2005 Articles

NATION'S HEALTH SHOWING LITTLE PROGRESS, STUDY OF STATES FINDS

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Misti Crane

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

PHILADELPHIA — Cigarette in one hand, cookie in the other, Americans are unhealthy and have made little if any progress after steady improvement in the 1990s, according to an annual state-by-state health ranking.
    In the 1990s, health improved at a 1.5 percent rate annually. But since 2000, the yearly increase fell to 0.3 percent, an 80 percent drop in improvement.
    The United Health Foundation shared its 16 th America’s Health Rankings report yesterday at the American Public Health Association meeting and called in particular for anti-tobacco policies and other initiatives to lower the national smoking rate from almost 21 percent.
    "The nation’s health is stagnant," said Dr. Reed Tuckson, vice president of the foundation.
    Smoking and obesity remain top concerns, and ones that people have some control over. Other weak spots include infant mortality, insurance coverage and access to primary care.
    And when compared with other countries, infant mortality — a key marker of national health — is high, Tuckson said.
    In Hong Kong, 2.3 of every 1,000 babies born will die in the first year of life. In the United States, 6.7 will.
    In many instances, health measures are worse for blacks, Latinos and other minorities, highlighting a need to eliminate disparities.
    "When you get back to the root cause . . . it comes down to poverty (and) lack of health insurance," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
    Ranked 27 th, Ohio failed to distinguish itself as exceptionally healthy or in particularly bad shape. Analysts look at 18 measures, including personal choices, community factors and health policies to rate each state’s health.
    Minnesota and Vermont earned top honors. The Gulf Coast took another hit with Louisiana and Mississippi landing in slots 49 and 50.
    Ohio dropped one spot since last year.
    Still, the picture is not all bleak. Ohio’s best ranking was ninth in the health insurance category, with about 11 percent of the population going without.
    Another strength is good access to prenatal care. And since last year, public health spending increased by 9 percent, from $117 per person to $127. At the same time, the rate of the uninsured population dropped from 12.1 percent to 11.4 percent.
    But obesity is up — 25.2 percent of the population, versus 11.3 percent in 1990 — and almost 26 percent of Ohio residents continue to smoke, putting the state at No. 40 for both health measures.
    Smoking bans such as the one in Columbus and several suburbs should help because they make it easier for people to quit, said John Clymer, president of Partnership for Prevention, which helped put out the report.
    To really make a difference, Ohio should slap more taxes on cigarettes, which discourages young people from starting the habit, he said.
    There is some good news for the country. Since 1990, car-crash deaths have dropped, as have deaths from infectious disease, violent crime and heart disease.
    To nudge the health of the nation in the right direction, though, will take a combination of efforts from individuals and the public and private sectors.
    Employers can help by looking at preventionoriented health plans as an investment rather than a drain on their business, Clymer said.

KELLOGG TO REDUCE TRANS FAT IN FOODS

Oils from modified soybeans to be used

Saturday, December 10, 2005

James Pritchard

ASSOCIATED PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Starting next year, some products made by Kellogg Co. will contain oils derived from genetically modified soybeans to reduce or eliminate trans fatty acids and minimize saturated fats, the cereal maker said yesterday.
    The company will begin using Vistive, an oil made from St. Louis-based Monsanto Co.’s genetically modified soybeans that is low in linolenic acid, an essential fatty acid. Kellogg said it will be one of the first food manufacturers to use the oil to lower levels of trans fat and saturated fats in its products.
    Trans fats are found in vegetable shortenings and in some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, fried foods, baked goods, salad dressings and other processed foods. Saturated fats are in animal products such as butter, cheese, whole milk, ice cream, cream and fatty meats.
    Studies indicate that both types contribute to higher levels of LDL cholesterol — the bad kind — which can raise the risk of coronary heart disease, a killer of more than 500,000 Americans each year.
    Because of a shortage of soybean oil that is low in linolenic acid, Kellogg also will work with the Bunge/DuPont Biotech Alliance to increase production of Nutrium, another low-linolenic soybean oil made from genetically modified soybeans.

