“Popping” little Tommy on the hand as an infant or toddler could lead to long-term aggression and learning difficulties during their development, according to a study performed by Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

According to a story written about the report on CNN.com, the lead researcher for the project theorizes that infants and toddlers “just don’t understand enough about right or wrong or punishment to benefit from being spanked.”

The report states children who are spanked as one-year-olds tend to show more anger and aggression at age two and are behind in “thinking skills” at age three.

The report suggest there is a socioeconomic component to spanking.
Researchers claim African-American children are spanked “significantly more frequently than those from white and Mexican-American families.” Parents who also live in the south and/or identify as Conservative Christians also spank their children at a higher rate.
Poor people and single mothers are also more prone to spank, said researchers.

Men – particularly Black men – who pile on the pounds as they get older put themselves at greater risk of prostate cancer, a new study shows. After following almost 84,000 middle-aged and older U.S. men for close to a decade, researchers discovered that White and Black men who had gained weight since the age of 21 had a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. But, compared with White men who gained fewer than 10 pounds, those who gained more had twice the risk of being diagnosed with advanced or aggressive prostate cancer. Among Black men, the risks began increasing after a 25-pound weight gain – though the link was seen only with early-stage and less-aggressive prostate tumors, and not advanced cancer. “These results do not warrant a change in the current public health messages about obesity,” Dr. Elizabeth A. Platz, another researcher on the work and an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in a written statement. “Men of normal weight in all racial/ethnic groups should be encouraged to avoid weight gain,” she said, “and men who are overweight and obese should be encouraged to lose weight for good health in general.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has decided to leave a liquid form of morphine on the market for terminally ill patients, even though the drug officially has not been approved. “While the FDA remains committed to ultimately ensuring that all prescription drugs on the market are FDA approved, we have to balance that goal with flexibility and compassion for patients who have a few alternatives for the alleviation of their pain,” Dr. Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for drug Evaluation and Research, said Thursday. The federal agency made its decision after consulting with hospital and hospice organizations, which feared that taking the product off the market would result in hardship for terminally ill patients and their caregivers, CNN reports. Thus, the agency decided to extend the usage of morphine sulfate oral solution 20 mg/ml. The FDA did not want to leave sick patients without a comparable alternative while they wait for something to be approved, according to CNN. “In light of the concerns raised by these patients and their health-care providers, we have adjusted our actions with regard to these particular products.”

When it comes to health, education and economics, Blacks in Louisiana are doing poorly, says a new study. Blacks face higher cancer mortality rates than their White counterparts, and are four times more likely to contract AIDS. And despite the poor  health outlook, Black people are twice as likely to be uninsured, according to the report.  “The prognosis for overall health of African Americans is grim,” the report says. Rep. Regina Barrow (D-Baton Rouge) said that the fact that a third of her state is African American, the glum statistics are even more alarming.  “If African Americans aren’t doing well, the state of Louisiana is not doing well. …The root cause (of the disparities) is poverty,” Barrow said. “It’s probably something dating back before slavery.” Sadly, she said, poverty is the root of most of the problems facing Blacks in Louisiana. “Lack of education leads to low-paying jobs, often without access to health care, thus the cycle of poverty begins and continues,” Advocacy.com reports. “Black people are three times more likely to experience poverty than their [W]hite counterparts. …Black people bring home only half the median income and per capita income of [W]hites. “Disparities in income … play huge roles in accounting for large gaps in wealth building (between the two races).”

With more and more people – particularly those in poor neighborhoods – going to cell phones to help reduce their monthly phone bills, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is having a difficult time getting accurate statewide health surveys in some regions. The CDC uses the surveys primarily to determine everything from sexual habits to childhood immunizations rates. But the group relies solely on landline phones. “It doesn’t affect health per se, rather it has implications for how well the CDC and others can track the health of the nation,” Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, told CNN. With the information gathered, the feds and states design national health policies and strategies. The CDC’s report is the first to compare wireless phone – only homes on a state-by-state basis. The new report is based on 2007 data, which found that Oklahoma had the highest percentage of cell-phone-only homes (at 26 percent); Vermont has the lowest (5 percent). There are probably more landline-free homes now, as the rate has increased by 3 percentage points each year, said Blumberg. “I’d expect today in 2009 the rate is probably 5 percentage points higher, perhaps even more,” he said. Overall, about one in six American homes or about 18 percent, rely solely on wireless phones.

