Largest Study on Cell Phones and Cancer Finds No Link

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Danish researchers can offer some reassurance if you're concerned about your cell phone: Don't worry. Your device is probably safe.

The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cell phones 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 cell phone for about a decade and those who did not.

Last year, a separate large study found no clear connection between cell phones 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 cell phones 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. Cell phones 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.

MORE: WHO Says Cell Phone Radiation is 'Possibly Carcinogenic.' Now What?

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

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

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

Cancer rates in people who used cell phones for about 10 years were similar to rates in people without a cell phone. Cell phone 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 cell phone. That makes it difficult for scientists to compare cancer incidence in people who use the devices versus those who do not.

MORE: Cell Phones: How Precautionary Should Our Principles Be?

Others disputed the Danish study's findings. The advocacy group MobileWise, which believes cell phones 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 cell phone records. Previous studies have been criticized for relying on people to recall their cell phone 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 cell phones more often than unaffected people.

The editorial writers pointed out that research on cell phones 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 cell phones 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 cell phones.

LIST: 5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Cell Phone Radiation Exposure

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

Cell phones send signals to nearby towers via radio waves, a form of energy similar to microwaves. But the radiation produced by cell phones 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 cell phones can heat up body tissue, but that is not believed to damage human cells.

Nunn said people should not change their cell phone 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.

—By MARIA CHENG

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Mammograms Only Occasionally Save Lives, Analysis Finds

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Some doctors and public-health experts have stirred controversy in recent years by arguing that aggressive breast-cancer screening does more harm than good. Many health professionals disagree, but perhaps the most compelling critics of the less-is-more philosophy are the many breast cancer survivors who claim that a routine mammogram saved their lives.

These survivor anecdotes — which often turn up in the media — may be causing the public to overestimate the true value of mammograms, a new study suggests. In an analysis published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers at Dartmouth estimate that only about 1 in 8 women whose breast cancer was identified during a routine mammogram actually owe their lives to the screening.

This estimate doesn't mean that women shouldn't bother to get mammograms, but it does suggest that overly frequent screening can result in overtreatment, the authors say. Many tumors identified during routine mammograms would have grown very slowly (if at all) and would never have threatened a woman's life, says Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, one of the coauthors of the analysis.

"A certain fraction of women are being treated for a disease that was never going to bother them," says Dr. Welch, a professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, in Hanover, N.H.

LIST: 25 Breast Cancer Myths Busted

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government advisory panel that issues guidelines on cancer screening, recommends that women start having mammograms every other year when they turn 50, while women who have risk factors for breast cancer should talk with their doctor about starting screening earlier. (Prior to 2009, the panel recommended annual mammograms for all women beginning at age 40.) A large study published last week found that biennial screening resulted in fewer false alarms and unnecessary biopsies than annual screening.

The results of the new analysis should reassure women with average breast-cancer risk that it's safe to wait until age 50 — or later — to begin mammograms, Dr. Welch says. However, he adds, women who would prefer to undergo screening earlier or more frequently should do so if it will make them more comfortable. "It's generally a really close call, and how patients feel really matters," he says.

To investigate the value of mammography in terms of lives saved, Dr. Welch and his colleague, Brittney Frankel, used breast-cancer data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to calculate a woman's likelihood of developing breast cancer over a 10-year period, the likelihood that the cancer would have been detected by mammography, and a woman's risk of dying from breast cancer over a 20-year period.

LIST: Simple Things That Could Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk

Using the relevant data for a hypothetical 50-year-old woman who received a breast cancer diagnosis following a routine mammogram, the researchers estimate that the probability that the mammogram will be responsible for saving her life is about 13%. And even that estimate may be high, they say: mammograms prevent fewer deaths today than they did 20 or 30 years ago (thanks to better treatment that has made early detection less crucial), so the actual probability could be as low as 3%.

"Women need to understand their trade-offs here," Dr. Welch says. "The reason to be screened isn't because you've heard a lot of survivor stories. Some of those women have not benefited [from screening]."

