Sedentary jobs, helping the obesity epidemic Drive

 as Americans sit - literally - in more sedentary jobs, they're packing on the pounds, and it is this inertia which is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic, new research suggests.

Look at the computer for hours rather than hoeing the fields means that us are 120 to 140 burning less calories per day than they were 50 years ago.

Therefore promote any type of physical activity should be more important in this war the weight, according to a study in the Edition online may 25 in the journal PLoS ONE.

"It is calories in and calories out, and we're more calories in that we take, said Dr. Robert Graham, a primary care physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York."

Led an inclination towards calories in two-thirds of American adults are now overweight or obese.

Although dietary habits and exercise have been studied to the obesity epidemic, these researchers, from Biomedical Research Centre Pennington in Baton Rouge, Louisiana), stated that a large part of the responsibility for the extra weight was put on the caloric intake.

This is because the amount of recreational physical activity has not really changed over the years.

But what physical requirements of work, where so many people spend most of their days?

These researchers cross-referenced U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the prevalence of different jobs with a large national database which includes information on body weight.

Fifty years ago, about half of private-industry jobs involved United States a kind of physical activity, things such as agriculture, mining, construction and manufacturing. Today, this number is less than 20%, with the dominance of jobs in the retail, education and business sale.

The authors estimate that less than 100 calories out each day would lead to weight gain in what the U.S. population has seen since the 1960s.

However, if Americans were following federal guidelines for physical activity (150 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of more vigorous activity), these additional calories would have been levelled.

Only one in four Americans made the recommended exercise level, the authors reported.

"We need to encourage physical activity most, particularly given that us sit more during the day that we has 100 years," says Keri Gans, a spokesman for the American Dietetic Association and the author of the diet of Small Change.

"The requirements of daily life are in competition with exercise," said Graham. "We have just in time for it to do."

Gans recommends that people move to work even if they have what amounts to an employment office. That could take the stairs when you can walk on the counter of a co-travailleur when you can and taking a walk at lunch. And if your company happens to have a gym or exercise program, by all means, you will participate.

Oil of fish during pregnancy may not stimulate the vision of babies

NEW YORK - moms who take fish oil supplements may be not much done to sharpen the vision of their baby, a new study suggests.

The fly of some previous research findings that suggested Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), found in fish oil, improves vision in premature infants who receive supplements in their first months of life.

DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid involved in the brain and Visual development. Given that the substance crosses the placenta, primarily more later during the pregnancy, preterm Miss on a large part of their prenatal supply.

Therefore extra DHA after birth could help make up for this.

In the new study, Australian researchers looked at whether prenatal fish oil helps improve vision in infants born at term.

They have tested Visual acuity in 185 4 - month - olds whose mothers had been assigned at random to take rich in DHA fish oil capsules or placebo (capsules of vegetable oil) daily progestogen until delivery.

Overall, there was no benefit of DHA on the vision of newborns, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

It is not clear why supplements have an impact, despite the benefits seen in premature infants given DHA after birth.

But one reason may be that preterm need the extra DHA, while babies born at term get all that they need for normal Visual development while still in the womb, according to Dr. Maria Makridesthe principal investigator of the study.

"I think that if women are better nourished and have a good scheme varied, then DHA supplementation during pregnancy to improve visual development for their unborn baby is not necessary," Makrides, women and children Health Research Institute of North AdelaideEn Australiatold Reuters Health in an e-mail.

Researchers are still studying if there could be other benefits to the development of infants. But studies have so far are mixed.

In a study published last year, the Makrides team found no evidence this oil of fish during pregnancy babies relaunched cognitive and language skills at the age of 18 months (see history of Reuters Health, October 19, 2010).

Makrides said that this and other studies are highlighting the fact that in term infants born to mothers well fed generally do well development delay - and it can be difficult to improve with DHA supplements.

There may be other benefits of fish during pregnancy oil. Some studies have suggested that it may reduce the risk of preterm birth, for example, but it is still on this issue.

In General, experts recommend that pregnant women strive to 200 milligrams of DHA per day. Certain prenatal vitamins now wear the fatty acid, which is also present in fish, especially the more fatty such as salmon, mackerel and tuna.

However, since the fish may be contaminated with mercury, doctors advise pregnant women to limit to two meals of fish per week. They should also choose fish have Omega-3, but which are likely to have low mercury levels, such as salmon, canned light tuna and shrimp.

Some fish - shark, swordfish, mackerel King and Tile - should be completely avoided during pregnancy because they may have high concentrations of mercury.

