How Successful Dieters Make Weight Loss Stick

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Dieters always regain lost weight, right? Not so, according to a new analysis of data from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), whose 10,000 participants have lost at least 30 lbs. and kept the weight off for a year or longer.

The new study, which was presented at the annual scientific meeting of the Obesity Society in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month, included data on a subset of NWCR members: about 3,000 men and women who managed to maintain the bulk of their weight loss for at least 10 years. These successful losers tended to be women and to have a college education. On average, they weighed 224 lbs. to start and lost 69 lbs.

MORE: How to Make a Healthy Diet More Affordable

Based on answers to questionnaires that all participants filled out yearly, researchers found that weight regain mostly happened early on, shortly after the initial weight loss. Over time, weight gain slowed. At five years, participants had regained about 17 lbs. By the end of the 10-year follow-up, participants had gained one more pound on average — managing, in the end, to keep off 51 lbs.

So how did they do it? Reported USA Today, NWCR members share these techniques:

Track their food intakeCount calorie or fat grams or use a commercial weight-loss program to track food intakeFollow a low-calorie, low-fat diet. They take in about 1,800 calories a day and less than 30% of calories from fat.Eat breakfast regularlyLimit the amount they eat out. They dine out an average of three times a week and eat fast food less than once a week.Eat similar foods regularly and don't splurge much on holidays and special occasionsWalk about an hour a day or burn the same calories with other activitiesWatch fewer than 10 hours of TV a weekWeigh themselves at least once a week

Common sense would suggest that these behaviors would help most people control their weight. But it's hard to say that definitively, considering that the NWCR includes a self-selected group of people who are likely more driven and more committed to losing weight and keeping it off, compared with your average Joe. These are folks who had the stick-to-itiveness to fill out surveys every year, stay on a diet and exercise regimen over the long term, and resist temptations to splurge — even on holidays.

MORE: Nobody Orders Fast-Food Salads, But That's Not the Real Problem

Still, despite the study's limitations, the registry's success stories may offer real inspiration for would-be dieters. "People do want to hear that there is hope, and it is possible to keep weight off without having to take extreme measures," Dr. Robert Kushner, a professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News. "Most people are discouraged. The behaviors listed by the NWCR are reasonable, practical and consistent with healthy living."

Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Did Giant Stars Feed Blue Stragglers?

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In a letter to the journal Nature published this week, astronomers Aaron Geller and Robert Mathieu offer an explanation for the origin of blue straggler stars in a star cluster called NGC 188. Geller suggests the stars fed on neighbor stars, leaving behind white dwarfs.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, host: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. If you take a telescope, and you trained it on a cluster of stars, you're looking at a group of stars that formed at about the same time, but they may not all look the same. In some clusters, astronomers have caught a glimpse of some stars that stand out from the others: They burn bluer and brighter, they seem to be younger than they should be. They're called Blue Stragglers.

There are a couple of theories about how Blue Stragglers form. Are they the result of collisions between two stars? Or maybe they came from a merger of stars. Writing this week in the journal Nature, my next guest offers his theory on the origin of Blue Stragglers. Aaron Geller is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Thanks for being with us today, Dr. Geller.

Dr. AARON GELLER: My pleasure, thanks for having me.

FLATOW: Tell us about - what is a Blue Straggler, and why should we care about it?

GELLER: Well, like you say, Blue Stragglers are stars that we observe to be bluer and brighter than normal stars of similar mass and age. But let me give you a little context for that definition. And normal stars - well, normal stars for instance like our sun - they spend most of their lives having a very similar size and temperature.

And then at a certain point, toward the end of their lives, they become much bigger, up to 100 times the size, and become what we call giant stars. Even later on, they die and become stellar remnants, and for a star like our sun, that would be a white dwarf.

Now, we can predict how long it should take for a normal star to go from, you know, being this normal, kind of steady state, to becoming a giant. And when we look at Blue Stragglers, we see that they are - they have somehow maintained this normal state for longer than we would have expected.

Now physically, we think that this is because Blue Stragglers have gained some extra material from another star, and this extra mass has allowed the Blue Straggler to become bluer and brighter, and therefore it looks younger, if you will, than we should expect.

And this is basically why we call them stragglers, because they're in a sense straggling behind all the other stars that they grew up with in terms of star evolution.

FLATOW: And so what's the mystery about them?

GELLER: Well, they were discovered some 60 years ago, and you mentioned a few of the theories about where they come from. There have been a lot of other theories along the way, as well. And the three that have really survived scientific scrutiny is collisions, like you said; mergers; and also mass transfer.

And so the mystery is really which one of these is really the dominant way of making these Blue Stragglers in certain different environments. And we studied a star cluster, NGC188, and we were trying to determine where these Blue Stragglers came from.

FLATOW: And you discovered - which one of your theories is correct, then, that it sucks up other stuff?

GELLER: So yes, the theory that we think is the - explains most of the Blue Stragglers in our cluster is called mass transfer. And let me explain what that is. You start out with two stars that are in a binary system, so they're orbiting each other. One of the stars evolves to become a giant, like I was explaining before, and they are close enough together that the outer material from this giant star gets, like you were saying, sucked on to the other star, and this other star eventually consumes all of the outer material from the giant and becomes a Blue Straggler.

And in doing so, it - all that's left of the giant is the core of that star, which is a white dwarf. So you're left with a Blue Straggler that has a binary companion that is a white dwarf, and this is what we think we observe in NGC188.

FLATOW: Can we actually see any - if we had our, you know, our backyard telescope out or our binoculars?

GELLER: Well, you could see the Blue Straggler stars. These would be some of the bluest stars and brightest stars in the cluster. Now, you could not see with your telescope the white dwarf companion. It turns out that white dwarfs don't emit very brightly in optical light, in visible, that we can see.

In fact, the Blue Straggler is much brighter than the white dwarf. But if you were to switch to a different wavelength range, for instance the ultraviolet, then the white dwarf is actually quite bright in comparison to the Blue Straggler, and that is when you can actually potentially see these white dwarfs. And this is a project that my collaborator Bob Matthew(ph) and a few others are involved with to get ultraviolet images of these Blue Stragglers with the Hubble Space Telescope.

FLATOW: And what more would you like to learn about all this?

GELLER: Well, there is still a few - so we've looked at many of the Blue Stragglers in NGC188 and said that most of these look like they come from mass transfer, but that's not the whole story. There are still some other Blue Stragglers in the cluster that we don't know very much about, and of course I would love to get the confirmation on these Blue Stragglers that we have studied with the Hubble data. I would love to see the white dwarfs myself.

FLATOW: Why do you call them Blue Stragglers? That's such a demotion it sounds to me of the victorious star.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

GELLER: Well, it's true. I guess when they were first discovered, they weren't called Blue Stragglers. It wasn't until a few years later that someone coined that term. Well, they're blue.

FLATOW: Yeah, that we can buy.

GELLER: They're blue stars, and they seem like they are straggling behind normal stars. They're just not evolving as quickly as we would expect. So they look younger, and they're straggling.

FLATOW: And they're better well-fed, is what it is, from the other companion stars.

GELLER: They are indeed, and this actually brings up a funny kind of analogy that people have been throwing around with the Blue Stragglers formed by mass transfer. They're calling them stellar vampires because they feed off of their companions to make them look younger, which is, I guess, kind of timely since we're getting so close to Halloween.

FLATOW: And I certainly can't top that. So I'm going to let you go.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: And thank you for taking time to be with us today, Dr. Geller.

GELLER: Thanks for having me.

FLATOW: Aaron Geller is the Lindheimer Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Congress to probe listeria outbreak in cantaloupes

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Farm workers harvest cantaloupe in Somerton, Arizona, June 7, 2006.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

WASHINGTON | Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:24am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers in the House of Representatives plan to investigate what caused a deadly food poisoning outbreak in cantaloupes from a Colorado farm.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce committee wrote to Ryan and Eric Jensen, who own Jensen Farms, asking them to brief committee staff and preserve documents related to the outbreak of listeria, which has killed 25 people and made 123 ill.

Unsanitary conditions at the farm's packing plant probably contributed to the outbreak, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said.

The committee also wants to hear from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about what could be done to prevent future outbreaks, the lawmakers said in a letter on Friday.

Listeria monocytogenes is a frequent cause of U.S. food recalls in processed meats and cheeses, but contamination in fresh produce is a new development.

The elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are most at risk. Symptoms include fever and muscle aches, sometimes preceded by diarrhea and other gastric problems.

The illness has a long incubation period, with symptoms sometimes not showing up until two months after people consume listeria-contaminated foods.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Alcohol bill returns to Holyrood

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 16:56 GMT Nicola Sturgeon told the conference that the SNP would win its independence referendum A new bill on minimum pricing for alcohol will be introduced at Holyrood within the next month, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon has promised.

She delivered the message in a speech to the party faithful attending their annual conference in Inverness.

A first attempt by the SNP to push through a similar alcohol bill failed during the last parliament.

Scotland's health secretary also said "we will win" the independence referendum.

The 1,300 gathering heard Ms Sturgeon say: "Delegates, I can tell you today that our minimum pricing bill will be reintroduced to parliament within the next month.

"When that bill is passed, Scotland will become the first country to introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol. The world is watching us.

"Being first with a policy means that it comes with no absolute certainties.

"I know that. But I also know that the evidence, the real life experiences of doctors, nurses, the police, and sheer common sense tell us it can work to reduce the dreadful damage that alcohol misuse does to our communities.

Continue reading the main story

Reintroduction of minimum pricing bill for alcohol

A four-week maximum wait for hospital discharge for people who do not need hospital care

A two-week maximum wait for hospital discharge for people who do not need hospital care

Insulin pumps made available to 25% of the under 18s with Type 1 diabetes

Increase the number of insulin pumps to Scots with Type 1 diabetes to more than 2,000

"So, it may not be the politically easy thing to do, but I believe in my heart that it is the right thing to do."

During her speech, Ms Sturgeon said that she would introduce a two-week maximum wait for hospital discharge by 2015.

The current target for discharging someone from hospital when they no longer need hospital care is six weeks.

But under the new targets there would be a four-week maximum wait for discharge, to be achieved by April 2013, followed by a two-week maximum wait by April 2015.

Ms Sturgeon said: "Ten years ago over 2,000 patients were delayed in leaving hospital by more than six weeks.

"By July 2011 that figure was less than 100. But the reality is that too many patients, many of them older people, are still waiting too long to be discharged.

"We must take action to cut these unnecessary waits, which are bad for patients and a waste of hospital resources, particularly when beds need to be available for those who need them."

Ms Sturgeon told part members that hospital bed-blocking costs the NHS more than 200,000 bed days each year - enough patients to fill a 600-bed hospital, at a cost of up to £60m a year.

She also announced plans for 25% of all type 1 diabetic sufferers, under the age of 18, to have access to insulin pumps.

The politician informed the conference that such devices made a real difference to the ability of diabetics to manage their condition and prevent complications.

Ms Sturgeon added: "They don't work for everyone but clinical guidelines say that far more people in Scotland should have access to them than is currently the case. Right now, only about 2.5% of patients have them."

The health secretary also plans to triple the total number of pumps available to sufferers of all ages to more than 2,000.

On the issue of independence and the planned referendum, Ms Sturgeon said the SNP was winning the argument.

However, she cautioned that the party could take nothing for granted.

'Right decisions'

Ms Sturgeon said: "The decision on Scotland's future rests with the Scottish people. Our responsibility is to persuade them that independence offers a better future for our country."

She added: "We know that the campaign against independence will be relentlessly negative. For the UK parties, the independence debate is not about the best interests of Scotland.

"Our case for independence will be based on the simple but powerful belief that, as a country, we are better placed than anyone else to take the right decisions for our future."

To rousing cheers, Ms Sturgeon said: "Delegates, I believe that we will win the independence referendum."

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Largest study on cellphones, cancer finds no link

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LONDON (AP) — Danish researchers can offer some reassurance if you're concerned about your cellphone: Don't worry. Your device is probably safe.

The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cellphones and cancer found no evidence of any link, suggesting that billions of people who are rarely more than a few inches from their phones have no special health concerns.

The Danish study of more than 350,000 people concluded there was no difference in cancer rates between people who had used a cellphone for about a decade and those who did not.

Last year, a separate large study found no clear connection between cellphones and cancer. But it showed a hint of a possible association between very heavy phone use and glioma, a rare but often deadly form of brain tumor. However, the numbers of heavy users was not sufficient to make the case.

That study of more than 14,000 people in multiple countries, in addition to animal experiments, led the International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify electromagnetic energy from cellphones as "possibly carcinogenic," adding it to a list that also includes things such as coffee and gasoline engine exhaust.

But that designation does not mean the phones necessarily pose a risk. Cellphones do not emit the same kind of radiation as that used in some medical tests or found in other sources such as radon in soil.

Two U.S. agencies — the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission — have found no evidence that cellphones are linked to cancer.

Yet fears of a link persist, despite the fact that cancer rates have not risen since cellphones were introduced.

In the latest research, published online Thursday in the journal BMJ, researchers updated a previous study examining 358,403 cellphone users aged 30 and over in Denmark from 1990 to 2007. They found cellphone users did not have a higher cancer risk compared with those without cellphones.

Cancer rates in people who used cellphones for about 10 years were similar to rates in people without a cellphone. Cellphone users were also no more likely to get a tumor in the part of the brain closest to where phones are usually held against the head. The study was paid for by the government's Danish Strategic Research Council.

"Our study provides little evidence for a causal association, but we cannot rule out a small to moderate increase in risk for subgroups of heavy users," said Patrizia Frei, of the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the paper's authors.

"This is encouraging news, but it doesn't mean we're at the end of the road," said Hazel Nunn, head of Health Evidence and Information at Cancer Research U.K., which was not linked to the study.

About three-quarters of the world's population, more than 5 billion people, use a cellphone. That makes it difficult for scientists to compare cancer incidence in people who use the devices versus those who do not.

Others disputed the Danish study's findings. The advocacy group MobileWise, which believes cellphones pose a health risk, said the study wasn't long enough to consider the long-term risk, since brain tumors can take decades to develop.

In an accompanying editorial in BMJ, Anders Ahlbom and Maria Feychting of Sweden's Karolinska Institute wrote that one of the study's strengths was its use of objective data from cellphone records. Previous studies have been criticized for relying on people to recall their cellphone habits from decades earlier.

In about 30 other studies done in Europe, New Zealand and the U.S., patients with brain tumors have not reported using their cellphones more often than unaffected people.

The editorial writers pointed out that research on cellphones and cancer was not sparked by any evidence of a connection, but from concerns that something about the relationship between radio frequency fields and human physiology had been "overlooked or misunderstood." Research into the safety of cellphones is now "extensive," they wrote.

Nunn said studies with longer-term data were still needed and that there was little information on children's exposure to cellphones.

There was no biological evidence for how cellphones might cause cancer, unlike, for example, the proof that tobacco is carcinogenic, she added.

Cellphones send signals to nearby towers via radio waves, a form of energy similar to microwaves. But the radiation produced by cellphones cannot directly damage DNA and is different from stronger types of radiation like X-rays or ultraviolet light. At very high levels, radio frequency waves from cellphones can heat up body tissue, but that is not believed to damage human cells.

Nunn said people should not change their cellphone habits based on the current evidence, except perhaps for limiting their kids' use of the devices.

"There are a lot more worrying things in the world than mobile phones," she said.

___

Online:

Journal: www.bmj.com

IARC: www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208(underscore)e.pdf

FDA advice: http://tinyurl.com/29e8qzr

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EU rules 'put patients at risk'

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19 October 2011 Last updated at 00:12 GMT By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News The European Commission is already reviewing the regulations Patients are being put at "unacceptable risk" because of EU rules governing the movement of health workers, peers say.

A House of Lords committee said the current balance between free movement of labour and safety had been skewed.

It said regulatory bodies should be able to test the language skills of all doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists and pharmacists wanting to work in the UK.

They also called for better sharing of data about the disciplinary history of staff seeking to work abroad.

The ability of health professionals - and in particular doctors - to work across the European Economic Area (EEA) has been a controversial issue in the UK in recent years.

It hit the headlines after the case of Daniel Ubani, a German locum doctor, who gave 70-year-old David Gray a fatal painkiller overdose on his first and only shift in Britain in February 2008.

Investigations found Dr Ubani had been rejected for work in Leeds because of his poor English skills, but had been allowed on an approved list by another trust.

A UK coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing and accused Dr Ubani of gross negligence.

