Planning for a Better, Allergen-Free Birthday

By Sean Kelley
It’s hard to believe our allergy-afflicted toddler is about to turn 2. In a week or so, we’ll celebrate his birthday, but I can’t help to think about last year’s party, which should have clued us in to his multiple Food allergies six months before we ever went to the allergist.
Graeme had endured major eczema and minor breathing issues since birth, but the cause was unclear. Once he dove into his first birthday cake, it should have been obvious. Read More

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Adults With ADHD Lose 3 Weeks Worth of Work Annually

(HealthDay News) -- Adults with Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) miss, on average, more than three weeks a year in workplace productivity, according to a new global reckoning of the problem.

Altogether, between 3 percent and 4 percent of adults worldwide have ADHD, according to survey data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Researchers say the condition can cause a serious loss of concentration at work due to chronic hyperactivity, forgetfulness and impulsiveness.

But many adult workers with ADHD may not know they have a problem, the team noted.

"While surveying mental disorders around the world, we've interviewed close to 200,000 people in almost 30 countries, and we're discovering that an enormous number of adult workers -- more than 3 percent on average -- have untreated adult ADHD," said study co-author Ron Kessler, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Kessler is also the director of the WHO's World Mental Health Survey Consortium, which is based at Harvard.

"From a societal point of view, it's a pretty big deal, because ADHD affects work performance even more than depression does," he added. "It's more persistent and severe than many mental disorders, and it results in more sick days, more accidents, and more problems interacting with colleagues. So given that employers are increasingly thinking about health care costs in terms of investment opportunities, we think it's useful to point out that it's probably a very smart and profitable business move for employers to screen their workers for ADHD and get them into treatment."

Results of the WHO survey are being published Tuesday in the online edition of the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Kessler and his colleagues conducted country-by-country ADHD diagnostic assessments on more than 7,000 employed and self-employed workers between the ages of 18 and 44.

The ADHD screenings were held in Belgium, Columbia, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. All the participants were also asked to describe their work performance over the prior month.

An average of 3.5 percent of those interviewed had ADHD, a condition whose initial onset typically occurs in childhood. Among Americans, the rate rose to 4.5 percent, Kessler noted.

ADHD was more common among men than women, more common in developed than developing countries (such as Mexico, Lebanon, and Columbia), and more common among blue-collar workers than white-collar professionals. Age did not appear to be associated with ADHD risk.

Very few of the diagnosed patients said they had received any treatment for ADHD in the prior year. In fact, only some of the Dutch and American patients indicated having received any treatment for ADHD, and in those countries only about 3 percent and 13 percent of the Dutch and U.S. workers, respectively, reported any treatment history.

Those diagnosed with ADHD spent more than 22 fewer days per year working compared with non-ADHD workers. This included an average of more than eight days during which ADHD employees said they simply could not carry out their routine tasks; almost 22 days with reduced productivity; and nearly 14 days of reduced quality in the work they produced.

"The fact is that adult ADHD hasn't been on people's radar screens," said Kessler. "The feeling was that somehow magically when kids with ADHD grow up they grow out of it. But this survey shows that this is not the case."

Dr. David W. Goodman, director of the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center in Luthersville, Md., agreed that ADHD is an "under-diagnosed and under-recognized psychiatric condition that causes a tremendous amount of disability in the work environment."

And while he supports the idea of screening workers for ADHD, Goodman, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, worries that "identifying workers with ADHD raises the possibility for discrimination."

He also wondered whether people who are diagnosed with the condition, especially in the developing world, would have doctors available to help them.

More information
For more on ADHD and the workplace, visit the U.S. National Resource Center on ADHD.

ADHD Stimulant Meds Cut Young Girls' Drug Abuse Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Stimulant treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) significantly cuts the odds that adolescent girls will smoke, drink alcohol or use drugs, a new Massachusetts General Hospital study shows.

The finding parallels previous studies in boys, the team note.

People with ADHD are at significantly increased risk for cigarette smoking and substance abuse. In the past, there were concerns that treatment of ADHD with stimulant drugs such as Ritalin might increase the risk of drug or alcohol abuse.

But in several studies of boys and young men with ADHD, researchers have found that stimulant treatment actually decreases the risk and delays the onset of substance abuse in adolescence. It does not affect the risk of using tobacco, alcohol, or drugs in adulthood, however.

The same researchers set out to see how stimulant treatment for ADHD affects the risk of substance abuse in adolescent girls.

