recalled eggs.

A food safety expert at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., said the source of the outbreak could be rodents, shipments of contaminated hens, or tainted feed. Microbiology professor Patrick McDonough said he was not surprised to hear about two recalls involving different egg companies, because in other outbreaks there have also been multiple sources.

Both plants could have a rodent problem, or both plants could have gotten hens that were already infected, or feed that was contaminated.

“You need biosecurity of the hen house, you want a rodent control program and you want to have hens put into that environment that are salmonella free,” McDonough said.

The salmonella bacteria is not passed from hen to hen, but usually from rodent droppings to chickens, he added. This strain of bacteria is found inside a chicken’s ovaries, and gets inside an egg.

CDC officials said Thursday that the number of illnesses related to the outbreak is expected to grow. That’s because illnesses occurring after mid-July may not be reported yet, said Dr. Christopher Braden, an epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control.

Almost 2,000 illnesses from the strain of salmonella linked to both recalls were reported between May and July, almost 1,300 more than usual, Braden said. No deaths have been reported. The CDC is continuing to receive information from state health departments

as people report their illnesses.

The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight hours to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems.

The form of salmonella tied to the outbreak can be passed from chickens that appear healthy. And it grows inside eggs, not just on the shell, Braden noted.

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Maybe the aging population isn’t driving health costs, after all (National Post, 101029)

It’s become conventional wisdom in discussion of Canada’s near out-of-control health costs: spending is being driven to ever-higher peaks by the demands of a fast-aging population. But is the wisdom based on fact? One of the most intriguing, and under-reported, aspects of a major report issued Thursday, suggests otherwise.

The annual Canadian Institute for Health Information overview of health-care spending shows, in fact, that the portion of spending devoted to senior citizens has not changed in the last decade, even as the elderly made up a steadily bigger chunk of the population. It’s always been true that older patients eat up a disproportionate slice of the health spending pie, but that slice has not changed in 10 years, varying from 43.6% in 1998 to 43.8% in 2008, the report notes.

At the same time, the ranks of senior citizens swelled to 13.7% of the population from 12.3% in the same period, a jump of more than 10%. In other words, we are actually spending less, relatively speaking, on the aged now than a decade ago, and more on younger people. And yet, total health spending in Canada is expected to reach an almost unfathomable $191 billion this year, up 5%, or $9 billion, from 2009, said the CIHI report. It has more than doubled from the real-dollar level of $90 billion in 1999.

So what then is really behind health-care inflation? The answer would seem to have more do with political decision-making than demographics. As Chris Kuchciak, CIHI’s manager of health expenditures puts it, provincial governments, afraid of runaway health costs, cut back in the early 1990s. Then, in the wake of widespread clamour over crowded emergency rooms and long waiting lists, politicians started pouring more and more money into health budgets in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he said. The fastest growing area of spending lately, by the way, is doctor incomes – projected to reach $26.3 billion this year – followed by drugs, now reaching $31 billion.

As for the apparent improved efficiency in caring for senior citizens, Mr. Kuchciak sees that as a positive sign:

What it suggests is that the health care system can adapt to changing environments and specifically to the popuatlion’s aging. The health care system is at the same time evolving, innovating and changing.

Of course, the financial pressures posed by the aging population will only get more intense in coming years. Seniors are expected to make up close to 25% of the total by 2031. It would seem impossible at that point to contain health spending on the elderly at today’s levels.

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Patients must be warned of CT-scan dangers: MDs (National Post, 101126)

As CT scans and similar procedures are ordered increasingly often, doctors should be forced to tell patients about the potential radiation-based cancer risk, two Canadian physicians have urged in a major U.S. medical journal.

A mandatory program would better inform patients who are rarely told about the dangers now, and might reduce the number of unnecessary scans, the authors argue.

The paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month makes one of the strongest statements yet about the issue of medical radiation exposure, which has been drawing increasing attention - and heated debate - in recent years.