Frustration

The GP was given a suspended sentence in Germany for death by negligence but has still been able to work there.

Since the case, ministers and the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors in the UK, have expressed frustration at the current situation.

The European Commission has already announced a review of the rules with firm proposals expected by the end of the year.

It is likely they will recommend a tightening of the rules, although it could take another year for the changes to be made.

Continue reading the main story

The committee is right - the safety of patients should always come first. Like us, they believe that current EU rules are putting patients at risk and urgent changes are needed”

End Quote Niall Dickson General Medical Council In the meantime ministers in England have placed a duty on local trusts to vet the language skills of doctors - they have had the power to do this but it was inconsistently carried out - as well as giving the GMC powers to investigate language competency where concerns are raised.

But the conclusions reached by the House of Lords social policies and consumer protection committee call for a much more radical overhaul.

The peers have suggested that an alert system be set up to ensure that information about disciplinary procedures are shared between regulators from different countries.

They also want regulators to be given the power to vet language skills - as they have for doctors from outside the EEA - while the qualifications and skills recognised as being appropriate need to be updated to ensure staff are trained to the appropriate standards.

Committee chairwoman Baroness Young said: "It is absolutely unacceptable that current EU rules put patients at risk. The EU is failing our patients.

"We recognise that mobility can bring significant benefits, but we have to make sure that this is not at the expense of patients' health, care and confidence."

The report has been warmly welcomed by regulators, ministers and campaigners in the UK.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the General Medical Council, said: 'The committee is right - the safety of patients should always come first. Like us, they believe that current EU rules are putting patients at risk and urgent changes are needed."

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley: 'We are able to apply language tests to European doctors for employment purposes on the NHS'

And Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, described the current arrangements as "crazy".

"Patient safety must be put before political correctness."

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley added: "It's completely unacceptable for doctors to work in the NHS if they can't speak English properly."

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Some Question Ohio Animal Abuse Laws

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Ohio authorities spent much of Wednesday tracking down a pack of wild animals, including lions, tigers, bears and wolves. They'd been let go by their owner, who then committed suicide. Many questions are surfacing about why Ohio has such lax laws that allow a convicted criminal to have dozens of exotic animals.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, host: And I'm Melissa Block. In Ohio, people are asking tough questions about the state's animal protection laws after authorities shot and killed dozens of tigers, lions, bears and monkeys. The animals' owner had set them free from their pens before killing himself on Tuesday. Now there are calls to strengthen the state's laws to protect animals.

Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.

JO INGLES: When county sheriffs' deputies arrived at a home near Zanesville Tuesday night, they encountered large, dangerous, exotic animals that were roaming free outside the fence of the property. Deputies shot and killed the creatures. Columbus Zoo employees tried to capture the animals, but Jack Hanna, director emeritus, says that wasn't possible in most cases.

JACK HANNA: The sheriff did the right thing. I know we have animal rights groups giving me threatening calls right now, all sorts of things. My gosh, Jack Hanna this. What was he to do at nighttime with tigers and lions, leopards?

INGLES: By Wednesday morning, some animals were still missing. Local schools cancelled classes so children wouldn't be attacked while waiting for a bus or walking to school.

At the end of the day, a total of 49 animals had been killed. Their owner, who was released from prison in May and had a history of animal abuse, was also dead.

This has Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States asking this question.

WAYNE PACELLE: How bad does it have to get or how lax are your rules to allow a convicted animal abuser, a convicted felon, to have these animals on his private home?

INGLES: Pacelle says Ohio's animal protection laws are the weakest in the nation and he says the state's new governor, John Kasich, made matters worse. Pacelle says the owner's animal cruelty convictions alone would have banned him from owning exotics if Kasich had kept an executive order issued by former Governor Ted Strickland. It had banned the sale or transfer of exotic animals.

Here's Bill Damschroder with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

BILL DAMSCHRODER: Rather than try to do a rush job to maintain an administrative rule that we didn't think had legal standing, the idea was to back off, deal with the practical considerations that came up and go through the working group process that we're using now to create something that can be workable.

INGLES: Damschroder says, even if the order had been kept intact, it wouldn't have prevented this tragedy. But pressure is mounting on state officials to make changes. Yesterday, Ohio Governor John Kasich himself said the state needs tougher laws. He told the Newspaper Editorial Board that no one has dealt with this issue and he intends to do so in a comprehensive way.

Laura Jones with the Natural Resources Department says it will have recommendations soon.

LAURA JONES: The legislature will have a package early into the new year, we believe, and where it goes from there, you know, we will see.

INGLES: But Jack Advent with the Ohio Veterinary Medical Association says that's not soon enough.

JACK ADVENT: There are certainly a lot of individuals who own dangerous and wild animals and that needs to be addressed because we have ticking time bombs basically sitting out there all over the state of Ohio.

INGLES: Advent says it's hard to tell how many exotic animals are being kept in Ohio right now since they are not registered or regulated. For NPR News, I'm Jo Ingles in Columbus.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Kids' daytime wetting accidents linked to ADHD

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By Kerry Grens

NEW YORK | Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:12pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children who wet themselves are more than four times as likely as other kids to also have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the results of a new German study.

"I think a lot of us have known this for a long time," that children with ADHD also struggle with bladder control, said Dr. Peter Jensen, a professor of psychiatry and psychology and the vice chair for research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

But there are few studies that have looked specifically at the link between the two disorders, said Jensen, who was not involved in the German research.

ADHD is a common behavioral disorder that involves problems paying attention and controlling impulses, and has been diagnosed in nearly one out of every 10 children in the United States.

About two or three out of every 100 seven-year-olds have daytime wetting accidents, the authors note in their study.

The researchers, led by Dr. Alexander von Gontard at Saarland University Hospital in Homburg, Germany, surveyed the parents of more than 1,300 children five to seven years old.

They found that 49 of the kids wet themselves during the day, and 18 of them -- nearly 37 percent -- also had symptoms of ADHD.

Of the 1,194 children who did not have incontinence, just 40 of those -- or about three percent -- screened positive for ADHD.

When the researchers took into account factors that might skew the numbers, such as younger age or a developmental disability, they concluded that the risk of ADHD among kids who wet themselves is four times greater than among their schoolmates.

The study, published in the Journal of Urology, did not determine whether one condition causes the other, nor if they share the same underlying causes.

Jensen said that ADHD is tied to a delay in brain maturation, and perhaps that delay could also affect good control over going to the bathroom.

Children with ADHD also struggle to manage multiple activities, and might neglect to address the urge to pee while they're occupied with other tasks, he speculated.

Previous studies have found a link between ADHD and bed wetting, but the current study did not see a higher risk for ADHD among kids who had accidents at night.

The authors write that earlier work might not have factored in developmental problems in the children studied, which could increase the proportion of children who wet the bed.

The authors point out that "in clinical practice children with (incontinence) and ADHD have a much lower response rate to treatment than those with incontinence alone due to a lower compliance."

Jensen told Reuters Health this means that physicians and parents need to have more patience in treating wetting problems among children with ADHD.

SOURCE: bit.ly/ney7Tw The Journal of Urology, online September 23, 2011.

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Most in Massachusetts want state push on health costs

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By Ros Krasny

BOSTON | Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:00pm EDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - Most Massachusetts residents want their state government to take action to reduce high healthcare costs that they blame on drug and insurance companies charging too much, a survey showed on Friday.

Massachusetts has almost universal healthcare insurance coverage thanks to a 2006 law driven by current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney when he was state governor.

Romney's rivals for the party's 2012 nomination have criticized the law as a government overreach that served as a pattern for the 2010 national healthcare law championed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Eighty-eight percent of the 1,000 Massachusetts residents questioned in the poll in September said the state government should take "major action" to address rising costs.

Only 48 percent expressed confidence that the state government could take steps to reduce future healthcare costs, with Democrats more confident than Republicans.

Asked for reasons why costs are so high, survey respondents cited drug companies and insurance companies charging too much money, as well as waste and fraud in the healthcare system, hospitals charging too much, and people not taking good care of their health.

The poll, conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health for the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, found that 78 percent of respondents viewed the high cost of healthcare as either a crisis (25 percent) or a major problem (53 percent).

The Massachusetts law, popular in the state, did little to curb rising costs. That effort is now under way in the state legislature and by current Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat.

"There is clear, overwhelming and bipartisan support to control healthcare costs in Massachusetts," said Nancy Turnbull, Harvard School of Public Health's associate dean.