"Girls with ADHD actually tend to get into trouble with substance abuse earlier than do boys with the disorder, so confirming those results was not simply academic," lead researcher Timothy Wilens, director of the Substance Abuse Program in Massachusetts General's Pediatric Psychopharmacology Department, said in a hospital news release.

For their study, the researchers examined data from 114 girls with ADHD who had enrolled in a study investigating the impact of ADHD on the risk of substance abuse. The girls were between the ages of six and 18 when the study began. They were assessed for tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use five years after they enrolled in the study. The researchers compared the 94 participants who received stimulant treatment with the 20 who had not been treated.

The girls who had been treated with stimulants had half the risk of smoking, drinking alcohol, and drug abuse as those who had not received treatment. In the participants who did develop substance abuse, stimulant treatment did not affect when they began using substances or the level of dependence.

"We can confidently say that stimulant treatment does not increase the risk of future substance abuse or smoking in girls with ADHD and at least delays the onset of cigarette smoking and substance abuse," said Wilens.

But more research is needed to determine the long-term impact of the stimulants on substance abuse.

"Right now, we can't say if the observed protective effect of stimulant treatment will continue into adulthood or disappear as it did in our studies in young men," he said.

More information
The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more about ADHD.

Gas Stove Emissions Boost Asthma in Inner-City Kids

(HealthDay News) -- High levels of nitrogen dioxide emissions from gas stoves can aggravate asthma symptoms in inner-city children, especially pre-schoolers, a new study says.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an irritating and toxic form of nitrogen oxide gas that is often present in industrial zones but can also be found at higher levels in poor homes with unvented gas stoves.

Researchers from John Hopkins University, reporting in the October issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, tied asthma flare-ups in young children directly to high concentrations of NO2 in their Baltimore homes, most of which had gas stoves and/or natural gas heat. The stoves or ovens were often used for heating as well as cooking.

"Because using stoves as heat sources is a hallmark of urban poverty, our study tellingly points to how profound and direct the effects of purely social and environmental factors can be on a child's health," lead researcher Dr. Nadia Hansel, a Johns Hopkins lung expert, said in a news release issued by the university. "Doctors caring for children with asthma should always inquire about the home's heating and cooking appliances and urge those using gas-based stoves and space heaters to switch to electric heating and cooking, if possible, or at least properly vent the exhaust gases."

Each 20 point increase in nitrogen dioxide levels led to 10 percent more days of cough and 15 percent more days with limited speech due to wheezing, the researchers said.

Asthma affects 6.2 million children in the United States and is most prevalent in inner-city children. Doctors believe poor access to regular health care and added exposure to indoor allergens such as mouse and cockroach dander, dust, cigarette smoke and automobile fumes make the condition worse for these children.

More information
The American Lung Association has more about childhood asthma.

(HealthDay News) -- Children who start drinking or using drugs before age 15 are more likely to have poor health as adults, according to a University of California, Irvine, study that enrolled more than 1,000 3-year-old children and followed them for 30 years.

By the time the participants were 32 years old, those who had used alcohol or drugs before age 15 were two to three times more likely to have developed substance dependence, contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), dropped out of school, or acquired criminal records.

UCI psychologist Candice Odgers and her colleagues also found that females who used drugs and alcohol before age 15 had higher pregnancy rates than females who didn't use illicit substances before age 15.

Alcohol was the most common illicit substance use by teens, but use of a variety of substances caused a greater risk of poor health in adulthood. The researchers also found that among adults who had behavioral problems as children, early exposure to alcohol and drugs greatly increased their risk for substance abuse, school failure and criminal convictions.

Interestingly, the study also found that 50 percent of the teens exposed to drugs and alcohol before age 15 had no prior history of behavioral problems.

"Findings from this study are consistent with the message that early substance use leads to significant problems in adolescents' future lives (that drugs are bad for kids) versus the alternative message that young adolescents with [a] history of problems are just more likely to use drugs early and experience poor outcomes (that bad kids do drugs)," Odgers said in an Association for Psychological Science news release.

"Even adolescents with no prior history of behavioral problems or family history of substance abuse problems were at risk for poor health outcomes if they used substances prior to age 15. Universal interventions are required to ensure that all children -- not only those entering early adolescence on an at-risk trajectory -- receive an adequate dose of prevention," she added.

The study was published in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science.

More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about teens and alcohol.

