Folic Acid Now Added to Corn Masa Flour: FDA

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Adding folic acid to corn masa flour could help reduce birth defects among Hispanic babies in the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.

The FDA recently approved the addition of folic acid, a B vitamin, to corn masa flour, which is used in foods such as tortillas, tacos, tortilla chips and tamales.

“By adding folic acid to corn masa flour, we have the opportunity to impact a large segment of the U.S. population and protect parents and their children from the devastating birth defects that are linked to insufficient folic acid consumed by the mother before and during pregnancy,” said Dr. Jonca Bull, director of the FDA’s Office of Minority Health.

When consumed by pregnant women, folic acid is known to lower the risk of a baby being born with neural tube defects, which affect the brain, spine and spinal cord.

While folic acid has long been added to certain cereal grain products, many “Hispanic women don’t benefit from the folic acid in cereal grain products because those products are not a mainstay of their regular diets — which often are corn masa-based,” Bull explained in an agency news release.

That could be one reason why Hispanic women are more likely than other women in the United States to have babies with neural tube defects, the agency noted.

Cynthia Pellegrini is senior vice president of public policy at the March of Dimes. “[The] FDA worked closely with us to design a study that garnered the information needed to establish the safety of this action,” she said. “We’re thrilled at the outcome and feel confident that it will address the disparities we’ve seen in the Latina community and will give even more babies a healthy start in life.”

Women should start consuming 400 micrograms of folic acid a day at least one month before becoming pregnant and throughout pregnancy, the FDA says.

Easy ways to get enough folic acid include eating a bowl of an enriched breakfast cereal; eating other enriched cereal grain products; and taking a daily vitamin or multivitamin supplement that contains folic acid, according to the agency.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about folic acid.

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Puerto Ricans’ Health Lags Behind Other Hispanics

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Among the 54 million Hispanic adults living in the United States, Puerto Ricans fare the worst when it comes to physical and mental ills, a new review finds.

Not only were Puerto Ricans more likely to be in worse health than non-Hispanic Americans, but they “were also generally more likely to have poorer health compared with other Hispanic subgroups,” concluded a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new report is based on 2010-2014 data from a major federal government survey of Americans’ health. A team led by Jacqueline Lucas, of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), looked at the health of four Hispanic subgroups: Puerto Ricans, and Americans of Cuban, Mexican or Central or South American descent.

Overall, Hispanic adults as a group tended to report “fair or poor health” more often than their non-Hispanic American peers, at about 17 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

But significant differences emerged when the CDC team looked at specific subgroups of Hispanic Americans.

Puerto Ricans appeared to have the worst health. Just over 19 percent of Puerto Ricans surveyed said they were in fair-to-poor health. That number dropped to 17 percent of Mexican-Americans, 15 percent of Cuban-Americans, and 12 percent of those of Central and South American descent, the study found.

The percentage of Puerto Ricans who had battled multiple chronic conditions — ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma or arthritis — was also much higher.

For example, while about 17 percent of survey respondents of Central or South American descent said they had multiple conditions, that figure rose to more than 27 percent for Puerto Ricans, the findings showed.

Puerto Ricans were also more likely to say that health issues had curtailed their ability to work, compared with people from other Hispanic subgroups.

Mental health issues were also higher for Puerto Ricans: 6 percent said they had experienced some form of “serious psychological distress” over the past month, compared to 3 percent of Central or South American adults.

According to Lucas and her colleagues, the findings underline the fact that U.S. Hispanics aren’t just one group — especially when it comes to health.

“Although the Hispanic population in the United States may share a common language, there is considerable variation among subgroups” when it comes to culture, economics and even their attitudes toward seeking out health care, the researchers wrote.

The findings were reported June 16 in an NCHS Data Brief.

More information

Find out more at the National Alliance for Hispanic Health.

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Obamacare Premiums Primed to Spike in 2017

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Americans who buy health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act could see steep premium increases in 2017, the highest since the health law took effect five years ago, a new analysis suggests.

However, enrollees in a few health insurance markets may actually see their premiums go down.

Premiums for some of the most popular “silver” plans could jump 10 percent, on average, across 14 major markets, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported.

