Americans Getting Adequate Water Daily, CDC Finds

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Americans’ worries about not being properly hydrated may be unfounded: A new government report finds most are getting enough water each day.

The data, from the U.S. National Health Nutrition Examination Survey for 2009 to 2012, found that adult men take in 117 ounces of water daily, on average — more than 14 cups. For women, the number is 93 ounces, or almost 12 cups daily.

The study was conducted by Asher Rosinger and Kirsten Herrick, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They noted that in 2004, the Institute of Medicine set “adequate” daily intake of water at 125 ounces for men and 91 ounces for women. The new data suggest that the average man approaches the needed level, and the average woman more than meets it.

Of course, not all of that fluid comes in the form of plain water. Only about 30 percent of daily water intake for men in the new study came as plain water, with women drinking a bit more, at 34 percent. The rest of Americans’ daily water intake comes via other liquids, such as sodas and juices, or through food.

One expert noted there are potential downsides to taking in water via juices or sodas, however.

“Juice and soda can count as fluid, however they also add extra calories and over time may lead to weight gain,” said Antonella Apicella, a nutritionist at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City. “Water is the most hydrating fluid there is.”

The CDC study did find variations in how much water people took in each day. For example, people over 60 tended to take in less fluid than younger adults, and whites tended to drink more water than blacks or Hispanics.

And as physical activity levels rose, water intake tended to rise as well, the researchers found.

“Fluid needs vary quite a bit from person to person, and the old standby recommendation of eight to 10 cups a day has caught on with most people, though it’s not based on any science,” noted another expert, sports dietitian Dana Angelo White.

“I often recommend half your weight in ounces as a starting point,” said White, who is also an assistant clinical professor at Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn. “For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, aim for 75 ounces of fluid per day, and more if you exercise regularly.

“It is also true that all fluids count towards your hydration. Water is often best but other beverages and high-water foods like soup all count towards your daily tally,” she said.

Apicella also cautioned that there’s such a thing as taking in too much water — something marathoners and endurance athletes are sometimes prone to do.

“Drinking too much water can lead to [a dangerous condition known as] hyponatremia, or low blood sodium concentration, which occurs in overhydration,” she explained. “When hydrating, it is important to replace fluid with electrolytes such as sodium and potassium to prevent hyponatremia.”

The new study was published April 26 as a Data Brief from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

More information

There’s more on proper hydration at the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

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Early Emotional Support May Help Kids Manage Feelings Later

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Preschoolers given higher levels of emotional support from moms, dads or other caregivers tend to have better emotional health during their childhood and teen years, a new study suggests.

The researchers saw increased growth in a brain region known as the hippocampus in children who were highly supported at preschool age. The hippocampus is involved in emotion, learning and memory formation. Reductions in hippocampus volume have been linked with worse emotional health and unhealthy coping, the study authors said.

“Support during the preschool period seems critical to healthy brain development, and healthy brain development is important for healthy emotional functioning,” said study leader Dr. Joan Luby. She’s a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis.

The researchers reported that they didn’t see changes in the volume of the hippocampus based on parental support when the children reached school age.

Because of the study’s design, Luby said, it can’t prove cause and effect. And, she added, a child who has an unsupportive parent isn’t doomed to be emotionally unhealthy if they get the same nurturing and support from another caregiver, such as a grandparent.

Previous research had already shown that maternal support has a powerful effect on the development of the hippocampus. However, less is known about how caregiving at young ages affects the development of the brain region and emotional health later in life, Luby said.

“This study builds on that [previous research] and shows that the trajectory of growth of the hippocampus is impacted by the early experience of maternal support,” she explained.

Most of the caregivers in the new study were women. But Luby believes the findings would apply to men and other caregivers.

For the study, Luby’s team looked at the long-term effects of maternal support on brain development and emotional management in 127 children. The children all began the study as preschoolers.

Independent raters who didn’t know the children or the caregivers observed them in a lab under a stressful situation, with the child in arm’s reach of a gift he or she wasn’t allowed to open. The raters noted the number of supportive behaviors the caregiver demonstrated during the 8 minutes the child was told to wait before opening the gift.

The researchers conducted three brain wave scans over the course of the study, which followed the children through their early teen years.

