Heavy drinking tied to worse eating habits
The more alcohol a person drinks, the less likely he or she is to be eating a healthy diet, a new study shows.
“People who drank the largest quantity, even infrequently, had the poorest diets,” Dr. Rosalind A. Breslow of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
A number of studies have linked moderate alcohol consumption with a lower risk of dying from heart disease, Breslow and her colleagues note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Sanofi shares fall as FDA delays anti-obesity drug
Sanofi-Aventis shares fell as much as 4.5 percent on Monday after U.S. regulators delayed final approval of its experimental anti-obesity pill Acomplia, which is among the world’s most keenly awaited new drugs.
A spokesman for the world’s third-largest drugmaker said a final decision was expected in the next few months, but some analysts do not now expect it to reach the market until 2007.
Autism surrounded by misunderstanding-experts
People with autism are more intelligent and able to function better than previously believed, but mistrust of doctors, biased tests and the Internet have bred myths about the condition, experts said on Sunday.
At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers presented reports showing that even autistics who do not speak can have above-average intelligence. They also offered additional studies disputing claims that vaccines can cause autism.
No worry about eating chicken, EU’s Kyprianou says
Europe’s health chief urged Europeans on Monday to carry on eating poultry meat despite outbreaks of the lethal strain of bird flu, saying EU authorities had weapons available to wipe out the disease.
A string of EU countries have now confirmed the H5N1 strain of the disease in wild bird flocks, knocking consumer confidence in poultry meat - especially chicken. Italy, for example, has complained of a 70 percent slump in sales in under one week.
“We have the measures and legislation for containment and eradication of such diseases,” EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told a news conference. “It (bird flu) is a virus that only spreads to humans with difficulty.”
Obese boys, girls more likely to be bullied
Obese grade-school children are more likely to be the targets of bullying than their leaner peers are, a UK study suggests.
Researchers found that among more than 8,000 7-year-olds, obese boys and girls were about 50 percent more likely to be bullied over the next year than their normal-weight classmates.
On the other hand, obese boys were also more inclined to describe themselves as bullies. Compared with normal-weight boys, they were 66 percent more likely to physically or verbally harass their peers—presumably, the study authors speculate, because of their dominant size.
FDA: More study needed on birth control patch risk
Early findings suggest Johnson & Johnson’s contraceptive patch may cause more blood clots than birth control pills but more research is needed, U.S. health officials said on Friday.
One study showed women who used the patch, Ortho Evra, were twice as likely to develop blood clots than others who took the pill. A second study, however, found the risk was about the same with either method.
“We should caution that these results are preliminary and further evaluation is necessary to understand what these results mean,” said Dr. Daniel Shames, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s division of reproductive and urologic drug products.