"People ... support government taking big action, but are skeptical that it's going to work," added Robert Blendon, professor of social policy at Harvard School of Public Health, lead author of a report on the survey.

(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Study: Living in poor neighborhood can hurt health

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Annie Ricks, 55, poses in her public housing apartment Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, in Chicago. Local housing authorities paid for her to relocate to the South Side last year as part of its demolition plans for high-rise tenements, but Ricks says her new neighborhood is worse. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing given a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity. Ricks was not part of the study, but says such efforts should be expanded. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) Annie Ricks, 55, poses in her public housing apartment Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, in Chicago. Local housing authorities paid for her to relocate to the South Side last year as part of its demolition plans for high-rise tenements, but Ricks says her new neighborhood is worse. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing given a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity. Ricks was not part of the study, but says such efforts should be expanded. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) Annie Ricks, 55, poses in her public housing apartment Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, in Chicago. Local housing authorities paid for her to relocate to the South Side last year as part of its demolition plans for high-rise tenements, but Ricks says her new neighborhood is worse. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing given a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity. Ricks was not part of the study, but says such efforts should be expanded. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) Vickie Webb poses for a photograph at her apartment in Durham, N.C., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. Webb, 43, lived in the projects in Durham, N.C. for several years before a housing agency helped relocate her and her husband to a better neighborhood. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods. had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity. Webb was not part of the study. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds) Vickie Webb checks her blood pressure in her apartment in Durham, N.C., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. Webb, 43, lived in the projects in Durham, N.C. for several years before a housing agency helped relocate her and her husband to a better neighborhood. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods. had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity. Webb was not part of the study. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds) Vickie Webb stands in the door way of her apartment after checking her blood pressure in Durham, N.C., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. Webb, 43, lived in the projects in Durham, N.C. for several years before a housing agency helped relocate her and her husband to a better neighborhood. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods. had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity. Webb was not part of the study. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds)eval("var currentItemd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 1;");eval("var nextd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;");eval("var previousd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;"); ATLANTA (AP) — Back in the 1990s, the federal government tried an unusual social experiment: It offered thousands of poor women in big-city public housing a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods.

A decade later, the women who relocated had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity — differences that are being hailed as compelling evidence that where you live can determine your health.

The experiment was initially aimed at researching whether moving impoverished families to more prosperous areas could improve employment or schooling. But according to a study released Wednesday, the most interesting effect may have been on the women's physical condition.

About 16 percent of the women who moved had diabetes, compared with about 20 percent of women who stayed in public housing. And about 14 percent of those who left the projects were extremely obese, compared with nearly 18 percent of the other women.

The small-but-significant differences offered some of the strongest support yet for the idea that where you live can significantly affect your overall health, especially if your home is in a low-income area with few safe places to exercise, limited food options and meager medical services.

"This study proves that concentrated poverty is not only bad policy, it's bad for your health," Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But no one believes the deficit-plagued federal government is going to expand the program and start moving low-income women to better neighborhoods en masse.

"It's not enough to simply move families into different neighborhoods," Donovan said. Instead, new ways must be found to help families "break the cycle of poverty that can quite literally make them sick." He did not mention specific proposals.

Public health experts have long thought that living in poor neighborhoods could ruin a person's health, but this study put the idea to a rigorous test.

Here's how it worked: Women believed to be about the same in most respects were randomly assigned to one group or another and then followed through time, in a model customarily seen in pharmaceutical studies. That makes it more scientifically rigorous than most research linking health problems to a social environment.

The study's good design "provides a basis to infer cause and effect" between poverty and bad health, said Dr. Robert Califf, a noted Duke University cardiologist who is leading a massive study on neighborhoods and health outcomes.

The research was led by Jens Ludwig, a University of Chicago professor of public policy. It was published in Wednesday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The experiment started as a $70 million HUD project in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. It morphed into a health study after a variety of other government agencies and private foundations pitched in with an additional $17 million more.

"In terms of scale, it's not soon or ever to be repeated," said Dr. Robert Whitaker, a Temple University pediatrician who was a study co-author.

The study involved women living in public housing in neighborhoods where 40 percent or more of residents were poor — areas like many of those on the South Side of Chicago or in the Bronx in New York City. The women all had children and were considered heads of households.

From 1994 to 1998, nearly 1,800 of them were offered vouchers to subsidize private housing, but the vouchers were only good in higher-income neighborhoods where fewer than 10 percent of the people were considered poor. They were required to live there at least a year.

The rest of the women were divided into two groups. One group got vouchers they could use in any neighborhood. The other women did not receive vouchers, with the expectation that they would stay put.

Ten years later, women in the study were weighed and gave a blood sample to check for diabetes.

The women who moved to richer areas had the lowest rates of extreme obesity and diabetes. The difference suggests that moving to a better neighborhood could help at least 1 in 25 women. Or, in other terms, a person's risk of diabetes or extreme obesity dropped by about 20 percent by moving to a higher-income neighborhood.

(However, even the women who moved were not exactly models of health. About 14 percent of them were extremely obese, which is twice the national average for women.)

The study has some notable flaws.

Because it did not start out looking at health, the women's medical condition and weight were not checked at the outset. The researchers believe the women in the different groups were about the same, because they matched up on more than 50 other indicators, such as age, race, employment and education. But that is an assumption.

Also, only about half the women offered a chance to move to a more prosperous zip code did so. And many who did move left after a year.

What's more, the study was not designed to answer what it is about more affluent neighborhoods that would cause someone to be healthier. But the authors listed four theories:

— The availability of healthier food is worse in lower-income neighborhoods.

— Opportunities for physical exercise are scarcer, and fear of crime can make people afraid to jog or play in parks.

— There may be fewer doctors' offices and other medical services.

— The long-term stress of living in such an environment may alter the hormones that control weight.

Some of those theories were supported by some women who live in the kind of situation targeted in the study.

Vickie Webb lived in the projects in Durham, N.C., for several years before a housing agency helped relocate her and her husband to a better neighborhood.

"There was too much violence, too much going on in the 'hood. It wasn't safe," said Webb, who was not part of the study.

Annie Ricks, who lives with her 14-year-old son and two grandchildren in a public housing unit on Chicago's South Side, was not involved in the study either. But she said efforts like the HUD experiment should be expanded.

Local housing authorities paid for her to relocate to the South Side last year as part of its demolition plans for high-rise tenements. But Ricks lost her child-care job after the move, and says her new neighborhood is worse.

At her old building, Ricks could walk across the street to a supermarket. In her new neighborhood, without a car, she has to take public transportation to get groceries or go to the doctor, and Ricks says there's more crime.

"I feel like it would be a blessing" to be able to move to a wealthier area, she said.

___

Associated Press writers Alicia Chang in Los Angeles and Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.

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CDC Tracks Thoughts of Suicide in Adults, State by State

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More than 8 million Americans thought seriously about suicide in the previous year, according to a new government survey. More adults who considered suicide lived in the Midwest and West than in other parts of the country.

The findings were reported on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its first state-by-state look at suicide contemplation. Unlike previous research that has tended to focus on rates of actual suicide, the new analysis asked about the thoughts and behaviors that precede it.

"This report highlights that we have opportunities to intervene before someone dies by suicide. We can identify risks and take action before a suicide attempt takes place," said CDC director Dr. Thomas M. Frieden in a statement. "Most people are uncomfortable talking about suicide, but this is not a problem to shroud in secrecy."

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The study was based on responses from 92,264 people aged 18 or older who took part in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2008-09. The survey [PDF], which collects data on health risks related to drug, alcohol and tobacco use, as well as mental health, is conducted every year, but 2008 and 2009 were the first years in which all respondents — not just those who reported suffering from depression — were asked whether they had had serious thoughts about killing themselves at any point in the previous year.

Their answers reveal that suicidal thoughts and behavior vary widely by region. In general, adults in the West and Midwest were more likely to have considered suicide than people in the South and Northeast. Adults in Georgia, for instance, were least likely to report having had suicidal thoughts (2.1%) in 2008-09; residents of Utah, at 6.8%, were most likely.

Georgia also had the lowest rate of suicide planning (0.1%), but it was a northeastern state, Rhode Island, that had the highest: 2.8% of people in the tiny state reported having planned to kill themselves. Overall, 1 in 100 American adults (2.2 million total) said they had planned a suicide in the previous year.

