Feds join women’s civil rights group to fight obesity. The National Institutes of Health and the National Council of Negro Women have teamed up to fight childhood obesity in African-American youths. Black children have the highest rate of childhood obesity, according to federal health figures. The We Can Program hopes to get young people, ages 11 to 13, information that can help them eat better and exercise more. We Can! is a national program designed for families and communities to help children maintain a healthy weight. The program focuses on improved food choices and increased physical activity. Get more on We Can!
Got a pacemaker? Headphones could be dangerous. For all those aging boomers, there are warnings that if you listen to music with magnetized earphones and have a pacemaker you’d better take precautions. Research presented at an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans found the magnets in headphones, not the actual music players, could interact with implanted cardiac devices. Dr. William H. Maisel, senior author of the study and director of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston, said researchers tested eight different models of MP3 player headphones with iPods on 60 defibrillator and pacemaker patients, the AHA said Sunday in a release. “We placed the headphones on the patients’ chests, directly over where their devices are located, monitoring them for evidence of an interaction,” Maisel said. They found detectable interference in 15 percent of the pacemaker patients and 30 percent of the defibrillator patients.  The researchers said people listening to portable music devices should keep their earphones in a pocket or elsewhere away from their chests when they are not in use.

TAGS: dangerous, headphones, National Council of Negro Women, obesity, pacemaker

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