McDonald’s cooking oil trans fat-free in U.S., Canada
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McDonald’s Corp has switched to cooking oils free of trans fats in all of its restaurants in the United States and Canada, Chief Executive Jim Skinner said on Thursday.
The restaurants made the switch over the past few months, he said.
By the end of the year, McDonald’s pies and other baked goods will also be free of trans fats, Skinner told the company’s annual meeting.
Malnutrition often missed in hospitalized elderly
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Many doctors and nurses may fail to recognize certain key signs of malnutrition in older hospital patients, according to a study conducted at a hospital in Australia.
Researchers found that of 100 elderly patients at a major Melbourne hospital, 30 percent were malnourished, while 61 percent were at risk of becoming so. However, their doctors and nurses often failed to recognize two major risk factors for malnutrition—recent weight loss and waning appetite.
While 59 patients had recently lost weight, only 19 percent of these cases had been recognized by the hospital staff. Of 57 patients with appetite loss, staff recognized 53 percent of cases.
Less TV, more breakfast helps teens keep weight off
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Eating breakfast, skipping snacks and cutting down on TV and computer time may help adolescents maintain a healthy weight after being treated for obesity, new research from France shows.
Teens who adopted these habits—and ate fewer calories while getting more of their energy from protein—were more likely to have kept the weight off two years after the conclusion of a weight-reduction program, Dr. Marie Francoise Rolland-Cachera of the University of Paris and colleagues found.
While certain behavior strategies are known to help formerly obese adults stay slim, such as monitoring one’s weight and food intake, less is known about the characteristics that distinguish adolescents who lose weight and keep it off, the researchers note.
Breast Reconstruction Advances Fix Distortions Left by Lumpectomy
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Lumpectomy or breast conservation surgery is the most common type of breast cancer surgery currently performed. A benefit of the surgery is that only part of the breast is removed, but a drawback can be the resulting physical appearance of the breast, which may be disfigured, dented or uneven. A report in April’s Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery(R), the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), examines advances plastic surgeons have made in breast reconstruction to repair the damage left when cancer is removed.
“Although breast conservation therapies are a huge advance in the treatment of breast cancer, women are still concerned about how their breast will look after surgery,” said Sumner Slavin, MD, ASPS Member and report co-author. “Breast conservation surgery or lumpectomy can mean many things; a biopsy, partial mastectomy, wedge resection, or having a quarter of the breast taken. Women are often left with portions of their breasts removed and there are currently no implants that can address this unique cosmetic issue.”
Doctors Can Unmask Deceptive High Risk Breast Tumors Using Genetic Profile
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A unique genetic signature can alert physicians to high-risk breast tumors that are masquerading as low-risk tumors, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions. Although these tumors are apparently estrogen-receptor positive meaning they should depend on estrogen to grow they don’t respond well to anti-estrogen therapy.
Until now, doctors had no way to know these tumors would be unresponsive because their pathology is deceptive the tumors appear to be more easily treatable estrogen-receptor-positive tumors, but they rapidly lose their estrogen receptors. The researchers demonstrated that the chance for cancer recurrence in such patients is significantly higher, and standard post-operative care with long-term anti-estrogen therapy is often not effective. The genetic signature defined by the researchers will permit doctors to identify their high-risk patients and direct them to more effective therapy.
Study: Premature ejaculation defined
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Experts from 10 countries, including Australia, the United States, Germany and Egypt, say they have defined life-long premature ejaculation.
Co-author Dr. Chris G McMahon of the University of Sydney says they developed the first-ever evidence-based definition of lifelong premature ejaculation in the hope it will aid future diagnosis, treatment and research.
The definition was developed after lengthy critical evaluation of the evidence presented in more than 100 studies on the sexual problem published over the last 65 years. It was unanimously agreed by the experts that the definition of lifelong premature ejaculation should be a combination of three key factors:
Weight, lifestyle factors tied to urinary symptoms
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Adults who are obese or have less-than-ideal lifestyle habits may be more likely to have multiple, and more severe, urinary problems, new research suggests.
In a study of more than 5,500 men and women ages 30 to 79, researchers found that three-quarters of women and two-thirds of men reported at least one urinary tract symptoms—such as frequent trips to the bathroom overnight, difficulty emptying the bladder and urinary incontinence.
Obese adults were more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to have multiple, more severe symptoms. Smoking, lack of exercise and heavy drinking were also linked to more serious urinary problems.
Birth defect risk doubles in pre-term babies
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Premature babies born in the United States are more than twice as likely to have a major birth defect as full-term infants, with the risk even higher among very pre-term babies, researchers said on Wednesday.