Rates for these silver health plans rose just 5 percent in these markets in 2016.

Proposed premium changes vary widely across markets, from a 13 percent decrease in Providence, R.I., to an 18 percent increase in Portland, Ore., according to the report.

“We’re definitely concerned about the possibility of large rate increases for next year,” said Jesse O’Brien, policy director of the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group Foundation, a nonprofit consumer group.

“What this underlines is the need to do far more about the underlying drivers of health care costs in general than we have to date,” he said.

Cynthia Cox, who led the analysis, said the proposed rate increases for 2017 mostly reflect underpricing of health plans in previous years, and the expiration of programs meant to keep the insurance markets stable in the first three years of the Affordable Care Act.

Some underpricing occurred because “people were sicker than expected or used more health care than expected,” she explained.

Plus, some insurers initially underpriced their health plans to attract more enrollees. “But I don’t think they intended to lose as much money as they did,” added Cox, the foundation’s associate director of health reform and private insurance.

Silver plans are the most common health plan choices in the federal and state marketplaces that offer insurance under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. These plans pay about 70 percent of consumers’ health expenses, on average.

In each market, the premium for the second lowest-cost silver plan is used to determine the amount of financial help that consumers may be eligible to receive to pay their monthly health plan premiums. Subsidies are provided in the form of federal tax credits.

The Kaiser report examined insurers’ 2017 rate requests, which are preliminary and subject to review by state or federal regulators.

Analysts also examined proposed changes in premiums for the lowest-cost silver plan in each market. The average premium across the 14 markets in the study is projected to increase by 11 percent, again with wide geographic variation.

About eight in 10 marketplace enrollees receive subsidies toward their premiums, the report noted. However, consumers may need to shop around to avoid shelling out a larger share of their income on premiums.

In nine of the 14 markets studied, at least one insurer with one of the two lowest-cost silver plans in 2016 isn’t among the two lowest-cost silver plans in 2017, the study found.

Tax subsidies will help keep many consumers’ costs lower, “but that could involve switching plans, which can also mean switching doctors,” Cox cautioned.

O’Brien agreed.

“Which plan is the second-cheapest silver plan is going to change from year to year, as rates move around,” O’Brien said. “That’s one way it can be disruptive.”

Meanwhile, those who are not eligible for tax subsidies because they make more money still may feel the pinch of higher health insurance rates, the report authors suggested.

“Depending on their economic situation, it can be more expensive than people’s mortgage payments,” O’Brien said.

The report also noted that insurer participation in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces is waning.

Across the 14 markets studied, half will have fewer insurers offering coverage than in 2016. That, in part, reflects a decision by UnitedHealth Group Inc. to drop out of all but a few states where it offered health plans in the public health insurance marketplaces.

Open enrollment for 2017 for coverage under the Affordable Care Act begins Nov. 1.

More information

Visit HealthCare.gov to learn more about choosing a health plan.

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Time Zone Changes Give Edge to Athletes From West

FRIDAY, June 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Traveling across several time zones can be draining for anyone. So, how do professional athletes manage to turn around and compete in games after traveling from one coast to another?

Apparently, not always that well, a new study says. And that’s especially true when teams are traveling from an earlier time zone to a later one.

When professional sports teams in North America travel west to east, they have a higher winning percentage than those traveling east to west, researchers said.

The study authors looked at five years of regular season games for the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League. They compared game outcomes and the direction of travel for all the teams.

The results showed an advantage for teams in all three leagues traveling west to east, but the winning effect was most significant in the NBA. The study only found an association, but suggest circadian rhythms of the athletes are affected. Circadian rhythms are the physical and mental changes responding to daylight and darkness within a 24-hour cycle.

“These results highlight the importance of circadian rhythms in sport performance. They also raise concerns about well-established practices such as early training sessions and late-night athletic competitions and the possible negative effects on performance and health,” said study co-author Genevieve Forest, from the University of Quebec, Outaouais.

“The effect of the circadian disadvantage transcends the type of sport being played and needs to be addressed for greater equity among the western and eastern teams in professional sports,” she said in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine news release.

The study was published in the journal Sleep. It was also presented Tuesday at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine meeting in Denver.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine offers advice on jet lag prevention.