Study Dispels Link Between Autism and Measles Vaccine

(HealthDay News) -- Hoping to dispel long-running concerns that autism is linked to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR), researchers now say a new study shows the childhood vaccine does not raise that risk.

"We are certain that there's no link between autism and the MMR," Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Mailman School of Public Health Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said at a Wednesday teleconference.

"We found no evidence that the [gastrointestinal] pathology consistently preceded autism, and we also found that the MMR didn't consistently precede either autism or GI pathology," he added.

Not everyone is convinced, however, that the vaccine does not play a role in causing gastrointestinal problems that can precede the onset of autism.

"This study addresses one hypothesis. This study, by itself, does not exonerate the role of all vaccines. There are many biological mechanisms where environmental factors could present in the development of autism," said Rick Rollens, the father of an autistic son and one of the founding members of the M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California, Davis. Rollens was also part of the teleconference.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, between 3 million and 4 million Americans contracted the measles each year, and about 400 to 500 people died annually, according to background information provided by the researchers.

In 1998, a small British study linked the presence of measles RNA in the gastrointestinal tract and children who had autism and gastrointestinal (GI) problems, which seemed to confirm what many parents of children with autism had suspected all along -- that the vaccine played a role in the development of autism.

To investigate this possible link, researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Massachusetts General Hospital and Trinity College Dublin in Ireland used tissue biopsies taken from the bowels of children with autism and GI problems and compared them to age-matched control children who had no developmental delays, but were undergoing bowel biopsies for GI disturbances. The control group children also were matched as closely as possible with regard to when they received their MMR vaccine.

The researchers used techniques similar to those used by the British scientists a decade ago. But advances in technology since then make molecular analysis more sensitive now, the study authors said.

The researchers analyzed the bowel tissue to look for the presence of measles virus RNA. One theory held that the measles RNA could grow in the intestinal tract and cause inflammation that would make the bowel more permeable. Once the bowel was more permeable, the virus could enter the circulation system and then travel to the central nervous system, where it might play a role in the development of autism, some theorized.

However, only one child out of the 25 children with autism and one in the control group of 13 children in the new study showed slight levels of measles RNA. According to one of the study's authors, Dr. Mady Hornig, director of translational research at the Mailman School of Public Health Center for Infection and Immunity, the levels of measles RNA was just above the threshold levels.

The new findings were published online Thursday in the Public Library of Science journal.

"This was a rigorous analysis. We did this in a blinded fashion, and we are persuaded that there is no link," Lipkin said.

He added that these findings don't mean that the occasional child won't have an "idiosyncratic response" to the vaccine. "Nothing is without risk," he said.

Rollens, however, remains steadfast in his belief that immunization played some role in his son's autism. "I'm totally convinced the vaccines caused the autism of my son, and we need to have more biological studies on this vaccine and others," he said.

More information
To learn more about research on vaccines and autism, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some see psychosocial barriers to weight loss.(Psychosomatic Medicine)

SEATTLE--Money and time are the leading barriers to seeking weight-loss treatment among overweight and obese adults, but stigma and a belief that one is too heavy for treatment become more influential barriers as people get heavier.

Little is known from the literature about patterns of treatment seeking for obesity over time, Anna C. Ciao said at an international conference sponsored by the Academy for Eating Disorders. She also said little is known about barriers that might prevent treatment seeking from taking place.

An anonymous online survey offered to overweight or obese men and women aged 18 years or older addressed some of these issues, according to Ms. Ciao, a ... Read more

Alcohol Dependence (Alcoholism) - Treatment -

Treatment Only a minority of people can regain control of their drinking. More often, once a person has lost control... Read more

Substance Abuse (Depressants or Sedative-Hypnotic Drugs) - Treatment

Treatment The first goal of treatment is detoxification (withdrawal from the drug). Detoxification usually involves g... Read more

Why Does Colorado Kick Alabama’s Fat Butt?

By Scott Mowbray

Alabama resident and Health.com diabetes blogger Sean Kelley has worked hard to put his home state’s obesity rank (No. 2 in the country, waddling just behind Mississippi) in context. Don’t snicker at the deep-fried South, Sean warns: “The South may have the three states that have obesity rates of more than 30%, but the rest of the country (save Colorado) is not far behind with rates between 20% and 29%.”

