Health Tip: Breathe Fresh Air at Home

(HealthDay News) -- If the air inside your home is dirty, you and your housemates can have symptoms including headache, dizziness, asthma and allergy symptoms, and fatigue.





The National Women's Health Information Center offers these suggestions to keep the air in your home clean:

• When using chemicals such as paint or paint thinner, open the windows and keep the area well-ventilated.
• Use a humidifier or dehumidifier to keep humidity levels between 30 percent and 50 percent.
• If you use a humidifier, clean it and replace the water daily to prevent the growth of mold and mildew in the appliance.
• Use an exhaust fan in the kitchen and bathroom, and vent clothes dryers outside.
• If rugs or carpets get wet, quickly have them cleaned to prevent the growth of mold and bacteria.
• Clean your home regularly, being careful to remove dust and any other allergens.

Health Tip: Your Children Need Iron

(HealthDay News) -- Young children are at great risk for iron deficiency because of rapid growth and increased iron requirements, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Iron deficiency can occur because of a lack of iron in the diet. Anemia is the result of a relatively severe deficiency.

Although an inadequate dietary intake of several nutrients may reduce the production of red blood cells and hemoglobin, the most common cause of anemia throughout the world is iron deficiency.

Poverty, abuse and living in a home with poor household conditions also place children at risk for iron-deficiency anemia. Iron-deficiency anemia is seen most commonly in children aged 6 months to 3 years old. Those at highest risk are low birth-weight infants after 2 months of age, breast-fed term infants who receive no iron-fortified foods or supplemental iron after 4 months of age, and formula-fed term infants who are not consuming iron-fortified formula.

As babies move to solid foods, foods with high amounts of iron should be selected. These include most meats, egg yolks and certain vegetables, such as spinach.

Iron-deficiency anemia significantly impairs mental and psychomotor development in infants and children. Although iron deficiency can be reversed with treatment, the reversibility of the mental and psychomotor impairment is not yet clearly understood. Thus, prevention and treatment need to be emphasized.

Poison Prevention Requires Diligence

(HealthDay News) -- To keep from being among the millions accidentally exposed to a harmful dose of poison, people need to be diligent -- not just during National Poison Prevention Week but always -- when handling potentially noxious materials, warns the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Children younger than 6 are involved in more than half of the 2 million poison exposure incidents reported each year, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

As precautions, the EPA recommends that people:

• Always read the instructions about a product's use and storage first and follow them exactly.
• Keep harmful products, including cleaners and pesticides, in their original containers to prevent accidental misuse. This will also keep necessary information handy if a problem does occur.
• Never leave poisonous products unattended when using them.
• Lock poisons, cleaning supplies and similar products in a storage area -- a cabinet, closet or shed -- that children and pets cannot access.
• Keep the phone number for the Poison Control Center hot line -- (800) 222-1222 -- handy.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on poison prevention at home.

The FDA's Latest Health-Harming Stance on Mercury

Federal health officials have refused to put new restrictions on the use of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, in vaccines and other medicines.

The Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs petitioned the FDA for tighter restrictions in 2004, citing evidence that the preservative could be linked to autism. In a reply made public only recently, the FDA rejected the petition.

The Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs currently plans to seek a court order that would force the FDA to remove thimerosal from all vaccines and medicines until it is demonstrated that the preservative is safe.

Thimerosal, which is about 50 percent mercury by weight, is used to kill microbes in vaccines. Since 2001, vaccines given to children 6 and younger have contained at most trace amounts of the preservative. It is still, however, present in some adult vaccines, including most doses of flu vaccine, and in some eye ointments, nasal sprays, and antivenins.

In related news, a government advisory panel has concluded that an FDA safety report suggesting that "silver" mercury amalgam fillings are safe was "unreasonable," and that further study was needed.

The safety report was deemed murky and misleading, and failed to answer concerns regarding why mercury was being used at all. Dental amalgam contains about 50 percent elemental mercury, and studies have shown that with time, mercury vapors leach out of the fillings and may be absorbed into the bloodstream.





Sources:

MSNBC October 24, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15405274/

Journal of American Medical Association October 25, 2006; 296(16): 1990-1997
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/296/16/1990


Belleville News Democrat September 29, 2006
http://www.bnd.com/living/15638505.htm

Walk 100 Steps a Minute for 'Moderate' Exercise

(HealthDay News) -- National guidelines urge all Americans to engage in "moderate physical activity" at least 2.5 hours a week, but what does that mean if you're out for a stroll?

