Swine Flu Fears Close Summer Camps for Kids
Children across the nation are being kept out of summer camp for fear they might contract the swine flu. The American Lung Association is advising many of its 50 affiliated camps – including the Colorado’s traditional weeklong sleep-away camp known as Champ Camp, and camps in Tooele, Utah, and Reno, Nev. “We just became increasingly worried,” Curt Huber, director of the American Lung Association of Colorado, told The Associated Press. “Anywhere kids sleep together and eat in the same room, this is going to be a worry.” Those children with asthma or other respiratory diseases are at greater risk from swine flu, Huber said. The camps were closed after four campers were hospitalized after becoming sick at an affiliated camp in Julian, Calif. Heather Grzelka, spokeswoman for the Washington-based Lung Association, said that swine flu “poses a special health risk to children with asthma.” Similar concerns have prompted at least 50 summer camps nationwide to cancel sessions or send campers home early. Last month, the Tucson-Ariz.-based Muscular Dystrophy Association canceled 47 camps in 35 states, a decision affecting some 2,500 campers.

 
Dr.’s Prescription for Elderly: A Couple Drinks Per Day
A couple drinks a day could actually help older folks shield off dementia, a news study found. But, before people 75 and older go out and tie one over, they should know that too much alcohol could trigger dementia. The study, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Vienna Monday, found that moderate-drinking elderly folks are 40 percent less likely to develop dementia over six years than are their non-drinking peers. “We were pleased to see that the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol intake reported in middle-aged adults also extend to cognitively normal older adults over 75,” said lead author Dr. Kaycee M. Sink, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, told Reuters Health. Although the study by Sink’s team is not the first to look at the association between alcohol use and the risk of dementia, is does have its unique qualities. “It is one of largest, longest studies of older adults living in the U.S. to examine this question; the participants are older than most previously studied; and we were able to look at the effects of alcohol consumption in both cognitively normal older adults as well as those who had mild cognitive impairment.”

Two asthma drugs are under scrutiny. Two widely used asthma drugs may pose more risks than benefits for both children and adults, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel said Thursday. Under scrutiny are GlaxoSmithKline’s Serevent and Foradil, made jointly by Novartis AG and Schering-Plough, HealthDay reported Thursday. The health experts did not say that the use of Serevent and Foradil should be abandoned altogether. Instead, they said the medications’ labeling should be reworded to urge doctors to use the drugs along with an inhaled corticosteroid – as guidelines already recommend. For more on controlling asthma, go to BET.com/Body & Soul.

Eat what you want as long as you walk. You can eat basically anything you want and still lose weight if you religiously take a brisk 30-minute walk six days a week, according to researchers from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. This amount of exercise is enough to trim your waistline and cut your risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a common condition linked to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle that raises the odds of heart disease, diabetes and stroke, reports Reuters Health. “Our study shows that you’ll benefit even if you don’t make any dietary changes,” study leader Johanna L. Johnson said in a statement. The Duke team examined results from the STRRIDE study (Studies of a Targeted Risk Reduction Intervention through Defined Exercise), which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. In this study, researchers observed 171 middle-aged and overweight men and women for the effects of varying amounts and intensity of exercise. They found that 41 percent of the participants had metabolic syndrome before they began exercising regularly. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of five conditions: a large waistline, high blood pressure, high levels of harmful triglycerides, low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol and high blood sugar. But after eight months of exercise, only 27 percent still had metabolic syndrome. “It’s … encouraging news for sedentary, middle-aged adults who want to improve their health,” Johnson said. “It means they don’t have to go out running four or five days a week; they can get significant health benefits by simply walking around the neighborhood after dinner every night.”
Double children’s Vitamin D intake, doctors advise. Children should be getting double the usually suggested amount of vitamin D because of evidence that it may help prevent serious diseases, the leading U.S. pediatricians group recommended on Monday.  To meet the new recommendation of 400 units daily, millions of children will need to take vitamin D supplements each day, the American Academy of Pediatrics said. That includes breast-fed infants – even those who get some formula – and many teenagers who drink little or no milk. Baby formula contains vitamin D, so infants fed only formula generally do not need supplements, the doctors said. However, the academy recommends that breast-feeding for at least the first year of life, and breast milk is sometimes deficient, reports The Associated Press. Most commercially available milk is fortified with vitamin D, but most children do not drink enough of it – four cups daily would be needed – to meet the new requirement, said Dr. Frank Greer, who helped write the report.

