A new study finds that smoking during pregnancy may raise the risk of having a baby with extra, missing or webbed fingers and toes. The more the mother smokes, the higher the risk.
It’s estimated that about 1 in 600 infants are born with an extra finger or toe — an anomaly known as polydactyly. Webbed fingers or toes, called syndactyly, are less common, occurring in one in every 2,000 to 2,500 births. Adactyly refers to the absence of fingers or toes.
Read (Reuters)
Doctors now have solid evidence that aggressively lowering a person’s blood sugar level can cut the risk of heart attack and stroke nearly in half.
Read (New York Times)
The South Koreans claimed they cured some chickens that had avian flu by feeding them kimchi juice, and now, kimchi sales around the D.C. area are increasing.
Read (Washington Post)
If you like cabbage and you can get past the smell, kimchi is worth trying. I like kimchi, but I also like chitterlings, mountain oysters, scrapple, liver, chicken gizzards and hearts, blood pudding, squirrels, and turtle soup. Except for the kimchi, my grandmother would cook all of those dishes and make them taste good. I can only think of one dish that she cooked that I didn’t really like – fried green tomatoes. The last time I ate kimchi was at a bar/restaurant outside Fort Meade in 1985. Admittedly, except for liver, I haven’t eaten any of the other foods listed above in 20+ years either – a heart attack at age 20 tends to make one change eating habits.
Diabetics who tightly control their blood sugar levels can cut their risk of heart attacks and strokes in half.
The findings, from nearly 1,400 diabetics who have been followed for more than a decade, provide the first direct evidence that the risk of the most serious complications of the disease, which affects millions of Americans, can be minimized by aggressive treatment, experts said.
Read (Washington Post)
Diabetes runs in both sides of my family, but it seems to have only affected female members of the family.
St. Louis scientists say they’ve determined how HIV invades healthy cells — and that could lead to improved drug therapies to fight the deadly disease.
Read (UPI via Science Daily)
New guidelines recommend that all Americans — especially pregnant and nursing women and children — eat seafood twice a week, despite the current concern about pollution contamination.
Read (Reuters)
We may not know the specifics of how exercise impacts depression and other mental health conditions, but since numerous studies show it to be beneficial, there is little harm in participating in it for that purpose.
In one of the studies, researchers found that adults who participated in a three-month rigorous exercise program experienced a decline in depressive symptoms about as great as they would have experienced had they received standard depression treatment, such as antidepressant medication.
Read (Reuters)
The Bush administration told several states that they could not use the projected rise in home-heating costs to increase food-stamp benefits. The decision came as Congress prepares cuts to the program in a move that may leave an additional 250,000 needy people without food aid this year.
Read (The New Standard)
After experiencing record demand for food immediately after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Gulf Coast food banks are now in danger of coming up short. Local food banks throughout the region are warning that many people in the area are already going hungry.
Read (The New Standard)
People plagued by chronic lower backaches may find some relief in yoga class, researchers reported 12/19.
Read (Reuters)
Wasn’t there a King of the Hill [episode](http://www.tv.com/king-of-the-hill/hanks-back/episode/286677/summary.html “tv.com”) about this?
Small hospitals — or those with fewer than 100 beds, and thus fewer resources — say they are worried whether they’ll be able to comply with new federal rules on electronic transmission of health data aimed at meeting the dual threat of bioterrorism and bird-flu pandemic.
“We are caught in the middle — do we replace anesthesia machines that no longer will be serviced or do I spend $200,000 on software for health IT or do I try to make the payroll?”
Read (UPI)
People with high cholesterol also have a greater risk of high blood pressure, researchers reported in one of the first studies to demonstrate that one may cause the other.
A study of 3,000 men monitored for 14 years showed that those who developed the unhealthiest cholesterol levels raised their risk of hypertension by 39 percent.
Read (Reuters)
Improvement in the overall health of Americans has stalled in the last five years as more people became obese and fewer quit smoking, according to a report released on 12/12. The America’s Health Rankings report showed that 23.1 percent of the U.S. population is now considered obese, more than twice the level in 1990.
Read (Reuters)
Twice the number of Americans are obese now than in 1990. We just keep getting fatter don’t we? I don’t think I would be considered obese, but I’m about 25 pounds heavier now than I was in 1990 – 210 lbs. vs. 185 lbs.
Abnormal activity in neurons that help people imitate others may underlie some social deficits in autism.
A Nature Neuroscience study found autistic children had less brain activation in an area involved in understanding others’ state of mind. The degree of activation of the ‘mirror neurons’ housed in this area correlated with measures of social impairment. The lower the activation, the stronger the impairment the children had.
Read (BBC)
Before rushing to make salmon a staple of a heart-healthy diet, consumers should check the origin of their fish supply, a new study recommends. Researchers found that the contaminant levels in farmed salmon from certain regions of the world increased the risk of cancer enough to outweigh the heart health benefits of salmon. Farmed salmon from South America had the lowest level of pollutants followed by farmed salmon from North America. Salmon from Europe had the highest level of pollutants.
Read (AP via WTOP)