Makrides, stated that his team continues to follow children in this study to see if the oil of fish during pregnancy makes no cognitive difference and four language skills at the age.

As for the Visual development, fish oil has any benefit for infants born at term, it would be more evident in early life.

"At the end of childhood," Makrides said, "it would be much more difficult to find differences between groups, such as Visual development would be well advanced."

Bu the vulnerable: antipsychotics atypical among children and the elderly

 Pharmaceutical companies have recently paid out the largest legal settlements in U.S. history - including the largest criminal fines ever imposed on corporations - for illegally marketing antipsychotic drugs. The payouts totaled more than $5 billion. But the worst costs of the drugs are being borne by the most vulnerable patients: children and teens in psychiatric hospitals, foster care and juvenile prisons, as well as elderly people in nursing homes. They are medicated for conditions for which the drugs haven't been proven safe or effective - in some cases, with death known as a known possible outcome.

The benefit for drug companies is cold profit. Antipsychotics bring in some $14 billion a year. So-called "atypical" or "second-generation" antipsychotics like Geodon, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Risperdal rake in more money than any other class of medication on the market and, dollar for dollar, they are the biggest selling drugs in America. Although these medications are primarily approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which combined affect 3% of the population, in 2010 there were 56 million prescriptions filled for atypical antipsychotics.

In a presentation this week at an American Psychiatric Association meeting, Dr. John Goethe, director of the Burlingame Center for Psychiatric Research in Connecticut, reported that over the last 10 years, more than half of all children aged 5 to 12 in psychiatric hospitals were prescribed antipsychotics - and 95% of these prescriptions were for second-generation antipsychotics. Many of these children didn't have a condition for which the drugs have been shown to be helpful: 44% of youngsters with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 45% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were treated with them.

Pharmacologically, the ADHD prescriptions make no sense: FDA-approved drugs for the condition raise levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, while antipsychotics do they opposite, lowering them.

Geothe also noted another study that showed that the number of office visits by children and teens that included antipsychotic drug prescriptions rose 600% from 1993 to 2002. "The obvious second-generation bias is very apparent in these data, as is the irrational use of antipsychotics for indications such as PTSD and ADHD for which there is no controlled evidence whatsoever that these are safe or effective treatments," says Dr. Bruce Perry, senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston. (Full disclosure: Dr. Perry is my co-author on two books.)

The situation may be similar in state-run juvenile detention systems. Late last week, an exposé by the Palm Beach Post revealed that antipsychotics were among the top drugs purchased by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), and were largely used in kids for reasons that were not approved by the government - for instance, sleeplessness or anxiety. The Post reported:

In 2007, for example, DJJ bought more than twice as much Seroquel as ibuprofen. Overall, in 24 months, the department bought 326,081 tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for use in state-operated jails and homes for children.

That's enough to hand out 446 pills a day, seven days a week, for two years in a row, to kids in jails and programs that can hold no more than 2,300 boys and girls on a given day.

Among the psychiatrists hired by the state to evaluated incarcerated kids, about a third received drug company money, the Post reported. Those 17 psychiatrists wrote 54% of the prescriptions for antipsychotics; the 35 doctors who did not take such payments wrote the rest. In other words, one-third of doctors - all of whom were paid by drug companies - wrote more than half of all antipsychotic prescriptions for the state's locked-down youth.

The statistics on children in foster care are equally alarming. Youth in foster care are not only three times as likely to be medicated as comparable low-income youth on Medicaid, but more than half are treated with antipsychotics. It is not likely that all or even most of these children have a condition for which antipsychotics have been approved by the government to treat.

Among the problems with unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications is that they can cause serious, sometimes irreversible, damage. Atypical antipsychotics are associated with weight gain and may double users' risk of Type 2 diabetes. Recent research also suggests that they may shrink the brain and there is little data on how they affect brain development during the teen years, when the brain grows more than at any other time but infancy. Indeed, youth are more vulnerable than any other group to the drugs' worst side effects (excluding death).

"The majority of antipsychotic medication use in children and adolescents has not been limited to the few age groups or conditions for which there is credible evidence of efficacy and safety," says Perry. "There is no reason to expect irrational prescribers to change their bad habits."

He adds that many experts would argue that if doctors began prescribing antipsychotics "responsibly and cautiously" - that is, being mindful of the lack of efficacy data and the evidence of harm - the rate of prescriptions in children would drop by 90%.