Dr. Timothy Wilt, a researcher at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Center who specializes in chronic disease outcomes, says that breast-cancer diagnosis and treatment can even be harmful in some cases. Radiation treatment, for instance, can cause disfigurement, accelerate blockage of arteries in the heart, and increase the risk of secondary cancers, he says.

LIST: How to Help a Loved One Cope With Breast Cancer

"Looking harder and treating more doesn't always help people live longer and live better," says Dr. Wilt, who coauthored an editorial accompanying the study and is a member of the USPSTF. The push toward less screening "is not about rationing care," he adds. "It's about making good health care decisions to help patients live better and live longer."

Dr. Laura Esserman, the director of the breast care center at the University of California, San Francisco, says that doctors and women should shift their focus away from breast-cancer screening and toward prevention. For instance, Esserman says, women can reduce their risk of breast cancer by maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, and minimizing their alcohol consumption.

"Mammography has some value," she says, "but I think it's pretty clear that the public has overvalued it and a lot of people who push it have overvalued it."

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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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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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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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Obesity rate declines slightly, study finds

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Subway commuters walk through the turnstiles while leaving the U.S. Open in New York September 4, 2007.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Files

By Roy Strom

CHICAGO | Sat Oct 8, 2011 4:01pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The percentage of Americans of "normal weight" has slightly increased in the past year, but overweight and obese people still command a solid majority, according to a new study.

In the third quarter of 2011, 36.6 percent of Americans were of normal weight, compared with 35.6 percent a year ago, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey found.

Obese and overweight Americans combined for more than 60 percent of the population, it said.

"Although the majority of Americans are still overweight or obese, it is an encouraging sign that obesity rates are trending downward in the U.S.," the study said.

The survey found 35.8 percent of Americans to be overweight, compared with 36.0 percent a year ago, and 25.8 percent obese, down from 26.6 percent last year.

The study said it was not clear what caused the change, but said it could be due to the tough economy, with cash-strapped Americans choosing to eat in rather than eating at high-calorie restaurants.

A downward trend in obesity rates could also mean a drop in healthcare costs, the study said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated medical costs associated with obesity were $147 billion in 2008.

The study used self-reported data of height and weight to determine a score of body mass index. It was based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 90,070 people aged 18 and older from July to September, and had a margin of error of plus or minus one percent.

(Editing by Greg McCune and Mohammad Zargham)

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Actress finds personal inspiration for cancer film

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Actress Jeanne Tripplehorn plays an oncologist whose life is shaped by breast cancer. Jeanne Tripplehorn knows how preachy and awkward cancer movies can get"Five" tells stories of different women coping with breast cancer in five vignettesJennifer Aniston, Demi Moore and Alicia Keys each directed a vignette

(CNN) -- Jeanne Tripplehorn's movie is about women and breast cancer. And it's airing on Lifetime.

Uh oh, this could get weepy.

Tripplehorn, who has starred in cable show "Big Love," knows how preachy and awkward cancer movies can get.

"This was something different," she said, of the film ,which airs Monday at 9 p.m. "I spoke with Lifetime and they wanted it to be a new approach and a new way of looking at cancer."

The actress has seen the disease's toll.

"Like all women, I had been affected," she said. "Women in my family dealt with breast cancer. They all survived. It was important for me to do this on a lot of different levels. It wasn't just a paycheck."

The movie, "Five" tells stories of different women coping with breast cancer in five vignettes. Tripplehorn's character, an oncologist is the tie that binds the five stories together. Her character loses her mother to breast cancer as a young girl and becomes an oncologist.

The project has a bevy of star power. The executive producers are Jennifer Aniston, Marta Kauffman, co-creator of the series "Friends" and Kristin Hahn, who was the executive producer of "The Departed." Aniston, Demi Moore and Alicia Keys each directed one of the vignettes. The ensemble cast includes Patricia Clarkson, Rosario Dawson, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Holloway, Tracee Ellis Ross, Tony Shalhoub and Jeffrey Tambor.