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Georgia and Delaware had the lowest rate of suicide attempts, at 0.1%, or 1 in 1,000 people. Rhode Island again was at the top: 1.5%, or 1 in 67, residents reported having made a suicide attempt. In total, the CDC found, one million Americans said they had attempted suicide in the previous year.

The study didn't explore exactly why suicidal thoughts were more common in some states than in others, but the authors offered some theories.

It could be due to "selective migration," which suggests that people who are at greater risk for suicidal behavior tend to migrate to the same areas. Or it could have to do with sociodemographics. The CDC found that women were more likely to contemplate suicide than men, and younger adults were also more likely to think about it — and to act on those thoughts — than older ones. States with more women and younger people might therefore register more suicidal thinking.

Demographic differences may also help explain why regions that have high rates of suicide contemplation are not necessarily those that have more suicide deaths: while women are more likely to think about suicide than men, they're less likely to actually succeed.

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Other contributors to suicide may lie in the local social environment. Areas with more unemployment and higher divorce rates may have higher rates of suicidal behavior. People living in areas with sparse social networks and inadequate medical support might also be left at greater risk.

In some states with high rates of suicide, residents may have greater access to lethal means, such as guns. Previous research by the CDC has found that states with the highest suicide death rates include Alaska, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana.

The current data indicate that suicide prevention strategies should be better targeted at the local level, to those in greatest need. Prevention measures can include broad public-education campaigns that improve public awareness of suicide risk, as well as individualized cognitive-behavioral therapy for people who are at risk of committing suicide, such as those with a history of suicide attempts.

"Suicide is a preventable tragedy," said Pam Hyde, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which collaborated with the CDC on the new study. "With this new data we will be able to work more effectively to reach people at risk and help keep them safe."

MORE: Do People Really Drink More When the Economy Tanks?

Sora Song is the editor of TIME Healthland. Find her on Twitter at @sora_song. You can also continue the discussion on Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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Abbott says hepatitis C combo may be a blockbuster

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By Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK | Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:13pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Abbott Laboratories Inc said on Friday that it could have a shorter duration combination therapy for hepatitis C on the market in 2015 with annual sales potential of about $2 billion.

Significantly, its combination therapy does not include tough-to-tolerate interferon, which causes flu-like symptoms that lead many patients with the serious liver disease to stop or delay treatment.

Abbott said that in very small mid-stage trials, a combination of two of its experimental medicines and two other drugs were showing the potential for cure rates as high as 90 percent with as little as 12 weeks of therapy. The shortest duration current patients can hope for is 24 weeks.

Abbott discussed its hepatitis C trials and other experimental medicines at a meeting with investors and analysts in New York just two days after announcing it would spin off its prescription drugs business into a separate company.

"While early, these results are unprecedented in that very high cure rates are being achieved ... with only 12 weeks of interferon-free therapy," said Richard Gonzalez, who will head the new company.

The data presented by Abbott were culled from a pair of trials with a total of just 44 patients. Far larger trials would be needed to confirm the efficacy and safety of the combination therapy.

JPMorgan analyst Michael Weinstein was taking a cautious stance on the potential for Abbott's approach to hepatitis C.

"It's still early and there are a lot of other companies working in this space," he said.

One such company, Pharmasset Inc, has seen its shares soar in recent months over promising data for its own experimental interferon-free hepatitis C regimen. But Pharmasset shares fell as much as 20 percent after the Abbott presentation and were down 12 percent in afternoon trade.

"The market was expecting Pharmasset to be the first all-oral combination regimen for hepatitis C," said Brian Skorney, an analyst for Brean Murray, Carret & Co.

He believes the Pharmasset sell-off was an overreaction, given how little data Abbott has provided.

"I'd be interested to see what the safety profile will be for the four drugs," he said of the Abbott combination. "Pharmasset's is two drugs."

If the Abbott data were to hold up in much larger trials, its therapy could eclipse the new drugs from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc and Merck & Co that have been hailed as breakthroughs for achieving far-higher cure rates with the potential for shorter treatment durations than the older standard regimen of pegylated interferon and ribavirin, which had to be taken for 48 weeks.

Both the Merck and Vertex drugs must be taken along with interferon and ribavirin. Vertex, in its pivotal clinical trials, saw cure rates as high as 80 percent for its Incivek, while Merck's Vicrelis cured 66 percent of patients. Neither of the new regimens is taken for less than 24 weeks.

Shares of Vertex, which has just the one drug on the market, fell almost 3 percent.

The two Phase II trials of previously untreated patients combined the antiviral drug ritonavir with Abbott's ABT-450 -- a protease inhibitor from the same class as the Vertex and Merck drugs -- one of two Abbott polymerase inhibitors, ABT-333 or ABT-072, and ribavirin.

All patients who remained in the studies achieved an early virologic response at 12 weeks, meaning the virus was undetectable in the blood, Abbott said, with no virus rebounds occurring during therapy.

Of the 10 patients so far who were tested 24 weeks after completing the 12 weeks of therapy, nine had achieved a sustained virologic response, or SVR, the company said.

"In other words, these patients were cured with a 12-week course of therapy without interferon," Gonzalez said.

The regimen has been well tolerated to date, the company said, without discussing side effect details.

Hepatitis C, which if untreated can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and the need for a transplant, infects an estimated 4 million Americans, and 180 million worldwide.

Abbott plans to present more detailed data on these and other trials next year. It said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given fast track status to the regimen.

With fast-track status a company can submit data from clinical trials on a rolling basis as it becomes available rather than waiting until pivotal Phase III studies are complete before submitting the results to the FDA.

Abbott shares were off 0.4 percent at $53.86.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Mobile phone cancer link rejected

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 01:11 GMT By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News Mobile phone safety has been much debated over the past two decades Further research has been published suggesting there is no link between mobile phones and brain cancer.

The risk mobiles present has been much debated over the past 20 years as use of the phones has soared.

The latest study led by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark looked at more than 350,000 people with mobile phones over an 18-year period.

Researchers concluded users were at no greater risk than anyone else of developing brain cancer.

The findings, published on the British Medical Journal website, come after a series of studies have come to similar conclusions.

'Reassuring'

But there has also been some research casting doubt on mobile phone safety, prompting the World Health Organization to warn that they could still be carcinogenic.

In doing so, the WHO put mobile phones in the same category as coffee, meaning a link could not be ruled out but could not be proved either.

The Department of Health continue to advise that anyone under the age of 16 should use mobile phones only for essential purposes and keep all calls short.

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These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in adults”

End Quote Hazel Nunn Cancer Research UK The Danish study, which built on previous research that has already been published by carrying out a longer follow-up, found there was no significant difference in rates of brain or central nervous system cancers among those who had mobiles and those that did not.

Of the 358,403 mobile phone owners looked at, 356 gliomas (a type of brain cancer) and 846 cancers of the central nervous system were seen - both in line with incidence rates among those who did not own a mobile.

Even among those who had had mobiles the longest - 13 years or more - the risk was no higher, the researchers concluded.

But they still said mobile phone use warranted continued follow up to ensure cancers were not developing over the longer term, and to see what the effect was in children.

Hazel Nunn, head of evidence and health information at Cancer Research UK, said: "These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in adults."

Prof Anders Ahlbom, from Sweden's Karolinska Institute, praised the way the study was conducted, adding the findings were "reassuring".

Prof David Spiegelhalter, an expert specialising in the understanding of risk who is based at the University of Cambridge, said: "The mobile phone records only go up to 1995 and so the comparison is mainly between early and late adopters, but the lack of any effect on brain tumours is still very important evidence."

And Prof Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at Royal Berkshire Hospital, said: "The findings clearly reveal that there is no additional overall risk of developing a cancer in the brain although there does seem to be some minor, and not statistically significant, variations in the type of cancer."

But the researchers themselves do accept there were some limitations to the study, including the exclusion of "corporate subscriptions", thereby excluding people who used their phones for business purposes, who could be among the heaviest users.

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Report: Food labels need Energy Star-like ratings

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Just as that Energy Star tag helps you choose your appliances, a new report says a rating symbol on the front of every soup can, cereal box and yogurt container could help hurried shoppers go home with the healthiest foods.

Thursday's report urges the Food and Drug Administration to adopt new food labeling to clear the confusing clutter off today's packages and give consumers a fast way to compare choices.