I’ve lately been spending time in Colorado, the only state whose obesity rate, at 18.7%, weighs in below 20%. (Obesity is defined as having a Body Mass Index, or BMI, greater than 30). And I can tell you that as a New Yorker who carries 20 extra pounds around, I’m anxious when I walk into a Colorado social event. Will I be the porkiest guy in the room? Usually, yes. About 80% of the people at any gathering I’ve been to in Colorado are Obama-thin (especially the Republicans) and have that calm-before-the-void look that comes from knowing the difference between a piton and a carabiner. Read More

Disinfectants Can Boost Bacteria's Resistance to Treatment

(HealthDay News) -- Improper use of chemical disinfectants might actually make the bacteria they are trying to kill stronger and more resistant over time, a new report says.

When these chemicals, called biocides, are used at lower-than-lethal concentrations, the bacteria can survive and eventually become resistant to the chemical and antibiotics, according to a paper published in the October issue of Microbiology.

In experiments done on the potentially lethal bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, researchers found the samples mutated when exposed to low concentrations of several biocides and dyes regular used in hospitals for disinfecting. The mutated bacterium had increased numbers of efflux pumps, which remove toxins from its cells. The pumps eliminate antibiotics from the cell and can make the bacteria resistant to those drugs.

"Pathogenic bacteria with more pumps are a threat to patients, as they could be more resistant to treatment," author Dr. Glenn Kaatz, head of infectious diseases for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Detroit, said in a society news release.

If the surviving bacteria are exposed repeatedly to biocides, they may build up resistance to disinfectants and antibiotics. Such bacteria contribute to hospital-acquired infections.

"Careful use of antibiotics and the use of biocides that are not known to be recognized by efflux pumps may reduce the frequency at which resistant strains are found," Kaatz said. "Alternatively, the combination of a pump inhibitor with an antimicrobial agent or biocide will reduce the emergence of such strains and their clinical impact."

More information
The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics has more about antibacterial agents.

Melamine consumption

Postbag and some respondents seem to have lost sight of the issue with the melamine threat. Beneficial or not, a large number of people in Thailand drink milk and eat foods with dairy content. These people have been exposed to the chemical melamine which is a proven health risk in sufficient quantities, and the question is: has the Thai government acted in a manner that protects these consumers?

The answer to this seems quite obvious in that there has been almost no information on what products have been tested or banned, if any, and the fact that the website that the Thai FDA referred consumers to with questions about melamine, contains no mention of melamine at all.

In a case like this it would be helpful if news organisations stepped in, and while there have been hard-hitting editorials and good coverage of the business side of the problem, there has been virtually no help for consumers.

If anyone knows where helpful information for the consumer exists, it would be good if they sent that to Postbag, rather than continuing with the back and forth commentary on the benefits of milk.
JONAS

The Appropriate Use of ElectroDermal Screening

Dr. WIlliam LaValley talks with Dr. Mercola about the appropriate use of ElectroDermal Screening.

What the Chemical Industry Doesn't Want You to Know about Everyday Products

The global chemical industry annually produces about 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A (BPA), an integral component of a vast array of plastic products, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales. The value of BPA-based manufactured goods is probably incalculable. Environmental Working Group studies have found BPA in more than half the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.

Soon after scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons found the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of BPA caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice, a scientist from Dow Chemical Company showed up at the Missouri lab. He disputed the data and declared, as Vom Saal recalls, "We want you to know how distressed we are by your research."

"It was not a subtle threat," Vom Saal says. "It was really, really clear, and we ended up saying, threatening us is really not a good idea."

The Missouri scientists redoubled their investigations of BPA. Industry officials and scientist allies fired back, sometimes in nose-to-nose debates at scientific gatherings, sometimes more insidiously. "I heard [chemical industry officials] were making blatantly false statements about our research," says Welshons. "They were skilled at creating doubt when none existed."

The industry's increasingly noisy denials backfired. By the turn of the millennium, dozens of scientists were launching their own investigations of the chemical. But the chemical industry can be expected to fight aggressively against more regulation. Earlier this year, the industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a California legislative proposal to ban BPA in food packaging. The Chemistry Council and allied companies and industry groups hired an army of lobbyists. Tactics included an industry email to food banks charging that a BPA ban would mean the end of distributions of canned goods for the poor.

Sources:
AlterNet September 15, 2008

5 Ways to Keep BPA Out of Your Food

With new studies linking bisphenol A, a chemical found in the linings of food and beverage cans, to diabetes and heart disease, you may be wondering what you can do to minimize your exposure. Here are some good rules of thumb for reducing your intake of BPA:

1. Buy your tomato sauce in glass jars

Canned tomato sauce is likely to have higher levels of BPA, because the high acidity of the tomatoes causes more of the chemical to leach from the lining of the can.