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Caffeine’s Jolt Can Sometimes Be Short-Lived

THURSDAY, June 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Caffeine no longer improves alertness or mental performance after a few nights of sleep restriction, according to a new U.S. military study.

“These results are important, because caffeine is a stimulant widely used to counteract performance decline following periods of restricted sleep,” said lead author Tracy Jill Doty. She is a research scientist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md.

“The data from this study suggests that the same effective daily dose of caffeine is not sufficient to prevent performance decline over multiple days of restricted sleep,” Doty said in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine news release.

The study included 48 healthy volunteers whose sleep was limited to five hours a night for five nights. The participants took either 200 milligrams of caffeine or an inactive placebo twice a day. (An average cup of coffee has 95 milligrams.) In addition, the volunteers were given mental skills tests every hour while awake.

For the first few days, those who took caffeine had better test results than those who took the placebo. But that was not the case over the last few days of sleep restriction, the researchers found.

“We were particularly surprised that the performance advantage conferred by two daily 200-milligram doses of caffeine was lost after three nights of sleep restriction,” Doty said.

Adults should sleep seven to eight hours each night, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings, published online in the journal Sleep, were presented this week at a meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Denver.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on insufficient sleep.

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Middle-Aged More Often Diagnosed With Late-Stage Lung Cancer

THURSDAY, June 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) — British middle-aged adults are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer than those who are slightly older, a new study finds.

Researchers reviewed information from about 34,000 lung cancer patients in England in 2013. They found that a higher percentage of those ages 50 to 64 were diagnosed with late-stage disease than those ages 65 to 69. Patients in their 70s were more likely to be diagnosed with early stage disease.

“Our results show that younger patients in their 50s and early 60s are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced lung cancer compared to patients in older age groups,” David Kennedy, a data and research analyst at Cancer Research UK, said in a news release from the organization.

It’s not clear why younger patients are more likely to be diagnosed with the advanced stage of the disease, said Dr. Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s head of health and patient information.

What is important is catching the disease early, she said.

“Signs of lung cancer can include a cough that won’t go away or being short of breath. It’s vital that when people spot something unusual for them, they go to their doctor as soon as possible. Detecting cancer early is crucial as it offers the best chance of successfully treating the disease,” Sharp said.

The study was presented June 14 at the Cancer Outcomes and Data Conference in Manchester, England. Findings presented at meetings are generally viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on lung cancer.

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Boost Minimum Wage and Babies Benefit: Study

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Raising the minimum hourly wage in every state by as little as $1 above the federal level might lead to fewer infant deaths and cases of low birth weight babies, a new study suggests.

The researchers, who looked at three decades of data, found a pattern: states that had a minimum wage that was $1 above the federal level had a 4 percent decrease in infant deaths. At the same time, the number of newborns with a low birth weight dipped by 1 percent to 2 percent.

“This suggests that a pretty minor change in the minimum wage can make a substantial difference in public health,” said lead researcher Kelli Komro, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta. But the study did not prove that higher minimum wages caused infant death rates and birth weights to improve.

Komro’s team estimated that if every state had raised the minimum wage by $1 in 2014, over 500 infant deaths would have been prevented. And nearly 2,800 more babies would have been born at a healthy weight.

The findings come on the heels of some substantial moves in minimum-wage laws.

In April, the governors of both California and New York signed laws lifting the minimum wage in those states to $15 per hour. That’s more than double the federal standard, of $7.25 an hour.

The laws were controversial, with some arguing that employers might cut jobs in response to higher wages.

To Komro, those debates should also consider the potential public health benefits of lifting low-income workers’ wages.

Lisa Dubay, a health policy researcher who was not involved in the study, agreed.

“In the U.S., we’ve traditionally looked to medical interventions to improve people’s health outcomes,” said Dubay, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute.

But, she added, factors other than health care and health insurance matter, too.

“Most people making minimum wage would qualify for Medicaid,” Dubay noted, referring to the government health insurance program for low-income Americans.

But, she said, higher earnings can give families more “resources,” beyond health insurance: A pregnant woman might be able to eat more healthfully, work fewer hours and be less stressed, for example.