“Children of mothers who have more supportive behavior, compared to those who have less supportive behavior, had hippocampal growth volume that was twice as fast,” Luby said.

In the gift scenario in the study, a supportive mother would acknowledge her child’s impatience and gently tell the child that sometimes he or she must wait to do something, Luby said. A mother rated as less supportive would either ignore the child or speak harshly, she explained.

The study findings are certainly plausible, said Brandon Korman, chief of neuropsychology at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, who reviewed the study findings. “I think it fits well with what we know about brain development and the effect of the environment on brain development,” he said.

In clinical practice, Korman said, he definitely sees a link between how parents respond and support their child and the child’s behavior. He suggests that parents “strike a balance between being supportive and being a good disciplinarian.”

For people who grew up without good support, Korman has some reassurance.

“What happens during early childhood is obviously significant in shaping who you are, but it doesn’t mean you are doomed [if you did not have the support],” Korman said. If an adult now feels that way, he said, “the best thing they could do is enroll in therapy to explore that.”

Parents who want to learn to be supportive can participate in special programs that focus on that issue, Luby said. These widely available programs are known as parent-child interaction therapies and by other names, she said.

The study was published online April 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More information

To learn more about parent-child interaction therapy, see PCIT International.

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Norovirus a Costly Bug

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The stomach bug norovirus sickens nearly 700 million people worldwide annually and costs health care systems more than $4 billion a year, researchers report.

And when lost productivity and other societal costs are included, that price tag jumps to more than $64 billion, the researchers added.

The findings are believed to be the first to assess the global economic impact of the highly contagious virus, which is common in both poor and rich nations, the researchers said.

“You only seem to hear about it when people get sick on a cruise ship or at a restaurant, but norovirus is everywhere,” said study leader Sarah Bartsch, a research associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are or if you’re in a wealthy country or a poorer one or if you’ve had it before — you can get it again. And it really is unpleasant,” Bartsch said in a Hopkins news release. “But if we don’t focus on norovirus and teach people how to prevent it, little headway will be made to combat it.”

Norovirus can cause symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. There is no vaccine or treatment once you are infected, the researchers said.

The study, published online April 26 in the journal PLoS One, shows the need for increased efforts to prevent the disease, according to the authors.

“The costs associated with norovirus are high — higher than for many diseases, including rotavirus — that have gotten a lot more attention. Our study presents an economic argument for greater consideration of norovirus. It has been flying under the radar for too long,” study senior author Dr. Bruce Lee said in the news release. He is an associate professor in the department of international health at the Bloomberg School.

Measures to prevent transmission of norovirus include: proper hand washing; following safety precautions when preparing food; improving food and water sources; and keeping people who are sick with norovirus away from others.

More information

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

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This Fresh and Creamy Avocado Pesto Is Perfect for Spring Dishes

Photo: Beth Lipton

Is there anything avocados can’t do? They’re delicious in so many recipes (including banana bread, pudding, even brownies!). They wake up toast. And they make your skin and hair beautiful.

Now these miraculous green fruits (yup, avocado is a fruit) are showing up in pesto. Swap an avocado for some of the olive oil, and you can transform this classic sauce into a creamy wonder. Spoon it onto pasta or “zoodles.” Swirl it into yogurt to make a dip. Stir it into scrambled eggs. Wherever you put it, you’ll love it; and with all those nutrients, fiber, and good fat, it’ll love you back.

Avocado Pesto

Yield: About 1 cup

3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped (about 1 Tbsp.)

1 ripe avocado (about 7.5 oz.), halved, pitted, flesh scooped out

1 packed cup fresh basil leaves (about 8 oz.)

1/3 cup chopped walnuts (about 1.25 oz.)

3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Salt and pepper

1. Place oil and garlic in a cold skillet. Turn on low heat.
2. When the oil and garlic begin to sizzle, transfer mixture to a blender or food processor. Add avocado, basil, walnuts and lemon juice and process until well blended.
3. Taste and season generously with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days (press plastic wrap directly on surface of pesto).