Black colorectal cancer patients do worse than White ones, a new study has found. By the time that African-American patients are diagnosed, their chance of survival over the next five years is glum, researchers say. “Right now, we cannot definitely explain why there are such differences between the African-American and the Caucasian patients,” study leader Dr. Edith Mitchell of Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University told EurekAlert.org. He believes socioeconomics might be largely responsible. “For example, research has shown that African-Americans are less likely than Caucasian patients to have health insurance, and thus they may not receive the screening necessary to detect colorectal cancer at an earlier stage,” Mitchell says. The study is based on data from the tumor registry of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital on 2,500 colorectal cancer patients treated from 1988 to 2007, and on data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database on 244,701 colorectal cancer patients treated from 1988 to 2005. The findings are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in Orlando, Fla.

With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) proclaiming that “40 days in Iraq equals one year of insurance for 10 million children,” the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that expands health care coverage to 4 million more low-income children and maintains coverage for 7 million now enrolled. If approved in the Senate today, the plan will cost $32 billion over 4 ½ years, paid for in part by raising taxes by 61 cents on a pack of cigarettes to $1. President-elect Barack Obama, who made health care a priority during his run for the White House, said it will be among the first bills he signs. The plan is “not just good economic policy, but a moral obligation we hold as parents and citizens,” he said. The bill passed 289 to 139, with 40 Republicans in support. Democrats say that the bill is just a small part of the more comprehensive health care plan.

Doctors aren’t talking with their young patients about healthy decisions, according to results of a study published online by the Journal of Adolescent Health. “Preventive care is a crucial element of quality primary care for adolescents,” Dr. Sally Adams, of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues. Most causes of sickness and death in adolescents can be prevented. “Many of the health and lifestyle behaviors established during adolescence have long-standing health effects across the entire lifespan,” the researchers say. According to Reuters Health, the researchers used the 2003 California Health Interview Survey to examine coverage of preventive health topics during routine medical care for 2,192 patients between the ages of 12 and 17 years who had a physical exam within the prior 6 months. Teenagers, Reuters writes, told whether they talked with their physicians about tobacco, alcohol, drugs, seatbelt use, helmet use, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), violence, exercise, and nutrition. Discussions about health topics ranged from 15 percent for violence to 76 percent for nutrition and exercise. Younger adolescents reported discussing safety more often and less likely to discuss violence and STDs compared with their older peers, according to Reuters. Girls reported discussing tobacco and helmets less than males, but exercise and STDs more. Compared with White adolescents, Hispanic patients reported more discussion on most topics and Black patients reported more discussion on nutrition and less of violence; Asian adolescents reported discussing seatbelts and helmets more than White adolescents, according to Reuters.

Diabetes rates nearly double. New cases of diabetes nearly doubled over the last decade in the United States, a trend made worse by high rates of obesity and inactivity in the South, a study of 33 states found. The U.S. rate of diabetes increased to 9.1 cases for every 1,000 people in 2005-2007, up from 4.8 in 1995-1997, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s study. It’s the first study to describe the cases by geographic region, the agency said. Diabetes is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States and can lead to heart diseases, blindness, kidney failure and amputation, according to the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency. More than 23 million Americans have diabetes, and last year about 1.6 million new cases were diagnosed in people 20 or older, the CDC reports. African Americans are twice as likely to get diabetes as Whites, according to federal health figures. Studies have shown that obesity, idleness and too much sugary soda and fruit juice can increase risk of contracting the disease. For more on diabetes, go to BET.com/Body & Soul.

Voters: Major changes are needed in U.S. Health Care.  Seven in 10 registered voters say major changes are needed in the U.S. health care system, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and the Kaiser Family Foundation say. “Voters want a major change in health care,” said Robert J. Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health, in the second article of a series of reports published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). “But a new administration is going to have to face the very real divide that exists between McCain and Obama supporters on the shape of future reform,” Blendon added. Health care is a major economic worry for many families, the researchers say. “People are having major problems getting and paying for health care and, if this trend continues, addressing health care as part of the nation’s economic turmoil may be a priority for the nation’s next president,” said Drew Altman, Kaiser president and CEO. While voters are dissatisfied with the current health care system, they have very different views about how the next president should fix it, particularly those who say they plan to vote for Sen. John McCain versus those intending to vote for Sen. Barack Obama. When asked to choose the most important issue relating to their vote choice, health care ranked second among Obama voters and tied for fourth among McCain voters. Further, while a large majority of voters favor changes in health care, supporters of the two candidates differ greatly on how to do it or how much of a change is necessary, the researchers found. The findings, however, confirm what surveys have shown in the past: that there is wide support for a variety of approaches to health care reform, though there may not be agreement on the best way to move forward.

