Health-Medical-Fitness-Diet-zc: 2012

duminică, 2 septembrie 2012

Small but Deadly: Swallowing Button Batteries Can Be Fatal for Kids

The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on battery injuries to kids found there were 14 battery-related deaths in the U.S. from 1995 to 2010 that happened to children ages four and under. Thirteen of those deaths happened between 2002 and 2010, and button batteries were implicated in 12 of the deaths.

Those deaths were part of a larger trend that found children’s battery-related injures have increased 2.5-fold from 1998 to 2010, going from 1,900 cases to 4,800. In 69 percent of cases the type of battery was reported, and more than half were linked to button batteries.

MORE: Going Back to School Just Got Scarier: Toxins Found in Supplies

Injuries were from batteries being swallowed, put up noses, and from ones that caused acid burns. Among all children, most were treated and released from the hospital, but 10 percent required a hospital stay. In almost 75 percent of cases the children were age four and younger.

Button batteries’ small size—some are less than an inch—is at the crux of the problem. Parents may not witness their child swallowing the items, and symptoms, which include fever, diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain, can be tagged to countless other illnesses. Batteries that lodge in the esophagus can cause severe burns and bleeding.

“Because delays in diagnosis and treatment can lead to serious complications and death,” the report’s authors wrote, “children suspected of having ingested a battery should get prompt medical attention. It is also important to recognize that children might be reluctant or unable to say that they ingested a battery or gave one to a sibling.”

The report said some safety standards are in place, but more could be done. In 2008 federal safety standards for toys included making batteries unreachable by putting them, for instance, in screwed-in compartments.

MORE: Children as Young as Seven Self-Injure

The CDC suggested that added protection could come from batteries being enclosed in child-resistant packaging, and from securing button batteries in products à la kids’ toys.

Last year the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a similar warning about small magnets, often found in building sets. When those are swallowed in multiples or with other metal objects, they can magnetize through the intestinal wall, causing blockages, perforations or intestinal twisting.

The CPSC lists precautions parents can take to guard against battery swallowing, such as using tape to secure battery compartments children may have access to.

How do you keep batteries away from your kids? Let us know in the comments.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Quick Study: To Sleep, Perchance to Snore Isn't Good for Kids

• Are Your Kids Safe at School? 5 Things Parents Should Know

• UNICEF Report: Vaccines Can Save Millions of Children

Jeannine Stein, a California native, wrote about health for the Los Angeles Times. In her pursuit of a healthy lifestyle she has taken countless fitness classes, hiked in Nepal, and has gotten in a boxing ring. Email Jeannine | TakePart.com

Tobacco smoke tied to flu complications in kids

Analyzing the records of more than 100 kids hospitalized with flu in New York state, researchers found those exposed to second-hand smoke were five times more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit and required a 70 percent longer stay in the hospital, compared to the kids not exposed to smoke.

"People are being a bit complacent and thinking that because they don't see smoking as often…that it's not a problem anymore," said Dr. Karen Wilson, of Children's Hospital Colorado, in Aurora, who led the study. "But we still need to be vigilant about protecting kids from second-hand smoke."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, passive smoking causes ear infection, breathing problems and lung infections in children, and leads to the hospitalization of up to 15,000 children under the age of 18 months every year.

The new work is the first study to look at the effect of second-hand smoke on kids with influenza, however.

Wilson and her team looked at hospital records for 117 kids admitted for influenza to a New York hospital between 2002 and 2009.

Second-hand smoke exposure was reported on the charts of 40 percent of the kids - slightly lower than the 53 percent national exposure rate for kids under 11 estimated by the CDC in 2008.

During the seven-year study, researchers found that overall, 18 percent of the flu-affected kids were admitted to intensive care, and six percent needed to be intubated with a breathing tube. On average, kids stayed in the hospital for two days.

When Wilson and her team compared the kids who had been exposed to second-hand smoke to those who weren't, they found that 30 percent of smoke-exposed kids needed intensive care versus 10 percent of unexposed kids. Intubation was required for 13 percent of smoke-exposed kids, compared to one percent of those from a smoke-free home.

Hospital stays were up to 70 percent longer for smoke-exposed kids, with kids staying in for four days on average, compared with 2.4 days in non-exposed kids. If kids had a chronic illness as well as the flu, their length of stay increased to about 10 days, on average, if they had been breathing second-hand smoke, versus about three days in non-exposed sick kids.

"We've known that (second-hand smoke) is bad for children in a whole variety of ways," said Dr. Susan Coffin, who has studied flu complications in children at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "With this (study) we see that smoke exposure not only increases risk of hospitalization but it specifically makes the course of illness worse."

The small study, published in The Journal of Pediatrics, does have limitations. The authors note in their report, for instance, that children with severe illnesses may have been screened more frequently for smoke exposure, leading to an underestimate of how many kids were exposed to smoke.

Still, the findings do point to a need for better screening when kids with the flu are seen in the ER, researchers said.

"If you have a child who comes into the hospital and they are exposed to tobacco smoke, they have more risk of going on to develop more severe illness," Wilson told Reuters Health. Knowing that kids are at increased risk could help physicians make better treatment decisions, she added.

For Wilson, it's critical that children don't end up in the ER in the first place.

"This is a preventable cause of severe flu, and it's sad that children are in a position to be exposed even though these serious complications can occur," said Wilson.

"Obviously not smoking and protecting children from smoke won't stop them from getting influenza, but it may help it from becoming a severe illness or (preventing) complications that we sometimes see," she added.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/OFA4oS The Journal of Pediatrics, online August 6, 2012.

vineri, 31 august 2012

Cataract risk for kids on Vertex's cystic fibrosis pill: FDA

The FDA added information about the risk on Wednesday to the label for Kalydeco, the first drug designed to treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis, a life-shortening genetic disease that impairs the lungs and digestive system and affects about 30,000 people in the United States.

