Schools Must Do More to Combat Obesity Among Hispanic Kids: Report

MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Exercise and healthy nutrition can be hard to come by at U.S. schools that serve mainly Hispanic students, according to a new report.

This increases kids’ risk of obesity, researchers say.

“Healthy school environments are paramount for the proper development of Latino kids, given the rising percentage of Latino students enrolled in public schools and their high rates of obesity,” said Amelie Ramirez, of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Ramirez is also director of Salud America! — a national Hispanic child obesity prevention network.

For the study, Ramirez and her colleagues reviewed research published since 2008 and found that schools with a majority of Hispanic students tend to offer fewer physical activity programs or facilities than schools where white students are in the majority.

Also, Hispanic children are less likely than other kids to take part in organized sports or after-school programs, and are more likely to be inactive, the researchers found.

In addition, compared to white-majority schools, Hispanic-majority schools tend to have weaker rules on school snacks and drinks, are less likely to implement nutritional guidelines, and are more likely to be surrounded by fast-food restaurants and stores that sell snacks, the study found.

This matters because the closer schools are to fast-food restaurants, the greater the rates of overweight and obesity among Hispanic students, according to the report.

Nearly 40 percent of Hispanic children aged 2 to 19 are overweight or obese, compared with 28.5 percent of white children in that age group, the researchers pointed out.

“Supporting nutrition and physical activity in schools builds a culture of health where everyone is empowered to live the healthiest lives they can,” Ramirez said in a university news release.

A number of school policies can improve nutrition and increase physical activity among Hispanic students, the report suggested. These include: reducing access to unhealthy snacks and drinks; stricter nutrition standards for school snacks; removing sugary drinks; offering structured physical activity programs during and after school; and making it safer for students to walk and cycle to school.

The percentage of Hispanic students enrolled in U.S. public schools is growing and expected to reach an estimated 30 percent by 2023, according to background notes with the report.

More information

The American Heart Association outlines how to prevent childhood obesity.

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Watch the Ingenious Way Elsa Pataky Works Out With a Stroller

Many Chronic Pain Sufferers May Overuse Nonprescription Painkillers

MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Many people with chronic pain ignore dosing instructions on over-the-counter pain medicines and put themselves at risk for an overdose, a new survey suggests.

An overdose of these medicines can result in serious side effects, such as stomach bleeding, ulcers, liver damage and even death, according to the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA).

The AGA-commissioned poll of more than 1,000 U.S. adults aged 30 and older and 251 gastroenterologists found that 43 percent of chronic pain sufferers said they knowingly have taken more than the recommended dose of an over-the-counter (OTC) pain medicine at some point.

Common types of OTC pain medicines include acetaminophen (Tylenol) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), naproxen (Aleve) and aspirin.

“Pain is incredibly personal, but taking more than the recommended dose of OTC pain medicine can cause significant stomach and intestinal damage, among other complications,” Dr. Byron Cryer, councillor-at-large at the AGA Institute, said in an association news release. Cryer is also an associate dean at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

The survey also found that 38 percent of respondents did not know that combining two or more NSAID pain relievers, or two or more acetaminophen pain relievers, increases the risk of serious health complications.

Many of the gastroenterologists in the poll said many of their chronic pain patients use OTC pain relievers at a higher dose and for longer than recommended. Those patients often don’t make the connection between the pain medicines and overdose symptoms, the doctors added.

While 66 percent of those with chronic pain had been plagued by pain for two years or more, only 12 percent had been diagnosed with chronic pain, the survey also found.

People with chronic pain should never try to self-manage their pain with over-the-counter medicines, according to the news release.

If you have chronic pain, talk to your doctor about all the medicines you’re taking, read and follow all medicine labels, and only take one type of pain medicine at a time, the association advised.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about chronic pain.

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Obstetricians’ Group Urges Docs to Help Support Breast-Feeding

MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — There are many things obstetricians and gynecologists can do to support breast-feeding mothers, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says.