A new study provides the answer: It's equivalent to a brisk walk, or about 1,000 steps every 10 minutes.

"Now we know what moderate is," said the study's lead author, Simon J. Marshall, an assistant professor of exercise and nutritional sciences at San Diego State University. He suggests that people use pedometers to figure out if they're exercising at a high enough intensity.

The U.S. formerly recommended that people get 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least five days a week. But last fall, Marshall said, officials changed the guidelines to simply say that people should exercise 150 minutes a week.

"They dropped the per-day recommendation because there wasn't a compelling argument that people who exercised four days a week were any worse off than those who exercised five days a week," Marshall said.

For walkers, however, it was not quite clear what "moderate" activity meant, although some exercise specialists suggest that people walk 10,000 steps a day.

"Most people are familiar with the recommendation to get 30 minutes of exercise most days," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "Fewer people know that needs to be moderate intensity, and fewer still know what that means."

In the new study, researchers enlisted 58 women and 39 men, with an average age of 32, to walk on treadmills while a machine measured their energy expenditure. The idea was to determine what level of activity was in the moderate range.

The findings of the study, which was funded by the federal government, appear in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The researchers found that moderate exercise amounted to 92 to 102 steps a minute for men and 91 to 115 steps a minute for women.

"It's a bit like a brisk walk," Marshall said. "If you can imagine you're late for a bus, you're in a hurry. It's not a leisurely stroll, it's a brisk walk."

People may find it easiest to use a pedometer to measure their walking speed because it can be difficult to count steps and walk at the same time, Marshall said. "When you get above 50, you're trying to focus on what you're doing and where you're going."

There's one caveat though: The study found that about half of the pedometers on the market aren't accurate. Marshall said he would still recommend that people use them, however. Japanese-made models appear to be the most reliable when it comes to accuracy, he said.

The researchers said that three 1,000-step walks in a day, five days a week, would meet national exercise guidelines.

"Even walking below that threshold will usually have some benefit to your overall cardiovascular balance sheet," Marshall said. "But for reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease and other complications, the 30 minutes of moderate exercise seems to be important."

Katz said he suspects that some people will discover that they "need to take it up a notch."

"On the other hand, our advice has long been that 'moderate' is a pace that noticeably increases heart and breathing rate while still leaving you capable of speaking in full sentences," he said. "That is still about right. No pedometer required."

More information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more about walking to fitness.

Children's Bath Products Contain Contaminants

(HealthDay News) -- Many baby and child-care products contain the chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both of which have been linked to cancer and various skin conditions, a new report contends.

But the chemicals aren't listed on the labels of bubble bath, shampoo and other common products, according to the report from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetic Use.

"Companies can obviously do better, and we need to demand that they do better," said Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetic Use and co-author of the report, released Thursday. "Many companies are already making great products that don't have any of these chemicals [and] many companies in the natural products industry have reformulated to get rid of that problem. We also know many companies are using preservatives that don't use formaldehyde."

According to the authors, the report, called No More Toxic Tub, is the first to document contamination of children's products with these chemicals. The Environmental Working Group was involved in the analyses.

Both formaldehyde and dioxane are considered "contaminants," Malkan said.

A contaminant "is a chemical that is not intentionally added to the product but is a byproduct," she said. "Those are all exempt from labeling laws ... Companies don't even have to know themselves."

Dioxane is a byproduct of chemical processing and formaldehyde is released from some of the chemicals that are used as preservatives, Malkan said.

John Bailey is chief scientist for the Personal Care Products Council, a national trade association for the cosmetic and personal care products industry. Responding to the report, he said, "These are issues that have been around for many, many years, so it's not new news. The thing that impressed me was the low levels of dioxane that were found in these products, which indicates to me that the industry is doing its job in keeping this potential contaminant down to a low level."

Bailey also said there were wasn't enough information in the report to gauge how accurate the determinations of formaldehyde levels were.

Malkan and her co-authors tested 48 bubble baths, shampoos and other baby and children's products for dioxane and 28 of those products for formaldehyde. The testing was done by an independent laboratory, Analytical Sciences in Petulama, Calif.

Among their findings:

Almost two-thirds of the 28 products contained both chemicals, including Johnson's Baby Shampoo and Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash.
Eighty-two percent of products tested contained formaldehyde; the highest levels were found in Baby Magic Baby Lotion.
American Girl shower products had the highest levels of dioxane among products tested.
"The good news is that there are great products without any of these chemicals," Malkan said. "The challenge is you have to do some research to find them. It's not a simple matter of looking at the label."