“The medical profession cannot rely on industry, government or the legal system to solve the dilemma of whether and how to discuss radiation risks with patients,” write Drs. Mark Baerlocher, a radiology resident from Toronto, and Allan Detsky, former physician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital. “A program of mandatory informed consent is needed.”

They say patients should be told about the risks for tests and procedures that generate relatively high levels of ionizing radiation, such as computed tomography (CT) scans, many nuclear-medicine examinations and imaging used in much minimally invasive surgery.

CT has become an invaluable part of the medical toolbox in recent years, offering strikingly clear images that help in the diagnosis of cancer, brain injuries and other dire problems. In Canada, more than 4 million CT scans were carried out in 2008-09, up 50% from just four years ago, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

CT imaging, though, can produce as much as as 500 times the radiation of an x-ray, and experts have estimated that as many as 20% in Canada are ordered needlessly. U.S. studies suggest the risk of cancer from a single CT scan ranges from one in 2,000 to one in 300, depending on the dose and other factors.

Another study has concluded that less than 10% of patients are told about the risks.

Canadian radiology groups have worked extensively on the issue in the couple of years, but some specialists questioned whether making it mandatory to inform patients is warranted - or wise.

The data on cancer risk is extrapolated chiefly from the effects of radiation on survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, and there is no direct evidence that diagnostic scans trigger cancer, said Dr. Ted Lyons, president of the Canadian Association of Radiology.

“I would hate to create concern among the population based on data that is so far from anything we would see medically,” said the Winnipeg-based physician. “To say there is a direct one-to-one relationship ... I think that is a little bit of a stretch.”

The better approach is to work on ways to educate busy family and emergency physicians on which tests are most appropriate for particular patients, avoiding those that are unnecessary, he said.

Robin Hesler, CEO of the Ontario Association of Medical Radiation Technologists, said he believes there is considerable ignorance among doctors, both generalists and specialists, on the radiation doses associated with diagnostic imaging and their health effects.

Making it mandatory to inform patients of the risks, though, would be difficult to enforce, and possibly counterproductive, he said.

“It’s a bag of worms,” said Dr. Hesler. “I think that’s the wrong way to go about it.”

The two Canadian doctors say in their JAMA paper there is reason to be skeptical about whether low doses of radiation do, indeed, cause cancer, but aruge that the cancer-risk estimates are based on the best-available data and should not be ignored.

“Twenty years from now (when cancers might occur), it will not be a valid argument that patients were not informed of the risks from radiation because physicians were operating under a world of uncertainty.”

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Cancer, heart disease leading causes of death in Canada: StatsCan (National Post, 101130)

OTTAWA — Cancer and heart disease are once again the leading causes of death for Canadians, according to a report released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.

The federal government agency said cancer accounted for 30% of deaths and heart disease 22%. Stroke was third overall at 6%.

Statistics Canada said the rate of cancer deaths was up slightly from 2000. Heart disease and stroke declined slightly.

Ranked in order, the seven other leading causes of death in the Top 10 were: chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide.

The 10 leading causes of death accounted for 77% of all deaths in 2007, down from 80% in 2000, according to the report. Statistics Canada said the list has been the same since 2000, but the ranking has changed slightly. In 2000, suicide and kidney disease were ninth and tenth respectively, but by 2007 they had switched places.

Causes of death in 2007 varied widely by age group. Accidents and suicide ranked first and second among young adults aged 15 to 34. And among Canadians aged 35 to 74, cancer was the leading cause of death. For those aged 85 and older, heart disease was the top cause of death.

Deaths due to cancer reached the highest levels for those in the 55 to 64 age category where it accounted for 48% of all deaths.

Statistics Canada said men and women share the top two leading causes of death, cancer and heart disease. Strokes ranked third for women in 2007, while accidents were the third leading cause of death for males.

There were three times more suicides among men than women. And in 2007, women accounted for seven out of every 10 deaths from Alzheimer’s disease.

Rankings differed slightly from the United States in the same period. In 2007, cancer outranked heart disease in Canada. In the U.S., the rankings were reversed.

