Spike in kids’ health issues foretells problems
Rise in chronic ills may up health-care spending, disability risk, experts say
WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. children with chronic health problems such as obesity has soared in the past four decades, foreshadowing increases in adult disability and public health-care spending, researchers said on Tuesday.
More time in front of the television and use of other electronic media, decreased physical activity, increased time spent indoors, increased consumption of fast foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, and changes in parenting are all likely to blame, the researchers said.
Writing in an issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association devoted to childhood chronic disease, researchers tracked rising rates of obesity, asthma and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, among U.S. children.
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In the early 1970s, about 5 percent of children ages 5 to 18 were obese, compared to about 18 percent now, the researchers said. Asthma rates are estimated at 9 percent among these children, doubling since the 1980s, they said.
About 6 percent of school-age children currently report an ADHD diagnosis, also a dramatic increase in recent decades, the researchers said.
“The expanding epidemics of child and adolescent chronic health conditions will likely lead to major increases in disability among young and then older adults in the next several decades, with major increases in public expenditures for health care and income support,” the researchers wrote.
They based their estimates on government data and previously published research in scientific journals.
Focus on prevention
“One of the most important messages is that we really need to focus on prevention,” said Steven Gortmaker of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked on the report.
“Genetic bases have been described for obesity, asthma and ADHD. Nonetheless, gene pool changes cannot explain the recent dramatic growth of these conditions,” the researchers wrote, pointing instead to a host of behavioral and environmental changes.
Gortmaker said while prevention sounds simple — eating a more healthful diet, getting more exercise and cutting down on TV — making it happen is not.
In many children, chronic health conditions continue into adulthood and can be expected to raise health care costs while driving down quality of life, the researchers said.
Obesity is recognized as a growing public health problem worldwide. Obese people are at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and some cancers.
ADHD persists into adulthood roughly half the time, putting people at higher risk of other mental health problems, the researchers said. Asthma persists to adulthood in at least a quarter of childhood cases, they said.
Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Antibiotic Use in Infants May Up Asthma Risk
Think twice before pushing your doctor to give your child antibiotics:
Antibiotic Use in Infants May Up Asthma Risk
The drugs might kill off bad and good bacteria, study suggests
By Serena Gordon, HealthDay Reporter
The drugs might kill off bad and good bacteria, study suggests.
Find More
* Add Meningitis Shot to Summer Camp To-Do List
* Cut Down on Lawn Mower Injuries This Summer
* Today's Health News
MONDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- Giving antibiotics for a non-respiratory tract infection to an infant younger than 1 greatly increases the odds that the child will develop asthma, according to new research.
The study found that the risk was highest for those infants who received multiple courses of antibiotics and those who received prescriptions for broad-spectrum antibiotics. Broad-spectrum antibiotics tend to kill a wide range of bacteria -- both good and bad.
"Asthma is a multi-factorial disease, and we've found evidence of an association with first-year-of-life antibiotic use and asthma," said the study's lead author, Anita Kozyrskyj, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
One hypothesis, Kozyrskyj added, is that broad-spectrum antibiotics are killing off too many good bacteria.
"It may be that you need the presence of good bacteria during the first year of life for the immune system to develop normally, and the antibiotics are killing off some of the natural microflora in the gut," she said.
The study findings are published in the June issue of the journal Chest.
Each year, about 4 million American children have active asthma, resulting in about 14 million missed school days, according to the American Lung Association. Because asthma can't currently be cured, only controlled, researchers are focusing on factors that may play a role in the initial development of the lung disease.
For the new study, Kozyrskyj and her colleagues followed almost 14,000 children from birth in 1995 until 2003, when all of the children had reached 7 years of age. Data came from the Manitoba Health Services Insurance Program and included information on physician visits, prescriptions, hospitalizations and health diagnoses.
Additionally, the researchers linked this data to data on the mothers of these children to see if there was a maternal history of asthma. Parents also completed surveys on home and environmental exposures.