 

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Khloe Kardashian Has an Awesome Nail Hack For You

Photo: Getty Images

If you’ve found yourself lamenting over a neon nail polish that just doesn’t deliver on its super bright promises, this nail hack from Khloe Kardashian may be the game changer you’ve been waiting for. She recently took to her blog, expressing a solution for that very frustration.

RELATED: No Joke — These Panty Hose Will Give You an Instant Pedicure

All you need for this trick is a bottle of white nail polish and your under-performing neon culprit. Instead of applying your normal, clear base coat, paint your nails white and allow them to dry.

Next, apply your neon color on top and revel at the difference the white bottom coat makes. Your neon nail polish will reportedly pop, proving that all is right with the world (at least where manicures are concerned).

If you’re looking for the perfect white nail polish, try Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in White On ($2.82, drugstore.com) or Essie Sheers Nail Polish in Blanc ($8.50, kohls.com).

This article originally appeared on InStyle.com/MIMI.

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Zika Fears Cause American Olympians to Scramble

Photo: Getty Images

Becoming an Olympian requires devoting yourself to a single cause at the exclusion of virtually everything else. Years of training, often in solitude, with little financial security, all in the hope of a payoff that comes just once every four years. Miss your chance, and suffer even more lonely years trying to claw your way back. For those gifted and lucky enough to make it to the Games, the last thing they want is to worry about life outside of competition. This year, however, that may be impossible as the 2016 Summer Olympics take place in the nation at the center of the Zika epidemic.

No American athletes have pulled out of the Games because of concerns over the mosquito-borne disease. But the threat of Zika has thrown an unexpected and unwelcome wrinkle in the plans of American athletes as they prepare for the most important moments of their lives this summer in Rio. The questions are particularly acute for those planning to have children now that U.S. health officials confirmed that Zika causes microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities and can be spread through sexual contact. The Brazilian government has confirmed 1,168 cases of microcephaly linked to Zika in the country. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 3 million people could be infected with Zika in the Americas this year.

“It should be a concern for all the athletes competing,” says Hope Solo, the star goalkeeper for the U.S. women’s soccer team. In early February, Solo told SI.com that concerns over Zika would keep her from the Olympics if she had to decide at that moment. She now says she plans to go but acknowledges that worry about the disease will linger.

“It sucks, it does,” says Dawn Harper-Nelson, who won the gold medal in the 110-m hurdles in Beijing in 2008 and a silver in London in 2012. “It sucks that it’s on the news, that that’s what we’re talking about. But if I think about that today, it affects me being on the podium in August.”

Maria Michta-Coffey, an American racewalker with a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, says she planned to start a family immediately after the Olympics in August. “The idea was to take a vacation and conceive as soon as the Games are over, maybe in Brazil itself,” she says. Now those plans are on hold. And an abundance of caution may keep her husband and longtime training aide from coming to Brazil with her.

“I like to think of ourselves as a team allowing her to make it to that level,” says Joe Coffey, a high school physics teacher. “I have a sweatshirt that says ‘Water Boy’ on it. I’m her aide at all her various competitions. It’s a lot of time and effort and conceding on my part, in terms of missing birthdays and family functions, waking up early for workouts, and things of that sort. So you want to see the fruits of your labor. Especially since these Olympics are going to be the last time most likely that Maria’s competing at a super high level. The idea of not going to the Olympics to see your wife compete is a scary thought in itself.”

RELATED: The War Against Mosquitoes: A Tale From the Front Lines

Archer Brady Ellison, who won a silver medal in 2012 in London, wants to start a family in the near future. Because of Zika, his fiancée has decided to skip the trip to Rio. “If you can prevent something, even if it’s a small chance of happening, why not do it?” says Ellison.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises pregnant women not to travel to areas where Zika is spreading because a mosquito bite could put the fetus at risk of developing microcephaly. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Health Security, says current guidelines recommend that a woman returning from a Zika-prone region wait about eight weeks before trying to conceive, in case she has an asymptomatic infection. Men, says Adalja, “need to practice safe sex for at least two to six months after coming back, based on what we know today. The sexual-transmission question has made it much more complicated because you’re now viewing men as vectors of spread to pregnant women anywhere.”