Of all deaths in the U.S., 23% were attributed to cancer in 2007, compared with 30% in Canada. Of all deaths in the U.S., 25% in 2007 were attributed to heart disease, compared with 22% in Canada.

Stroke ranked third in both countries.

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, breast cancer is the leading cancer among Canadian women.

The society has estimated one in nine women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime and one in 28 will die from it.

The society estimated that 173,800 new cases of cancer will occur over 2010, with 76,200 deaths.

Based on 2009 rates, the society estimated 40% of Canadian women and 45% of Canadian men will develop cancer during their lifetimes.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada said the rate of heart disease and stroke has steadily declined over the past 40 years. However, it also noted that every seven minutes in Canada, someone dies from heart disease or stroke.

The foundation has estimated the cost of heart disease and strokes to the Canadian economy at $22.2-billion a year.

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Poll: Very Religious Americans Most Likely to Practice Healthy Behaviors (Christian Post, 101223)

Very religious Americans tend to exercise more, eat healthier and smoke less, according to a new Gallup report.

The most religious Americans – based on church attendance and how important religion is to them – scored a 66.3 on the Gallup-Healthways Healthy Behavior Index.

Meanwhile, nonreligious Americans scored a 58.3 and moderately religious Americans scored a 60.6.

The new report, released Thursday, is the third in a series on religiosity and wellbeing in America. The polling firm interviewed more than 550,000 adults, aged 18 and older, in the first half of the year. Overall, Gallup has found that religion plays a role in emotional and physical health.

“There are a number of factors that could contribute to very religious Americans’ healthier lifestyle choices,” the report states. “Some of these factors are likely overt products of religious doctrine itself, including rules related to smoking and substance abuse.”

Only 14.9% of very religious Americans smoke compared to 27.6 nonreligious adults who are smokers.

Displaying other healthy behaviors, very religious adults are most likely to eat healthy (68.1%) and to exercise regularly (53.3%) compared to their less religious counterparts.

Gallup pointed out, “In some Christian denominations, gluttony and sloth are considered two of the seven deadly sins, and many evangelical faiths frown on drinking and smoking. The Bible indicates that one’s body is the ‘temple of God,’ which could in turn help explain the relationship between religious orthodoxy and exercise and certain types of food consumption.”

The research firm acknowledged that the relationship between health and religiosity could go in the other direction - where people who are healthier are the most likely to be religious. But it suggested that “the most parsimonious explanation” for the findings is that “those who capitalize on the social and moral outcomes of religious norms and acts are more likely to lead lives filled with healthier choices.”

The first two reports in the series revealed that the most religious Americans have the highest levels of wellbeing (which is determined by life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors, work environment, and basic access).

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Canadian researchers discover malaria breakthrough (National Post, 110319)

SASKATOON —Scientists in Saskatoon have developed an inexpensive malaria treatment that will help the million people who die every year from the infection.

“This is the most important drug in the treatment of malaria today. The World Health Organization says it should be the first line of defence,” said Patrick Covello, a senior research officer at the National Research Council in Saskatoon.

Covello and his team figured out a way to produce a difficult-to-cultivate chemical needed to build effective malaria drugs.

The breakthrough was announced Friday at the National Research Council Plant Biotechnology Institute.

The best drugs available to fight malaria are made with artemisinin, a compound derived from the sweet wormwood plant found in parts of Asia and Africa. But cultivating and harvesting the plant and then extracting artemisinin is time-consuming and labour intensive, says Covello. And the supply of the natural compound is also dependent on weather and growing conditions.

In 2003, Covello began work to identify the genes in the wormwood plant that produce the protein that leads to artemisinin.

“We identified four genes in what we call the pathway to artemisinin in the plant,” he said in an interview.

Meanwhile, University of California at Berkley researchers found they could develop a precusor to artemisinin by introducing chemicals into yeast.