All of the children were from Manitoba. Half were male, and 57 percent lived in urban areas. One-quarter of the children were from low-income families; 90 percent had siblings; 5 percent had a maternal history of asthma, and 6 percent developed asthma by age 7, the researchers found.
Two-thirds of the youngsters had received at least one antibiotic prescription during their first year of life, many of them for broad-spectrum antibiotics, according to the study. And, the more antibiotics received, the greater the risk of asthma.
Kids who received one to two courses of antibiotics had a 21 percent increased risk of asthma; those given three to four courses of antibiotics had a 30 percent rise in risk; while youngsters given more than four courses of antibiotics had a 46 percent increased risk of asthma.
Children given antibiotics for non-respiratory tract infections, such as urinary-tract infections, were as much as 86 percent more likely to develop asthma than those treated for respiratory infections.
Other factors that increased the risk of asthma included a family history, living in an urban area and being male. Having a sibling conferred a slight protective effect, as did having a dog for children who received multiple courses of antibiotics. In kids who had more than four courses of antibiotics before age 1, having a dog decreased the risk of asthma by 28 percent. However, in kids who received fewer antibiotics, that protective effect wasn't there.
Dr. Alan Khadavi, a pediatric asthma specialist at New York University Medical Center, said that prevention of asthma isn't a reason to get a dog. "If you already have a dog, that's fine, but the studies are conflicting about whether they're helpful or harmful," he added.
As for antibiotic use, Khadavi said, "If your child under 1 year is sick, have him or her evaluated. Don't push for antibiotics. But. on the other hand, if it's a serious infection that needs to be treated, I wouldn't worry too much about the asthma risk. If it's a mild infection, a watch-and-wait approach won't be harmful if they're under a physician's care."
Dr. Sai Nimmagadda, an attending physician in the division of allergy at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said this study points to the need for "more judicious use of antibiotics, especially broad-spectrum antibiotics in kids under a year."
"Once wheezing has developed, it's difficult to alter the course of asthma, so now we're looking back to see if there are any risk factors we can change," he said.
Kozyrskyj recommended that physicians start by prescribing narrow-spectrum antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, for their youngest patients, and then if necessary, try a broad-spectrum medication.
More information
To learn more about childhood asthma, visit the American Lung Association.
content by:
Healthday
SOURCES: Anita Kozyrskyj, Ph.D., associate professor, Faculties of Pharmacy and Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; Sai Nimmagadda, M.D., attending physician, division of allergy, Children's Memorial Hospital, and assistant professor of pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago; Alan Khadavi, M.D., pediatric asthma specialist, New York University Medical Center, New York City; June 2007, Chest
Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Antibiotic Use in Infants May Up Asthma Risk
The drugs might kill off bad and good bacteria, study suggests
By Serena Gordon, HealthDay Reporter
The drugs might kill off bad and good bacteria, study suggests.
Find More
* Add Meningitis Shot to Summer Camp To-Do List
* Cut Down on Lawn Mower Injuries This Summer
* Today's Health News
MONDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- Giving antibiotics for a non-respiratory tract infection to an infant younger than 1 greatly increases the odds that the child will develop asthma, according to new research.
The study found that the risk was highest for those infants who received multiple courses of antibiotics and those who received prescriptions for broad-spectrum antibiotics. Broad-spectrum antibiotics tend to kill a wide range of bacteria -- both good and bad.
"Asthma is a multi-factorial disease, and we've found evidence of an association with first-year-of-life antibiotic use and asthma," said the study's lead author, Anita Kozyrskyj, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
One hypothesis, Kozyrskyj added, is that broad-spectrum antibiotics are killing off too many good bacteria.
"It may be that you need the presence of good bacteria during the first year of life for the immune system to develop normally, and the antibiotics are killing off some of the natural microflora in the gut," she said.
The study findings are published in the June issue of the journal Chest.