According to Komro, few studies have looked at the connection between minimum wage changes and Americans’ health. She said her team focused on infant deaths and birth weight because they are particularly “sensitive” to the effects of poverty.

For the study, the researchers collected information on minimum-wage changes in all 50 states between 1980 and 2011. They then looked at the relationship between those shifts and changes in states’ rates of infant mortality and low birth weight.

Overall, the study found, boosting state wages a dollar beyond the federal level was associated with a 4 percent drop in infant deaths, and a 1 to 2 percent dip in the percentage of babies born weighing less than 5.5 pounds.

The findings were published online June 16 in the American Journal of Public Health.

The researchers accounted for a few other social trends — including changes in states’ poverty levels and cigarette sales.

Komro acknowledged that the researchers couldn’t account for “everything.” But she said it’s unlikely that some other broad changes happened at the same time as the minimum-wage hikes.

Dubay agreed. She also said that past research has linked the earned income tax credit to reductions in low birth weight and preterm birth. The tax credit goes to low- and moderate-income working Americans.

“The [tax credit] is similar to a minimum-wage increase, in that it raises low-income families’ wages,” Dubay said.

According to Komro, it’s possible that any public health problems that are closely linked to poverty could be somewhat alleviated by minimum-wage increases. But that has yet to be studied, she said.

Dr. Paul Jarris, senior vice president for maternal and child health programs at the March of Dimes, agreed.

“It’s critical that we move beyond access to health insurance and clinical care, and also focus on the social determinants of health,” Jarris said. “The conditions under which people live are even more important than health insurance.”

Right now, 29 states and Washington, D.C., have minimum wages above the federal standard, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

More information

The National Conference of State Legislatures has more on state minimum wages.

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Single Working Moms Carry a Heart Burden

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Single working moms, who are often pressed for time and money, may have to worry about their heart health, too.

Compared to married mothers with jobs, single working mothers in the United States have a higher risk of heart disease and stroke, researchers found. They’re also more likely to smoke — a known heart risk — than women with other work and family patterns, said Frank van Lenthe, co-author of the new study.

Losing the support of a partner, along with the second income, “may cause stress and result in unhealthy behaviors,” said van Lenthe. He is an associate professor of social epidemiology at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Before this study, he said, “We did not know much about the role of work, per se, and its link to cardiovascular risk for women, and we did not know that it was single working mothers who were most at risk.”

For the study, van Lenthe’s team examined data from two large surveys that included more than 18,000 U.S. and European women. One was the U.S. Health and Retirement Study; the other, the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe. This helped identify work and family patterns for women born in the United States and in 13 European countries between 1935 and 1956.

About 11 percent of U.S. women and 5 percent of Europeans were single working mothers. Others were single working women without children; stay-at-home married mothers; and married working mothers who may have stayed home temporarily but returned to the work force.

The researchers looked next at self-reports from the women about diseases and risk factors. The investigators compared heart disease and stroke risks among the different work and family patterns, and also between Europeans and Americans.

Compared to European women, U.S. women had nearly three times the risk of heart disease and more than double the risk of stroke. Overall, single working mothers had 1.4 times the risk of heart disease and 1.7 times the risk of stroke compared to married working mothers.

And single mothers in both the United States and in Europe were more likely to smoke.

In general, the researchers found what other studies have also concluded — that women who were consistently working, married and had children were the healthiest of all.

“Work and marriage offer, or at least increase the possibility of, financial and social security,” and married mothers may get help from partners in raising children, van Lenthe noted.

But he and his colleagues said the work and family patterns only explain a small part of the health disadvantage seen among U.S. women compared to European women. Weaker policies to support mothers in the U.S. labor market may also help explain the differences, he said.

The study could not prove that being a single working mom caused the increased health risks.

However, the study findings didn’t surprise Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of women’s heart health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

“There is no job more time-consuming, emotionally demanding and stressful than being a mom,” said Steinbaum, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“So there is nobody who is going to have more stress — especially when you add in the financial issues — than a single mother,” she said. All that stress can take a toll on self-care, Steinbaum explained.

And the differences found in the study between U.S. and European women are not unexpected either, Steinbaum added. “They give a lot more family support in Europe, and that actually helps,” she said.