Most new mothers start to breast-feed, but more than half stop sooner than they’d like, according to ACOG, which recommends exclusive breast-feeding for at least the first six months of life.

“Moms deserve better support, and obstetric providers can and must help, both by assisting their patients and by advocating for policies and practices that enable women to achieve their goals,” Dr. Alison Stuebe, lead author of a new ACOG committee opinion, said in an ACOG news release.

The revised opinion was created to educate obstetricians on supporting women in making breast-feeding decisions and being a resource for breast-feeding women.

Obstetricians should start talking about breast-feeding with patients early in their pregnancy, get a breast-feeding history, and discuss any concerns or risk factors for breast-feeding, the experts said.

Additionally, obstetricians should respect and support a woman’s informed decision whether to begin or continue breast-feeding, the committee opinion said.

Cesarean birth is associated with lower breast-feeding rates, the ACOG committee noted. So it advises that women who have cesarean deliveries may require extra support to start and maintain breast-feeding.

The new opinion also stated that ACOG “supports policies that protect the right of the woman and her child to breast-feed. Paid maternity leave, on-site child care, break time, and a location other than a bathroom for expressing milk are essential to sustaining breast-feeding.”

The committee opinion is in the Feb. 2016 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

More information

The U.S. Office on Women’s Health has more about breast-feeding.

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Study Finds Stool Test Effective for Detecting Colon Cancer

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Tests for blood in the stool can consistently detect colon cancer when used on an annual basis, and they are effective even in the second, third and fourth years of screening, a new study says.

The researchers said these findings suggest that the stool test could be a reasonable screening alternative to colonoscopy — currently considered the gold standard for colon cancer screening.

Known as fecal immunochemical tests, experts examine stool samples for microscopic amounts of blood shed by colon tumors, explained study co-author Dr. Douglas Corley, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif.

Doctors have been concerned that fecal blood tests might become less effective over time, hampering their usefulness as a screening tool, he said.

Colon tumors or precancerous polyps have to be large to start releasing blood into a person’s stool, Corley said. So, if all large tumors and polyps were detected and removed during the first year of screening, the concern was there might be a large drop-off in cancer detection during subsequent years, he added.

To see whether that would happen, researchers tracked annual fecal blood tests performed on nearly 325,000 Kaiser Permanente patients in California during a four-year period.

The first year of screening with fecal blood tests detected colon cancer in 84.5 percent of participants who were diagnosed with the disease, the study reported.

“We found that the sensitivity for cancer was somewhat higher in the first year, and that’s not surprising,” Corley said. “The first year you screen someone, for breast cancer or for anything, you’re going to find cancers that have been there for a while that may be larger or are easier to detect.”

However, the effectiveness of the fecal blood test varied between 73 percent and 78 percent in years two through four. That means the test remained capable of picking up new tumors as they grew to a detectible size, the researchers said.

The findings were published Jan. 25 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Richard Wender, chief cancer control officer at the American Cancer Society, said: “We really can find early cancers continuously as they’re getting bigger. And over a 10-year period this test is in all likelihood going to prevent the same number of deaths as a colonoscopy performed once every 10 years.”

These new results show that an annual blood fecal test could be just as effective as colonoscopy in screening for colon cancer, the researchers concluded.

Still, colonoscopy has its advantages. The procedure only has to be done once every 10 years, and is close to 100 percent effective at detecting cancers and precancerous polyps, Wender said.

“You find early cancers, you remove all the polyps, and it buys you 10 years of protection,” Wender said.

But some patients are so averse to colonoscopy that they’ll simply skip colon cancer screening if that’s their only option, both Corley and Wender said.

Colonoscopy is an invasive procedure in which a tiny camera is run up into a person’s colon, Corley said. The procedure requires sedation, and the patient must take powerful laxatives the day before to “prep” their bowels for examination.

A fecal blood test is less intrusive and unpleasant. Plus, a sample can be gathered at home and dropped off for testing, both experts noted.

Based on these results, colon cancer screening programs should offer both fecal blood tests and colonoscopy, the experts said.