The researchers tracked nearly 7 million babies born between 1995 and 2000 in 13 states, accounting for about 30 percent of U.S. births, to better understand the relationship between birth defects and pre-term birth.
Most pregnancies last roughly 40 weeks. Babies born before 37 weeks of pregnancy are considered premature, and they are at risk for a range of health problems including birth defects.
Cancer risk soars in HIV-infected people: study
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People with HIV have a much higher risk for many cancers, including anal cancer, but a lower risk for prostate cancer, researchers said on Tuesday.
Some types of cancers like Kaposi’s sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma have long been associated with people infected by the AIDS virus.
The study focused on trends from 1992 to 2003, finding that these two types of cancer became relatively less common among HIV-infected people in the United States. But other cancers are on the rise among these patients, who are living longer thanks to anti-HIV drugs.
Lonely hearts with disease, STDs, find love online
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With scores of dating Web sites catering for the bold and the beautiful, a growing number of niche sites are emerging for less fortunate lonely hearts, those struggling with mental or physical problems.
Australian matchmaker Sara Fantauzzo came up with http://www.SpecialSomeone.com.au to link up people with special needs after watching her autistic brother struggle to make friendships.
“I’ve grown up with a brother with a very mild disability and I’ve seen him very low and very depressed as a direct result of rejections,” Melbourne-based Fantauzzo, who set up the Web site with her husband Otis nearly a year ago, told Reuters.
Alcohol, inexperience factors in canoeing deaths
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Canoeists and kayakers who want to enjoy the water while staying safe should wear lifejackets, get some training, and stay away from alcohol, suggest health officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Among the 38 people who died while participating in paddle sports in Maine between 2000 and 2007, more than two-thirds weren’t wearing lifejackets and 5 (of 31 tested) had blood alcohol levels above the legal limit for boating and driving in the state, Dr. Jon Eric Tongren of the CDC and colleagues found.
In 2006, paddle sports were the fastest-growing part of the recreational boating market, the researchers note in the CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Drinking water can be harmful to smallest babies
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Babies younger than six months old should never be given water to drink, physicians at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore remind parents. Consuming too much water can put babies at risk of a potentially life-threatening condition known as water intoxication.
“Even when they’re very tiny, they have an intact thirst reflex or a drive to drink,” Dr. Jennifer Anders, a pediatric emergency physician at the center, told Reuters Health. “When they have that thirst and they want to drink, the fluid they need to drink more of is their breast milk or formula.”
Because babies’ kidneys aren’t yet mature, giving them too much water causes their bodies to release sodium along with excess water, Anders said. Losing sodium can affect brain activity, so early symptoms of water intoxication can include irritability, drowsiness and other mental changes. Other symptoms include low body temperature (generally 97 degrees or less), puffiness or swelling in the face, and seizures.
Smokers quit in groups
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When smokers decide to kick the habit, odds are they are not alone in making that decision. New research shows that social ties play a key role in smoking behavior and if a close associate or relative, or even a distant one, stops smoking, a person’s odds of quitting increase.
“We’ve found that when you analyze large social networks, entire pockets of people who might not know each other all quit smoking at once,” Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, who was involved in the study, said in a statement.
There has been a marked drop in smoking prevalence in the US and “network phenomena” are likely to be involved in this trend, Christakis and co-investigator Dr. James H. Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, note a report in Thursday’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Sleep apnea in toddlers hard on the heart
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Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children younger than 3 years of age may strain the heart and cause inflammation, according to research discussed today at the American Thoracic Society’s annual meeting in Toronto.
OSA is a disorder in which the airway repeatedly becomes blocked during sleep resulting in a temporary halt in breathing. Classical symptoms in children include snoring, abnormal breathing or lots of movements during sleep. It’s estimated that approximately 1 percent to 3 percent of children have OSA. Removal of the adenoids and tonsils, a procedure called adenotonsillectomy, is often used to treat OSA in children.
The current study shows “for the first time” that OSA in very young children may cause some of the cardiovascular health consequences seen in older children and adults with the condition, Dr. Aviv Goldbart from Soroka Medical Center, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheba, Israel, told Reuters Health.
Most teens don’t choose oral sex over intercourse
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Many U.S. teenagers have had oral sex, but usually not as a “substitute” for intercourse, a new study suggests.
Using data from a 2002 national survey, researchers found that just over half of 15- to 19-year-olds said they had ever had oral sex. But it was much more common among teens who had already had intercourse than among virgins.
The findings counter the common idea that many teens use oral sex as a stand-in for intercourse, according to the researchers.