Tripplehorn answered a few questions for CNN not long ago.

Jeanne Tripplehorn said breast cancer hits close to home because family members have been affected.

CNN: Did you work with an oncologist, or consult a doctor for your role?

Tripplehorn: I consulted an oncologist. I read a lot.

The thing that I found confusing and frustrating is once you have this diagnosis, there is this maze of doctors.

There wasn't one particular way of dealing with a diagnosis. I was just very confused to the journey that one takes after a diagnosis. You have your mammogram, your radiologist, your oncologist.

Jen [Aniston] and her producing partner Kristin [Hahn] toured a clinic that hopefully will become a model for clinics across the country. It's almost a one-stop shop with everything a woman needs - the doctors, radiologists. It's all under one roof. And hopefully that will simplify before we get a cure.

CNN: What resonated with you about the story?

Tripplehorn: Just the way they were telling the story -- the five short films dealing with different women with the diagnoses.

I thought it was an interesting way of telling stories. Five directors who are women, for me, personally, it was a great experience to work with each of these directors. Alicia Keys is a first time director. You would never know it when you see her film.

CNN: Did having family members who've had breast cancer influence you in taking part in this project?

Tripplehorn: I had two women on my mother's side of the family; both went through bouts of breast cancer. Both survived.

My grandmother was a two-time survivor of breast cancer. She passed away of something different 15 years after her last diagnosis.

It's close to my heart and experience.

CNN: Having family members who've had this disease, does it make you concerned about your risk?

Tripplehorn: It's a constant reminder. It's always in the news. It's always out there. So, it's just what you live with. It's what you face.

You try to watch your diet, you're constantly aware of it. Some people put their head in the sand and I'm not that kind of person. I'm very aware of it.

CNN: Your character in the movie gets genetic testing for breast cancer. Have you ever thought about it?

Tripplehorn: I think it's a personal thing. It's not something that I'm thinking of doing. It's very personal.

CNN: What's your message through this movie?

Tripplehorn: No woman should have to go through this. I've seen it up close and personal. The fact that we're airing this during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it's a small part that I could do -- if I could raise awareness, if women see this and get a mammogram.

When I started this project, it had been two years since I got a mammogram, because I was so busy. That's what happens with women. They are so busy taking care of other people, they don't put themselves first. You have to go out and do these small things. Getting a mammogram, doing your monthly self-exam, your diet, just taking care of yourself. If this film will remind women out there to do just that, that's a step in the right direction.

It's not every project that you can do this -- that can possibly directly impact somebody's life. And that was my hope.

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U.S. obesity rate declines slightly, study finds

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Fairgoers play a carnival game at the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar, California, June 29, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Mike Blake

By Roy Strom

CHICAGO | Fri Oct 7, 2011 4:29pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Some Americans are losing weight resulting in more people of "normal weight," according to a new study, but it is not clear if the trend will last.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that for the first time in three years there are more normal weight Americans than those in the overweight category.

But the majority of Americans are at an unhealthy weight, the study said. Obese and overweight Americans combined make up more than 60 percent of the population, according to the study.

"Although the majority of Americans are still overweight or obese, it is an encouraging sign that obesity rates are trending downward in the U.S.," the study said.

The study found the percent of normal weight Americans in the third quarter of 2011 to be 36.6 percent, while the number of overweight people came in at 35.8 percent. Obese Americans make up 25.8 percent of the population.

Obesity has become a major problem in the U.S. over the last decade.

In 2000, no U.S. state had an adult obesity rate higher than 30 percent, according to Centers for Disease Control data. In 2010, there were 12 states at that level, and another eight poised to join them with adult obesity rates of 28 percent or higher.

The study said it was not clear what caused the drop in overweight and obese Americans, but said it could be due to the tough economy, with cash-strapped Americans choosing to eat in rather than eating at high-calorie restaurants.

Another reason could be increased public awareness campaigns such as Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" anti-obesity campaign, and business initiatives, that prompted more health-conscious decisions.