Covello contacted Amyris Technologies, a spinoff company from the Berkeley research group, to suggest it use the genes his group had identified in the wormwood plant. When two of the genes identified in Saskatoon were introduced to the yeast compound developed at Berkeley, the production of artemisinin doubled.

The Institute for OneWorld Health, the American-based organization that has led the project to develop the semi-synthetic artemisinin, and pharmaceutical company Sanofi-aventis jointly announced on Friday that the drug company is preparing to ramp up production using the genes identified in Saskatoon.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has already contributed $42.6 million toward the American research, is also supporting the production of the drug to ensure it will be available on a not-for-profit basis for the developing world.

“The idea is to provide the developing world with antimalarial drugs at the lowest possible cost and, in addition, to provide a very stable supply because this yeast-fermentation process is shorter term and more reliable than growing the plants themselves,” said Covello.

Covello understands that Sanofi-aventis will begin commercial-scale production in 2012.

The federal government has spent $869,000 over eight years to support the Saskatoon research.

“Our government is committed to improving the health of women and children in developing countries,” said Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology, in a government news release.

“This new development in the production of a malaria treatment represents a major development in the fight against the disease. It will strengthen Canada’s position as a world leader in health research and provide a reliable and affordable solution.”

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10 Warning Signs that You Might Not Be Healthy (Christian Post, 110404)

By Perry Noble

Pastor/church leader…you have GOT to get healthy…emotionally, physically and spiritually. I will say that the overwhelming reason that many churches are not healthy is that the leaders in the church are not healthy. What are some signs that you are not healthy?

#1 – You cannot remember the last time you clearly heard the Word of God speak to you about an issue in your own life.

#2 – You no longer use the Bible to learn more about Jesus and hear His voice…you are simply using it to find your next sermon.

#3 – You actually begin to hate and despise the people in your church (who, by the way, are the very people you are called to love!)

#4 – You spend more time on the cell phone and computer when you are at home than you do with your own family.

#5 – You are so obsessed with pleasing people and putting out fires that listening to God and doing what He says is no longer the goal of your life and ministry.

#6 – You often dream of being in another church…thinking that if you were somewhere else you would have no problems.

#7 – You are spending time building up people of the opposite sex and having intimate conversations with them that SHOULD be taking place with your spouse.

#8 – You are often overwhelmed with feelings of intense sadness and you don’t know why.

#9 – You can’t sleep.

#10 – You keep telling yourself (and your family) that one day everything is going to slow down.

I could go on and on…but seriously…if any of these stuck out to you then PLEASE, do whatever it takes to get healthy. Call a friend, get a counselor…take a day to just get away from your normal routine and spend time with the Lord.

The church needs devoted, passionate and HEALTHY leaders!

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Scientists warn of ‘future era of untreatable gonorrhea’ (National Post, 110711)

MONTREAL — Worried scientists have confirmed with the World Health Organization that a new, mutant strain of gonorrhea has been isolated in a sex trade worker in Japan.

The first strain of a common sexually transmitted infection once easily treated with penicillin and other antibiotics has mutated into a “superbug” able to withstand all forms of known treatment, said Swedish researcher Magnus Unemo, who recently isolated the strain. He will be presenting his team’s findings on Monday at a meeting of the international conference on sexually transmitted diseases, held in Quebec City.

“If it spreads now, we don’t know what should be the recommended treatment,” Unemo said.

An entire symposium at the meeting of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research — which attracts experts from microbiology, virology and immunobiology, behavioural sciences, public health and prevention policy — will be devoted to the subject.

A smart bacteria, Neisseria gonorrhoeae has shown that it can adapt and evolve every 10 to 15 years, quickly becoming impervious to current front-line drug therapy, explained Unemo, of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria, Orebro University Hospital, Sweden.

Historically, new strains have emerged in the western Pacific region, Japan or Korea, and then rapidly spread globally.

This new strain, dubbed H041, has proven resistance to the last remaining treatment option available, cephalosporins, a fourth generation class of antibiotics. Unemo warns of a “future era of untreatable gonorrhea.”