Study co-author van Lenthe suggested that generous maternity leaves, affordable childcare and more flexibility in work schedules would help single working mothers preserve their health.

“There is a need to develop wider policies to support single mothers in both the United States and in Europe,” he added.

For now, Steinbaum tells single working mothers: “Every single day, you have to fit in those moments to take care of yourself. If you are sick, you cannot be a good parent.”

One of her suggestions: Instead of thinking you have no time to exercise, find a workout you can do with your children. “Go for a bike ride together,” she said. Besides getting a workout, you are modeling healthy behaviors for your child, which is another good thing, she added.

The study was published in the June 16 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

More information

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

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CDC Reports Six Cases of Birth Defects Caused by Zika

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 16, 2016 (HealthDay News) — In the first reporting of Zika-related birth defects in the United States, federal health officials said Thursday that three babies have been born with these birth defects while three pregnancies have been lost because of brain damage caused by the virus.

Those six cases will likely not be the last, as 234 pregnant women in the United States have already been diagnosed with Zika infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of those pregnancies are continuing, and the new statistics don’t include any Zika infections in U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico.

While most adults report only mild symptoms with the mosquito-borne disease, infection with the virus during early pregnancy can be far more threatening. Zika has been definitively linked to a devastating birth defect known as microcephaly — a condition where an infant is born with an abnormally small head and brain.

All of the U.S. cases are linked to travel to areas where Zika has been circulating, and there have not yet been any cases of Zika infection spread within the United States.

But, as the weather continues to warm up and mosquito season arrives, Zika infections and the risk of birth defects are expected to increase in the United States, particularly in Gulf Coast states such as Florida, Louisiana and Texas, health officials have said.

On Wednesday, a new study was released that suggests the risk of Zika-related birth defects may be confined to maternal infections that occur during the first two trimesters of a pregnancy.

Colombian and U.S. researchers studied almost 12,000 pregnancies occurring in 2015 among women in Colombia, a country that is endemic for the mosquito that spreads the Zika virus.

The study detected no cases of infant abnormalities among women who contracted Zika during the last three months of their pregnancy, the researchers said.

They stressed that at the time of the study’s publication, 10 percent of the 1,850 women infected late in pregnancy had not yet given birth — so the data remains incomplete and “preliminary.”

Still, data on the other 90 percent of women suggest that “maternal infection with the Zika virus during the third trimester of pregnancy is not linked to structural abnormalities in the fetus,” the researchers concluded.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In other Zika news, the CDC on Tuesday announced a plan to respond in a targeted and rapid way to any outbreaks of Zika infection in the United States.

If local infections occur, the affected state can reach out to expert teams from the CDC that will travel to the area. Part of the plan also involves detailed steps on destroying mosquitoes and their breeding sites within 150 yards of the infected person’s property, according to the Associated Press.

Such efforts would continue for at least 45 days after the last reported Zika illness in the area, the AP said.

The vast majority of Zika infections so far have occurred in Latin America, and Brazil has been the epicenter with an estimated 5,000 cases of microcephaly. But Zika is now circulating in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.

Last week, the World Health Organization issued a recommendation that couples who are trying to have children and live in Zika-affected areas should consider delaying pregnancy to avoid having babies born with birth defects.

In the United States, the CDC has refrained from recommending that couples delay pregnancy in Zika-affected areas. However, Puerto Rico’s health secretary has issued advice that is similar to the new World Health Organization (WHO) guideline, The New York Times reported.

Mosquito bites remain the most common way Zika is spread, but transmission of the virus through sex is more common than previously thought, WHO officials have said.

Women of child-bearing age who live in an active Zika region should protect themselves from mosquitoes by wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants, using mosquito repellent when outside, and staying indoors as much as possible, according to the CDC.

President Barack Obama has asked Congress to allocate $1.9 billion to combat the Zika threat, but lawmakers have yet to agree on a spending package.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on the Zika virus.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

To see the CDC list of sites where Zika virus is active and may pose a threat to pregnant women, click here.

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After 26 Years, Here’s Why This Oregon Woman Decided to Stop Shaving Her Face