Nutrition labels 'in wrong place'

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24 October 2011 Last updated at 07:46 GMT Nutrition labels should be placed in the centre of food packaging, rather than in one corner, if shoppers are going to read them, says a US study.

Using an eye-tracking device, researchers from Minnesota also found that the average consumer only reads the top part of a food content label.

They studied 203 people while looking at 64 different grocery products on a computer screen.

The Journal of the American Dietetic Association published the results.

In the study, participants were asked to view three elements on a typical food product - the nutrition contents label, a picture and list of ingredients, and a description of the product with price and quantity information - on the left, on the right or in the centre of the packaging.

One third of the participants each saw the nutrition label in one of those positions and were asked whether they would consider buying the product.

Participants were aware that their eye movements would be tracked, but unaware that the study was investigating nutrition information.

Position test

When the nutrition contents label was presented in the centre, subjects read one or more sections of 61% of the labels compared with 37% and 34% of labels among participants randomly assigned to view labels on the left and right hand sides of the screen.

In addition, labels in the centre of the product were seen to receive more than 30% more viewing time than the same labels when positioned to one side of the product.

The researchers also observed that most consumers view the contents of the label nearest the top more than those at the bottom of the label.

The study says that many more participants said they looked at the content of the nutrition labels than actually did when their viewing of the labels was tracked and measured.

Only 9% of participants actually looked at the calorie count for almost all products in the study, compared to 33% who said they did when asked.

Researchers Dan Graham and Robert Jeffrey, from the division of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota, said: "The results of this study suggest that consumers have a finite attention span for Nutrition Facts labels.

"Although most consumers did view labels, very few consumers viewed every component on any label.

"These results differed from the self-reported survey responses describing typical grocery shopping and health behaviours submitted by the participants."

They also said the location of the labels on the packaging made a difference.

"Consumers are more likely to view centrally located labels and nutrients nearer the label's top.

"Because knowing the amounts of key nutrients that foods contain can influence consumers to make healthier purchases, prominently positioning key nutrients, and labels themselves, could substantially impact on public health."

A spokesman from the Food and Drink Federation said they were aware that consumers often do not read labels.

"Any research that adds to our understanding of what would encourage consumers to use the information provided is welcomed.

"The transferability of this research to the UK shopping experience is unclear, as the study is based on computer simulation and uses information in a format that is quite different from what is found on packs in the UK."

But she said: "We support the provision of clear, simple front of pack nutrition labelling which the authors conclude would address the concerns raised by their research."

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More deaths when green doctors place neck stents

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By Frederik Joelving

NEW YORK | Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:21pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People about to undergo a controversial stenting procedure in the neck might want to check their doctor's credentials first, researchers say.

According to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, patients whose doctors do lots of the procedures are nearly half as likely to die over the next month as those in less-experienced hands.

During the treatment, called carotid stenting, doctors clean out cholesterol buildups in the carotid artery in the neck that sometimes cause strokes. Then they insert a small metal mesh tube, the stent, to prop the vessel open.

But if they're unfortunate, part of the cholesterol deposit might break off during the procedure and be released into the blood stream, producing the dreaded stroke the patient hoped to avoid.

"A little piece of it just flows upstream and can lodge in a smaller blood vessel in the brain," said Dr. Ethan A. Halm, who wrote an editorial about the new findings.

Based on Medicare records of nearly 25,000 procedures, the new study found a 30-day death rate of 1.4 percent in patients whose doctors placed at least 24 stents a year. By contrast, that death figure was as high as 2.5 percent when the doctors did six or fewer procedures annually.

The same pattern held true when comparing the initial and later procedures done by inexperienced doctors.

Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, a cardiologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who led the work, said the findings don't prove that lack of familiarity with the procedure explains the findings.

But he said that is likely to be the case, since there are no uniform standards for the training doctors need to undergo before they can perform carotid stenting.

"Patients shouldn't be shy about asking their physician who is going to be doing this procedure," Nallamothu told Reuters Health. "I think that it's a very fair question. If I were a patient, I would certainly want to know."

Halm added that carotid stenting is not the only alternative for patients with clogged arteries. The more common procedure is surgery, and some doctors recommend sticking just to medications. Especially when people have no symptoms, many believe doing surgery to clean them out is too hazardous.

With drugs alone, he told Reuters Health, the yearly stroke risk can be lowered to less than one percent, challenging the need for a procedure with significant risks.

And he added that the new study doesn't look at the total number of strokes caused by stenting, which tend to outnumber deaths by a factor of three.

"It's particularly important that people weigh the pros and cons of all therapies," said Halm.

In his view, the new results deal a blow to carotid stenting, which has become more and more common since it was approved in 2004. He estimated some 10,000 carotid stenting procedures were performed each year during the study, a number that has likely increased.

"There are a lot of tricky elements to the procedure," Halm said. "The article by Nallamothu shows that more people think they can do it well than actually can do it well."

If people decide that stenting is the right option for them, they might still have a hard time finding an experienced doctor to perform the procedure.

"The easiest piece of advice is to use an expert middle man," Halm said, adding that a neurologist can usually guide patients to an appropriate expert.

Nallamothu said he hoped the new study would spur the development of stricter training protocols and ensure that patients are followed more closely after stenting in the future.

SOURCE: bit.ly/n9JFW2 Journal of the American Medical Association, September 27, 2011.

View the original article here

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