The Olympics will take place in winter in Brazil, when the risk of infection is expected to be lower than it is today. “It’s a time of the year for low transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in Rio de Janeiro,” says Dr. Maurício Lacerda Nogueira, an infectious-disease researcher based in the Brazilian city of São José do Rio Preto. “Because it’s colder, and it’s dry season.” Nogueira thinks a bigger risk for those attending and competing in the Games is dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that can carry more series symptoms, like intense stomach pain, disorientation, heavy bleeding and even death. Yet he says the likelihood of catching dengue while at the Games is also very low.

Still, Rio’s organizing committee is recommending that athletes and spectators do whatever they can to avoid mosquito bites during the Olympics. Wear long-sleeved pants and shirts while outside, stay in air-conditioned rooms and use insect repellent. “In the case of Zika, we need to inspect the venues every single day, especially for stagnant water,” says Mario Andrada, chief spokesperson for the Rio 2016 committee. “Most of these venues have just been construction sites, and we all know that construction sites carry spaces that are favorable for mosquitoes.”

RELATED: See Inside a Rehab Center for Babies With Likely Zika-Related Birth Defects

Many other Olympians, however, are unfazed. “It’s not like if you go to Rio, you’re flipping a coin,” says three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings, speaking from a beach-volleyball test event in Rio in March. Walsh Jennings competed in London while she was pregnant. “I don’t think it’s as dramatic as being presented.” These athletes insist they trust the U.S. Olympic Committee, which has named three infectious-disease specialists to an independent advisory group that will draw up Zika recommendations and guidelines for the Olympians, to look after their health. “It’s going to be up to each individual athlete to make his or her decision whether or not they want to attend,” Scott Blackmun, CEO of the USOC, said in March. “I’m not aware of a single athlete who has made a decision not to attend because of any conditions in Rio.” (On April 12, golfer Vijay Singh, of Fiji, cited both Zika and his desire to focus on the PGA tour as reasons for skipping the Games.)

Wrestler Jordan Burroughs won gold in London and is hoping to defend his medal in Rio. His wife is due to give birth to the couple’s second child in mid-June, before the start of the Olympics, but he says that won’t keep the whole brood from coming to Rio. “I’ve been bitten by a lot of mosquitoes in my life,” says Burroughs. “But I haven’t won a lot of gold medals. So the decision has already been made. The sacrifice is in order. We’re going. And we’re bringing the family.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Day Care Babies Catch Stomach Bugs Earlier, But Get Fewer Later

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Babies in day care catch their first stomach bug earlier than home-based infants, but end up getting fewer of these gastrointestinal illnesses during their preschool years, new research suggests.

Analyzing a group of more than 2,200 children — 83 percent of whom attended day care before age 1 — Dutch scientists found a 13 percent higher rate of so-called acute gastroenteritis, or “stomach flu,” in day care children in their first two years.

Later on, however, day care kids seemed to enjoy a protective effect from their early virus exposure, and suffered fewer stomach bugs from ages 3 to 6 years than peers who hadn’t attended day care.

“Day care does influence the timing of [gastroenteritis] but does not increase [its] overall burden,” said study author Marieke de Hoog, a postdoctoral researcher in public health epidemiology at University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.

“It’s even possible that the protective effect persists beyond 6 years of age,” she added. “However, more research is needed to support that.”

The study was published online April 25 in the journal Pediatrics.

Typically involving vomiting and/or diarrhea, stomach bugs usually aren’t dangerous. But gastroenteritis accounts for about 300 deaths in children under age 5 in the United States and more than 1.5 million outpatient medical visits each year, according to 2007 research.

Nearly one-quarter of American children under age 5 attend some type of organized child care, including day care centers and nursery schools, according to the Center for American Progress, an independent policy institute.

Led by de Hoog, researchers examined data from a large group of children under age 6 in the Netherlands between 2001 and 2012. They found that first-year day care attendees suffered a higher rate of stomach viruses in their first two years, but lower rates from ages 3 to 6 than children cared for at home.

Dr. Jennifer Lan, a pediatrician in Memphis, Tenn., said, “We kind of always know that children who go to day care get more infections than those that don’t, just because they’re so closely exposed to other kids.” Lan was not involved in the new research.

