Antidepressant Use May Boost Fracture Risk
Evidence is accumulating that depression is a risk factor for osteoporosis, reports the June 2007 issue of Harvard Women’s Health Watch. A recent study found that people ages 50 and over who regularly took antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) had double the rate of fractures as people not using such medications. Other research points to depression itself as a source of endocrine changes that can damage bone.
Whether the danger comes from depression, the drugs used to treat it, or something else, doctors are paying more attention to this association. During the 1990s, depression began to emerge as a possible cause of bone loss, rather than a result.
Asthma Not Controlled in Majority of Patients
A survey of 1,812 patients with moderate-to-severe asthma revealed that the disease was not controlled in 55 percent, despite the fact that most had health insurance and visited their health care providers regularly.
“Even more shocking was the finding that 38 percent of controlled asthmatics and 54 percent of uncontrolled asthmatics reported having had an asthma attack during which they feared for their life,” said Stephen P. Peters, M.D., Ph.D., lead author and a professor of pediatrics, internal medicine-pulmonary and associate director of the Center for Human Genomics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Doctors, engineers develop new wireless system to detect esophageal reflux
UT Southwestern Medical Center doctors and UT Arlington engineers have developed a wireless monitoring system that uses electrical impulses to track esophageal reflux.
The wireless technology, called radio frequency identification (RFID), has been used in thousands of stores for tracking inventory and in identification chips implanted in some pets. Researchers combined that technology with another emerging applied science called impedance monitoring, which tracks reflux through electrical impulses.
Access to alcohol among middle school children
New research suggests that if parents want to keep alcohol away from their middle school children, the best place to start is at home. The study, reported in the June issue of Preventive Medicine, shows that of 11-14 year olds who choose to drink, only a small fraction (2.4% in the 6th grade, rising to 5.6% at the end of the 8th grade) obtain alcohol from commercial venues. More than one-third of the alcohol consumed by these children came from their own or a friend’s parents or guardians.
The proportion of alcohol users is also disturbing; 17% at the start of the 6th grade and more than twice as many, 41% by the end of the 8th grade. The study reminds parents that they need to consider their positions as role models at the crucial time when their middle school children are likely to have their first serious encounters with alcohol.