Meanwhile, rates of prescriptions for patients at the other end of the lifespan are also out of control. In nursing homes, 14% of residents have been given at least one prescription for a second-generation antipsychotic, according to a government investigation. A full 88% of these prescriptions are given to people with dementia, despite the fact that these drugs may double the risk of death in these patients (there is a black box warning on the drug to this effect). The investigation estimated that $116 million Medicare dollars have been spent filling antipsychotic prescriptions that never should have been written.

So why are these drugs so widely prescribed? Aggressive drug company marketing is only one part of the story. A key reason they are overused in institutional settings is that they are sedating, making patients easier to manage. Secondly, unlike other sedative drugs, they are not associated with misuse (with the possible exception of Seroquel, which has fans among some addicts). In fact, most people resist taking antipsychotics, which is why overmedication is much more common in settings where people are locked-in and compliance can be forced.

(More on TIME.com: U.S. Aims to Reduce Overdose Deaths, But Will the New Plan Work?)

The second point - that these drugs are not considered addictive - by itself probably accounts for a big part of why drug companies have been able to get away with so much misleading marketing and the resultant overprescribing. Although prescribing of traditional sedatives like benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax), which are vulnerable to misuse, is limited by their status as controlled substances, few people enjoy misusing antipsychotics (side effects like weight gain, pleasurelessness, movement disorders and low energy and motivation are not generally sought by recreational drug users), so they can be prescribed for unapproved uses like behavior control and sleep-inducement in children and the elderly.

In other words, addiction is basically seen as a worse side effect than death. The fact that the most vulnerable youth and elderly often cannot advocate for themselves has made it easier to sweep the problem under the rug.

Fortunately, there is at least one bright spot in this depressing picture. The main patent on Risperdal expired in 2007, and those for Zyprexa and Seroquel expire this year. Geodon's patent expires next year, while Abilify's comes up in 2015. When most drugs go off-patent, drug companies' marketing pressure - and profits - will subside, perhaps keeping children and the elderly safer from inappropriate medication.

NIH stops to the study of niacin to prevent crises cardiac

WASHINGTON - a drug that stimulates the good popular cholesterol not a go to prevent heart attack or stroke, leading authorities to abruptly stop an important study Thursday.

Disappointing results imply niacin super-strength, a type of vitamin b that many physicians prescribe already as a potential heart protection. Study failed mark the latest setback in the quest to exploit the good cholesterol against bad type.

"This sends a little to the drawing board", said Dr. Susan Shurin, cardiovascular Chief at the National Institutes of Health.

The wrong kind of cholesterol, called LDL, is the main source of artery clogs. Popular statin drugs, sold under such names as Zocor and Lipitor, generic shapes, are the pillars by lowering LDL. Yet many Statin users still have heart attacks, because LDL is not history.

Cholesterol HDL, the good kind, helps combat accumulation artery carrying fats in the liver to be disposed of. It is one of the reasons that people with too little HDL are also at risk of heart disease. If scientists are checking if giving HDL-stimulate statin drugs could provide cardiac patients added protection.

The latest study tested Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan, a form of niacin extended-release is a dose more than found in food supplements. The drug has been sold for years, and previous studies have shown that it increases levels of HDL. But nobody knew if that translates in heart attacks.

Researchers enrolled more than 3 400 Statin users to the United States and the Canada who had heart disease stable and controlled LDL, but was at risk due to low concentrations of HDL and too much a different bad fat triglyceride. They received Niaspan or a dummy pill to add to their daily medicine.

As expected, Niaspan users saw their rise of levels of HDL and their levels of drop of more than risky triglycerides people taking a statin alone. But the treatment of the combination does not reduce heart attacks, stroke, or the need for compensation artery as angioplasty procedures, said the NIH.

This conclusion "" unexpected and striking contrast with the results of previous tests, "said Dr. Jeffrey Probstfield, Washington University, who helped conduct the study."

But he led the NIH to stop the study 18 months in advance.

Adding the decision was a small increase of strokes in users high-dose niacin — 28 among those 1,718 given Niaspan, compared to 12 among the users of 1,696 placebo. The NIH said that it was not clear if this small difference was simply a coincidence. previous studies have shown no risk of stroke of niacin. In fact, some of the strokes occurred after Niaspan users stop taking this drug.

What is the message for cardiac patients?

Users Statin that have very low LDL levels, like those in this study have not need an additional prescription for niacin, said Dr. Robert Eckel, cardiologist of the University of Colorado and spokesperson for the American Heart Association who was not involved in the study.

But it is not clear if niacin would have no effect on people at high risk or those who do not yet have a diagnosis of heart disease, but take niacin as preventive, said study co-leader Dr. William Boden, of the University at Buffalo.