According to Malkan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture "organic seal" indicates that none of these chemicals are present.

"The best advice for consumers is that simple is better, products with fewer ingredients overall," she said. "There are things consumers can do to make better choices at the store but we also need to change regulations and require companies to list all ingredients in the products and to make the safest products they can, especially products for babies."

Harmful chemicals and contaminants in children's products is a subject of continuing controversy. Earlier this week, it was announced that baby bottles made with the controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) will no longer be sold in the United States by the six largest manufacturers of the products.

BPA, which is found in a wide range of products, mimics the hormone estrogen and may disrupt the body's endocrine system. The chemical poses a particular threat to fetuses, infants and children because it can interfere with cell function when their bodies are still developing, public health experts say. The chemical has been linked with diabetes, heart disease, cancer and developmental delays in children.

More information
Get more information on what's in a product, or information on products containing no chemicals at all, at the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Database.

Give Me Oxygen?

Q: How do you feel about Exercise with Oxygen Therapy (EWOT), adding 200 OX to 15 minutes of treadmill exercise daily? Many are touting this as an outstanding supplement for seniors as we age. Do cells actually lose their oxygen richness exponentially?... Read more

Older Adults Get Drunk Faster Than Younger Drinkers

(HealthDay News) -- If you're over 50, and your friends have noted that you can't handle that third glass of wine as well as you used to, a new study confirms it's not their imagination.

Older adults who are social drinkers can become impaired by alcohol after only one or two drinks and not realize it, University of Kentucky researchers report.

Most studies on drinking are done with college students and involve binge drinking, but little attention has been paid to the effects of social drinking among older adults. As the population ages, there are more older drinkers. Yet little is known about age-related differences in the effects of alcohol, the researchers noted.

"Even though younger and older adults appear to have similar metabolism, the behavioral implications are different," said lead researcher Sara Jo Nixon, now a professor in the department of psychiatry, division of addiction medicine, and director of the Neurocognitive Laboratory at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Small amounts of alcohol affect older adults more than younger adults, Nixon said. "Older adults thought they were fine when they weren't," she said. "You really can't rely on asking, 'Are you alright to drive,' even with lower amounts of alcohol. This may be particularly true for older adults."

The report was published in the March issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.




For the study, Nixon's group recruited 42 men and women aged 50 to 74 and 26 people aged 25 to 35. Participants were given alcohol or placebo to drink. Those given alcohol were given enough to reach the same blood alcohol level.

The researchers then had each person take a test called the Trail Making Test. In this exercise, people are asked to connect numbered and lettered dots as quickly as possible. The test evaluates visual-motor coordination, planning, and the ability to move from one thought to the next.

Each person took the test twice, first 25 minutes after drinking and then 75 minutes after drinking.

The researchers found that older adults did worse on the first test than younger people. "There was a five-second difference that looks to be due primarily to the alcohol," Nixon said. "That's important when you are out driving a car."

Yet, when asked if they felt drunk, the older drinkers said they felt fine, Nixon said. Curiously, during the second test there were no differences between older and younger drinkers, but older drinkers said they were impaired when they weren't, she noted.

"Even moderate drinking can result in cognitive differences that are subtle but significant, and we need to be aware of them," Nixon said.

Dr. James Garbutt, medical director of the Alcohol & Substance Abuse Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said this study highlights the difference between older and younger social drinkers.

"The biggest take-home message for me is that older adults had impairment on this measure of attention and performance with a relatively small amount of alcohol -- about two to three drinks -- compared to younger subjects," Garbutt said. "This highlights the possibility of increased neurocognitive impairment with alcohol in the older population."

The study also noted that older adults were less able to perceive deficits than younger individuals, Garbutt said.

"This raises the possibility that older individuals might be less aware of their impairment after drinking and engage in a potentially dangerous task such as driving," he said.

"However, younger individuals may have other problems, such as impulsivity or lack of experience, that leads them to do dangerous things after drinking. I think it is also important to note that the take-home message is not that younger folks can drink and not have psychomotor problems," he said. "Tests of simulated driving have shown that young folks are, of course, impaired after drinking even when they may think they are not."

More information
For more on drinking, visit the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

TROPICAL DETOX - Eat Fruit, Absorb 80% Less Mercury

Want to enjoy the health benefits of fish but worried about mercury contamination? Then eat more pineapple, bananas, mango, papaya and guava! Researchers looked at dietary habits in the Brazilian Amazon, whose inhabitants eat fish... Read more >>