Shares of the company slipped 1.0 percent to $53.55 in morning trading on Nasdaq.

Rats that were seven to 35 days old developed cataracts after being given a dose of Kalydeco that was about a tenth of the maximum recommended dose for people, the study showed. Cataracts are a clouding of the lens in the eye that can impair vision.

It was uncertain whether the finding in juvenile rats would apply to children, since people and rats have different eye development, the FDA said.

To ascertain the risks to children, the regulator has asked Vertex to conduct a clinical study of the risk of cataracts in kids who are already taking Kalydeco up to 11 years of age, when eye development is generally complete. The children must be followed for at least two years and get eye appointments every six months.

The FDA approved Kalydeco in January for patients from six years of age and older, who have a specific defective protein which causes cystic fibrosis in about 4 percent of patients.

Vertex still plans to expand use of the drug to patients as young as two, and is set to launch a study in that group later this year.

Company spokeswoman Dawn Kalmar said the company had received no complaints about cataracts from about 350 people who took the drug during clinical trials, or from more than 600 people who have been treated with it since January.

Kalydeco is Vertex's second product approved in the United States, after a hepatitis C treatment called Incivek.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov in Washington, additional reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Working Parents Spend Less Time on Children's Diet and Exercise, Study Finds

The study, which appeared in the current online issue the journal Economics and Human Biology, looked at close to 25,000 people, and found that working mothers spent 17 fewer minutes cooking, 10 fewer minutes eating with their kids, 12 fewer minutes playing with them and 37 fewer minutes tending to child care than their nonworking counterparts. This was true regardless of the mother's education, age or income, and the differences tended to be greatest for mothers with children younger than 5.

What about dads? The researchers found they weren't picking up the slack. Employed fathers devoted only 13 minutes a day to cooking for and playing with their children; nonworking fathers contributed 41 minutes to the same activities.

"It seems men are not doing much extra work," said John Cawley, the study's lead investigator.

Only about 15 percent of the fewer minutes spent in activities devoted to their children's health by working mothers appear to be offset by increases in time spent by husbands and partners. To make up for the time deficit, the data suggested that working mothers spent two more minutes per day than the stay-at-home moms purchasing prepackaged meals or ordering take out, an amount of time the researchers said was statistically significant.

Study Stirs Outrage

Previous studies have found that the children of working mothers tend to have a higher body mass index, or BMI, and higher obesity rates than children of nonworking mothers. For example, in 2003, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics examined families with children 3 to 11 years old and found that 10 additional weekly hours of maternal employment over the course of the child's life increased their chances of becoming obese by 1.0 to 1.5 percentage points.

Cawley emphasizes that his investigation isn't intended to point the finger of blame at either parent. The aim of this latest study was to explore some of the reasons obesity may be tied to a mother's job status by tracking how much time both parents dedicated to their children's health.

Still, this type of data does tend to put working women on the defensive.

"Instead of giving her credit for giving birth to a healthy child, then frantically trying to also financially provide for her family, keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, educational books on the shelf, we make working moms feel bad about not having the time to make a healthy meal," said Antoinette Rodriguez, a financial adviser in Manhattan and mother of a 7-year-old daughter. "I get the sense that working fathers don't sweat the small stuff as much as moms. But then again, they're not judged for it."

Beth Anne Ballance, the mother of a 3-year-old son and a parenting blogger for Babble.com, owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News, agrees that the sort of findings reported in the study are often interpreted as a failure on the part of mothers more than fathers. "Despite the progress we've made as a society, despite women's equality, we still look to women as the main nurturers of children," she said.

But she believes studies like this one short change fathers too.

"He's a parent, not a babysitter, so he's just as responsible for choosing healthy foods and encouraging activity in our kid," she said.

Study Drawbacks The Cornell study didn't take into account the benefits of having a working mother in the family. For one thing, the financial advantages are obvious. And many believe working mothers provide positive role models for their children. Additionally, the data doesn't prove that employment alone is what drives the way mothers spend their time, nor did the study look at the quality of the ready-to-serve meals -- were they unhealthy prepackaged foods or low-fat organic fare, for example.

Cawley also points out that his research didn't provide any clues as to why fathers didn't pitch in more. It's possible the increased income from a mother's employment is used to hire nonfamily caregivers to handle some of these caregiving, household tasks. Another possible explanation is that fathers are unable or unwilling to increase time devoted to household tasks when their wives work.

"I don't like phrasing the question as whether working moms contribute to the problem. I think it's modern life that contributes to it," he said. "The question is what can families and schools do to promote child health given the changes in modern life?

What parents can do Cawley said, is get better educated about the nutritional content of restaurant and prepackaged foods, particularly if they don't believe they have the time to stop and prepare a meal from scratch.

"In order to make more informed decisions, consumers need to have nutrition and calorie information available where they buy their food." He said while also noting that federal health care reform rules will soon require chain- and fast-food restaurants nationwide to post the calorie counts of the foods they sell.

He also recommends asking schools to shoulder some of the responsibility. "Of course, we can't ask schools to do everything, but there are some obvious easy changes they can make, such as switching from easy-to-prepare popular foods in the cafeteria to healthier more nutritious foods, and providing more opportunities for kids to get physical activity throughout the day."

According to Cawley, the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged those very same measures as part of a comprehensive change in school environments to combat childhood obesity.

miercuri, 29 august 2012

Ads may spur unhappy kids to embrace materialism

A number of studies in adults have suggested that unhappiness and materialism can create a vicious circle: People who are dissatisfied with their lives may think material possessions will make them happy; and when that fails, they become even more discontent.

Since we're living in a material world, there is concern about what that mindset could mean for kids' life satisfaction.

In the new study, researchers found that, unlike adults, materialistic 8- to 11-year-olds did not become less happy over time.