"We cannot generalize these findings... for patients that we investigate," he said.

Eckel said it is "really hard to envision exactly what will happen in offices of physicians" in coming weeks as they discuss the niacin with patients. The NIH has urged people not to stop high-dose niacin without consulting a physician.

Neither the conclusions stop hope that raise HDL finally will be panoramic, Eckel said. While two other drugs were not so, it closely monitors some much higher HDL-boosters, including a drug from Merck & Co., called anacetrapib, which are being developed.

Legislators run scared of reforming Medicare

WASHINGTON- a democratic victory in a reliable Republican district House of representatives this week has legislators cops to reform Medicare, greatly reducing the chances of a global agreement to reduce the deficit in the long term.

Rarely in recent years was a special election unique, off the coast of the year - such as in a district of the House Tuesday in the State of New York - raised these earthquakes of policies at the national level or have had these efforts to bring us federal debt under the control of the negative impact.

Democrat Kathy Hochul won a solidly Republican district after hammering his opponent to save a Republican plan in the House, to scale back Medicare costs. Medicare is a federal program which is the biggest single driver of deficit, but most voters want left intact.

Without a sincere effort to curb the growth of Medicare, which provides health insurance, to elderly and disabled US $ 47 million it will run short of money in 13 years.

Remained unchanged, Medicare, social security retirement program and the program of insurance of federal State of Medicaid for the poor would consume 100 percent of all tax revenues by 2047, according to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office.

Republicans recaptured control of the House in 2010 in part by Democrats accusing bar to slash Medicare and interfere with the doctor-patient relationship under health reform law signed year last by President Barack Obama. The Act is often derided by opponents as "obamacare."

Democrats believe that the political situation has been changed.

At issue is a Republican proposal put forward in April by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would fundamentally reshape Medicare into an agreement in which seniors receive government benefits to help pay for private health insurance.

The impartiality that Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Ryan budget would eventually double Medicare small expenditure for the elderly.

Polls show that while voters want action to bring down the deficit - defined for $ 1.4 billion this year, overwhelmingly that they oppose any changes to Medicare.

Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, regarded as the major candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, have backed away from Ryan plan.

Although the Senate Republicans appear to be maintained by Ryan plan in a vote Wednesday, some have conceded that their vote was the unity of the party more than real support to overhaul Medicare. The Senate under democratic control defeated the proposal by Ryan passed to the House by a vote of 57 to 40, with five Republican senators voting against it.

"ARTICLE OF FAITH".

Republican Senator Bob Corker said there was no Republicans of the Senate who considers an "article of faith".

A Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Republicans would rather campaign the year next to the high unemployment rate that "tell voters why they want to dismantle Medicare.".

"The Republican budget is a political responsibility and toxic for the GOP," Democratic Senator Patty Murray said, referring to the nickname of Grand Old Party of Republicans. Competition of the House on Tuesday "remembered as a turning point in the next election."

With the Democrats having now every policy encourages not to address the costs of Medicare and wishing to avoid the problem of many Republicans, said analysts election on Tuesday was also a decisive moment - and non-positive - for the long-term deficit.

"It is amazing what can have a ripple effect, a special election", David Gergen, a political analyst and Adviser to four Presidents of the United States, told Reuters.

"The election of New York the makes more difficult to reach a global agreement on the reduction of the deficit - before the elections in 2012 and what happens after 2012 is therefore uncertain." This makes it more likely that they could kick the can on the road, in 2013 or 2014. ?

With the largest insurance and one of the fastest growing budget components, the important deficit reduction simply cannot be achieved without some savings in the programme.

Recent elections have shown what a politically explosive issue Medicare is - and the part that attempts to change the fact at his peril.

In 2010, Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to "death panels" for the elderly in their health care proposals. The benefits of the bitter struggle on the right lead healthcare helped helped new big Republican wins the legislative elections last November.

This week, a non-profit group Liberal, in an attack on the Ryan plan, has published an advertisement showing an old woman thrown a cliff of her wheelchair - an image that could be taken up by the Democrats, as the 2012 elections draw approach.

Republicans are the image of these efforts are "mediscare" tactical.

Ryan, speaking at a financial Summit in Washington said Obama and Democrats had decided of "shamelessly distort and demagogue Medicare,"and warned that without reform,"it went bankrupt and we will go in a debt crisis."

Former President Bill Clinton, who waited to be re-elected for a second term to address the reform social, warning the Democrats against the use of insurance for "political gains in the short term."