“We get a lot of families who bring kids in thinking something is wrong with their immune systems because they go to day care and get sick every single month,” Lan added. “We tell parents that it’s kind of a rite of passage to build up antibodies to these viruses. Kids will be exposed to them no matter what — it just happens earlier if they go to day care.”

The wintertime peak of gastroenteritis among day care infants under age 1 is consistent with seasonal peaks in rotavirus and norovirus, two highly contagious gastrointestinal viruses causing vomiting and diarrhea, according to the study.

Dr. Stephen Eppes, vice chair of pediatrics and director of pediatric infectious diseases at Christiana Care Health System, in Wilmington, Del., said a rotavirus vaccine has been available in the United States for about a decade, but only about 70 percent of American children have been immunized with it.

The body builds up at least a partial immunity to such viruses and bacteria after suffering from illness, said Eppes, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

“But it’s not like chickenpox, where you have it once and basically you have lifelong protection,” he added. “You may get it again, but usually subsequent cases are milder.”

He suggested that day care centers and preschools take common-sense precautions to deter the spread of stomach and other viruses among children, such as disinfecting surfaces and promoting frequent hand-washing.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has tips for handling gastroenteritis.

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Night Shift Work May Be Tough on a Woman’s Heart

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Women who work rotating night shifts may face a slightly increased risk of heart disease, a new study suggests.

“We saw a modest increased risk of heart disease associated with longer duration of rotating night shift work, which appears to wane after stopping shift work,” said lead researcher Celine Vetter. She is an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

That increased risk ranged from 15 percent to 18 percent when compared to women who did not work rotating night shifts, the study found.

But the more time that elapsed after quitting such night shift work, the lower the risk for heart disease, Vetter said. And this “further supports the hypothesis that the risk of coronary heart disease associated with shift work might wane over time when women stopped working [such] shifts. This is a new finding,” she said.

Rotating night shift work was defined as three or more night shifts per month, in addition to day and evening shifts.

The report was published April 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

While the study can’t prove that working rotating night shifts causes heart disease, the results are in line with previous findings, Vetter noted.

“It is possible that different work schedules might carry a different risk. And we have very little information on exact schedules, as well as work start and end times,” she added.

“Future studies are needed that collect that level of detail so we can better understand which aspects of shift work are most critical,” Vetter said. “We also do not well understand who is at highest risk.”

Individual characteristics, such as chronotype — an individual’s built-in biological rhythm — and variations in sleep patterns and quality might affect the risk, the researchers suggested.

“Although only a small number of women had an increased risk, and even though the absolute risk associated with shift work is small, and the contribution of shift work to coronary heart disease is modest, this is a modifiable factor, and changing schedules might help prevent coronary heart disease,” Vetter said.

To pinpoint the effect of shift work on heart disease, Vetter and her colleagues collected data on nearly 189,000 women who took part in the Nurses’ Health Study I and II. All of the women in the study reported their lifetime exposure to rotating night shift work.

The women also reported their heart health, including whether they had an angiogram that found heart-related chest pain, a heart attack, or procedures such as angioplasty, heart bypass surgery or stents.

The researchers used medical records and death certificates to confirm any self-reported heart attacks or deaths. The women also completed questionnaires about their known risk factors for heart disease every two to four years throughout the 24-year study period. Over that time, more than 10,000 women developed heart disease, the findings showed.

To isolate the effect of shift work, the investigators took into account a number of known risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking, poor diet, lack of physical activity and weight. Even after controlling for these risk factors, a modest increase in the risk of heart disease was seen with longer duration of rotating night shift work.

“Rotating night shift work has been previously shown to be associated with an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular [heart] disease,” said Dr. Gregg Fonarow. He is a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was not involved with the new study.

“The mechanisms behind this association between night shift work and cardiovascular events, along with identification of strategies to mitigate this risk, require further study,” he said.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on heart disease.

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Rates of Severe Obesity Among U.S. Kids Still Rising: Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Obesity continues to plague American kids, with a new study finding rates of severe obesity climbing over a 15-year period.

Examining national data from 1999 through 2014, researchers found that one-third of American children aged 2 to 19 were overweight, nearly one-quarter were obese, and more than 2 percent were severely obese.