On the other hand, unhappy kids did become more consumed by material possessions - but only if they watched a lot of TV.

The findings, which appear in the journal Pediatrics, point to links among unhappiness, TV and materialism, though they cannot prove that TV is the villain.

The results do suggest, however, that the ads might "teach children that possessions are a way to increase happiness," study leader Suzanna J. Opree, a research associate at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said in an email.

To help guard against that possibility, she suggested that parents help kids adopt a healthy skepticism toward consumer ads.

The findings are based on 466 Dutch children between the ages of eight and 11, who took an online survey two times, one year apart. On both occasions the kids answered questions about life satisfaction - how happy they were at home, at school, in their relationships and with themselves.

They also rated the importance of material possessions in their life, and the degree to which they thought those things could bring happiness or win them friends.

Overall, Opree's team found no evidence that materialistic kids became less happy by the second survey.

However, kids who were relatively unhappy in the first survey tended to become more materialistic over the next year - but only if they regularly watched TV shows popular with the preteen crowd.

The study points only to general patterns. And there are limitations; the researchers used kids' TV show viewing as a proxy for their exposure to ads, for example.

And in the big picture, according to Opree, TV ads would be just one factor that could affect a child's level of materialism. The same is true of life dissatisfaction, she said.

"Children's social environment - that is, family and peers - plays an important role," Opree said. "Values held by family members and peers are more likely to be adopted by the child."

No studies have been done to show whether parents' values win out over TV ads when it comes to kids' materialism.

But, Opree said, "what we do know is that parents can counteract advertising's influence."

Parents can help, she noted, by teaching kids to view ads with a critical eye, and to be skeptical of images that imply a product can make life better. Encouraging kids to see other sources of happiness - like "love, friendship and play" - might also help, according to Opree's team.

And why should parents worry about keeping kids off the path toward materialism?

It's true that in this study, kids' materialism did not seem to lead to unhappiness, Opree noted. But that was only the short-term outlook, she said.

"Previous studies conducted among adults suggest that it is very likely that children's materialism will lead to decreased life satisfaction later in life," Opree said.

Whether or not TV ads do affect some kids' materialism, experts already recommend that parents limit children's TV viewing and help them become savvy about advertising in general.

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that kids get no more than two hours of non-educational "screen time" - TV and computers - each day. The group also advises parents to keep TVs and computers out of their kids' bedrooms.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/PsIjET Pediatrics, online August 20, 2012.

Food stamps don't alter kids' sugary drink choices

When children from families participating in the federal assistance program for poor families, commonly known as food stamps, were compared to peers not in SNAP, there was no significant difference in how much milk, soda and fruit juice the kids drank.

The findings don't mean that banning the use of food stamps to buy sweetened beverages, as some have proposed, wouldn't cut down on their consumption.

But the results do suggest at least that having food stamps doesn't encourage families with kids to buy more unhealthy drinks, according to the report in the August issue of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

In short, "SNAP does not affect beverage consumption among low-income children," said Meenakshi Fernandes, the study's author and a senior analyst at the health and policy research organization Abt Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

SNAP provides - on average - about $284 per month for people with low incomes to use at grocery stores on food. Purchases of alcohol, tobacco and other non-food items are not permitted.

In 2010, New York City attempted to add sugary drinks to the banned-items list, arguing that sweetened drinks are helping to spur the obesity epidemic, which disproportionately affects poorer households (see Reuters story of October 8, 2010 at http://reut.rs/NaVBqA).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, denied the city permission to implement its proposed pilot project in 2011.

That, however, has not stopped other proposals for limiting soda consumption on public health grounds.

One approach is to impose an additional tax on sugary drinks, such as that passed by the city of El Monte, California late last month. (see Reuters story of July 27, 2012.).

In New York City, the Mayor recently proposed limiting the size of drink containers that can be sold, to cut down on "super-sized" beverage purchases.

According to Fernandes, approximately one fifth of American homes participate in SNAP and children live in more than half of those homes, so the question of whether the program influences food and drink choices interested her.

To find out, she used information from a national survey that asked fifth and eighth grade students how many times a week they drank certain beverages.

Ultimately, a sample group of 3,126 kids, all of whom lived in homes with incomes less than $75,000 were surveyed in 2004 and 2007. About one in five of those children were SNAP participants.

Overall, Fernandes found that kids from SNAP households drank sugary drinks slightly less than those who were not in the program, and drank fruit juice and milk slightly more. The differences were so small, though, they could have been due to chance.

Among eight-graders, for instance, kids overall reported drinking milk eight times a week, soft drinks six times a week and fruit juice 5.6 times a week. Those in the SNAP program, on average, reported 0.6 fewer episodes of soft drink consumption and 0.51 more episodes of milk consumption.

Anne Barnhill, a lecturer in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Reuters Health that although she thinks the study is great, it still does not answer the question of whether telling people they cannot buy soda through SNAP would reduce sugary drink consumption.

Barnhill, who supported New York City's 2010 proposal, said more research is needed into that topic along with how incentive programs work, such as the ability to buy fruits and vegetables at a discounted price.

"What we really want to do is increase the consumption of healthy food and decrease the consumption of unhealthy food," she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QQXKtb Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, online June 6, 2012.

Study: Junk food laws may help curb kids' obesity

The results come from the first large national look at the effectiveness of the state laws over time. They are not a slam-dunk, and even obesity experts who praised the study acknowledge the measures are a political hot potato, smacking of a "nanny state" and opposed by industry and cash-strapped schools relying on food processors' money.

But if the laws have even a tiny effect, "what are the downsides of improving the food environment for children today?" asked Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. "You can't get much worse than it already is."

Children in the study gained less weight from fifth through eighth grades if they lived in states with strong, consistent laws versus no laws governing snacks available in schools. For example, kids who were 5 feet tall and 100 pounds gained on average 2.2 fewer pounds if they lived in states with strong laws in the three years studied.