Each year, about 4 million American children have active asthma, resulting in about 14 million missed school days, according to the American Lung Association. Because asthma can't currently be cured, only controlled, researchers are focusing on factors that may play a role in the initial development of the lung disease.
For the new study, Kozyrskyj and her colleagues followed almost 14,000 children from birth in 1995 until 2003, when all of the children had reached 7 years of age. Data came from the Manitoba Health Services Insurance Program and included information on physician visits, prescriptions, hospitalizations and health diagnoses.
Additionally, the researchers linked this data to data on the mothers of these children to see if there was a maternal history of asthma. Parents also completed surveys on home and environmental exposures.
All of the children were from Manitoba. Half were male, and 57 percent lived in urban areas. One-quarter of the children were from low-income families; 90 percent had siblings; 5 percent had a maternal history of asthma, and 6 percent developed asthma by age 7, the researchers found.
Two-thirds of the youngsters had received at least one antibiotic prescription during their first year of life, many of them for broad-spectrum antibiotics, according to the study. And, the more antibiotics received, the greater the risk of asthma.
Kids who received one to two courses of antibiotics had a 21 percent increased risk of asthma; those given three to four courses of antibiotics had a 30 percent rise in risk; while youngsters given more than four courses of antibiotics had a 46 percent increased risk of asthma.
Children given antibiotics for non-respiratory tract infections, such as urinary-tract infections, were as much as 86 percent more likely to develop asthma than those treated for respiratory infections.
Other factors that increased the risk of asthma included a family history, living in an urban area and being male. Having a sibling conferred a slight protective effect, as did having a dog for children who received multiple courses of antibiotics. In kids who had more than four courses of antibiotics before age 1, having a dog decreased the risk of asthma by 28 percent. However, in kids who received fewer antibiotics, that protective effect wasn't there.
Dr. Alan Khadavi, a pediatric asthma specialist at New York University Medical Center, said that prevention of asthma isn't a reason to get a dog. "If you already have a dog, that's fine, but the studies are conflicting about whether they're helpful or harmful," he added.
As for antibiotic use, Khadavi said, "If your child under 1 year is sick, have him or her evaluated. Don't push for antibiotics. But. on the other hand, if it's a serious infection that needs to be treated, I wouldn't worry too much about the asthma risk. If it's a mild infection, a watch-and-wait approach won't be harmful if they're under a physician's care."
Dr. Sai Nimmagadda, an attending physician in the division of allergy at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said this study points to the need for "more judicious use of antibiotics, especially broad-spectrum antibiotics in kids under a year."
"Once wheezing has developed, it's difficult to alter the course of asthma, so now we're looking back to see if there are any risk factors we can change," he said.
Kozyrskyj recommended that physicians start by prescribing narrow-spectrum antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, for their youngest patients, and then if necessary, try a broad-spectrum medication.
More information
To learn more about childhood asthma, visit the American Lung Association.
content by:
Healthday
SOURCES: Anita Kozyrskyj, Ph.D., associate professor, Faculties of Pharmacy and Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; Sai Nimmagadda, M.D., attending physician, division of allergy, Children's Memorial Hospital, and assistant professor of pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago; Alan Khadavi, M.D., pediatric asthma specialist, New York University Medical Center, New York City; June 2007, Chest
Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Is Cheaper Better?
Please keep this in mind when shopping for your family:
Tainted Products Continue to Flow out of China
Toothpaste, cough syrup, and fish added to growing list of contaminated products
By Omid Ghoreishi
Epoch Times Edmonton Staff
May 31, 2007
Bella waits for a check up at Adams Veterinary Clinic in Florida after her owner brought her fearing the canine was fed a tainted brand of pet food originating from China, and distributed from Canada. Within China, quality control and food safety regulations tend to be lax or non-existent. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Related Articles
- A Costly Trade With China Sunday, May 27, 2007
- Chinese Corruption Allows Toxic Products Onto Global Markets Monday, May 28, 2007
- FDA to Monitor Toothpaste From China Friday, May 25, 2007
Just as Canadian and U.S. health officials were scrambling to find out which brands of Chinese-made toothpaste had entered their countries, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced last Friday that it has intercepted a shipment of corn gluten from China contaminated with melamine and cyanuric acid.
