Oily fish can protect against RA, but smoking and psychosocial stress increase its risk
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Paris, France, Friday 13 June 2008: New data presented today at EULAR 2008, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Paris, France, show that intake of oily fish is associated with a reduced risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA), whereas psychosocial work stress and smoking can increase the risk of developing the condition. The findings, all taken from a large population-based case-control study in Sweden called EIRA (Epidemiological Investigation of Rheumatoid Arthritis), shed light on the important role of environmental and social factors in the development of RA.
Intake of Oily Fish
For the first time, the intake of oily fish has been demonstrated to have a protective effect against the development of RA, reducing an individual’s risk by 20-30%. Studying 1,899 subjects with a confirmed diagnosis of RA (fulfilling ACR criteria) and 2,145 controls (randomly selected and matched for age, sex and residential area), investigators concluded that the odds ratio (OR) for developing RA was 0.8 (0.7-1.0) for those who consumed oily fish 1-7 times per week or 1-3 times per month, compared with those who never, or seldom consumed oily fish. Interestingly, no significant association with RA risk was observed for consumption of fish oil supplements.
Ways to Avoid Summer Sports Injuries
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During the summer months, thousands of facial injuries occur to people of all ages. Dr. Anthony Brissett, facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, says taking some basic precautions can minimize long lasting facial injuries, prevent costly medical problems and allow people to enjoy the summer injury-free.
Q: What are the main head and neck injuries you see?
A: I see a lot of patients with facial injuries, anything from lacerations to facial fractures such as broken cheek bones and noses. Whether the injuries are from baseball, basketball, bike riding, swimming or just outdoor fun, I’ve seen them all.
Q: How do you treat these kinds of facial injuries?
Water Intake Could Gauge Diabetes
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Rough and tumble summer games send hot and sweaty children running in and out of the house for drinks of water or bathroom trips. While drinking plenty of water, especially when they’ve been out in the sun, is good for kids, too much can be a bad sign.
A significant increase in thirst and urination are symptoms of diabetes - a disease that is on the rise with children, says Marilyn Alford, senior advanced practice nurse at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Memory loss linked to common sleep disorder
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For the first time, UCLA researchers have discovered that people with sleep apnea show tissue loss in brain regions that help store memory. Reported in the June 27 edition of the journal Neuroscience Letters, the findings emphasize the importance of early detection of the disorder, which afflicts an estimated 20 million Americans.
Sleep apnea occurs when a blocked airway repeatedly halts the sleeper’s breathing, resulting in loud bursts of snoring and chronic daytime fatigue. Memory loss and difficulty focusing are also common complaints. Prior studies have linked the disorder to a higher risk of stroke, heart disease and diabetes.
“Our findings demonstrate that impaired breathing during sleep can lead to a serious brain injury that disrupts memory and thinking,” said principal investigator Ronald Harper, a distinguished professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
1 out of 4 obese school-aged children suffers metabolic syndrome
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One out of every four obese school-aged children (6 to 12 years old) develops an illness typically associated with adults that are nearly 40 years old, metabolic syndrome, due to one clear reason: child obesity. It has been revealed in a study carried out by the department chair of the Institute of Food Nutrition and Technology of the University of Granada, Ángel Gil Hernández, who warns that this syndrome provokes arterial hypertension in children, insulin resistance, and, in the long term, type two diabetes, an illness associated with numerous cardiovascular pathologies and whose treatment will mean an elevated cost for the Spanish Health Service in the future.
According to the expert, child obesity affects nowadays 17% of Spanish children, who suffer clinical consequences (hypertension) and biochemical consequences (a high level of triglycerides in plasma) because of it. The appearance of cardiovascular illnesses associated with obesity and diabetes will mean a grave problem in only a few years, postulates Gil Hernández.
Mom’s weight gain may affect cleft palate risk
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A substantial amount of weight gain between pregnancies seems to be a factor increasing the risk of cleft palate in offspring, according to US and Swedish researchers.
Cleft lip or palate occurs when the tissues that form the palate, or roof of the mouth, and the upper lip do not join correctly. Surgery is often performed to repair the condition.
“We found that large increases in maternal body weight between the first and the second pregnancies were associated with greater risk of having a baby with cleft palate,” lead investigator Dr. Eduardo Villamor told Reuters Health.
Link between migranes and sleep disorders in children
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Children with a migraine headache are more likely to have sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and lack of sleep, than children without a migraine, according to a research abstract on the effects of headaches on children’s sleep patterns that will be presented on Tuesday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
For this study, 90 children with headache and sleep problems underwent a polysomnogram, a sleep test that monitors the brain, eye movements, muscle activity, heart rhythm, and breathing. Of the participants, 60 had a migraine, 11 had a chronic daily headache, six had a tension headache and 13 had a non-specific headache.
