Harvard Health Content API

The United Nations met this week to address how to prevent chronic diseases that cost billions of dollars each year. In a two-day meeting, the UN’s General Assembly is discussing how to reduce rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and lung diseases. Each year, these diseases account for about 63% of all deaths worldwide. The UN and the World Health Organization are looking at cost-effective ways to prevent these diseases, including taxes on tobacco and alcohol and regulations on the amount of salt and trans fats in foods. The UN meeting took place in New York City September 19 and 20. The Wall Street Journal wrote about it September 19.

Kids’ car seat safety is improving, but there are still areas of concern. This is according to information collected in 2009 and 2010 by Safe Kids USA. The group runs car seat check-up events across the country. Some data was promising. Nearly all seats were installed in the correct direction, rear facing or forward facing. Many children between 20 and 40 pounds were still rear facing, which is recommended by Safe Kids and the American Academy of Pediatrics. But seats that were installed with a seatbelt, rather than with LATCH, were often installed incorrectly. And most forward-facing seats did not use the top tether, which anchors the top of a car seat. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children ages 3 to 14. Proper use of car seats reduces the risk of a child’s death from a car crash by more than half.

Long-term alcohol abuse can severely damage the brain’s outer layer, a new study finds. The damaged layer is the cerebral cortex. It is involved in all higher-level thinking and processing of emotions. Researchers used advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to look at the brains of 65 adults. About half were alcoholics who had stopped drinking. The others had never been alcoholics. In the recovering alcoholic group, the cerebral cortex was thinner. The more people drank, the thinner this layer was. The journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research published the study online. HealthDay News wrote about it September 15. HealthDay also wrote about a statement urging doctors and governments to do more to fight alcohol abuse. The journal Lancet published it September 14. The statement came from a group of 17 leading doctors.