“You end up getting more people screened, because it allows people to select what works the best for them,” Corley said.

Fecal blood tests might even prove better able to catch new cancers that would grow during the 10-year period between colonoscopies, he said.

Cost is not a consideration in either case, as the Affordable Care Act requires that insurance companies pay for the full cost of colon cancer screening, Corley added.

Doctors do need to make sure that patients who test positive during a fecal blood screening come in for a follow-up colonoscopy, during which the cancer or precancerous polyp detected by the test will be removed, Wender said. If the patient doesn’t get the follow-up colonoscopy, then the screening is for naught.

“In this study, only 85 percent of the positive testers got a colonoscopy within the year,” he said.

Corley noted that this study focused on the standard fecal blood test used for colon cancer screening, and not a new FDA-approved test called Cologuard. The new test combines the fecal blood test with an additional genetic scan for DNA biomarkers that have been linked to colon cancer.

Cologuard has been shown to pick up more cancers than a standard fecal blood test, but it is more expensive and has only been evaluated as a one-time test.

“No one knows how frequently to do Cologuard, because there have been no studies that look at how well it does over time,” Corley said.

More information

For more on colon cancer, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

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Long-Term Smog Exposure May Boost Heart, Lung Disease Deaths

MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Long-term exposure to ozone air pollution — commonly known as smog — may increase the risk of death from heart and lung diseases, a new study indicates.

Researchers reviewed data from a U.S. study that began in 1982 and found that for every additional 10 parts per billion (ppb) in long-term ozone exposure, adults were 12 percent more likely to die from lung disease.

In addition, they were 3 percent more likely to die from heart disease, and 2 percent more likely to die from any cause, according to the study. It was published online recently in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Pollution specifically attributed to traffic was linked to a 41 percent increased risk of dying from heart disease with each 10 ppb increase in exposure, the investigators found.

“About 130 million people are living in areas that exceed the National Ambient Air Quality standard,” study co-author Michael Jerrett, chair of environmental health sciences at University of California, Los Angeles, said in a news release from the American Thoracic Society.

“While ozone has decreased in the U.S., the reductions are not nearly as big as decreases in other pollutants. And elsewhere in the world, ozone is a growing problem,” he added.

Although the study showed an association between pollution exposure and an increased risk of dying from heart and lung disease, it wasn’t designed to prove cause-and-effect.

Ozone is a major greenhouse gas. So along with immediate health benefits, lower ozone levels could yield long-term health benefits by reducing climate change, too, Jerrett suggested.

A previous study found that ozone was associated with a smaller (4 percent) increased risk in death from lung disease. This new, larger study suggests that ozone raises the risk of heart and lung death much more than previously recognized, according to the researchers.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on ozone.

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Women’s Heart Attacks Are Different Than Men’s, Experts Stress

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Heart attacks in women often have different causes and symptoms than those in men, and they’re deadlier, too.

That’s the premise of a scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) that hopes to raise awareness about key differences in heart attack indicators and treatment in women.

Women who don’t recognize their heart attack symptoms won’t seek needed medical care, said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“These delays in care contribute to higher mortality rates experienced by women, particularly younger women,” he said.

Worldwide, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women. Since 1984 in the United States, heart attack survival has improved for women. But the heart death rates among women still outpace heart deaths in men, according to the AHA statement.

The new statement reviews current scientific evidence, points out gaps in knowledge and discusses the need for more research in women, said Dr. Laxmi Mehta. She is chair of the statement writing group and director of the Women’s Cardiovascular Health Program at Ohio State University Medical Center.

Mehta knows firsthand the dangers that heart disease pose to women. “I was inspired to write this [statement] as both my grandmothers died from heart attacks at age 60 and had presented with atypical [not typical] symptoms,” she said.