“Despite other recent reports, all categories of obesity have increased from 1999 to 2014, and there is no evidence of a decline in the last few years,” said lead researcher Asheley Skinner, who’s with the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C.

Treatment for the 4.5 million severely obese kids is urgently needed, Skinner said, noting their heightened risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer compared with children with milder forms of obesity.

“Unless we make big changes on a national level, we’re not going to see huge changes in obesity,” Skinner said.

“We have created a culture where kids aren’t very active and one where it’s commonplace and easy to eat fast food, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t change that,” she said.

Awareness and efforts to combat obesity are increasing, but no single step will solve the problem, Skinner said. For instance, improving school lunches on its own won’t have a big impact because the children still live in an environment full of influences that encourage them to eat poorly and be inactive, she said.

“But if you change school lunch, and you increase opportunities for physical activity and you make it easier for parents to access healthier foods, then you start creating an environment that supports healthy weight,” she said.

The report was published April 25 in the journal Obesity.

Using data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 through 2014, Skinner and her colleagues found that more than 33 percent of American children were overweight, meaning their BMI (body mass index) was above the 85th percentile for kids their age. BMI is a standard assessment of body fat based on height and weight.

In 2013-2014, nearly 24 percent were obese (above the 95th percentile). And 2.4 percent were severely obese (more than 140 percent of the 95th percentile). This was up from 2.1 percent in 2011-2012, the investigators found.

In lay language, a 9-year-old girl who is 4 foot 3 inches tall and weighs 89 pounds is obese, falling in the 97th percentile, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Black and Hispanic children have the highest prevalence of severe obesity, the study found.

Not everyone agrees with the study’s findings, however.

“It depends how you look at it. Other data shows that obesity is not increasing, but has leveled off,” said Dr. William Dietz, author of an accompanying journal editorial. He is the director of the Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

But Dietz doesn’t doubt that the prevalence of severe obesity is increasing. More kids who already have obesity are becoming severely obese, he said, but fewer kids are becoming obese in the first place.

He suggested that the solution is to put policies in place that prevent obesity. “Once a child has obesity, it’s a lot more difficult to get them to lose weight,” Dietz explained.

“We don’t have enough doctors to treat severe obesity in children,” he said. “We have to think about what other care and community-based services could have an impact.”

For example, programs at YMCAs have been effective in reducing obesity in adults, Dietz noted. “At the moment, we don’t have a good equivalent for children,” he said.

The key to preventing obesity is to “make healthier choices easier choices,” Dietz said. For example, not having soda and sweetened fruit drinks in the fridge, moving fruits and vegetables to the front of the school lunch line, and taxing soda to reduce consumption are ways to help people make healthier food choices, he suggested.

“These types of environmental strategies are things we should be thinking about,” Dietz said.

More information

For more on childhood obesity, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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With Flu Shot, Timing May Be Everything

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Flu shots may be more effective when people get them in the morning than in the afternoon, a new study suggests.

British researchers assessed 276 people 65 and older who received vaccinations against three different flu strains between 2011 and 2013. The patients received the vaccines either between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., or 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

People in the morning group had a much larger increase in antibodies against two of the flu strains one month after vaccination, the researchers found. However, with the third flu strain, there was no significant difference between the morning and afternoon groups.

“We know that there are fluctuations in immune responses throughout the day and wanted to examine whether this would extend to the antibody response to vaccination,” said lead investigator Anna Phillips. She’s with the University of Birmingham’s School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences.

“Being able to see that morning vaccinations yield a more efficient response will not only help in strategies for flu vaccination, but might provide clues to improve vaccination strategies more generally,” Phillips said in a university news release.

According to study co-author Janet Lord, “A significant amount of resource is used to try and prevent flu infection each year, particularly in older adults, but less than half make enough antibody to be fully protected.”

Lord, a professor at the university’s Institute of Inflammation and Aging, said, “Our results suggest that by shifting the time of those vaccinations to the morning we can improve their efficiency with no extra cost to the health service.”

The researchers said they plan to conduct a larger study on the timing of flu vaccinations to test their hypothesis. And they will also examine if morning vaccinations boost the effectiveness of the pneumococcal vaccine, which protects against pneumonia.

The study was published online April 26 in the journal Vaccine.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about flu vaccination.

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