It wouldn't replace the in-depth Nutrition Facts panel that's now on the back or side of food packages. But few shoppers stop to read or heed that fine print in the middle of the grocery aisle.

The Institute of Medicine says it's time to put right upfront the most important information for health: how many calories per serving — and just how big that serving is — along with stars or some other symbol to show at a glance how the food rates for certain fats, sodium and added sugars.

"American shoppers are busy shoppers," said Ellen Wartella, a psychology professor at Northwestern University. Wartella chaired the IOM committee that studied the issue at the request of federal health officials.

"We want a really simple system that says if you have three marks, that product is healthier than one with two marks."

How to get Americans to eat more wisely is a huge problem as obesity and diet-related diseases are skyrocketing. The FDA already was working to change the food-labeling system to make it more user-friendly, and has promised to crack down on inaccurate labeling that has confused consumers.

But ranking a food's healthfulness, rather than just providing consumers information to try to judge that for themselves, would mark a major shift in government food policy. The agency didn't say if it was interested in that kind of ratings approach, or how soon it would make labeling changes but called Thursday's report a thoughtful analysis that would help it decide next steps.

"FDA agrees consumers can benefit from a front-of-pack labeling system that conveys nutrition information in a manner that is simple and consistent with the Nutrition Facts panel," said spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey.

The Institute of Medicine recommendation would face an uphill battle with food manufacturers who are pushing their own version of on-the-front food labels but don't like the idea of ranking one food as healthier than a competitor's.

"We believe the most effective programs are those that trust consumers and not ones that tell consumers what they should and should not eat," said Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Changing dietary behavior is very difficult, and how much of a role nutritional disclosure plays isn't clear. Some studies show that food-label readers do eat much more healthfully, the IOM found.

Moreover, sales did change a bit when the Hannaford grocery chain introduced its own storewide food-rating system in 2006, said Lori Kaley, a registered dietitian at the University of Southern Maine and a scientific adviser to the Guiding Stars Licensing Company that markets the ratings system to additional stores today. Sales of high-fat whole milk dropped as some shoppers switched to three-star skim milk or two-star 1 percent milk, for example, and some manufacturers reformulated their store brands to be rated more favorably, she said.

But other studies have found little effect from food labeling, questioning how many people read the labels. Certainly waistlines still are growing despite a proliferation of nutrition information on food packages and, more recently, calorie counts on restaurant menus.

The IOM panel said part of the problem may be consumer confusion. Highlighting "good source of fiber" or "low-fat" or "high in calcium" on the front of a package doesn't override bad news lurking in the FDA-mandated nutrition label on the back. A food with reduced fat might have made up for the change in taste with a lot of extra sugar. Or a breakfast bar with lots of fiber might also contain too much heart-harming trans fat.

"If they have a health claim, consumers view that product overall as a healthy product," said Tracy Fox, a Washington, D.C., nutrition consultant and member of the IOM committee. "At least half of them that have a nutrient content claim are higher in one of those (other ingredients) we think consumers should reduce."

Under the IOM's proposed system, foods would earn up to three points for meeting certain nutritional standards — one each for keeping sodium, added sugars or a bad-fat duo, saturated fat and trans fat, below designated levels.

On the cereal aisle, plain oatmeal might get three points while the flavored kind would get just two because of added sugar, for example.

"If I always buy Triscuits, I'm going to buy them again. But if there is a decision that needs to be made, we hope this will help consumers make better decisions," said the IOM committee's Fox.

Some foods are so unhealthy as to be unrated altogether — a sugary soft drink wouldn't get a point for its lack of fat. Whatever the rating, the IOM proposal says all foods also would need a clear front-of-package calorie count: 150 calories for 16 potato chips, for example.

For now, the Grocery Manufacturers Association says the industry has begun rolling out voluntary labels called "Facts Up Front," which will list calories and the amount of saturated fat, sodium and sugars per serving — levels, not ratings.

___

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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IQ Isn't Set In Stone, Suggests Study That Finds Big Jumps, Dips In Teens

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Brain researchers say the big fluctuations in IQ performance they found in teens were not random — or a fluke.

For as long as there's been an IQ test, there's been controversy over what it measures. Do IQ scores capture a person's intellectual capacity, which supposedly remains stable over time? Or is the Intelligent Quotient exam really an achievement test — similar to the S.A.T. — that's subject to fluctuations in scores?

The findings of a new study add evidence to the latter theory: IQ seems to be a gauge of acquired knowledge that progresses in fits and starts.

In this week's journal Nature, researchers at University College London report documenting significant fluctuations in the IQs of a group of British teenagers. The researchers tested 33 healthy adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16 years. They repeated the tests four years later and found that some teens improved their scores by as much as 20 points on the standardized IQ scale.

 

"We were very surprised," researcher Cathy Price, who led the project, tells Shots. She had expected changes of a few points. "But we had individuals that changed from being on the 50th percentile, with an IQ of 100, [all] the way up to being in the (top) 3rd percentile, with an IQ of 127." In other cases, performance slipped by nearly as much, with kids shaving points off their scores.

Price and her colleagues used brain scans to confirm that these big fluctuations in performance were not random — or just a fluke. They evaluated the structure of the teens' brain in the early teen years and again in the late teenage years.

"We were able to see that the degree to which their IQ had changed was proportional to the degree to which different parts of their brain had changed," explains Price. For instance, an increase in verbal IQ score correlated with a structural change in the left motor cortex of the brain that is activated when we speak.

There are lots of factors that may explain changes in IQ. Though this study did not attempt to nail them down, lots of prior research has found that educational environment is key. Some researchers have found that rigorous academic curricula lead to improved IQ scores.

Teens' personalities, work ethic and the home environments are important, too. "There's a lot of variability in neural development during adolescence and in young adulthood as well," says Stephen Ceci, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University.

He says this study should give educators and parents pause. "It should caution all of us against assuming that one low IQ score, at one time, is capturing all that an individual is capable of," Ceci says.

Many researchers still say there's loads of evidence to show that IQ scores do reveal something essential about a child's intellectual gifts. Though increasingly, Ceci says, there's a consensus that one test is not deterministic. It can't accurately assess a person's talents or future potential.

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Men with breast cancer 'isolated'

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20 October 2011 Last updated at 09:34 GMT By Eleanor Bradford BBC Scotland Health Correspondent Bernard Greenan had surgery after being told the spot on his nipple was nothing to worry about Even the NHS is forgetting that men get breast cancer, according to some of those who have been diagnosed.

Only 1% of breast cancer cases are in men and research for a website suggests many of them feel isolated by a health service which is geared towards women.

Kate Hunt, from the Medical Research Council's public health sciences unit in Glasgow, spoke to 33 men diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Sometimes people are just a little bit thoughtless, so in a clinic setting a man might be called to his appointment being addressed as 'Mrs' rather than 'Mr'," she said.

"Similarly, going to get a prescription, they'll be told the drug isn't for men, it's only for women."

The research was carried out for the website www.healthtalkonline.org, which features real patients' stories to provide information and support for people with a variety of conditions.

Bernard Greenan had been told a spot on his nipple was nothing to worry about, but he decided to ask his local GP to take a second look after it started bleeding.

New research shows men diagnosed with breast cancer feel isolated by services geared up only for women

"It started getting very itchy so I went back to the doctors and it was a young locum who was in, and I said, 'Would you mind having a look at my chest?' and he said, 'Well, I'll send you for a biopsy straight away'.

"They told me not to worry about it, they were 99.9% positive there was nothing wrong with me. That was on the Tuesday and then on the Friday I got the phone call to come in and that was it.

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In the information pack that they sent, they said that for the operation I should bring a soft bra with me”

End Quote Ben Diagnosed with breast cancer "They operated on me the following week."

Like many with the condition, Bernard has never met another man with breast cancer.

Most are likely to be the only male patient in breast cancer clinics.

Other men interviewed for the website said they felt isolated by female-focused services.

One man, who only wanted to be identified as Ben, said: "In the information pack that they sent, they said that for the operation I should bring a soft bra with me.

"I realised then that it was geared for women."

One suggestion made to researchers is that the pink ribbon, which has become a symbol of breast cancer awareness month, should have a blue streak or spot as a reminder that men get breast cancer too.

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Amputee veterans' care gets £15m

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 10:52 GMT Headley Court is a specialist service for ex-service personnel Prosthetics services for military veterans are to receive funding of up to £15m, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

A review of services was carried out after concerns from charities and service personnel that the NHS was under-equipped.