Also, children who were overweight or obese in fifth grade were more likely to reach a healthy weight by eighth grade if they lived in states with the strongest laws.

The effects weren't huge, and the study isn't proof that the laws influenced kids' weight. But the results raised optimism among obesity researchers and public health experts who generally applaud strong laws to get junk food out of schools.

"This is the first real evidence that the laws are likely to have an impact," said Dr. Virginia Stallings, director of the nutrition center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Stallings chaired an Institute of Medicine panel that urged standards for making snack foods and drinks sold in schools more healthful but was not involved in the new research.

The authors of the study, released online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed data on 6,300 students in 40 states. Their heights and weights were measured in spring 2004, when they were finishing fifth grade and soon to enter middle school, and in 2007, during the spring of eighth grade.

The researchers also examined several databases of state laws on school nutrition during the same time. The states were not identified in the study because of database license restrictions that protect the students' confidentiality, the authors said.

The laws governed food and drinks sold in public school vending machines and school stores, outside of mealtime. Laws were considered strong if they included specific nutrition requirements, such as limits on sugar and fats. Laws were rated weak if the requirements were vague and merely urged sales of "healthy" food without specifics.

The results show that for these laws to be effective, they need to be consistently strong in all grades, said lead author Daniel Taber, a health policy researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In late 2003, 27 of the states studied had no relevant laws affecting middle-schoolers, seven had weak laws and six had strong laws. Several states and school districts enacted tougher laws affecting middle-schoolers and younger kids during the next few years as national concern rose over obesity rates.

Recent data suggest that almost 20 percent of elementary school children nationwide are obese, and the rate among teens is only slightly lower.

In states with consistently strong laws in elementary and middle school, almost 39 percent of fifth-graders were overweight when the study began. That fell to 34 percent in eighth grade. Also, almost 21 percent of fifth-graders were obese, declining to about 18 percent in the eighth grade.

In states with no relevant laws, almost 37 percent of fifth-graders were overweight and 21 percent were obese, and those numbers barely budged by eighth grade.

Boston University statistician Mark Glickman said the study design makes it difficult to reach any convincing conclusions. It's possible, for example, that stronger laws might be more prevalent in Democratic-leaning states with better-educated residents, and less obesity. But the study authors said they found stronger laws in states that had high levels of obesity.

The authors accounted for gender, race, income and school location.

Taber noted that several Southern states have been the most aggressive at targeting school junk food, "probably because they have the highest rates of obesity."

Ludwig, the Boston obesity specialist, praised the researchers for trying to "tackle a complicated question."

"The challenge is that there are a great many factors that coalesce to influence body weight," Ludwig said. "Disentangling these influences and looking at the independent effects of just one is a methodological nightmare."

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Kids' lack of self-control tied to extra pounds

Although the link between childhood patience and extra pounds in adulthood was "not particularly large," researchers said it might still help hint at which little kids are at risk of growing into overweight adults - and give their parents and teachers a chance to intervene.

"This is a skill or set of skills that really emerges through the preschool years," said Alison Miller, a developmental psychologist from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Self-control "is really developing for kids, and there are a lot of things that you can get in there and teach," she told Reuters Health.

Researchers said teaching patience and self-control to little kids may also have other long-term benefits, such as better grades and overall health.

"This is a struggle that all parents face," said Lori Francis, who has studied kids' self-regulation at Penn State University in University Park.

But, she told Reuters Health, "The idea that children have something to look forward to and there is this awesome reward if you learn how to be patient and wait... that has so much relevance for other things that kids will encounter in life."

Previous research has suggested self-control in preschoolers is tied to their weight as preteens. But for the new study, Tanya Schlam from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison and her colleagues wanted to look farther into the future.

They mailed health questionnaires to adults who had taken part in a delayed-gratification experiment in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when they were four years old.

For the test - which has now become standard in developmental psychology - kids are offered a treat like a marshmallow or cookie immediately or told they will get two marshmallows, for example, if they can wait 15 minutes.

The longer children are able to hold out for a bigger reward, the greater their self-control.

In the original marshmallow study, the average kid was able to wait about six and a half minutes for a treat. About a quarter had enough self-control to make it the full 15 minutes and get the extra snack.

By linking those test results to adults' reports of their own height and weight 30 years after the experiment, the researchers calculated that each extra minute four-year-olds were able to wait for marshmallows was tied to a 0.2-point decrease in their adult body mass index.

Body mass index, or BMI, is a measure of weight in relation to height. A difference of 0.2 points is equivalent to about one pound in most adults.

The majority of the 164 adults included in the final study were considered in the normal range for weight, according to findings published Thursday in The Journal of Pediatrics.

The study can't prove lack of self-control causes kids to become heavier adults, the researchers noted. They also didn't have information on other factors that could predispose people to gain more weight - such as whether or not their moms were also heavy.

Still, they think childhood self-control and patience play a role.

"Self-control is associated with so many outcomes important to society: weight... but also health, financial stability (and) likelihood of being convicted of a crime," Schlam told Reuters Health.

Francis, who wasn't part of the research team, said there could be basic differences between kids who are or aren't good at self-regulating - such as their environment growing up or their families' beliefs - that go on to influence eating and weight.

"The big question mark is explaining why this relationship exists," she said.

Of course, the typical four-year-old isn't exactly known as the model of patience and self-control. But Schlam said meditation, yoga, martial arts and mindfulness can all promote greater self-control, even in young people.

Miller, who also wasn't involved in the new study, said simply talking through self-regulation with kids - like validating their feelings that yes, it's really hard to wait - can help build basic patience skills. So can encouraging kids to distract themselves by thinking about something else in situations that require waiting.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/NsrjeR The Journal of Pediatrics, online August 16, 2012.

