Public Health

It seems as though no other substance occupies so much of the world’s land, for so little benefit to humanity, as sugar. According to the latest data, sugarcane is the world’s third most valuable crop after cereals and rice, and occupies 26,942,686 hectares of land across the globe. Its main output – apart from commercial profits – is a global public health crisis, which has been centuries in the making. The obesity epidemic – along with related diseases including cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes – has spread across every nation where sugar-based carbohydrates have come to…

Diet diversity may be linked to lower diet quality and worse metabolic health, according to survey data from 6,814 participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, a study of whites, blacks, Hispanic-Americans and Chinese-Americans in the United States. The authors looked at diet diversity through different measures. These included the total count (number of different foods eaten in a week), evenness (the distribution of calories across different foods consumed), and dissimilarity (the differences in food attributes relevant to metabolic health, such as fiber, sodium or trans-…

One just has to be able to accept certain scientific liberties to be a fan (addict?) of The Walking Dead. It is well worth it, since it's the most entertaining hour on television. For example, I always wondered why the characters are routinely covered with zombie blood, guts, and other slime, all of which routinely runs down into their mouths, *and* into open wounds, yet they never catch the virus that started the apocalypse. One character even stuck his hand in the mouth of one of the things that was trying to bite him, and ripped its head off. *That* was OK, yet, if he had sustained a…

An analysis of deaths in the United States between 1969 and 2013 finds an overall decreasing trend in the age-standardized death rate for all causes combined and for heart disease, cancer, stroke, unintentional injuries, and diabetes, although the rate of decrease appears to have slowed for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. A comprehensive examination of long-term trends in mortality is important for health planning and priority setting and for identifying modifiable factors that may contribute to the trends. Jiemin Ma, Ph.D., M.H.S., of the American Cancer Society and colleagues analyzed…

Many transgender people who want to bear children are faced with barriers in the healthcare system, argue Juno Obedin-Maliver and Harvey Makadon in a commentary published in SAGE journal Obstetric Medicine. In recent years, transgender people have experienced significant advances in social acceptance which has led many organizations to look at their policies, programs, and educational materials to ensure that work with their sphere is both affirmative and inclusive. While programs that provide health care for transgender people have grown in recent years, the healthcare system is lagging,…

Last week, the American Cancer Society changed its recommendations for normal-risk women regarding screening mammograms: they took a middle road between their prior advisories and those of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF): ACS no longer recommends routine mammograms for women age 40-44, and advised reducing frequency to every two years for women aged 55 and older.  Sometimes scaring, sometimes shaming, three ladies with high-falutin' credentials in breast-related issues took to the NYTimes op-ed page to promulgate their viewpoint: not too many, rather too few…

Vitamin D is important for the absorption and metabolism of calcium, as well as for maintaining healthy bones and muscles.  It's important but different parts of America have varying levels of it, and that is the main source, so we fortify products like milk with it. In Denmark, the sun is absent for much of the year so people generally have too low a level, but are consumers actually interested in buying foods with added vitamin D? Apparently not. A large chunk of the Danish public thinks being fortified makes a product less natural. It's easy to scoff at that because America leads the…

Picture this: an anxious patient sits in the doctor's exam room. He has handed his health questionnaire to the receptionist detailing his diabetes, cholesterol problems, and hypertension. The nurse has checked his height and weight and recorded the numbers in his chart. He is ready for advice from the obesity doctor, hoping to learn how to get rid of some of the 100 pounds that has crept onto his body over the last few decades. The doctor enters and says, "Wow, Mr. Jones, that's quite an exercise problem you have! How long have you been suffering from this lack of exercise condition?" That…

A new study concludes that even if calories are the same and no weight is lost, children are still healthier with added sugar - and the author say changes in high cholesterol and blood pressure, are noticeable in as little as 10 days. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions -- increased blood pressure, high blood glucose level, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels -- that occur together and increase risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Other diseases associated with metabolic syndrome, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and type 2…

WASHINGTON, DC - Researchers at a Dallas children's hospital aim to show that nonpowder firearms such as airsoft, BB, and paintball guns should not be viewed as toys, but rather powerful weapons causing increasingly severe and sometimes life-threatening injuries in pediatric patients. A new study being presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Conference and Exhibition in Washington, DC, looked at medical records of patients treated at Children's Medical Center Dallas after being injured by nonpowder guns between 2010 and 2013. Of the 176 patients studied, 87 percent were male and…