Category: news-perspectives

Maybe we don’t need any more health studies. Maybe we just need to follow mom’s advice: “Eat your vegetables. Go outside and play. Don’t skip breakfast.” A new study of nearly 27,000 men found that those who regularly ate breakfast had a 27% lower risk of heart attack over the 16-year period of the study. The study also found bad news for late-night eaters. Those men had a 55% higher risk of heart disease. They also weighed more, were more likely to have high blood pressure and higher cholesterol, and they were more likely to have diabetes. The study was from the Harvard School of Public Health and reported by the AP.

A vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV) may help prevent mouth and throat cancers, a new study suggests. Infection with HPV infection causes most cervical cancers. The HVP vaccine is known to help prevent cervical cancer. HPV infection is also a risk factor for oral cancers. Researchers randomly divided 7,466 women ages 18 to 25 into 2 groups. One group got the HPV vaccine, Cervarix. The other group got the hepatitis A vaccine. The study lasted 4 years; 5,840 women completed the study. Researchers took samples of cells from the women’s throats at the beginning and end of the study. Only one woman who was vaccinated had infected cells at the end of the study. Fifteen of the women who were not vaccinated were infected with HPV. The study was published in the journal PLOS. HealthDay wrote about it June 19.

Falling TVs have always been a danger to young children. Almost every house in the US has at least one TV. More than half of all households have three or more TVs. A new study looked at TV-related injuries in children between 1990 and 2011. During that 22-year period, about 381,000 children under age 18 were treated in emergency rooms for TV-related injuries. That’s an average of about 17,000 children a year. Or about one child every 30 minutes. The most common injury was from a TV falling on a child (53%). Two out of three children were under age five. Injuries to the head or neck were most common, followed by injuries to the legs. The information came from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. The study appeared in the Journal Pediatrics.

Zero-calorie sweeteners can help some people with weight loss. However, their effect on metabolism is less clear. A new article takes a look at the evidence. Several studies have found higher rates of metabolic syndrome in people who consume artificially sweetened drinks. Metabolic syndrome is a group of harmful health factors that tend to occur together. The factors include high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high triglycerides (a blood fat), a large waist and low HDL (“good cholesterol”). Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of heart disease. In other studies, people who started out with similar weights tended to gain more weight if they drank zero-calorie sweetened sodas than if they drank water. The study authors say that the artificial sweeteners may confuse the body’s response to sweets. When diet soda drinkers consume real sugar, the body may not react properly.

Low-dose CT scans could be most useful as a lung-cancer screening test if given only to those with the very highest risk, a new study suggests. The study suggests a way to further refine criteria for who should get the scans. Chest CT finds many lung cancers but also causes many false alarms. Researchers took a closer look at results from the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial. That study reported results in 2011. It found that chest CT screening of a high-risk group could reduce lung cancer deaths 20%. Scans were given to heavy smokers, ages 55 through 74 years. The study also included former heavy smokers who had quit no more than 15 years earlier. The new study further divided people into risk groups based on how much they smoked, family history of lung cancer and other factors.

Women randomly assigned to take aspirin have a lower long-term risk of colorectal cancer, a large follow-up study finds. The women were cancer free (except non-melanoma skin cancers) when the study began. They were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group took low-dose aspirin every other day. The other group took placebo (fake) pills. The study lasted 10 years. By the end, the difference in colorectal cancer rates between the groups was small enough that it could have been caused by chance. But women were urged to continue their treatments. About 33,000 agreed to let researchers keep track of them long-term. That’s when researchers started seeing a difference. For the whole 18-year period, colorectal cancer rates were 20% lower in the aspirin group. But the difference for years 10 through 18 was 42%. Women who took aspirin did have more side effects.

If you watch a lot of TV, your kids will, too. That’s the main finding of a study published July 15. Researchers surveyed 1,550 parents with children up to 17 years old. They also surveyed their 629 older children who were ages 12 through 17. Generally, the study found that children watched more TV if their parents did. The journal Pediatrics published the study online. HealthDay News wrote about it July 15.

Hospital stays for pneumonia have dropped 10% in the decade since a pneumonia vaccine was introduced, a new study finds. The declines were even sharper among very young children and the elderly. These are the main target groups for the PCV7 vaccine. It protects against 7 strains of pneumococcal bacteria. The vaccine was approved in 2000. Researchers looked at hospital stays for 1997 through 1999. They compared these numbers to rates for 2007 through 2009. Annual hospital stays for pneumonia dropped by 168,000. The drop was steepest, 43%, among children under age 2. Among adults age 85 and older, the decrease was 23%. The pneumococcal vaccine is recommended mainly for babies, people age 65 or older and those with impaired immune systems. Hospital stays for pneumonia also fell for children ages 2 to 4 and for adults of all ages.

Men with high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids may have an increase in prostate cancer risk, a new study suggests. Many Americans eat oily fish or take fish oil pills because they contain omega-3s. These fats help fight body inflammation. Fish oil has been widely touted as good for heart health. But more recent research has raised questions about whether it has any effect. The new study suggests that taking omega-3s also could have drawbacks. Researchers used data from a large study that was designed to find out whether selenium or vitamin E could help prevent prostate cancer. (They didn’t.) The new study compared blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids in 800 men later diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,400 who did not develop the disease. Men with the highest levels of omega-3s were 43% more likely to develop prostate cancer than those with the lowest levels.

Texas is bracing for another big outbreak of West Nile virus, public health officials and experts told the New York Times News Service. In 2012, the state was the epicenter of the nation’s worst West Nile outbreak since 2003. It accounted for 1,868 cases, one-third of the nation’s total. Texas also had nearly one-third of the serious cases that affected the nervous system, and one-third of the nation’s deaths. West Nile that affects the nervous system can cause encephalitis or meningitis. The death rate for these cases is about 10%. Experts said historic patterns suggest that this will be another big year for West Nile infection. But it’s off to a slow start, the news service reported. The virus has not been detected in any dead birds. Mosquitoes trapped in 5 counties tested positive for the virus. That’s down from 10 counties at this time last year.