A downward trend in obesity rates could also mean a drop in U.S. health care costs, the study said. The Centers for Disease Control estimated medical costs associated with obesity were $147 billion in 2008.

The study used self-reported data of height and weight to determine a score of body mass index. A score of 30 or higher was classified as "obese," while 25.0 to 29.9 was "overweight." A score from 18.5 to 24.9 is classified as "normal weight." Scores below 18.5 were "underweight."

The study conducted telephone interviews with a random sample of 90,070 people aged 18 and older from July to September of this year, and had a margin of error of plus or minus one percent.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

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Chemotherapy appears safe in pregnancy, study finds

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By Kate Kelland

STOCKHOLM | Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:08pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Treating pregnant cancer patients with powerful chemotherapy drugs appears not to harm their unborn children, but pre-term delivery to avoid subjecting them to chemotherapy does, according to a study by cancer experts on Tuesday.

Scientists who studied the health and mental development of children born to mothers treated for cancer in pregnancy found they were not affected by chemotherapy, but were harmed if they were born prematurely, either naturally or by induction.

"The data suggest the children suffer more from prematurity than from prenatal chemotherapy," said Frederic Amant, a gynecological oncologist at the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, who led the research and presented his findings at the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (EMCC) in Stockholm.

He said the results show there is no need for pregnant cancer patients to have abortions or delay chemotherapy treatment beyond the first trimester, but stressed that doctors should avoid inducing early birth if at all possible.

An estimated 2,500 to 5,000 pregnant women in Europe are diagnosed with cancer each year -- a diagnosis that is doubly traumatic as mothers-to-be worry that either the disease or the treatment could harm their unborn child.

Amant said that in his experience, many women decide to have an abortion because they are unaware of the cancer treatment risks to the fetus, but assume it is likely to be harmful.

Doctors, too, often advise women to either delay their cancer treatment or induce delivery of the baby early -- generally at around 32 weeks gestation, he said.

But according to his findings, that advice is misplaced if chemotherapy is given after the first 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Only a fraction of the chemotherapy passes through the placenta and gets into the fetus, Amant said, and the drugs appear to have no health impacts on the babies' development.

Among the 70 children born from 68 pregnancies in the study, around two-thirds were delivered before 37 weeks gestation.

Amant's team found the rates and types of congenital defects among the babies were similar to the general population, as was growth, general health and development. The researchers also found no heart abnormalities.

But they found that while cognitive development -- measured by scores such as intelligence quotient (IQ) and behavioral tests -- was in the normal range for most of the children, those that had below normal IQs were mainly those born prematurely.

It is already well known that babies born very early have a higher risk of developing learning difficulties, and recent studies have also shown that children born even 1 or 2 weeks before their 40-week gestation due date are also more likely to develop learning difficulties.

Amant said that because the number of women in this study was small and the follow-up time was relatively short, his team plan to study larger numbers for longer in future research.

"At this stage we do not know the full, long-term consequences of prenatal chemotherapy, including its effect on the children's fertility and likelihood of developing cancers when they are older," he said.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

View the original article here

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Japan finds radiation in rice, more tests planned

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan is ordering more tests on rice growing near a crippled nuclear plant after finding elevated levels of radiation, government officials said Saturday.

A sample of unharvested rice contained 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, they said. Radioactive cesium was spewed from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after it was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Under Japanese regulations, rice with up to 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram is considered safe for consumption.

Officials have tested rice from more than 400 spots in Fukushima prefecture. The highest level of cesium previously found was 136 becquerels per kilogram, prefectural official Kazuhiko Kanno said.

News of the elevated radiation level in rice from Nihonmatsu city, 55 kilometers (35 miles) west of the nuclear plant, set off alarm in the Japanese media.

The government has been testing vegetables and fish for radiation since the disaster, in which backup generators and cooling systems failed at the plant and the cores of three reactors melted.

Some nations have stopped importing some food products from Japan. Japanese consumers are nervous about radiation, but campaigns to buy from Fukushima have drawn support around the nation.