Giving babies antibiotics could lead to obesity: study

"We typically consider obesity an epidemic grounded in unhealthy diet and exercise, yet increasingly studies suggest it's more complicated," said co-author Leonardo Trasande of the New York University School of Medicine.

"Microbes in our intestines may play critical roles in how we absorb calories, and exposure to antibiotics, especially early in life, may kill off healthy bacteria that influence how we absorb nutrients into our bodies, and would otherwise keep us lean."

The study adds to a growing body of research warning of the potential dangers of antibiotics, especially for children.

Preliminary studies have linked changes in the trillions of microbial cells in our bodies to obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and other conditions. However, direct causal proof has not yet been found.

This was the first study analyzing the relationship between antibiotic use and body mass starting in infancy.

The researchers evaluated the use of antibiotics among 11,532 children born in Britain's Avon region in 1991 and 1992 who are participating in a long-term study on their health and development.

They found that children treated with antibiotics in the first five months of their life weighed more for their height than those who were not exposed.

The difference was small between the ages of 10 to 20 months, but by 38 months of age, children exposed to antibiotics had a 22 percent greater likelihood of being overweight.

Timing appeared to matter -- children who received antibiotics from the ages of six to 14 months did not have a significantly higher body mass later in childhood, the study revealed.

And although children exposed to antibiotics at 15 to 23 months had slightly higher body mass indices by age seven, there was no significant increase in their likelihood of being overweight or obese.

"For many years now, farmers have known that antibiotics are great at producing heavier cows for market," co-author Jan Blustein, also of NYU, said in a press release.

"While we need more research to confirm our findings, this carefully conducted study suggests that antibiotics influence weight gain in humans, and especially children too."

The study was published in the International Journal of Obesity.

mso/sst

Pregnancy Changes Mom's Gut Bacteria

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or whatever the crisis may be — has a life of its own. Men and women keep dying, and U.S. policies keep accelerating the centrifugal forces that are driving the country toward civil conflict, which may have profound implications for future regional and international security." — Sarah Chaynes, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in commentary published Sunday as analysts say that the a public worn down by a war that began just a month after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, no longer cares about Afghanistan, and that the war has slipped off the radar screens and is now considered by many to be over.

Toddlers who snore may have more behavior problems

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or whatever the crisis may be — has a life of its own. Men and women keep dying, and U.S. policies keep accelerating the centrifugal forces that are driving the country toward civil conflict, which may have profound implications for future regional and international security." — Sarah Chaynes, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in commentary published Sunday as analysts say that the a public worn down by a war that began just a month after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, no longer cares about Afghanistan, and that the war has slipped off the radar screens and is now considered by many to be over.

Smoking during pregnancy tied to kids' asthma

Many studies have found that secondhand smoke may worsen kids' asthma symptoms, or possibly raise their risk of developing the lung disease in the first place.

But it's been less clear if smoking during pregnancy is linked to asthma. Most studies have not been able to tease out the possible effects from those of secondhand smoke after birth.

The new study, however, had a large enough group of kids who were exposed to smoking in the womb, but not after birth, according to the researchers.

And it found that those children were two-thirds more likely to have asthma by age six, versus kids whose moms did not smoke during pregnancy. Even smoking during the first trimester alone was linked to higher asthma risk.

The findings cannot prove that prenatal smoking was the cause.

But there are already plenty of reasons for women who are planning to have a baby to quit smoking, said Anna Bergstrom, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who worked on the study.

Smoking during pregnancy is linked to increased risks of miscarriage, low birth weight, certain birth defects and other pregnancy complications.

"I think that our study provides yet another good reason to quit smoking," Bergstrom said in an email.

The findings, published online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, come from data on 21,600 European children.

There were 735 children whose mothers said they'd smoked during pregnancy but not after giving birth.

Just under seven percent of all children in the study had been diagnosed with asthma by the time they were four to six years old. And the risk, Bergstrom's team found, was higher when mothers had smoked during pregnancy.

Those children were 65 percent more likely to develop asthma, when factors like birthweight and both parents' own history of asthma were taken into account.

These types of studies point to correlations, and cannot prove cause-and-effect.

But Bergstrom said it is "biologically plausible" that prenatal smoking raises a child's future asthma risk. Exactly how is not clear, but chemicals in tobacco smoke may affect early lung development.

And if there are direct effects, they may happen early in pregnancy, the current findings suggest.

Of the mothers who smoked only during pregnancy, most quit during the second or third trimester. But first-trimester smoking alone was linked to a doubling in a child's risk of asthma.

"For many reasons - not only thinking about asthma in the offspring - it is a good idea to quit smoking when planning a pregnancy, or as early as possible in a pregnancy," Bergstrom said.

Some pregnant women may be able to quit smoking with behavioral counseling. In some cases, a doctor may prescribe nicotine replacement therapy or other medication.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/O2vqAY American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, online August 17, 2012.

U.S. kids downing more diet drinks

Using data from a federal health survey, researchers found that by 2008, 12.5 percent of children were drinking artificially-sweetened beverages. That was up from six percent a decade earlier.

U.S. adults are downing more diet drinks too. One-quarter of Americans surveyed in 2007-2008 said they'd had a diet drink in the past day, versus 19 percent in 1999-2000, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

It's not surprising to see such trends, but the size of the increase among kids was a bit unexpected, according to senior researcher Dr. Miriam B. Vos, of Emory University in Atlanta.

And whether the pattern is good or bad is unknown.

"We do want children to drink less sugar," Vos said in an interview.

"But the challenge," she added, "is that there are no studies that have looked at the long-term health effects of artificial sweeteners in growing children."

That's not to say they are unsafe, Vos said. But she added that animal research has raised some potential concerns. For instance, animals fed artificial sweeteners have shown weight gain - suggesting there could be some effect on metabolism.