The Department of Health has now said a number of specialist units will be set up across England.

Mr Cameron said the report set out a "clear strategy" for better services.

The £15m, which has been found from the Department of Health' s contingency fund, is to be invested between April 2012 and 2015.

The government will now work with service charities, including Help for Heroes and The British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association (Blesma) as well as NHS specialists, to create new high-quality NHS facilities for prosthetic limb provision and rehabilitation.

The aim is to bring them up to the same standard as the Defence Medical Service at Headley Court. That deals with personnel who are still serving, but once they leave it is the NHS centres which take on their care.

The government is also working with the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to improve arrangements there.

Feedback from those using and running these facilities will also be applied to services run for patients from all backgrounds who need such care.

'Confidence'

Dr Andrew Murrison MP, who compiled the report for the government, said: "The rapid rollout of the recommendations I made last year on veterans' mental health has been impressive and I look forward to these latest proposals being progressed with the same enthusiasm.

"I hope the action points I have offered honour the military covenant and benefit military amputees but I have been clear that they should also help to improve the service available to all limb centre users."

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It's recognition that military amputees need specialist support not currently available within the NHS”

End Quote Bryn Parry Help for Heroes Prime Minister David Cameron said: "As a country and as a government we have a particular duty to servicemen and women injured on operational duty.

"This report maps out a clear strategy for ensuring that those brave people can be confident they will receive the same levels of access to prosthetic limbs and specialist care from the NHS as they do at Headley Court. They deserve nothing less."

Jerome Church, general secretary of Blesma, said: "Over the last few years, our young veterans preparing to move on into civilian life have become increasingly concerned about the standard of prosthetic support they will receive from the NHS.

"We are now much more confident that the NHS will be able to provide the prosthetic support veterans need and deserve - for the rest of their lives.

"We are also delighted that this enhanced support will be extended to all veterans who lost limbs in earlier conflicts.!

Bryn Parry, chief executive of Help for Heroes, added: "It's recognition that military amputees need specialist support not currently available within the NHS."

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Science Diction: The Origin Of 'Bunsen Burner'

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Every high school chemist has no doubt fiddled with a Bunsen burner—but where did the apparatus get its name? Science historian Howard Markel talks about the German chemist Robert Bunsen, and why his experiments necessitated the invention of the gas burner still in use today.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The alphabet has only 26 letters. With these 26 magic symbols, however, millions of words are written every day.

FLATOW: Ah, that music means it's time for our monthly episode of Science Diction, where we talk about the origin of scientific words with Howard Markel, professor of history of medicine, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Welcome, Howard.

HOWARD MARKEL: Hi, Ira. How are you?

FLATOW: What word do we have today?

MARKEL: Well, it's a great one. It's the Bunsen burner.

FLATOW: Oh, the Bunsen burner.

MARKEL: And we all know what it is. It's the iconic symbol of high school chemistry. But how many people know who Bunsen was?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: You're right.

MARKEL: And he was a brilliant chemist, Robert Bunsen was his name. And he was a graduate of the University of Gottingen where his father was the chief librarian. But he actually created with some laboratory assistants the Bunsen burner or the gas burner in 1855. Now, chemistry - these chemists have arguing for years over who deserves the credit. Bunsen and a colleague named Henry Roscoe actually wrote it up in 1857.

But, you know, there were prototypical gas burners even before that, from the 1820s on. But those earlier forms used to produce diffuse and flickering light, and they also would - they were very flammable, no pun intended, and if you didn't put a metal wire over - a mesh, the flames would get all over the place, but that introduced artifactual colors and soot and all other things like that.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And was it really basically the same one we have today? No...

MARKEL: Pretty much. I mean, there's been a few, you know, tweaks here and there. But, you know, it's kind of neat. You know, all great laboratory equipment is the result of doing experiments. And Bunsen and his colleagues were trying to look at the spectral analysis of elements and compounds. They had a theory that each compound or element had a fingerprint if you lit it, if you burned it. And you could measure that through a prism.

So that was really novel, but they didn't have a good source of heat to do that. These earlier flames would just be, you know, not sufficient. And they figured this out one day when they - I'm sure you remember doing this in eighth grade - they burned a piece of magnesium. You remember that?

FLATOW: Oh, yeah. Pretty hot.

MARKEL: I can still see that bright light, that bright white light. And then they said, well, maybe other compounds have this as well. So they needed the right type of heat source. And you know, the great unsung heroes of science, I think, are the apparatus beakers, you know, before there, you know, Erlenmeyer flasks. Someone had to blow those and make them. And the same thing with the Bunsen burner was a very neat guy named Peter Desaga. And this - he toyed with the length of the tube and the width of the tube so that created a colorless, sootless flame. It was very hot. It didn't flicker, and it didn't need that wire mesh, so it didn't introduce any artifactual colors.

FLATOW: And there you have it. Thank you, Howard.

MARKEL: Thanks a lot, Ira.

FLATOW: Always a pleasure. Howard Markel, professor of the history of medicine, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, also director of the Center for the History of Medicine there.

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Dance Your Ph.D.: When Science People Shake A Tail Feather, Everybody Wins

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UPDATE: The grand prize winner is Joel Miller, for his "Microstructure-Property relationships in Ti2448 components produced by Selective Laser Melting: A Love Story." See that and the other winners here.

Every now and then, you learn about something so amazing that you're instantly (1) cheered that you know about it now, and (2) sad for yourself that you never knew about it before.

That's how I felt when Andrew Prince at NPR's science desk told me about Dance Your Ph.D., a contest in which people who work in the sciences — physics, chemistry, biology and social science — create videos of dance interpretations of their Ph.D. theses, and they compete for a $1,000 prize. (NPR covered the contest back in 2008; I was somehow in bed at the time.)

Now, the risk, naturally, is that this will just become a contest to make the most slickly produced music video, so they have a rule. As stated in the FAQ, "The author of the Ph.D. thesis has to be one of the dancers." So there's no hiring all your hot friends to do the dancing while you do the thinking. No no! This is Dance YOUR Ph.D., not Dance Your Less Coordinated Friend's Ph.D.

This year's winner is being announced today in Brussels (where else would you do it?). You can watch the finalists here, including this man-teaches-robot-to-dance video that utterly delighted me. The technical title is "Human-Based Percussion and Self-Similarity Detection in Electroacoustic Music." You can probably tell that from the dancing, though.

Then there's this one. I don't understand it, but I like it. "The Effect Of Western-Style Diet Consumption On Epigenetic Patterns." (So don't steal that title for YOUR YouTube video.)

Later this afternoon, we'll be back with an update on the winner. But let's face it: these people are all winners already, and I mean that with nothing but sincerity.

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Contagion: Could it really happen?

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 23:39 GMT By Caroline Parkinson Health editor, BBC News website The film shows how panic and chaos spread Hollywood blockbusters are not normally known for their scientific accuracy. So how realistic is the new disaster movie Contagion, which depicts the spread of a killer virus across the world?

'Too late to contain swine flu', 'Sars virus 'mutating rapidly', 'Bird flu fear as mutant strain hits China and Vietnam'.

These are not lines from the film. They are all real headlines from the past decade.

They all relate to illnesses which it was feared could spread around the globe and kill millions.

But, while each has claimed lives, none has become the feared "modern plague".

So how realistic is the depiction of the spread of the fatal infectious disease in Contagion?

According to a one scientist who has already seen the film, the answer is very.

Prof John Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who looks at how best to tackle epidemics of disease, said: "It's obviously a worst-case scenario."

He added: "We can't rule it out as a possibility. And the science in the film was very good."

Likely candidates?

Contagion begins with Gwyneth Paltrow on a business trip in Hong Kong. It then shows how a virus she contracts spreads from person to person as she travels back home to the US and the chain of transmission begins.

Kate Winslet plays one of the scientists who tracks the virus

Prof Edmunds said it was possible to "quibble" about some of the scientific detail and the speed at which some things, like the development of a vaccine, happen in the film, which also stars Matt Damon, Jude Law and Kate Winslet.

But he added a great deal, such as the epidemiology - the investigation of the outbreak - and the involvement of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) was accurate.

"For example the 1918 flu pandemic was at least as severe as what's represented in Contagion.

"And in 2003 we had Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) - that was close to becoming a Contagion-like scenario.

