Month: December 2014

More than half of families use soft bedding for sleeping infants, despite warnings that the practice is unsafe, a study shows. Soft bedding includes quilts, blankets and pillows. They have been shown to increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and sleep-related suffocation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has advised against soft bedding for babies since 1996. They should be placed on a firm surface without any objects that might trap air. The bed should be covered only by a fitted sheet. The new study looked at results from a U.S. phone survey on infant sleep habits. It was done each year from 1993 through 2010. Researchers interviewed parents of babies younger than 8 months old. Use of soft bedding dropped from 86% in the first 3 years of the survey to 55% in the last 3 years. Bedding use of was most common among teen mothers (80%).

Nearly half a million cancers worldwide each year are linked with excess weight, a new study estimates. The study was based on 2012 cancer data. Researchers looked at 184 countries. They found there were 481,000 obesity-related cancers that year. That’s about 3.6% of all cancers in the world. About 2 out of 3 occurred in North America and Europe. In developed nations, about 8% of cancers in women were linked with obesity. The rate was 3% for men. In developing nations, rates were 1.5% for women and 0.3% for men. Cancers of the breast, uterus and colon among older women accounted for 250,000 cases. That was nearly three-quarters of all obesity-related cancers among women. Nearly 90,000 cases among men were colon and kidney cancers. They accounted for more than two-thirds of the obesity-related cancers among men. Rates of obesity-related cancers also varied by country and by region.