Public Health

Added sugar during processing or preparing of foods remain at unhealthy levels, according to a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine. What exactly are healthy levels? Well, there is no clear answer. Recommendations for added sugar consumption vary and there is no universally accepted threshold for unhealthy levels. For example, the Institute of Medicine recommends that added sugar make up less than 25 percent of total calories while the World Health Organization recommends less than 10 percent and the American Heart Association recommends limiting added sugars to less than 100 calories…

Babies delivered at home by midwives had a roughly four times higher risk of neonatal deaths than babies delivered in hospitals, also by midwives.  The paper is not out to indict the midwife delivery fad but suggests they aren't going to be qualified to deal with problems the way a hospital setting and doctors would be.The authors link the increased neonatal mortality risk with the location of a planned birth, rather than the credentials of the person delivering the baby.  The home birth fad has grown in the United States over the last decade. Midwives have also become such a trend…

A new paper in Trends in Endocrinology  &  Metabolism  finds that regular exposure to mild cold may be a healthy and sustainable way to help people lose weight. Obviously so would eating less. Their work suggests our warm and cozy homes and offices might be partly responsible for our expanding waistlines rather than our buffet lunches. The researchers started studying the effects of mild cold about 10 years ago. Earlier studies of temperature primarily focused on the extreme for application to the military, firefighters, and others. But studies began to find differences…

Though media stories about obesity are still prevalent, what gets left out is that American obesity rates have stabilized. It's unclear why. Some papers claim it was due to the lingering stagnant economy. People go out to eat less, they shop smarter. But a new paper claims it is health food advocacy that has done its job and the leveling off (and, in some demographics, decline) started during the better economy of the Bush years, when  more information and efforts were aimed at producing healthier food choices and eating habits. "We found U.S. consumers changed their eating and food…

Marijuana is enjoying a golden age of cultural advocacy, to such an extent that its medical benefits are exaggerated while the obvious impact on health is trivialized. The health implications are unclear because a number of illnesses from marijuana may have been attributed to cigarettes or other products, but the dangers of synthetic marijuana, sometimes labeled as incense, potpourri, or herbal smoking blend, is more clear.  The products are sold in gas stations and convenience stores, under a variety of brand names including Black Mamba, K2 and Spice. It is a mixture of dried herbs and…

Obese children exposed to high levels of air pollutants were nearly three times as likely to have asthma, compared with non-obese children and lower levels of pollution exposure, according to a new report.  The curves match, anyway. Both childhood obesity and asthma have both increased dramatically in the past 30 years. The percentage of American children who are obese has increased from 7% in 1980 to 20% in 2008 while childhood asthma is up from 4% in 1980 to 10% in 2009 and rates are higher among urban minority populations, where there is more pollution. The mechanism behind any…

It is estimated that one in 50 people in England have some form of learning disability such as Down’s syndrome, but when they become hospitalized they basically become 'invisible', according to a new paper.  Hospital patients with learning disabilities face longer waits and mismanaged treatment due to a failure to understand them by nursing staff. In one case, a patient who had problems making herself understood was accused of being drunk by hard pressed hospital staff. Obviously, one outlying event is not an indictment of all government medical care but the authors say the problem is…

Even "minimally buzzed" drinkers and drivers are more often to blame for fatal car crashes than the sober drivers they collide with, reports a University of California, San Diego study of accidents in the United States .  UC San Diego sociologist David Phillips and colleagues examined 570,731 fatal collisions, from 1994 to 2011, using the official U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database because it is nationally comprehensive and because it reports on blood alcohol content (BAC) in increments of 0.01 percent. They focused on "buzzed drivers," with blood alcohol content…

If you tried the martini diet, the tapeworm diet and going gluten-free, science has bad news; the popular blood type diet isn't going to work any better for you.  The 'blood-type' diet was popularized in the book "Eat Right for Your Type", written by 'naturopath' Peter D'Adamo. The hypothesis behind the diet is that the ABO blood type should match the dietary habits of our ancestors and people with different blood types process food differently. According to that, individuals adhering to a diet specific to one's blood type can improve health and decrease risk of chronic illness such as…

Obesity is a growing problem, that is the downside to a a world where agricultural science has allowed plentiful food to be grown cheaply. With kids the problem is compounded. Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. A population-based sample of 5- to 17-year-olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Maintaining a healthy weight often starts young - but all is not lost if you reach adulthood and are too heavy, because…