"We don't know if anything like that happens in children," Vos stressed.

But before anyone can make widespread recommendations that kids should have diet drinks instead of sugary versions, she said there should be studies into the possible effects on weight and health.

Sugar substitutes include artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin and sucralose; the herbal sweetener stevia is available as a dietary supplement in the U.S.

With the rapid expansion of Americans' collective waistline in the past couple of decades, diet versions of sweet drinks and foods are increasingly popping up on supermarket shelves.

No one knows if that's helping. Vos noted that large population studies have not shown diet-beverage drinkers to be doing better weight-wise - and they tend to weigh more than people who favor water.

But it's hard to know what to make of that, Vos said. People who drink diet beverages may already be overweight and trying to shed some pounds, for instance.

The current findings are based on more than 42,000 Americans who took part in a periodic federal health survey. It included questions on what respondents had to eat and drink in the past 24 hours.

The fact that the questions covered only one day is a limitation of the study, according to Vos. There's no way of knowing how often kids may be having diet drinks, for instance.

Vos said she thinks studies that follow kids over time, to see whether there's a link between diet drinks and weight gain or health, are needed.

Besides the animal research, some studies have found that diet-beverage lovers have increased risks of diabetes, heart problems and stroke. But those reports point only to correlations, and do not prove that artificially-sweetened drinks are to blame.

Vos said that when she counsels families, she suggests that kids stick with water and milk, which has protein, calcium and other nutrients.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online August 1, 2012.

Pediatricians Group Praises Benefits of Circumcision for Male Infants

Evidence for the long-term health benefits of circumcision for newborn boys has been mounting for years. Today the influential group the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) declared that the procedure is, indeed, beneficial and that it should be covered by public and private health insurance plans. The recommendation was published online August 27 in Pediatrics.

Previously the group was less committal on the subject of circumcision, their last guidelines noting that it was not “a medical necessity for the well-being of the child.” But “since that time, substantial contributions have been made to the peer-reviewed literature,” The AAP noted.

The new statement comes after five years of work by the group’s Task Force on Circumcision and an analysis of 15 years of the medical literature on circumcision. The new recommendations are also backed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

With the removal of part or all of the penis’s foreskin, a male child’s risk of urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted infections including the human papillomavirus (HPV) and penile cancer are reduced, the organization noted. Removing the skin reduces the areas that infectious bugs can linger. A study published earlier this year in Cancer linked circumcision to a 15 percent lower risk of getting prostate cancer. Circumcision has also been shown to drastically reduce the spread of HIV, and the World Health Organization now recommends it as a preventive strategy. A 2011 study found that circumcision, including that of adults and adolescents, in many African countries could prevent millions of new HIV infections in both men and women on that continent over the next decade, saving lives and billions of dollars in future health care costs.

With all of this evidence, “the procedure’s benefits justify access to this procedure for families who choose it,” the task force concluded. The group recommends that circumcision should be performed by trained medical workers, using sterilized equipment and adequate pain management. It acknowledges that the procedure does carry risks, but most of them are minor such as local infection and more major complications are rare. And circumcising a newborn appears to carry the lowest risk of complications compared to other age groups.

The rate of male newborn circumcisions has been declining in the U.S. since the late 1990s, from roughly 62 percent in 1999 to 57 percent in 2008, according to the National Hospital Discharge Survey. Without insurance coverage, newborn male circumcision can cost upward of $600, and public and private health plans do not always cover the procedure.

The group does not go so far as to insist every male baby be circumcised, despite the medical evidence for its benefits. “Parents should weigh the health benefits and risks in light of their own religious, cultural and personal preferences,” the task force noted in their more detailed technical report, also published online August 27 in Pediatrics. It also might not be appropriate for infants who have other medical complications, or it might be delayed for health or cultural traditions.

“Ultimately, this is a decision that parents will have to make,” Susan Blank a pediatrician affiliated with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and who chaired the task force, said in a prepared statement. But “parents are entitled to medically accurate and non-biased information about circumcision,” and should talk with their doctors early in pregnancy to ensure adequate decision making time and to establish whether they can get insurance coverage for the procedure, she noted.

Heart defects on the decline in European babies

A team of European Union researchers analyzing millions of birth records found that the number of European babies born with heart defects fell from around seven in every thousand births in 2004 to around six per thousand by 2007- a drop of around four percent each year.

While any drop in the numbers of babies born with birth defects is good news, experts noted that the decline is a modest one and the researchers can only speculate about the reasons for it.

There is cause "for a high level of skepticism," said Dr. Joe Simpson at the New York-based March of Dimes foundation, a non-profit organization that works to improve babies' health.

"It would be lovely if... true," Simpson told Reuters Health, but given the lack of explanation for the change, "whether it persists over time remains unclear."

For the new study, a team led by Dr. Babak Khoshnood at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), in Paris, France, looked at data on congenital heart defects collected in 16 mostly western-European countries between 1990 and 2007.

They found 47,000 cases of congenital heart disease among more than seven million births.

According to the report, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, cases of the most severe forms of CHD - including conditions like hypoplastic left heart syndrome, when the left side of the heart doesn't develop properly - has held steady at around five per 10,000 births since 1990.

But less severe conditions, like 'hole in the heart' syndrome, decreased from around 50 to 40 cases per 10 000 births, between 2004 and 2007. For a country like France, with around 780,000 births a year, that means about 780 fewer babies born with heart problems every year.

Khoshnood speculates that increased folic acid intake by European women is a possible cause of the decline in defects. But, "we don't have the data to know for sure," he added.

A recent study in Quebec, Canada, found that the number of babies born with heart defects dropped after 1998, shortly after the government began adding folic acid to staple foods like cereal and bread.

Folic acid fortification programs were introduced in both Canada and the U.S. in 1998 to reduce the number of serious birth defects in the spine and brain, known as neural tube defects. But there are no such programs in Europe.