"There were just two things that stopped it. People with Sars weren't infectious until they were showing symptoms, and by then they were in hospital. Also the hospitalisation and isolation provision was good."

But he said if those two things hadn't happened and the virus had spread more quickly and to places which didn't have the same healthcare systems, it would have been a different story.

And he said: "Aids is another example of a virus that has spread around the world. The only difference there is the mode of transmission."

When people think about viruses spreading around the world though, they tend to think of flu.

Bird flu - H5N1 - first appeared in 2003. Experts had been predicting that the world was due a major flu pandemic that would kill millions - and bird flu was seen as a likely candidate.

In the event, it has killed about 330 people since then, according to official statistics. But these were overwhelmingly people who farmed birds, or who had them in their own home.

At the moment it is self-defeating. It cannot spread easily between people because it kills its hosts quickly, thereby preventing its spread.

"Bird flu is extremely lethal," says Prof Edmunds. "About half the people with it have died. What has stopped it is it's not transmissible between humans, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could become transmissible."

Where and when?

And then there was swine flu.

Continue reading the main story Sars - 2002-04 - originated in China - 10% of the 8,100 infected died.Bird flu - 2003 onwards. H5N1 has infected 565 people globally, more than half of whom died. Reports in August suggested a mutated strain had been seen.Swine flu - emerged in Mexico in 2009. H1N1 affected millions, and almost 16,000 died.That first emerged in Mexico in 2009. It spread from country to country extremely quickly, because it was a new form of flu - H1N1 - that people did not have any resistance to.

By the end of February 2010, the pandemic had caused 15,921 deaths worldwide. However, by summer last year levels of the virus were falling and the World Health Organization (WHO) was able to declare the pandemic over.

But H1N1 was the prevalent strain of flu in the UK last winter, and it will be present again this year. It is different to most flus, in that it kills previously healthy adults. But for most, it is no worse than a normal flu.

It therefore has the capacity to spread like Contagion's virus, but isn't as likely to be fatal.

Gwyneth Paltrow is the first person affected

So, if Contagion depicts a possible, if worst-case, scenario, what's the most likely real-life candidate?

Well the scientists say it could be any of the things they know about, if they change or mutate in some way.

Prof Mike Catchpole, of the Health Protection Agency, said: "The one we watch particularly is flu. You only need to look back to the 1918 pandemic to see it can cause a huge number of cases - and a huge number of deaths.

"And we just don't know when or where the next pandemic flu will come along."

Or, perhaps more likely, the next global disease could be something that no-one has thought of yet.

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A Premiere Chef Explores The Jiggly Joys Of Gelatin

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Enlarge Jacquelyn Martin/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chef Jose Andres at his avant garde Minibar restaurant in Washington. Andres' experiments with gelatins have helped make him one of the most innovative chefs in the country.

Jacquelyn Martin/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chef Jose Andres at his avant garde Minibar restaurant in Washington. Andres' experiments with gelatins have helped make him one of the most innovative chefs in the country.

If you think gelatin's charms go no further than wobbly, crimson cubes of lunchroom Jell-O, one of the most celebrated and ambitious chefs in the country would like to convince you otherwise.

"Gelatins are one of most unbelievable areas in cooking today," said Jose Andres, the Spanish-born restaurateur and innovator of avant-garde cooking, earlier this month. And then he went on to prove it in an engaging presentation at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

 

The venue, and the introduction by a Harvard biophysicist named David Weitz, might seem a bit odd for a flamboyant, jet-setting chef like Andres. But the unappreciated potential – and mechanics — of gelation in food fit right into the "Science & Cooking" lecture series, organized by Weitz, which brings some of the most creative minds of the food world to talk about pushing the limits of ingredients and their infinite combinations. The lectures also allow scientists like Weitz help chefs problem solve in the lab.

So, about those gelatins. Why are chefs like Andres so excited about them? Because they're one of a chef's greatest tools in tricking the mind and tastebuds. And they're handy substitutes in an age when many ingredients aren't so palatable anymore.

Gelatins turn liquids into solids, and can make cream-based dishes into a lighter, more flavorful affair by eliminating the need for heavy, flavor-distorting fats. They can also replaces starches in pasta, egg whites in meringues, and shark fins in shark fin soup.

Most gelatins out there today are derived from seaweed, animal proteins, fruit pectins or vegetables. Andres uses them all. They're essential to the famous mousse, foam, "air" and "cloud" he serves at minibar in Washington, D.C. They allow him to enhance textures and flavors, he says. And "when you use a simple gelatin like collagen, you can get flavor that is 100 percent pure, maybe event 150 percent. The combustion that happens in the mouth is exponentially higher," he noted.

Of course, Andres didn't invent all these gelatin tricks. He credits much of the innovation to his mentor, Ferran Adria, whose El Bulli restaurant in northeastern Spain revolutionized cooking and launched the molecular gastronomy movement. "Ferran shared everything," Andres said.

And indeed, there's a lot more sharing going on between scientists like Weitz and chefs like Andres than ever before.

"The chefs like Jose we interact with are beginning to appreciate that science has something to offer them. ... There's a real dialogue between us," Weitz tells The Salt. "And we gain enormous appreciation of the beauty of what they do."

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Teens' IQ May Rise or Fall Over Time

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The brain undergoes more change in adolescence than at any other time of life, save before birth and during infancy. That may help explain why teenagers' IQ can fluctuate significantly over time, as a new study finds, registering large enough changes to move a child from "average" to "gifted" or in the other direction, to below average intelligence.

Cathy Price, a neuroscientist at University College London, led the research, imaging the brains of 33 teens, first in 2004 when they were aged 12 to 16, then again in 2007 or 2008 when they were 15 to 20 years old. The researchers also tested the teens' IQ.

The group's average IQ stayed the same, but 21% of teens showed large changes, as much as 20 points. "It's a huge difference," Price said.

About the same number of teens saw IQ improvement as decline. "It was not the case that the young low performers got better and the young high performers averaged out. Some high performers got even better and some low performers got even worse," says Price.

"Initially we were concerned that it was measurement error," Price says, explaining that IQ has largely been thought to remain constant over time. "But we found that the degree to which IQ changed matched the degree to which brain structure changed. Since the two measurements were independent, this cannot be explained by error."

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In teens whose verbal IQ changed, researchers also found brain changes in regions of the cortex related to the articulation of speech. Changes in non-verbal IQ, such as visual and spatial skills and reasoning, were connected with changes in part of the cerebellum; that region is involved in controlling learned finger movements or, more generally, the process by which a learned skill like playing the piano or driving becomes automatic.

Price notes, however, that there were probably changes in other important regions of the brain that she and her colleagues were not able to measure.

Scientists have typically have believed that IQ is determined early in life and is thereafter resistant to change. So the new research, if replicated in a larger sample, could have important implications for education, suggesting, for instance, that students who show low IQ could make great gains later on and shouldn't be put on separate educational tracks.

Like early childhood, adolescence appears to be a "sensitive" period, during which large positive or negative brain changes could affect structure permanently.

Simply choosing to view intelligence as malleable — as this study suggests it is — can itself have large benefits. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has shown in multiple studies that children who see intelligence as dependent on hard work rather than innate talent tend to outperform those who view it as fixed. In one study of 373 seventh graders, those who believed intelligence could be changed raised their grades during the next two years of junior high, while those who believed intelligence was fixed did not show better performance.

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Commenting on the new research, Oklahoma University professor Robert Sternberg, who was not involved in the study, told the Guardian's Ed Yong that a "testing industry has developed around the notion that IQ is relatively fixed and pretty well set in the early years of life. This study shows in a compelling way that meaningful changes can occur throughout the teenage years."

Sternberg knows this from personal experience. As I wrote when I interviewed him for a story (paywalled article here) on the effects of labeling children for the Washington Post:

Sternberg...did poorly on IQ tests. "The teachers thought I wasn't very bright — and that led me to meet that expectation, which led them to be happy that I met that expectation, and it became a vicious circle. The next year their expectations were a bit lower," [he said].

Fortunately, for Sternberg, his fourth-grade teacher didn't buy it: She saw that there was more to life than test scores, and she encouraged hard work.

As a result, Sternberg became fascinated with psychology and intelligence testing — so much so that he got in trouble in seventh grade for testing classmates himself. He ultimately became a leading expert in the field.

Perhaps the new research on the visible malleability of the teen brain will help inspire a new generation of scientists.

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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