Associated Press

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Peliculas Online

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Japan finds radiation in rice, more tests planned

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
TOKYO (AP) — Japan is ordering more tests on rice growing near a crippled nuclear plant after finding elevated levels of radiation, government officials said Saturday.

A sample of unharvested rice contained 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, they said. Radioactive cesium was spewed from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after it was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Under Japanese regulations, rice with up to 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram is considered safe for consumption.

Officials have tested rice from more than 400 spots in Fukushima prefecture. The highest level of cesium previously found was 136 becquerels per kilogram, prefectural official Kazuhiko Kanno said.

News of the elevated radiation level in rice from Nihonmatsu city, 55 kilometers (35 miles) west of the nuclear plant, set off alarm in the Japanese media.

The government has been testing vegetables and fish for radiation since the disaster, in which backup generators and cooling systems failed at the plant and the cores of three reactors melted.

Some nations have stopped importing some food products from Japan. Japanese consumers are nervous about radiation, but campaigns to buy from Fukushima have drawn support around the nation.

Associated Press

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More

HEALTH MANAGEMENT. High Marks for Home Schooling, a Small Study Finds

In some cases, home schooling may give kids a leg up on their public-school peers, finds a small, new study published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science.
As long as it's structured and follows a set curriculum, home schooling may actually lead to better scores on tests of math and reading, compared with public schooling, say the researchers from Concordia University and Mount Allison University in Canada.
The researchers studied 74 children aged 5 to 10 living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick: 37 kids were schooled at home, and the other 37 attended local public schools. Each child was asked to complete standardized tests of reading, writing and math.
Researchers found that the public-school kids tested at or above their grade levels, but home-schooled children tested even higher than that — about a half-grade higher in math and 2.2 grades in reading, compared with the traditionally educated children.
VIDEO: At Home with Homeschoolers
The researchers said the difference remained even after they accounted for other factors that affect children's academic performance, like household income and mothers' education, employment and marital status. Although many previous studies have found higher academic achievement in home-schooled children, those results have often been ascribed to socioeconomic and education differences among parents who choose home schooling.
In the current study, the authors theorized that more personalized attention may have helped the home-schooled children do better. "This advantage may be explained by several factors including smaller class sizes, more individualized instruction, or more academic time spent on core subjects such as reading and writing," said author Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia department of education, in a statement.
The achievements associated with home schooling were seen only in those children who had structured academic curriculums, however. The 12 children in the home-schooled group whose education was unstructured — a method known as unschooling, which uses no teachers, textbooks or tests — did worse on all academic measures compared with the structured home school group, falling one to four grade levels behind.
MORE: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Homeschoolers
Unschooling has been around for decades, but it has recently ticked up in popularity as more families seek to home school their children, according to an AP report published last month. Reported the AP's Leanne Italie:

Reliable data is hard to come by, but estimates of children and teens home-schooled in the U.S. range from 1.5 million to 2 million. Of those, as many as one-third could be considered unschoolers ... meaning their parents are "facilitators," available with materials and other resources, rather than topdown "teachers."
There's no fixed curriculum, course schedule or attempt to mimic traditional classrooms. Unless, of course, their children ask for those things.
...
In Sugar Land, Texas, Elon Bomani's 11-year-old son has never been to school and doesn't know how to write cursive. She doesn't care. When he was younger and had no interest in learning how to read, she found a video on the subject and put it on for him to discover — or ignore as he wished. He's a reader today. Her younger son, who's 6, learned to read when he discovered Garfield comic books.
"If children find something that they love, they'll read," Bomani said.

Proponents of unschooling argue that structured learning environments risk kids getting bored or feeling that they're being forced to study things in which they have no interest. Some kids simply do better in a more hands-on, choose-your-own-adventure kind of atmosphere, they say.
Perhaps a child's academic success depends on how parents choose to define it. If it's higher test scores you're after, children who have structured educational curriculums — either at home or at school — do significantly better than unschooled kids, according to the small Canadian study.
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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