Category: news-perspectives

Many kids are exposed to at least 4 hours of TV every day—even if they aren’t watching. Researchers did the study using phone interviews. They talked to 1,454 families. Each had at least one child between the ages of 8 months and 8 years. Children in the study were exposed to 4 hours of TV a day. Younger children were exposed to even more. So were African-American children and low-income children. Parents may think that having the TV on in the background is okay, even if they know that a lot of TV watching isn’t good. Experts recommend no TV for kids under 2. They say that older kids should have no more than 2 hours a day of TV, computer and video game time. The background TV study was published in the journal Pediatrics. USA Today wrote about it October 1.

A new virus has infected two men. One died, and the other is in critical condition. The new virus is similar to the SARS virus, researchers say. The SARS virus was identified in 2003. The new virus does not appear to spread easily from person to person. Its genes have already been examined. It is closely linked to bat viruses. But it also could have come from sheep, camels or other animals. Both men were infected in the Middle East. They were infected months apart, however. Scientists are now looking for the virus in animals.

Active video games can increase heart rate and energy use for kids, a small study suggests. The study included 18 children, ages 11 to 15. They were asked to play a traditional seated video game, a dance game and a boxing sports game for 15 minutes each. The dance and boxing games used the Kinect system for Xbox 360. Kinect does not use a controller, so the kids had to move while playing. Researchers measured the children’s heart rate, oxygen use and overall energy use during each game. All three increased. The children used twice as much energy for the dancing game as for the seated game. They used three times as much energy for the boxing game. The journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine published the study. HealthDay News and Reuters Health news service wrote about it September 26.

Knee replacement operations on older adults have risen 162% in the last 20 years, a new study finds. Many had to be repeated. Second operations such as these doubled. Medicare spends about $15,000 on each knee replacement. All of these numbers will only go up as baby boomers get older. Researchers used Medicare data for their study. Medicare patients had 243,802 knee replacements in 2010. There were 93,230 in 1991. Some people needed “revisions,” or second surgeries. The number of these procedures doubled, from 9,650 to 19,871. The average hospital stay for knee replacement was cut in half during these two decades. But there were more problems afterward for people who had revision surgeries. They were twice as likely to need a second hospital stay after surgery as patients in 1991. The Journal of the American Medical Association published the study September 26.

Older adults in the South take antibiotics more often than those in other regions, a new study shows. And it’s not because they get more infections. The results suggest that some of the prescriptions may not be needed, the authors said. Antibiotics are used to treat infections caused by bacteria. Excess use of antibiotics can help bacteria to develop resistance to the drugs. Then the drugs won’t work when needed. This is a growing problem around the world. The new study looked at 3 years of Medicare data on prescriptions and infection rates. About 21% of Medicare patients in the South used an antibiotic in an average 3-month period. The West had the lowest average, about 17%. Regions with more prescriptions did not have higher rates of infections that needed antibiotics. For example, the Northeast had the highest rates of bacterial pneumonia.

A large study has found that 4 of every 100 surgical patients die in the 2 months after their surgery. That is at least twice as high as what was previously thought. The study included more than 46,000 surgery patients in 28 European countries. All types of surgery except heart-related surgery were included. In the 60 days after surgery, 4% died. Deaths were from all causes, not just surgical complications. But most people who died were never admitted to intensive care. Rates varied by country as well.

Three new studies strengthen links between sugar-sweetened drinks and excess weight. The New England Journal of Medicine published them online September 21. Two studies involved children. One included 224 overweight and obese teenagers. They were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group received water and diet drinks delivered to their homes for a year. They were urged to avoid sugar-sweetened drinks and got regular pep talks. The other group got no drinks or advice. After a year, teens who got the free drinks had gained less weight than those in the other group. But a year after the program ended the difference had disappeared. A second study involved younger children who drank sugar-sweetened beverages regularly. Researchers gave each child a canned drink daily. One group got sugar-sweetened drinks.

A new medicine appears effective against multiple sclerosis (MS), 2 new studies find. Unlike most MS drugs, it is given as a pill. The studies focused on BG-12, developed by Biogen Idec. The drug is a version of the chemical fumarate. It works by protecting nerves against injury. One study included about 1,200 people. They had the relapsing and remitting form of MS. Symptoms for this type of MS come and go. People were randomly assigned to receive either of 2 doses of BG-12, or placebo (fake) pills. After 2 years, relapse rates were reduced by half in the 2 groups that received BG-12, compared with the placebo group. The other study included about 1,400 people. The design and results were similar. But this study also included a group that received glatiramer (Copaxone). This is an injection drug already used to treat MS.

Weight loss surgery helps people keep weight off for at least 6 years, and also leads to lasting health improvements, a new study shows. The study focused on 1,150 severely obese people. More than 400 of them had gastric bypass surgery. The procedure they had blocks off part of the stomach. The small pouch that is left is attached to the small intestine, bypassing the first part of it. Other people in the study tried to lose weight just with diet and exercise. After 6 years, people in the surgery group had lost about 28% of their weight. Of those who had type 2 diabetes before surgery, 62% no longer had the disease. About 42% of those with high blood pressure returned to normal pressure. The no-surgery groups did not lose any weight long-term. During the study, 17% of those in the no-surgery groups who did not have diabetes developed the disease.

American children eat too much salt, and those who eat the most have higher blood pressure, a new study finds. The study came from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers looked at data on 6,200 children who took part in recent national health surveys. The children were ages 8 through 18. Children were asked twice over several days to list all foods they had eaten the day before. Researchers estimated how much sodium they ate. Salt is the biggest source of sodium in food. On average, children ate 3,300 milligrams daily. That’s 1,000 milligrams above the recommended amount. Overall, 15% of children had either prehypertension or high blood pressure. Prehypertension is blood pressure that is above normal but not as high as in high blood pressure. Children who ate the most salt were twice as likely to have one of these conditions as children who ate the least.