The statement is published in the Jan. 25 online edition of the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Among the highlights:

• Plaque buildup in the arteries — a frequent cause of heart attack — can differ between the sexes. Women are less likely to need stenting to open a blocked artery, but they still suffer blood vessel damage that reduces blood flow to the heart, causing a heart attack.
• High blood pressure is a stronger risk factor for women than for men. And diabetes raises a young woman’s heart disease risk up to five times higher compared to young men.
• Guideline-recommended medications are underused in women, compared to men, and women are referred less often for cardiac rehabilitation. When they are referred, they are less likely than men to go or to finish it.
• For men and women, chest pain or discomfort is the most common heart attack symptom, but women are more likely to report shortness of breath, back or jaw pain, and nausea and vomiting.
• Black women of any age have a higher incidence of heart attacks than white women. And black and Hispanic women have more risk factors such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure at the time of heart attack compared to white women.

The new statement “provides a comprehensive review of current knowledge and key directions needed to further reduce death and disability,” said Fonarow.

This new AHA statement was needed, agreed Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women’s Heart Health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “It is time that both the medical community and women address these issues and understand that open communication and awareness are critical to changing these statistics,” she said.

Mehta stressed that women need to “know their numbers” — including blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height) and waist circumference. “Take action to keep these numbers in the normal ranges,” she advised.

“Lead an active, healthy lifestyle and be accountable for your decisions,” she added. “This includes exercising on a regular basis, following a healthy diet and not smoking.”

More information

To learn more about heart disease prevention, see the American Heart Association.

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The Best Celeb Instagrams from Winter Storm Jonas

Listeria Outbreak Linked to Dole’s Packaged Salads

Photo: Getty Images

A listeria outbreak has been linked to packaged salads made by Dole at a processing facility in Ohio, health officials announced on Friday.

Twelve people have been hospitalized with Listeriosis, an infection caused by exposure to the listeria bacteria, and one person in Michigan died in connection with the outbreak, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. On Thursday, Dole told the CDC that it had stopped production at its processing facility in Springfield, Ohio, because of the issue. The packaged salads were sold under various brand names, including Dole, Fresh Selections, Simple Truth, Marketside, The Little Salad Bar, and President’s Choice.

The CDC is recommending that Americans do not eat salads produced at the Dole facility. “These packaged salads can be identified by the letter “A” at the beginning of the manufacturing code found on the package,” the CDC writes.

The agency says it was investigating cases of listeria infections with other public health officials, and found that lab tests of specimens from the 12 people revealed that their infections were genetically related. Experts at the Ohio Department of Agriculture collected a Dole packaged salad and lab results showed the listeria identified in the salad was closely related to the infections seen in the people. Health officials were ultimately able to link the issue to the Dole processing facility.

“The company also reported that it is withdrawing all packaged salads currently on the market that were produced at this facility,” the CDC says in an online statement.

Symptoms of Listeriosis typically include fever and muscle aches and sometimes diarrhea.

Dole said in a statement that no other Dole facilities are affected. “This suspension and withdrawal is being performed voluntarily by Dole out of an abundance of caution, in collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control,” the company says.

You can read more about this outbreak and investigation here.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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There’s a Proper Way to Apply Your Dry Shampoo

Nobody wants to have to wash and re-style their hair, every single day, right? I’m pretty sure there will be a unanimous agreement about that question. Having to start from scratch every day is a bummer and a huge time commitment, which is why dry shampoo is such an integral part of our hair routines. It can really improve your quality of life and, at the very least, let you sleep a little longer every night. But, as with almost everything else in the beauty world, reaping the full benefits of your dry shampoo requires knowing the best possible method for application. Which is why we are delivering that to you today. Watch the video below and try it out for yourself, we know you’ll notice a difference instantly.

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We also broke it down for you reallllll slow, just so you can absorb this priviledged info to the max.

1. Part your hair (wherever you normally part it).

2. Spray dry shampoo of choice (we love this one) along your part, and your temples. Flip your part to the other side and spray there as well. Be sure to also spritz the underside of you hair. Then, work the dry shampoo into your scalp with your fingers.

3. If you didn’t spray the whole head before, spray dry shampoo all over your hair to add texture, especially to the ends.

4. Zuzsh your hair, fluff it up, make it tousled and go!

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This post originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

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