Now, freed from the political constraints of Office, Clinton flatly said fellow Democrats: "we have to deal with these things." You can't have healthcare devour the economy. ?

Lists of the side effects of the Prescription Meds continued growth: study (HealthDay)

(Thursday, May 26, HealthDay News) - lists of the side effects of prescription drugs on drug labels, packaging and advertisements have proliferated to an average of 70 by drug, a new study reports.

Warnings on side effects have been designed to inform physicians and consumers of the potential hazards, but this expansion may have had more to do with concerns over disputes rather than real health problemssay the authors of the study, which argue that the information could be presented much more effectively.

"Having a high number of side effects on the label of a drug should not suggest that the drug is dangerous." In fact, much of this labelling has less to do with toxicity real to protect manufacturers from possible prosecution, "principal investigator study author Dr. Jon Duke, Regenstrief Institute and Assistant Professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine"said in a press release from the University.

An analysis of more than 5,600 tags drugs and side effects more than 500 000 concluded that prescription drug labels include an average of 70 different adverse potentials - a number which jumps to 100 of the side effects of some commonly prescribed drugs.

Some drugs in the upper range listed even 525 reactions.

Duke pointed out that the large number of listed side effects could overburden physicians to browse this information to make informed decisions about medications for their patients.

For the study, published in issue 23 May of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers have compiled a list of prescriptions drug types who were most likely to have a high number of marked side-effects. These drugs include antidepressants, antiviral drugs and new treatments for restless legs syndrome and Parkinson's disease.

Despite the enormous amount of information found in the labelling of current drugs, Duke argued that data could be useful if presented properly.

"With the current technology, drug labels could be processed long static documents from dynamic resources capable of providing custom patient information." "These labels could take into account medical conditions of the individual patient and to highlight the side effects that may be particularly dangerous," he said.

"We cannot stop the growing wave of drug information, but we can do a better job of presenting effectively to health care providers," Duke found.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration provides additional information on side effects of drugs.

New drug extends survival for men with advanced prostate Cancer

for men with advanced hormone-resistant prostate cancer who have failed also chemotherapy, the new drug Zytiga (abiraterone acetate) with the steroid prednisone appears to boost survival, researchers report.

Based on current clinical trial data, Zytiga has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April. It works by inhibiting the production of the hormone male testosterone, that promotes the growth of cancer cells. In this regard, the drug mimics the hormone therapy.

Zytiga "extends overall survival in this patient population which had very limited treatment options after chemotherapy" researcher principal Dr. Fred Saad, Chief of Urology at the hospital Notre-Dame de Montréal, said at a press conference of Monday morning.

The men in the combination of drugs had a mean survival of 14.8 months, compared to 10.9 months for men taking placebo.

"Abiraterone represents an option of valuable treatment for patients with metastatic castration [hormone] - resistant of the prostate which had been previously treated with chemotherapy, very easy to manage, treatment-related toxicity in" Saad said.

The study was published in issue 26 May of the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings were also presented may 16 at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association, in Washington, D.C.

The study focused on the 1,195 men prostate cancer that has not responded to hormone therapy and that he had no prior chemotherapy. Researchers, hospitals of 147 in 13 countries, randomly men to take Zytiga more prednisone or placebo.

The combination of drugs was well tolerated and has given rise within fatigue, back pain and spinal compression taking men, compared to placebo, Saad said.

The most common side effects in people taking prednisone and Zytiga were lower white blood cell, a retention, rates of low potassium, abnormal liver function tests, blood pressure and heart problems, the researchers noted.

A one month supply 120 pills of Zytiga costs $ 5,000, said Kelly McLaughlin, a spokesman of Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc., manufacturer of the drug and a promoter of the study.

"This study tells us that there is a form of hormonal treatment, abiraterone, who works among people who had chemotherapy and hormonal treatment standard," said expert Dr. Anthony D'Amico of prostate cancer, head of the apparatus Genitourinary Oncology at Brigham and women's Hospital in Boston.

"It will provide people with the disease late with an opportunity for a prolonged survival that they had not before." "I can't say that it is a term of home because it is only a few months improved,", he added.

Aggressive prostate cancer may be able to make its own testosterone, cancer cells need to grow. "Zytiga blocks that", said D'Amico.

"This drug offers longer life and better quality of life in men with very advanced prostate cancer," said D'Amico. "There are studies now to see if this medication will improve the rate of healing in men with advanced, but not [metastatic cancer that has spread to other organs], prostate cancer,", he added.