It's possible that European women have increased their consumption of folic acid and are starting to follow recommendations to take it before and during pregnancy, Khoshnood said.

"People are realizing that there is a lot of voluntary fortification. In some breakfast cereals and so on, there is folic acid added, although it's not mandatory. Women are getting folic acid even if they don't take any."

Dr. Sunil Malhotra, a surgeon specializing in congenital defects at New York University, points out, however, "Folic acid has been a part of prenatal care in the U.S. for the better part of a decade, but there hasn't been a similar decrease (in heart defects) here."

According to the American Heart Association, the causes of congenital heart defects are still unknown. So researchers can only speculate about what could be causing the European decline.

Simpson and Malhotra noted further limits to the new study

Methods to diagnose birth defects have changed during the last 20 years, said Simpson. And with babies leaving the hospital within a day of being born, there is less time to spot heart defects.

Some conditions, including hole in the heart syndrome, don't show up until a couple of days after birth, he said.

"I was not overwhelmed by the strength of the data," Malhotra added. The study draws on data from a lot of different country registries that each collect and store data in a different way, and that data can often be incomplete, he explained.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40,000 babies are born with heart defects in the U.S. every year. Close to one million adults in the U.S. live with congenital heart disorders, which can cause tiredness, shortness of breath and abnormal heart rhythms.

Advances in surgical techniques mean it's now possible to treat many heart defects, although life-long follow-up care is still essential. Mild cases can often be treated with medication.

"One thing we do know," Malhotra said, is that detection of CHD in the womb has "improved markedly, as has care for mothers with babies with CHD." As a result, those mothers can get more prenatal attention and "have better outcomes when those babies deliver."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/N0bJuX Journal of Pediatrics, online 26 July, 2012.

Baltimore's 'Batman' just wants to help sick kids

Clad in a heavy leather and neoprene Batsuit, the Baltimore man drove up on a recent day to the orthopedic wing of the east coast city's Sinai hospital in a slick Batmobile -- a perfect replica of the Hollywood one.

Excitement bubbled over just inside the entrance, where kids in wheelchairs, parents and medical personnel were eagerly watching the Dark Knight arrive.

In a game room set up for the special visit, a cardboard replica of Batman stood amid piles of Batman-themed crayon boxes, t-shirts, glasses, and necklaces made of bats.

The man behind the costume is Lenny Robinson, 48, a tall, muscular father of three adult children.

For the last 11 years, the wealthy former businessman has dedicated himself to these visits, bringing gifts and a bit of fun to the young hospital patients.

This day, Batman approached 6-year-old Farrah, whose legs were supported by metal braces.

"Farrah, do me a favor," Batman said, leaning towards the shy little girl, before whispering in her ear.

"I never ask kids how they are," Robinson later explained to AFP.

"I say hi, it's nice to meet you, and I give them a present," he said.

Then he tells them to "do Batman a favor: get better. That will make me very happy."

Robinson took up the Batman mantle at the inspiration of his son, who, he said, was "obsessed by Batman."

Robinson inherited the obsession, and then transformed it, ultimately organizing his efforts into a charity: superheroesforkids.org.

He doesn't get paid for his appearances, which average twice a month. Instead he spends some $60,000 (48,159 euros) a year from his own pocket on gifts for the kids. And he spent another $215,000 this year on a new Batmobile, which he donated to the foundation.

Robinson, who sold his commercial cleaning business to great profit in 2007, said he has plenty of time and money for the job.

"I swim, go on vacation, and go be Batman," he smiled. "It's a full time job."

"When the kids know he's coming, there is excitement," said John Herzenberg, head doctor at Sinai hospital's orthopedic wing.

"Anything to divert their attention from their troubles and the pain they are having is a good thing."

-- The caring, polite side of Batman --

Robinson has earned local stardom in his hometown, and his fame only grew last spring when, dressed as the masked vigilante, his Batmobile was pulled over by police.

Officers stopped him because the car -- an earlier version of the Batmobile that was really a decked out Lamborghini -- wasn't displaying its license plates. In their place was the bat symbol.

The police thought they were pulling over "some rich dude in a freaking Batman outfit" who thought he didn't have to follow the rules, Robinson laughed.

Then they realized that Robinson had the real plates in the car -- and that he was on a superhero mission to visit a local hospital.

A video of the incident went viral on the web.

But his mission suffered more of a setback last month, when a gunman massacred 12 people and wounded dozens more in a Colorado movie theater, on opening night of the latest installment of the "Dark Knight" trilogy.

Two hospitals immediately cancelled their long-planned dates with the Winged Avenger.

"The timing was unfortunate for Mr. Robinson's visit, as it was scheduled just three days after the shooting," a spokeswoman for the St. Louis Children's hospital in Missouri, told AFP.

"We felt our patients -- and their families -- needed some time and distance from those images," she explained, adding the hospital planned to reschedule the visit.

"I understand and respect the hospital's decision," said Robinson. "The last thing I want to do is to upset (the children). That would be the opposite of what I want to do."

Despite the shooting, Baltimore's Batman remains in high demand across the US -- with upcoming stops scheduled for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and New York. Even European hospitals have requested a visit.

Robinson, who at times adopts the voice of the children's cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants to avoid scaring the littlest patients, says, unlike the comic book hero, his Batman has no connection to violence.

"I'm the comical, funny, caring, polite, respectful side of Batman," he insisted.

Deeply Religious Parents Often Reluctant to Cease Medical Care

A deeply religious woman, she pushed the doctors to do more, telling them that God would intervene and allow her daughter to make a miraculous recovery. For several hours there was a tense standoff between caregivers and parent.

She finally allowed the child to come off life support when Caplan told her, "God may bring you a miracle but your baby does not have to be attached to a machine for this happen."