Government doctors fight staph infection.

Just as NBA Star Grant Hill rallies others who have experience with the flesh-eating staph infection known as MRSA, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched a campaign to make parents more aware of the dangerous and potentially deadly effects of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The government campaign hopes to get parents to identify, prevent and combat the infection. Often mistaken for a spider bite as the symptoms, MRSA also causes painful, red, swollen areas on skin that sometimes ooz puss, experts say. MRSA infection begins as a bump or infected area on the skin, is warm to touch and maybe accompanied by fever. It is contracted when someone touches an infected area or shares a personal item with someone who is already infected. Athletes are more prone to this infection, but it is also common at hospitals. To prevent the disease, the CDC advises frequent hand-washing, no sharing of personal items such as towels and to keep any wound or cut clean and bandaged. Early detection is always advisable as the infection at a later stage becomes difficult to treat. As part of the awareness campaign, the CDC hopes to develop Web sites, brochures, fact sheets, posters, radio and print public services, Web banners and mom-blogging sites. To find out more about Hill’s personal experience with the deadly staff infection and the Stop MRSA Now campaign go to BET.com/Body & Soul.  

Study: Fast-Food Ads Target Blacks.   A higher exposure to fast-food ads and marketing of other fatty foods is in part to blame for why overweight and obesity rates are such a bigger problem for African Americans (68.9 percent) than for Whites (59.5 percent), says the numbers crunched by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Read more at BET.com’s Body & Soul.
 

Blacks with lung disease have twice the cancer risk. Blacks with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – including chronic bronchitis and some types of serious chronic asthma – have twice the risk of developing lung cancer than Whites with the condition, according to a study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, Reuters reports. For the study, lead researcher Carol Etzel of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and colleagues developed a risk assessment model to help predict Blacks’ risk for lung cancer. Researchers analyzed data on 491 Blacks with lung cancer and 497 Blacks without the disease and compared those numbers against models that measured the disease in Whites. Researchers said the model will help doctors better predict lung cancer risk. The new model found that Black men with a history of chronic lung disease, often called COPD, had a more than a six-fold increased risk of developing lung cancer, which is about the same risk for those who smoke. According to Reuters, both Black and White smokers have a risk of lung cancer six times higher than that of non-smokers. Smoking is the leading cause of COPD, but pollution, and other environmental factors also play a role, Reuters reports. “What we hope is that a doctor can use these models to encourage their patients to take steps to prevent lung cancer,” Dr. Ezel says. “Even if they are never smokers, they can be at risk.”

One in three schools are in “pollution danger zones.” One in three U.S. public schools are in the “air pollution danger zone,” according to new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC). More than 30 percent of American public schools are within 400 meters, or a quarter mile, of major highways that consistently serve as main truck and traffic routes, the researchers found. And studies have shown that proximity to major highways—and thus environmental pollutants, such as aerosolizing diesel exhaust particles—can leave school-age children more susceptible to respiratory diseases such as asthma later in life. “This is a major public health concern that should be given serious consideration in future urban development, transportation planning and environmental policies,” says Sergey Grinshpun, PhD, principal investigator of the study and professor of environmental health at UC. To protect the health of young children with developing lungs, he says new schools should be built further from major highways. “Health risk can be mitigated through proper urban planning, but that doesn’t erase the immediate risk to school-age children attending schools that are too close to highways right now,” he adds. “Existing schools should be retrofitted with air filtration systems that will reduce students’ exposure to traffic pollutants.”

As we mourn the death of Rep. Tubbs, we learn more about brain aneurysm. Vital Signs: As we morn the death of Rep. Tubbs, we learn more about brain aneurysm. Vital Signs tells why they are more common among women.