2. Consume fresh fruits and vegetables instead of canned

In addition to their BPA-free benefit, fresh produce usually has more nutrients, which often get lost in the process of canning.

3. Purchase beverages in plastic or glass bottles

Canned soda and juice often contain some BPA.

4. Use powdered infant formula instead of ready-to-serve liquid

An assessment from the Environmental Working Group found that liquid formulas contain more BPA than powdered brands.

5. Think in terms of moderation

Follow a sensible approach, eating less of those foods that are higher in BPA.

Sources:
U.S. News & World Report September 17, 2008
Journal of the American Medical Association September 16, 2008; 300(11):1353-5
Journal of the American Medical Association September 16, 2008; 300(11):1303-10

Food Safety's Dirty Little Secret

After the first reports of a salmonella outbreak this spring, it took a full 89 days before jalapeño and serrano peppers came under suspicion as the culprit. During that period, more than 1,440 victims were hospitalized.

Even as bacterial outbreaks have become more high-profile, and the financial fallout from recalls more severe, the government has been handing off many food-safety responsibilities to private industry. Food safety today is a business.

For most Americans, the FDA is still the public face of food safety. But in reality, oversight of farms and food plants has gradually changed hands. There is now a cottage industry of third-party companies calling themselves "food-safety consultants."

This has created some alarming potential gaps. There's no certification system for these third-party inspectors. Critics worry that retailers hire these companies not just to ensure food quality -- but also as a defense mechanism to help protect their public image in case something goes wrong.

And while tomato and spinach growers are audited heavily because they've had so many problems in the past, other crops, such as broccoli and cauliflower, are scrutinized less. Many growers are living in a continuing state of denial about whether they should be doing anything.

There's also the concern that these efforts could actually be making food less safe. In some cases, a grower needs to pay for audits from six or seven companies just to satisfy the demands of all of its different buyers. The overlapping attention might help eliminate problems, but it's also costly. For slaughter facilities squeezed by rising costs, surreptitiously cutting out E. coli tests has been one of their money-saving tactics.

To get a further sense of the problem, consider that today about 80 percent of the United State’s seafood and slightly less than half of its fresh fruits are imported from overseas. But the FDA inspects only about 1 percent. Meanwhile, it would cost the FDA more than $3.5 billion to inspect every one of the roughly 250,000 domestic and foreign food facilities just once.

In reality, industry insiders say the FDA is lucky if it gets to the same facility once every three years.
Sources:
U.S. News & World Report September 10, 2008

Flu Vaccine in a Mist

Flu Vaccine in a Mist

Is It Morally Wrong to Eat Animals?

By Andrea Useem

At an annual conference for religion journalists last month, I saw a film that radically altered the way I look at eating meat. At the end of a long and boring speech, which I mostly ignored, Wayne Pacelle, the president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), showed the film Eating Mercifully, which snapped me right to attention.

The clips of pregnant pigs confined to iron cages, a cow being pushed off the back of a truck, and male chicks suffocated to death by the thousands made me feel sick; something about the animals’ helpless dependence reminded me of my own children.

What really affected me, however, was the portrait of Elaine West, a conservative Christian who runs a farm-animal sanctuary in Florida. When she first learned how animals are treated on factory farms, West said she was “so ashamed as a Christian [that] I was supporting that kind of horrific abuse and cruelty.” Read More

Health Tip: Meeting Criteria for Blood Donation

(HealthDay News) - Your height and weight are basic criteria for being able to donate blood. But your health history and other factors also may prevent you from giving a pint.

Here are general guidelines for who can donate blood, courtesy of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center:

• You must be at least 17 years old and weigh at least 110 pounds.
• You shouldn't have a blood pressure reading of higher than 180/100 at the time of donation. You can still donate if you take one or more blood pressure medications.
• You shouldn't have a body piercing (excluding ear piercing) or a tattoo applied in the prior 12 months.
• If you are diabetic, your symptoms must be well-controlled.
• You shouldn't donate if you have used intravenous drugs, are taking antibiotics for an active respiratory infection, are sick with a cold or the flu, have recently traveled to certain countries that harbor blood-borne conditions, have had hepatitis, or are at a high risk for HIV/AIDS.