When a child is seriously ill or injured, parents understandably move heaven and earth to save them. However, a new study has found that sometimes deeply religious families test the limits of medical science by asking doctors to go to extremes to prolong life.

Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the investigators reviewed 203 cases over a three-year period that involved end of life decisions. In the majority of instances, parents ultimately agreed to end treatment after meeting with caregivers and discussing the options. But in a small number of cases -- just 11 -- the parents insisted on continuing intensive care while they prayed for divine intervention and a complete cure, even after being told there was no hope for recovery.

The majority of physicians are not unsympathetic to parents of faith. Dr. Ian Holzman, chairman of the medical ethics committee at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, stresses that the main thing caregivers must do is respect parental faith and try to honor their beliefs as long as there is no undue harm to the patient. And he points out, sometimes it's just a matter of demonstrating a little empathy.

"Some parents will never make a decision to discontinue life support. They will never say don't do everything even when they understand that "everything" may mean torture for their child," he says. "But often they are OK when the physician says enough is enough."

According to Holzman, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists are the most likely to refuse medical treatment on religious grounds whereas Orthodox Jews, Muslims and some fundamental Christians are the faiths most likely to ask for life sustaining treatment.

The authors of the study include children's intensive care doctors and a hospital chaplain. Various different faiths were represented among the parents, including Christian fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism, and Roman Catholicism.

In their commentary they stress that religious beliefs provide vital support to many parents in a time of dire need but still express concerns that those same beliefs are increasingly leading parents to insist on the continuation of aggressive treatment long after it make sense.

Lunch workers study how to get kids to eat healthy

"We don't want healthy trash cans. We want kids who are eating this stuff," said Kern Halls, a former Disney World restaurant manager who now works in school nutrition at Orange County Public Schools in Florida.

At a School Nutrition Association conference in Denver this summer, food workers heard tips about how to get children to make healthy food choices in the cafeteria.

[Slideshow: First-ever kids' state dinner at WH]

The problem is a serious one for the nation's lunch-line managers, who are implementing the biggest update to federal school-food guidelines in 15 years.

New Department of Agriculture guidelines taking effect this fall set calorie and sodium limits for school meals. Schools must offer dark green, orange or red vegetables and legumes at least once a week, and students are required to select at least one vegetable or fruit per meal. Flavored milk must be nonfat, and there's a ban on artificial, artery-clogging trans fats.

At the conference, Halls demonstrated some healthy recipes for curious cafeteria managers, joining White House chef Sam Kass to prepare a veggie wrap using a whole-wheat tortilla.

Halls' main mission, though, was not pushing new recipes but teaching cafeteria managers marketing strategies used to great success by private-sector restaurants and food producers.

The first step, cafeteria workers were told, is to stop thinking of lunchtime as a break from academics, but a crucial part of a child's school day.

"Your job is not to serve kids food. Your job is motivate kids to be adventurous and healthy eaters," said Barb Mechura, head of nutrition services at schools in Hopkins, Minn.

Her school district recruited parent volunteers to be elementary-school "food coaches," touring cafeterias and handing out samples of fruits and vegetables. The food coaches would also demonstrate eating them. Food coaching may seem silly, but kids who have had chicken only as nuggets or patties may not know how to eat bone-in chicken and need to see how a grown-up eats it before trying it themselves.

[Related: Winning recipes to get kids to eat healthy]

As the kids graduate to middle and high schools, and grown-ups in the cafeteria aren't as welcome, schools can tap student ambassadors to be food coaches, perhaps asking the baseball team or a popular student athlete dish out veggies. Or, high school seniors might give underclassmen samples of a new vegetable coming to the cafeteria.

School cafeterias also are using cutting-edge market research. They're filming what kids eat, test-marketing new products before they go on the line and doing menu surveys to find out exactly what students think about a dish's taste, appearance and temperature.

A Colorado State University professor studied the dining habits of kids in Loveland, Colo., with an eye toward measuring ways to get them to choose healthier foods. Leslie Cunningham-Sabo, who photographed "before" and "after" pictures of kids' lunch trays, found that kids eat more fruits and vegetables if they have lunch after recess, instead of before recess. She found that corn consumption went up when generic "corn" labels were replaced with colorful cards describing the vegetable as "mellow yellow corn."

"Don't put veggies in opaque containers or give them boring labels like 'corn,'" Cunningham-Sabo told the lunch workers, showing diagrams of how to lay out a service line to encourage trips to the salad bar.

Another trick — just like supermarkets place impulse buys like candy and chewing gum by the checkout, lunch lines should place easy-to-grab fruits and veggies by their own cash registers. Her study saw cafeterias double their sales of fresh fruit when they placed it colorful bowls in a convenient place.

"You really have to be in their face with what's available," Cunningham-Sabo said.

The marketing doesn't stop at the cafeteria doors. Lassen View Elementary School in Redding, Calif., got children to eat more fruits and vegetables when cafeteria manager Kathie Sardeson started a recess snack cart bringing the foods straight to the playground for kids to munch on.

Her school also bought an iPad 2 to raffle away to students who entered by choosing a healthy breakfast yogurt parfait and turning in tickets attached to the bottom. She tempted kids to try unusual flavors by giving out "Fear Factor Smoothies" including unexpected ingredients such as spinach. Sardeson said schools can be persuaded to invest more in nutrition promotions because the payoff is better students.

"We get a lot of feedback from teachers that behavior problems are way down because the kids are eating right," Sardeson said.

Educators are coming around to recognizing value in having better school food, Mechura told the cafeteria workers.

"Food is one of the most important influences on your everyday brain cells," Mechura said. Healthy eating habits, she argued, is as important as everything else schools are trying to teach.

"We have to change," Mechura said. "We have to build an environment that creates excitement about what we are doing rather than fear of new foods."

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Follow Kristen Wyatt at http://www.twitter.com/APkristenwyatt