Melamine, a toxic chemical used to make fertilizers, is the chemical that in March was found to have contaminated over 100 brands of pet food in Canada and the U.S. The source of the contamination was found to be tainted wheat flour imported from China.
Also last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that packages of fish imported from China labeled monkfish could actually be puffer fish which contain the lethal toxin Tetrodotoxin.
Earlier in the week, health officials in the Dominican Republic recalled two Chinese brands of toothpaste which contain diethylene glycol, a lethal chemical used in engine coolant. The contaminated toothpaste has also been sold in Panama and Australia.
The same chemical was found in a Chinese-made cough syrup in Panama last year, and resulted in the death of at least 50 people. A spokesperson from Health Canada confirmed that the two Chinese toothpaste brands have not been approved for sale in Canada, and have not been found on the Canadian market so far.
Toxic Imports
Monthly reports by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration show that China by far tops the list of countries with the most food shipment rejections. Last April, 257 import shipments from China were denied entry to the U.S. for reasons ranging from mislabeling to using poisonous additives.
A few years ago, the European Union banned all imports of animal products from China after finding high levels of dangerous chemicals in some of the products. Although the blanket ban was later removed, many products still remain on the banned list.
Last year, South Korean officials banned Chinese imports of Kimchi, a spicy cabbage dish, after parasites normally found in human excrement were discovered in tested samples.
In recent years, both Canada and the U.S. have been accepting cheap and very often lower-quality imports from China, which might explain why problems with Chinese food imports have suddenly surfaced; the more potentially tainted products that are imported, the higher the chance they will make it onto the market.
Recently, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) boosted its efforts in inspecting shipments of wheat, rice, soy, corn gluten, and protein concentrates of Chinese origin entering Canada, holding all such shipments for inspection before they can enter the Canadian market.
"The focus is on what presents the risk, which is the product, not the country. In that context, when the evidence points to a particular country being a source of a particular problem, then we do more specifically [focus] on products from that country," says Paul Mayers, executive director of the Animal Products Directorate with the CFIA.
Mayers says the CFIA has not set a specific time frame to terminate the border lookout for vegetable and protein concentrates from China, but it will continue until there is "sufficient assurance" that contaminated products are not entering Canada.
Even so, the possibility of tainted food slipping through the cracks is high, says Dr. Keith Warriner, a food science professor and food safety researcher at the University of Guelph.
"If you think how much product is imported to Canada, to actually test it all is merely impossible. In addition to that, sometimes these contaminants are hidden in fairly low concentrations, so you don't know what to look for."
Fake Products
Within China, quality control and food safety regulations tend to be lax or non-existent, and consumers have to be constantly vigilant for so-called "fake products," which can include everything from fake soy sauce and fake herbs to wine with high levels of industrial ethanol and vegetables overdosed with fertilizer.
"If you talk to anybody from China, they'll tell you about how there's absolutely no food safety standards there in a lot of the locally produced foods," says Dr. Warriner.
Julie, a Chinese-Canadian who immigrated to Canada from Beijing in 2000 and wishes to keep her surname private, says it is very common in China to read in the local papers about cases of tainted food being sold, resulting in cases of poisoning.
In a famous case in 2004, hundreds of babies in an eastern Chinese province became ill and 13 died after incurring severe malnutrition from fake milk powder.
In a speech in Paris in 2006, Zhou Qing, a Chinese scholar and freelance writer, provided some disturbing statistics from a food and safety investigation he performed. In 2001, around 6,000 students in Ji Lin city were poisoned by fake soymilk, and in 2002, another 3,000 students in Hai Cheng city, Liao Ning province, were poisoned.
