Because Black women are three times as likely as their White counterparts to have a vitamin D deficiency, they have an increased risk of vaginosis, a vaginal infection bacteria, a study in the June edition of Journal Nutrition reports. It’s the higher dose of skin pigment in African Americans that prevents them from absorbing the vitamin, the report shows. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh examined 209 pregnant White women and 260 pregnant Black women and learned that more than half of the women had low vitamin D. Women with levels of vitamin D lower than 50 nanomoles had a 26-percent increased risk of bacterial vaginosis. Those with vitamin D levels lower than 2- nanomoles had a 65-percent added risk of the infection. More than half of the Black women (52 percent) had the infection, compared with 27 percent of the White women who did. Contributing to the low levels of vitamin D are poor diets and obesity, and Black women are far more likely to meet optimum dietary recommendations for vitamin D.

About 20 percent of Black women with late-stage breast cancer refuse chemotherapy, and about 25 percent refuse radiation therapy, according to a new report. Experts say that if they are to address the high refusal rate, more research is needed to ascertain why they are rejecting the recommended treatments. Further Dr. Monica Rizzo, from Emory University, Atlanta, and colleagues found that about 6 percent to 7 percent of invasive breast cancers diagnosed each year in the United States are at stage III. The racial distribution, however, is far from equal. African-American women are twice as likely as Whites to be diagnosed with the disease. The researchers reviewed data for all women diagnosed with or treated for this disease at one inner-city hospital between 2000 and 2006. “Of 107 stage III breast cancers identified, 93 (86.9 percent) were in African-American women,” according the article in Cancer. “Patients with stage III cancer were significantly younger than patients with other types of stage III disease. Nearly 30 percent of cancers were triple negative tumors, which were most often seen with inflammatory breast cancers.” Twenty percent of the Black women refused chemotherapy and 23.6 percent refused radiotherapy. For non-African American women, the corresponding rates were 21.4 percent and 14.2 percent, according to Cancer. “At our institution, to overcome this high refusal rate, we have implemented a community outreach and internal navigational program to assure adherence to standard multimodalities therapy,” the authors note. “We strongly believe that these prospectively implemented interventions based on this and other studies at our center can significantly improve outcome in these advanced breast cancer patients.”

While it’s nothing new that Black women have a lower overall rate of breast cancer than their White counterparts, a new study concludes that they are three times more likely than women of other races to develop more aggressive breast cancer. This cancer is also more likely to return after treatment and has a less favorable outcome. The study, which appears in the journal Breast Cancer Research, found that Black women are three times more likely to acquire something called a triple negative tumor, which is diagnosed before or after age 50 regardless of weight. The higher prevalence of these triple negative tumors in all age and weight categories likely contributes to the unfavorable breast cancer prognosis, the study shows.

Turns out that calories might not be the main reason for obesity. In a new study, researchers from Loyola University Health System compared Black Chicago women to women in rural Nigeria. What they found was that, on average, the Chicago women weighed 184 pounds to Nigerian women’s 127 pounds. What the researchers expected to find was that the Nigerian women were more physically active. Not so. In fact, what they discovered is that there is no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of calories burned during physical activity. “Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic,” said Loyola nutritionist Amy Luke, an associate professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology. U.S. government guidelines call for at least 2 ½ hours of moderate aerobic activity (such as brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous activity (such as jogging) each week. Adults also should do muscle-strengthening activities, such as weight-lifting or sit-ups, at least twice a week. Such activity not only strengthens bones and muscles, but it improves mental health and mood, lowers blood pressure, improves cholesterol levels and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, breast cancer and colon cancer. But Luke and her cohorts found that weight control might not be among the main benefits. Although people definitely burn more calories when they exercise, they compensate by eating more, says Richard Cooper, Ph.D., co-author of the study and chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology. “We would love to say that physical activity has a positive effect on weight control, but that does not appear to be the case,” Cooper said.

 While the average height of adults has been growing worldwide, Black American women appear to be shrinking, new data show. The startling findings seems to affect women born in the late 1960s, according to data recently released from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts say that diet could be the reason for the receding heights. The average height of a black woman born in the 1980s is just under 5 feet 4 inches; her mother, born in the 1960s, is more than half an inch taller. Even her grandmother, born in the 1940s, is a bit taller. The average white woman born in the 1980s is about half an inch taller than her mother. The gap is “truly phenomenal,” according to John Komlos, an economist and historian who has made a specialty of studying human heights. “Such a steep decline is practically unprecedented in modern U.S. history.” He said you have to go back to the days of slavery to find a similar shrinkage. The generation of White men born in the 1840s who experienced the ravages of the Civil War lost nearly an inch to their Northern counterparts, Komlos said. Several years ago, Komlos discovered that the average height of adult Americans, once the world’s tallest people, had stopped rising after World War II and has since been surpassed by that of several European nations. The Dutch are now the world’s tallest population.

Only 2 percent of cancer docs are Black, 3 percent Hispanic.

  Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the American Society of Clinical Oncology have partnered to create the Komen/ASCO Diversity in Oncology Initiative, which hopes to reduce health care disparities by boosting the number of minority cancer docs, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. Minorities disproportionately are affected by several forms of cancer, but only 2 percent of oncologists in the United States are Black; 3 percent are Hispanic, according to the Plain Dealer report.  “The gaps in disparity, especially in oncology, can only be closed with (the addition of more) individuals who are culturally competent, who in some way are able to relate and feel comfortable to these patients,” said Derek Raghavan, director of the Taussig Cancer Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and co-chair of ASCO’s Health Disparities Advisory Group. Socioeconomic factors, language and literacy barriers and a mistrust of the medical community also contribute to minorities’ access to quality health care, health experts say. “The ultimate endpoint is to improve survival rates,” Raghavan added. Using a multimillion-dollar grant from Komen over the next two years, the initiative will give monetary awards to support medical students with oncology rotations and a mentor; oncologists or oncology fellows who have completed training; and loan repayments; and travel to annual ASCO meetings.
Black women in Florida county die younger than others. Black women are dying at a younger age than White women from a number of conditions, including HIV/AIDS, heart disease and diabetes, The Florida Times-Union reports. The report by the county Center for Health Statistics is based on government figures form 2006. It looks at the years of potential life lost, which, according to center coordinator Rebecca Filipowicz, tabulates “years that were lost that shouldn’t have been.” The barometer for Black women is nearly 50 percent higher than for Whites, she said. “As with a lot of the health issues we study, there’re major health disparities, especially with race and geographic distribution.” Women living in primarily Black Jacksonville communities had the highest rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Filipowicz said that even though such conditions are preventable, many women cannot afford health care or they might not know enough about their health to recognize a problem. The report noted that about one in five Black women was uninsured, compared with one in 10 White women. A similar report released earlier this year focusing on men also found that Blacks were dying from preventable diseases, in large part because of limited access to medical care, according to the Times-Union.

AIDS Experts say economy threatens vaccine research

. The current global economic situation could damage funding for AIDS research and vaccine development, said experts at the AIDS Vaccine 2008 conference in Cape Town, South Africa last week. The economic situation has “added to the gloom among experts deeply frustrated by … setbacks” in HIV/AIDS vaccine research, The Associated Press/Los Angeles Times reports. There also are concerns that some groups that are large contributors to health and international development initiatives could reduce funding in light of the economic situation, the AP/Times reports. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this year’s NIH budget for HIV/AIDS vaccine research is $491 million out of a total HIV/AIDS budget of $1.5 billion. This compares with a $115 million vaccine budget in 1998 out of a total budget of $703 million. Although Fauci said he does not expect the U.S. government to reduce its funding for HIV/AIDS, he added that the “increases in the budget that we had hoped for will not be forthcoming” because of the current financial crisis in the United States. He added that he is concerned the situation could hurt the “enthusiasm and ability of philanthropic research and development.” Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, at the conference said, according to Reuters, that a “downturn in the economy” could “potentially have a negative impact on funding for science in general and HIV vaccine research in particular.” He also emphasized the need for large pharmaceutical companies to invest more into vaccine research.Conference targets health care for Black women. Meharry Medical College just wrapped up a four-day conference in Nashville to find solutions to why African-American women generally do not get the same care as the majority of Americans for HIV/AIDS, breast cancer and obesity. The conference, Meharry officials say, represents collaboration between Meharry Medical College and Heart and Soul magazine, a source of health and fitness information for African-American women. Positive changes are desperately needed when it comes to the issue of women of color and health, conference organizers say. For example, a CDC report on obesity shows that non-Hispanic Black and Mexican-American women were more likely to be obese than White women. Approximately 53 percent of non-Hispanic Black women and 51 percent of Mexican-American women 40 to 59 years of age were obese compared with about 39 percent of non-Hispanic White women of the same age.

Domestic violence hits Black women hard.

  While White women account for the largest number of women killed by males, African-American women were killed at a rate nearly three times higher than for White women, says a recently released study.  The weapon most used by men to kill African American women was a gun,  the Violence Policy Center, a national non-profit organization that conducts research on violence in the United States stated in its annual report, “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data,”  The report says that 551 African-American women were murdered by males in 2006. Of those homicides where a murder weapon could be identified, 305 of the victims were fatally shot and most during the course of an argument. The study stated there were 1,818 race-identified females murdered by males. And while White women accounted for the largest total of those killed-1,208-African American women were killed at a rate nearly three times higher. Read what T.I. and other celebrities are doing about domestic violence at Vital Signs.10,000 Chinese children fall ill from tainted milk. More than 10,000 children remained hospitalized after being sickened in China’s tainted milk scandal, eight of whom were in serious condition, officials said. The Health Ministry said in a statement on its Web site Wednesday that 10,666 children were in hospitals after drinking milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, which can lead to kidney stones and possibly life-threatening kidney failure, reports The Associated Press. No new deaths have been recorded, it said. There are no reports of the tainted milk reaching the United States, health officials say. The scandal has so far been blamed for the deaths of four babies and the sickening of more than 54,000 others. But the effects of the scandal continue to be felt, forcing the government to deal with festering health and public relations issues. China’s food exports have increasingly suffered, with more nations issuing import bans. Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said at a meeting of health ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Manila that member nations should strengthen regulations to shield people from potentially harmful imports. Dairy suppliers have been accused of adding melamine – used in products including plastics, paint and adhesives – to watered-down milk to make the product appear rich in protein and fool quality control tests. There had been no standards for the amount of the chemical allowed in food products, but Health Ministry guidelines released Wednesday, have limited the chemical to one part per million for infant formula and 2.5 parts per million for liquid milk, milk powder and food products that contain more than 15 percent milk. Wang Xuening, a ministry official, acknowledged that small amounts of melamine can leech from the environment and packaging into milk and other foods, but said deliberate tainting was forbidden. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says its experts have concluded that eating 2.5 parts per million of melamine – a minuscule amount – would not raise health risks, even if a person ate food every day that contained it.