“Highly resistant” gonorrhea is a major threat to public health, Unemo said.

“It’s really worrying from a public health perspective. It’s shown its capacity to act as a superbug. We need to focus on finding new strategies for treatment,” Unemo said in a telephone interview last week, during a break from meetings with experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, Georgia.

According to the CDC, there is an estimated 700,000 new cases of gonorrhea in the U.S. each year.

To date, the new strain has been isolated in one sex worker, Unemo said. Molecular testing, commonly used to identify whether someone has contracted the disease, however, does not detect whether the bacteria is antibiotic-resistant, Unemo said. “So it’s really hard to know how far this strain has spread.

“Due to this situation, the World Health Organization has assured us that it will work on the issue of coming up with a global response plan — a huge challenge for the future,” Unemo said, starting with surveillance of the new disease, better infection prevention approach, treatment options such as combining of two or more antibiotics, development of a fast and effective drug, and ideally, a vaccine.

Health Canada is also taking the matter seriously and has organized a workshop on the matter at the conference.

Gonorrhea can show up without symptoms in 50% of infected women. Most infected men find it extremely painful (about 2-5% do not have symptoms) and describe it as urinating razor blades.

Untreated, gonorrhea can lead to severe, life-threatening complications if it spreads to the blood and the joints, in both men and women.

Untreated women run the risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic pelvic pain, and ectopic pregnancies, as well as passing the infection to their babies during birth, which can cause life-threatening infections and blindness.

Gonorrhea is one of the most commonly circulating STDs, which is why this discovery is so important, said Dr. Michel Alary, president of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research and researcher at the Centre hospitalier affilie universitaire de Quebec.

“The big fear is that if the strain becomes dominant, there will be a real problem,” Alary said. “It’s not treatable.”

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Chocolate ‘cuts heart risk by a third’ (Daily Telegraph, 110828)

Eating chocolate regularly could cut the risk of heart disease by a third, according to the largest analysis of its kind to date.

Those who eat more chocolate have a 37% lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those who eat little, according to a Cambridge University analysis of seven separate studies, containing in total over 100,000 people.

They also have a 29% lower chance of stroke, although they do not have a lower risk of heart failure.

The studies, which followed people in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the US and Japan for about a decade on average, did not focus on dark chocolate alone, which is believed to be the most beneficial type.

Rather, they included consumption of other types including milk chocolate and chocolate bars, drinks, biscuits and desserts.

Dr Oscar Franco, from the university’s Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, said no one really understood why chocolate appeared to be so good for heart health.

He said: “Foods are very complex structures where many substances interact to have a beneficial effect.”

One theory is that chocolate contains large amounts of antioxidants, some of which can help keep the arteries clean.

It could also help people to relax and enjoy life more, he thought.

“Chocolate could be contributing to better quality of life, and that could be one of the mechanisms, but that’s just speculation,” he said.

There was also some evidence that it stimulated the release of endorphins, neurotransmitters that give people a feeling of wellbeing.

Dr Franco presented the results at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Paris on Monday, while a paper has also been published in the British Medical Journal.

He cautioned that the study did not give people carte blanche to gorge on chocolate – be that dark, milk or white.

He said it only suggested two pieces of chocolate a day; while other studies have indicated a mere 20 to 50g – a small bar’s worth – is enough.

“Eat it in a moderate way,” he advised. “Over-indulgence should be avoided.”

And while the analysis did not differentiate between different types of chocolate, he said it was clear that dark chocolate was the healthier option, as it contained less sugar and fat.

Health campaigners are worried this type of research sends out the wrong message, and people become confused about what is and is not healthy food.

Victoria Taylor, a senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: “We can’t start advising people to eat lots of chocolate based on this research.

“If you want to reduce your heart disease risk, there are much better places to start than at the bottom of a box of chocolates.”

But Dr Franco was unapologetic about his research.

“You should not keep from doing something that could bring a benefit, just because you are concerned about headlines,” he said.

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