Category: news-perspectives

Doctors can now get special training in addiction medicine. Ten medical institutions in the United States are offering a new one-year program. The programs had to meet special requirements of the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM). The goal of the program is to train doctors to recognize, diagnose and help treat people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, pain medicines and other substances. The ABAM also wants to see addiction medicine become a medical specialty, such as pediatrics, internal medicine or dermatology. Many experts think these new training programs mean that addiction is being recognized as a physical disease because of how it affects the brain. It needs to be managed like any other chronic disease. The New York Times wrote about the story July 10.

Too much salt increases the risk of heart attack, especially if you don’t get enough potassium, a new study finds. The study began with a survey of more than 12,000 U.S. adults. They were asked to list what they ate the day before. Then researchers kept track of them for 14 years. In that time, 433 died of heart attacks. Researchers divided the survey results into two groups. One group ate excess sodium and too little potassium. The other group ate about the same amounts of each. People in the first group were twice as likely to have heart attacks as those in the second group. Salt is the main source of sodium for most people. Eating too much sodium also increased risk for people who ate enough potassium. People who ate 5 grams of sodium a day were twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who ate 2 grams. Five grams is equal to more than 2 teaspoons of salt.

The teen birth rate is falling, and drug use among eighth graders is rising, a new report says. The report is called “America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2011.” It puts together statistics from many government sources. Births among girls 15 to 17 fell for the second year. They were 21.7 per 1,000 girls in 2008. That dropped to 20.1 in 2009. That same year, 8% of eighth graders said they had used illicit drugs in the last month. This increased to 10% in 2010. In the late 1970s, about 6% of children age 6 and up were obese. That increased to 19% in 2007-2008. More children also are living in poverty and poor housing, the report says. Fewer live with a parent who is employed full-time. Asthma rates rose from 8.8% of children in 2001 to 9.6% in 2009. Reuters Health news service and HealthDay News wrote about the report July 6.

At least 20% of adults are obese in every state except Colorado, says a new report released this week. That’s up dramatically in the last 15 years. In 1995, no state had an obesity rate that high. The new report came from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It used numbers from 2010. Mississippi topped the list. About 34.4% of adults there are obese. In 2006, it was the only state where obesity topped 30%. Now a dozen states have passed that threshold. Most of them are in the South. Colorado was the leanest state. The obesity rate there was 19.8%. Race and education also affected the numbers. Obesity was 40% among African-Americans in 15 states. Among whites, it passed 30% in only 4 states. About one-third of those who did not graduate from high school were obese. That’s much higher than the rate among college graduates.

Massage may relieve back pain better than medicine or physical therapy, new research suggests. The study included 401 people with long-lasting low back pain. They were randomly divided into 3 groups. One group received “usual care.” This included as medicines and physical therapy. The other 2 groups received massage an hour a week for 10 weeks. One group received structural massage. This kind of massage focuses on pain-related back muscles and ligaments. The other group got relaxation massage, also called Swedish massage. This type aims for overall body relaxation. After 10 weeks, about 1 out of 3 people who received massage said their pain was much better or gone. Only 1 out of 25 in the usual-care group reported this result. People who got massage also tended to use less medicine than the usual-care group. They were more active and spent fewer days in bed.

Children who have delays in talking at age 2 don’t have an increased risk of social problems later on, a study finds. The study included more than 1,600 children. Their caregivers were asked to fill out surveys about the children. They answered the surveys when the children were 2 and every few years afterward. The surveys showed that 142 children had delays in learning to talk at age 2. These children were more likely to have problems with emotions and behavior than other kids at that time. But they did not have more problems than other kids later on. The journal Pediatrics published the study online July 4. HealthDay News wrote about it.

A baby’s experience in the womb, including drugs the mother takes, might affect autism risk, two studies suggest. One study looked at two groups of women. One group had children with autism. Children of women in the other group did not have the condition. Women in the first group were twice as likely as the others to have taken antidepressant drugs during pregnancy. These drugs were in a group called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). But any link would be a limited one, researchers said. More than 93% of the women whose children had autism did not take antidepressants while pregnant. Untreated depression can also cause risk for both mother and baby. The journal Archives of General Psychiatry published the study July 5. The same issue also included a study of 192 sets of twins. At least one twin in each pair had autism.

The largest group of U.S. children’s doctors has called for a ban on ads for junk food and fast food during kids’ TV programs. The proposal is part of a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The group urged that interactive advertising for these foods be banned from digital TV, cell phones and other media. The policy also outlined ways that doctors and parents can help to prevent child obesity by restricting TV and other “screen time.” Doctors should ask parents how much screen time their children have daily, the policy says. They also should ask whether there is a TV or Internet-connected computer in the child’s room. Doctors should encourage parents to talk to their children about food advertising and good nutrition, the AAP says. The AAP recommends no more than two hours of screen time a day for kids age 2 and up.

Lung cancer screening with CT scans can save lives, but with a vast number of false alarms, detailed results of a major study show. The new data were published June 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Initial study results were announced in November. The study was stopped early then because CT scans reduced death rates from lung cancer 20% compared with X-rays. The study included 53,000 current or former heavy smokers. They were 55 to 74 years old and had no signs or history of lung cancer. Researchers randomly divided them into 2 groups. One group received 3 annual low-dose CT scans. The other group received 3 annual X-rays. About 40% had at least 1 suspicious finding on a test. But more than 95% of those did not have cancer. Researchers kept track of people for another 5 years.

A drug for rheumatoid arthritis might help to slow down the loss of pancreas function in type 1 diabetes, a study finds. Both of these are autoimmune diseases. They occur when the immune system attacks the body. In type 1 diabetes, it attacks beta cells in the pancreas. These cells make insulin. After they are destroyed, people must inject insulin to allow the body to burn sugar (glucose) for energy. The new study included 112 people recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Their ages ranged from 6 to 45. They were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group received abatacept (Orencia) in a vein (intravenously). The other group received placebo (fake) medicine. Every 6 months, researchers measured levels of C-peptide in the blood. The level of this compound reflects how many beta cells are still active.