Qing also mentioned a 2004 Chinese survey indicating that 90 per cent of the participants were worried about food safety, and 82 per cent of those had encountered food safety problems. He said Chinese scholars have ascertained that there are two to four million food poisoning cases occurring in China each year.
Back in 2000, an official from China's State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision announced a crackdown on the production of fake and shoddy goods. The areas targeted were construction materials, agricultural production materials, gas stoves, household appliances and food.
Counterfeit Drugs
Dozens of people have died in China as a result of counterfeit drugs. Last year, 11 deaths were caused by the drug Xinfu, a poor quality antibiotic that hadn't been properly sterilized.
Many counterfeit drugs that originate in China and India make their way onto overseas markets. In India, there's a law against selling counterfeit drugs within the country, but not against exporting them.
The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was recently convicted of accepting large bribes to approve hundreds of untested drugs. In one case, a company paid bribes to Zheng in return for approving 277 drugs, mostly antibiotics.
In February, the BBC reported that corruption at the State Food and Drug Administration runs so deep that Beijing is considering closing it down entirely.Beijing announced on Tuesday that a new recall process targeting unapproved food products would be introduced by the end of the year.
Dr. Warriner says that since China's relatively recent emergence onto the global market, there has been no real system of food safety inspection or protocol to enhance food safety, and standards in China remain far from what we expect in North America.
"With all the outbreaks of pet food scandals and now the toothpaste…can we afford the risk of injury to the Canadian population, and obviously to our pets as well? I would advise a very cautionary tale…this is not just a flash in the pan, it's an endemic problem, a serious problem," says Warriner.
Additional reporting by Dane Crocker, Rory Xu, and Heidi B. Malhotra.
Copyright 2000 - 2007 Epoch Times International
Tainted Products Continue to Flow out of China
Toothpaste, cough syrup, and fish added to growing list of contaminated products
By Omid Ghoreishi
Epoch Times Edmonton Staff
May 31, 2007
Bella waits for a check up at Adams Veterinary Clinic in Florida after her owner brought her fearing the canine was fed a tainted brand of pet food originating from China, and distributed from Canada. Within China, quality control and food safety regulations tend to be lax or non-existent. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Related Articles
- A Costly Trade With China Sunday, May 27, 2007
- Chinese Corruption Allows Toxic Products Onto Global Markets Monday, May 28, 2007
- FDA to Monitor Toothpaste From China Friday, May 25, 2007
Just as Canadian and U.S. health officials were scrambling to find out which brands of Chinese-made toothpaste had entered their countries, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced last Friday that it has intercepted a shipment of corn gluten from China contaminated with melamine and cyanuric acid.
Melamine, a toxic chemical used to make fertilizers, is the chemical that in March was found to have contaminated over 100 brands of pet food in Canada and the U.S. The source of the contamination was found to be tainted wheat flour imported from China.
Also last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that packages of fish imported from China labeled monkfish could actually be puffer fish which contain the lethal toxin Tetrodotoxin.
Earlier in the week, health officials in the Dominican Republic recalled two Chinese brands of toothpaste which contain diethylene glycol, a lethal chemical used in engine coolant. The contaminated toothpaste has also been sold in Panama and Australia.
The same chemical was found in a Chinese-made cough syrup in Panama last year, and resulted in the death of at least 50 people. A spokesperson from Health Canada confirmed that the two Chinese toothpaste brands have not been approved for sale in Canada, and have not been found on the Canadian market so far.
Toxic Imports
Monthly reports by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration show that China by far tops the list of countries with the most food shipment rejections. Last April, 257 import shipments from China were denied entry to the U.S. for reasons ranging from mislabeling to using poisonous additives.
A few years ago, the European Union banned all imports of animal products from China after finding high levels of dangerous chemicals in some of the products. Although the blanket ban was later removed, many products still remain on the banned list.
Last year, South Korean officials banned Chinese imports of Kimchi, a spicy cabbage dish, after parasites normally found in human excrement were discovered in tested samples.