Energy drinks can cause caffeine overdose. The super-decaffeinated energy drinks can trigger caffeine intoxication, according to the findings of a new study published in the most recent issue of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. “The caffeine content of energy drinks varies over a 10-fold range, with some containing the equivalent of 14 cans of Coca-Cola, yet the caffeine amounts are unlabeled and few include warnings about potential health risks of caffeine intoxication,” said one of the authors of the study, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.  A regular 12-ounce cola drink has about 35 milligrams of caffeine. A 6-ounce cup of brewed coffee has 80 to 150 milligrams of caffeine. The Food and Drug Administration imposes limits on how much caffeine food products can contain (71 milligrams for each 12-ounce can). But energy drinks are designated as dietary supplements, not food products, and their makers can load their products with caffeine – and do. Moreover, says Chad Reissig, another of the stud’s authors: “It’s notable that over-the-counter caffeine-containing products require warning labels, yet energy drinks do not.”Caffeine intoxication, a recognized clinical syndrome, is described as nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, tremors, rapid heartbeat, restlessness and pacing. In rare cases, caffeine intoxication can cause death. See this Mayo Clinic report on caffeine side effects and this L.A. Times story on energy drinks that was written by a doctor. One death apparently linked the drinking of a popular energy drink, Red Bull, made the headlines in 2000, when Irish athlete Ross Cooney, 18, died of sudden adult death syndrome hours after drinking four cans of the drink. Following the incident, France prohibited the energy drink, but it removed the ban only days after. However, in countries such as Norway, Uruguay and Denmark, it remains banned. Decaffeinated energy drinks are a growing concern because they guarantee super alertness. Still, they carry with 10 times or even more the caffeine content of soft drinks. Advertising for energy drinks is aimed at teens and young adults and promotes the drinks as performance enhancers. Recently, however, some manufacturers have applied a harder edge to their marketing. One product is named Cocaine, and another product, a powdered energy drink sold in a vial, is named Blow. The makers of both products have received warning letters from the FDA about misleading advertising. The team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University who carried out the study said that manufacturers should note on decaffeinated energy drinks’ labels the caffeine doses the products carry, and to caution on presumptive risks they pose to consumers.  

There are new findings on alcoholism. More than a third of adults with alcohol dependencies that began more than one year ago are now in full recovery, according to an article in the current issue of Addiction. The fully recovered individuals show symptoms of neither alcoholism nor alcohol abuse and either abstain or drink at levels below those known to increase relapse risk, reports BlackDoctor.com. They include roughly equal proportions of abstainers (18.2 percent) and low-risk drinkers (17.7 percent). The analysis is based on data released Monday from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a project of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). One-quarter (25.0 percent) of 43,000 adults studied who were alcoholism that began more than one year ago now are dependent, 27.3 percent are in partial remission (that is, exhibit some symptoms of alcoholism or alcohol abuse), and 11.8 percent are asymptomatic risk drinkers with no symptoms but whose drinking increases their chances of relapse (for men, more than 14 drinks per week or more than four drinks on any day; for women, more than 7 drinks per week or more than three drinks on any day), according to the analysis. “Results from the latest NESARC analysis strengthen previous reports that many persons can and do recover from alcoholism,” said NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D. “Today’s report is valuable as a snapshot of current conditions and for information about some of the characteristics associated with different recovery types.” The researchers said that more study would be needed to find out what caused the changes over time. The likelihood of abstinent recovery increased over time and with age and was higher among women, individuals who were married or cohabiting, individuals with an onset of dependence at ages 18-24, and persons who had experienced a greater number of dependence symptoms, the researchers found. They also discovered that the more the alcohol dependent people drink the less likely their chances were that they’d recover.  

Curious about the presidential candidate’s views on health? Two new Web tool helps you find out exactly where the presidential candidates stand on health issues. The Kaiser Family Foundation has added two new resources on its health08.org Web site detailing presidential candidates Sen. John McCain’s and Sen. Barack Obama’s stance on key health care issues, building upon health08.org’s existing comparison of the candidates’ health reform proposals. A new, interactive tool allows users to compare the candidates proposals and positions on a range of health care issues — biomedical research, care coordination and prevention, health information technology, HIV/AIDS, long-term care, racial disparities, Medicaid and SCHIP, mental health parity, prescription drugs, and other health issues not necessarily addressed in the candidates’ health care reform proposals. These comparisons are based on information compiled and video from the candidates’ Web sites and speeches and campaign debates. A separate side-by-side comparison of the candidates’ health reform proposals is also available on health08.org. You can also find the foundation’s first brief, Covering the Uninsured: Options for Reform at Health08.org.