The study found the children with a migraine were twice as likely as the other children in the study to have OSA. A sleep-related breathing disorder (SRBD) was found in 56 percent of the children with a migraine versus 30 percent of the children with a non-migraine headache. A severe migraine was also associated with shorter total sleep time, longer total time to fall asleep, and shorter REM sleep.
Vitamin D deficiency tied to heart attacks in men
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Low blood levels of vitamin D appear to increase the risk of heart attacks, according to the results of a study involving middle-aged and older men. To increase these levels, the authors believe that dietary guidelines should be changed to encourage greater intake of the vitamin.
Ecological studies have shown that death from heart disease is increased at higher latitudes, during the winter, and at lower altitudes, all of which are associated with low vitamin D levels, explain Dr. Edward Giovannucci, at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and his associates.
Using data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, Giovannucci’s group compared blood levels of vitamin D in 454 men who suffered a heart attack over 10 years’ of follow-up and 900 similar men who did not.
Smoking in midlife may impair memory
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Middle-aged adults who smoke appear to have a higher than average risk of developing memory impairments, according to a report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
“With the aging population and the projected increases in older adults with dementia, it is important to identify modifiable risk factors,” lead author Dr. Severine Sabia told Reuters Health. “Our results suggest that smoking had an adverse effect on cognitive function in midlife. However, 10 years after smoking cessation, there is little adverse effect of smoking on cognition. Thus, public health messages should target smokers at all ages.”
In fact, long-term ex-smokers were less likely to have deficits in memory, vocabulary, and verbal fluency than those who never smoked. This “could be explained by improvement in other health behaviors among those giving up smoking in midlife,” said Sabia, a researcher with the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale in Villejuif, France.
Heart surgery deaths often preventable
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New research indicates that roughly one third of deaths that occur in the hospital after heart bypass surgery are preventable.
The findings also suggest that while overall death rates are convenient measures of hospital quality, they do not correlate with preventable deaths.
In light of these findings, Dr. Veena Guru, from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, and colleagues conclude that healthcare “providers should conduct detailed adverse event audits to drive meaningful improvements in quality.”
Glaucoma vision loss leads to more health problems
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A new study of Medicare beneficiaries with glaucoma demonstrates that vision loss is associated with a greater risk of depression, nursing home admission, and femur fracture.
Care became more costly as vision worsened, Dr. Thomas Bramley of Xcenda in Salt Lake City and colleagues also found, ranging from $8,157 for patients with no vision loss to $18,670 for those with complete blindness.
Glaucoma accounts for about three quarters of all cases of visual impairment, Bramley and his team note in their report. Recently, they add, Medicare has been emphasizing awareness of glaucoma and progression of the disease.
Weight gain no big deal in type 1 diabetes: study
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Becoming overweight or obese may not be so bad for people who are battling type 1 diabetes, the less common form of the disease, researchers said on Friday.
People who put on weight over time were less likely to die than others studied, and those classified as underweight were at the greatest risk for death, according to the study.
Even people who were technically obese were less likely to die if they had type 1 diabetes, the team at the University of Pittsburgh found.
Walking may relieve fatigue in leukemia patients
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A walking exercise program can reduce fatigue levels in patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) undergoing chemotherapy, according to the results of a new study.
Dr. Yeur-Hur Lai of National Taiwan University in Taipei and colleagues randomly assigned 22 hospitalized AML patients undergoing chemotherapy to a walking group or to a control group. The experimental group walked 12 minutes per day, 5 days per week for 3 weeks, and the control group received standard ward care.
All patients were evaluated before chemotherapy began and on days 7, 14, and 21 of chemotherapy. The complete study findings are published in the May issue of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.
Experimental drug lowers blood sugar in diabetics
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A mid-stage clinical trial of the experimental drug Qnexa showed that it lowered blood sugar and led to weight loss in patients with type 2 diabetes, drug developer Vivus Inc said Tuesday.
In the 28-week trial involving 206 subjects, the patients on Qnexa achieved a 1.2 percent reduction in hemoglobin A1c—a key measure of blood sugar—compared with a drop of just 0.6 percent for those treated with placebo.
Participants treated with Qnexa, which is also being developed for obesity, lost 8 percent of their starting body weight, compared with weight loss of 1.2 percent for the placebo group, Vivus said.
Teen obesity tied to death risks in middle-age
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Obese teenagers are more likely than their thinner peers to die of heart disease or certain other ills by the time they are middle-aged, a large study suggests.
Researchers found that among more than 200,000 Norwegians followed from adolescence to middle-age, those who were obese or overweight as teens were three to four times as likely to have died of heart disease.
Similarly, their risks of death from colon cancer or respiratory diseases, such as asthma and emphysema, were two to three times that of adults who had been thinner as teenagers. They were also more likely to have died suddenly.