In recent years, both Canada and the U.S. have been accepting cheap and very often lower-quality imports from China, which might explain why problems with Chinese food imports have suddenly surfaced; the more potentially tainted products that are imported, the higher the chance they will make it onto the market.
Recently, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) boosted its efforts in inspecting shipments of wheat, rice, soy, corn gluten, and protein concentrates of Chinese origin entering Canada, holding all such shipments for inspection before they can enter the Canadian market.
"The focus is on what presents the risk, which is the product, not the country. In that context, when the evidence points to a particular country being a source of a particular problem, then we do more specifically [focus] on products from that country," says Paul Mayers, executive director of the Animal Products Directorate with the CFIA.
Mayers says the CFIA has not set a specific time frame to terminate the border lookout for vegetable and protein concentrates from China, but it will continue until there is "sufficient assurance" that contaminated products are not entering Canada.
Even so, the possibility of tainted food slipping through the cracks is high, says Dr. Keith Warriner, a food science professor and food safety researcher at the University of Guelph.
"If you think how much product is imported to Canada, to actually test it all is merely impossible. In addition to that, sometimes these contaminants are hidden in fairly low concentrations, so you don't know what to look for."
Fake Products
Within China, quality control and food safety regulations tend to be lax or non-existent, and consumers have to be constantly vigilant for so-called "fake products," which can include everything from fake soy sauce and fake herbs to wine with high levels of industrial ethanol and vegetables overdosed with fertilizer.
"If you talk to anybody from China, they'll tell you about how there's absolutely no food safety standards there in a lot of the locally produced foods," says Dr. Warriner.
Julie, a Chinese-Canadian who immigrated to Canada from Beijing in 2000 and wishes to keep her surname private, says it is very common in China to read in the local papers about cases of tainted food being sold, resulting in cases of poisoning.
In a famous case in 2004, hundreds of babies in an eastern Chinese province became ill and 13 died after incurring severe malnutrition from fake milk powder.
In a speech in Paris in 2006, Zhou Qing, a Chinese scholar and freelance writer, provided some disturbing statistics from a food and safety investigation he performed. In 2001, around 6,000 students in Ji Lin city were poisoned by fake soymilk, and in 2002, another 3,000 students in Hai Cheng city, Liao Ning province, were poisoned.
Qing also mentioned a 2004 Chinese survey indicating that 90 per cent of the participants were worried about food safety, and 82 per cent of those had encountered food safety problems. He said Chinese scholars have ascertained that there are two to four million food poisoning cases occurring in China each year.
Back in 2000, an official from China's State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision announced a crackdown on the production of fake and shoddy goods. The areas targeted were construction materials, agricultural production materials, gas stoves, household appliances and food.
Counterfeit Drugs
Dozens of people have died in China as a result of counterfeit drugs. Last year, 11 deaths were caused by the drug Xinfu, a poor quality antibiotic that hadn't been properly sterilized.
Many counterfeit drugs that originate in China and India make their way onto overseas markets. In India, there's a law against selling counterfeit drugs within the country, but not against exporting them.
The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was recently convicted of accepting large bribes to approve hundreds of untested drugs. In one case, a company paid bribes to Zheng in return for approving 277 drugs, mostly antibiotics.
In February, the BBC reported that corruption at the State Food and Drug Administration runs so deep that Beijing is considering closing it down entirely.Beijing announced on Tuesday that a new recall process targeting unapproved food products would be introduced by the end of the year.
Dr. Warriner says that since China's relatively recent emergence onto the global market, there has been no real system of food safety inspection or protocol to enhance food safety, and standards in China remain far from what we expect in North America.
"With all the outbreaks of pet food scandals and now the toothpaste…can we afford the risk of injury to the Canadian population, and obviously to our pets as well? I would advise a very cautionary tale…this is not just a flash in the pan, it's an endemic problem, a serious problem," says Warriner.
Additional reporting by Dane Crocker, Rory Xu, and Heidi B. Malhotra.
Copyright 2000 - 2007 Epoch Times International
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