Public Health

Skin cancer is a common and growing problem, accounting for one in every three cancers diagnosed worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Recent findings suggest that malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, is has grown dramatically in the last few decades.  Eczema is a blanket term for medical conditions that cause the skin to become inflamed. It affects about 10% to 20% of infants and about 3% of adults and children in the U.S. Most infants who develop the condition outgrow it at a young age. There is ongoing debate surrounding allergic diseases and…

A presentation at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Vancouver discussed the risk of nutritional deficiencies in severely obese teens – including in those who had weight loss surgery. At least five years after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, teens and young adults maintained significant weight loss but were at risk of nutritional deficiencies, particularly low iron, mild anemia and low vitamin D. The study also found low iron and low vitamin D in severely obese teens who did not undergo weight loss surgery. Those who didn't have surgery also had low levels…

An analysis of more than 3,000,000 children and adolescents from diverse geographic regions of the United States found that the prevalence of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes increased significantly between 2001 and 2009. Dana Dabelea, M.D., Ph.D., of the Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colo., and Elizabeth J. Mayer-Davis, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and colleagues with the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study, examined whether the overall prevalence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes among U.S. youth has changed in recent years, and whether it changed by sex,…

There is a widely watched video of a recent talk titled "How Cooking Can Change Your Life" given by author Michael Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma, etc).  His main point is that Americans and Europeans would be much better off health-wise if they ate a lot more home cooked meals.  I can certainly agree with that concept, but I have some problems with his approach in this talk.  He basically spins a scary, conspiratorial story about McDonalds french fries and how they are grown.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of outright disinformation in his talk.  He also presents…

Public health works. In 2000, the United Nations drafted aggressive goals for both standards of living and public health. So far, they are ahead of schedule on both. Two analyses by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington show that  international efforts to address maternal and child mortality have resulted in millions of lives being saved globally. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were created to drive maternal and child deaths down by 2015. They had been dropping in most countries since the 1980s but the pace accelerated and,…

It's community pool season and while urban moms think that a chlorinated municipal pool is cleaner than a rural pond, microbiologists know that isn't really true. Bacteria and parasites can lurk in all kinds of water and put a real damper on summertime fun. At biggest risk are the youngest kids, for a variety of reasons. “One of the worst offenders is the kiddie wading pool,” said Christopher Ohl, M.D., professor of infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and medical director of communicable diseases for the Forsyth County (N.C.) Health Department. “Warm, shallow water and…

Philadelphia was under attack through the winter and spring of 1991. The name of the enemy? Measles. The Philadelphia outbreak – the city’s first since 1954 - began in October 1990, and quickly spread throughout the unvaccinated population. Within six months, 938 cases of the highly contagious disease had been reported to the city's health department. What brought the most controversy, however, were an addition 486 cases identified among the parishioners of two churches that opposed medical treatment. More than half of the 892 mostly unvaccinated church members contracted the virus. Six…

Treating patients who suffer from a common condition known as arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which causes blood vessels in the brain to tangle, increases their risk of stroke, a study has found. People rteriovenous malformation have a better outcome if doctors treat their symptoms only and not the AVM, according to the team of doctors looked at the long-term outcome of patients with the condition, which is caused by abnormal connections between the arteries and veins in the brain.  They found that, over a 12 year period, patients who chose not to be treated for their condition…

Over the next decade, facial transplants will become more common, done at regional hospitals the way heart transplants are done now, according to a retrospective analysis of all known facial transplants worldwide. The surgeons behind the analysis conclude that the procedure is relatively safe, increasingly feasible, and a clear life-changer that can and should be offered to far more carefully selected patients.  The review team found that the transplants are highly effective at restoring people to fully functioning lives after physically disfiguring and socially debilitating…

With the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado, questions about cannabis have vaulted into the public consciousness. For a couple minutes, let’s put aside policy concerns and look just at the effects of cannabis in the brain. Two studies published in top journals, both in April 2014, look inside human brains at the long-term effects of cannabis use. Is cannabis addictive? Is it safe? Let’s consider the evidence. First, an article in the Journal of Neuroscience used MRI scans to look inside the brains of young, recreational marijuana users at regions associated…