FAT BOOMERS MAY REVERSE HEALTH TREND

Friday, December 09, 2005

Mike Stobbe

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA — After a century of nearly uninterrupted medical improvements and longer lives, it looks like the baby boomers could mess it up.
    A government study shows deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke continue to drop, but it also shows that half of Americans ages 55 to 64 — including the oldest of the baby boomers — have high blood pressure, and two in five are obese.
    This means that this large group of aging Americans is in worse shape in some respects than those born a decade earlier were when they were the same age.
    Future medical improvements might offset these problems before they affect life expectancy, but there are no promises, health officials said.
    "The late 50s and early 60s are a crucial time to focus on disease prevention," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It’s never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle to enjoy a longer, healthier life."
    The report presents the latest data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics and dozens of other health agencies and organizations.
    Among the findings: Deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke, the nation’s three leading killers, all dropped in 2003. They were down between 2 percent and 5 percent.
    Americans’ life expectancy also increased again. According to the government’s calculations, a child born in 2003 can expect to live 77.6 years on average, up from 77.3 the year before. In 1990, life expectancy was 75.4 years.
    U.S. life expectancy has been rising almost without interruption since 1900, thanks to several factors, including extraordinary advances in medicine and sanitation and declines in some types of unhealthy behavior, such as smoking.
    Still, health officials are trying to draw attention to unhealthy behavior, and this year chose to break out data on people 55 to 64.
    The 55-to-64 age group is expected to increase from 29 million Americans in 2004 to 40 million in 2014. That is because of the baby boom, the explosion of births during the prosperous postwar period between 1946 and 1964.
    The report looked back at data on people who were in the 55-to-64 bracket around the early 1990s — basically, people born in the 1930s. Researchers compared them with people in that age range today — essentially people born in the 1940s.
    "What happens to this group is very important because it’s going to affect every other group," said Amy Bernstein, of the National Center for Health Statistics, which put out the report. Among other things, this group will be drawing on Social Security and Medicare, financed by U.S. wage earners.
    The center found that rates of hypertension and obesity were higher for the current group of 55-to-64-year-olds.
    When the 1930s group was tested around 1990, 42 percent had high blood pressure. That compares with 50 percent for the 1940s group. The older group’s rate of obesity was 31 percent back then, compared with 39 percent for the 1940s babies now. Because of the advent of cholesterol-lowering drugs, the prevalence of high cholesterol actually went down, from 35 percent for the 1930s group to 23 percent among the 1940s babies.
    Also noted in the report:

• Infant mortality in 2003 dropped slightly to 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. Infant mortality has been on a general decline since 1958.

• Spending on health care rose 7.7 percent in 2003, to $1.7 trillion. Health expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product rose to 15.3 percent in 2003, up from 14.9 percent in 2002.

• Prescription drugs were the fastest-growing expenditure, rising 11 percent in 2003.

• Twenty-eight percent of all adults reported recent low back pain.

CORN SYRUP AT FAULT, OBESITY EXPERT SAYS

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Carolyn Poirot

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

    High-fructose corn syrup isn’t completely responsible for the nation’s 6 million overweight children, but Dr. George Bray says it’s a big part of the problem.
    Bray, who served as founding president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity and organized the first international congress on obesity in 1973, points out that between 1970 (when highfructose corn syrup was introduced) and 2000 (when the average yearly consumption of the ultra-sweet liquid sugar hit 73.5 pounds a person in this country), the prevalence of obesity more than doubled, from 15 percent to almost onethird of the adult population.
    And worse, obesity among children 12 to 19 — who consume a disproportionate amount of the soft drinks, fruit juice, sports drinks, packaged cookies and other baked goods that are sweetened with the sugar — increased from 4.2 percent in 1970 to 15.3 percent in 2000.
    "We know that if it’s not caught early, one in three of these overweight children will grow into overweight adults at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke and early death," Bray says.
    Obesity is largely preventable through changes in lifestyle, especially diet, he says.
    The problem with the syrup, he says, is not only that it is sweeter than other forms of sugar but also that it does not affect appetite. Fructose adds to overeating because it does not trigger chemical messengers that tell the brain the stomach is full and no longer hungry, as food and drinks that contain regular refined sugar do.
    Bray is a research professor and former director of the Pennington Center at Louisiana State University, the largest nutritional research center in the world.
    On Bray’s list of the things people can do to prevent childhood (and adult) obesity:

• Get more sleep. (Lack of sleep has a bad effect on leptin, a hormone responsible for appetite control. Studies in Japan and Germany show that the fewer hours a child sleeps, the greater the prevalence of obesity.)

• Replace at least one hour of inactivity with any combination of favorite activities, every day.

• Drink milk. Calcium is important to weight control.

• Drink fewer sweetened beverages, especially carbonated soft drinks.

• Get as much of your sugar as possible from whole fruits. Think blueberries, strawberries and bananas to sweeten breakfast cereals; apples and oranges for dessert.

• Think portion control, even with healthful foods.

• Get everyone in the family to eat breakfast. Have hot or cold cereal most days. Bray eats mostly oatmeal.

START DIET, FITNESS PROGRAM BY LOOKING AT FAILURES, MAKING PLANS

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Eugenie Jones

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

    Everything has a beginning — including losing weight and getting into shape.
    Typically, we attach the beginning of our fitness efforts to the start of a new year, a new month or even a new week.
    Regardless of one’s motivations for picking when to start, the more important issue is how to maintain and be successful for a lifetime.
    Here are some suggestions:

    Know why you’ve failed in previous efforts to get or stay in shape. Understanding what mistakes you’ve made — fad diets, a lack of exercise, not enough know-how — will better prepare you to devise and follow through with wiser fitness techniques a second time around.
    Write down the top three reasons your last fitness program didn’t work, and then write down what you’ll do this time to avoid those same pitfalls.
    Don’t plan to do more than what is reasonable and feasible. Goals such as planning to survive on a 1,000-calorie diet, exercising two hours a day everyday or never eating chocolate again can be a bit over the top.
    Always be moderate in your exercise habits and as each week goes by gradually walk a little farther, lift a bit more weight or swim a little longer. Equally important is eating a sensible diet that is balanced, full of variety and one that occasionally — emphasis on "occasionally" — allows even chocolate.
    Be willing to change. You can’t lose weight while daily consuming pints of ice cream. You can’t develop a lean, fit body while not being willing to exercise regularly. Some behaviors cannot mutually co-exist.
    Expect to lose an occasional battle. Healthy dietary habits and an active lifestyle are definitely not the paths of least resistance. Unless you’re perfect, you’ll fail from time to time. Don’t be derailed. If you’re following a solid exercise and dietary plan in the first place, all you have to do is recognize that you’ve made a mistake, decide how you’ll avoid that mistake in the future and then get right back to following your plan.
    As for when you’ll begin, what’s wrong with right now?

AGING BOOMERS TO OVERWHELM NUMBER OF TRAINED PHYSICIANS

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Bob Moos

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

    America’s 77 million baby boomers are in for a rude awakening.
    The generation will begin turning 65 in five years and discover that there aren’t enough physicians trained to take care of the frailties of old age.
    "It’s scary — we’re about to have a major medical crisis that will overburden millions of families," said Dr. Harrison Bloom, a senior associate at the International Longevity Center in New York.
    The number of people 65 and older will double during the next quarter century. Those 71 million seniors will account for one in five Americans, and many will have chronic health conditions.
    "It’ll be chaotic, and the quality of care will suffer," said Dr. Meghan Gerety, a professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and chairwoman of the American Geriatrics Society.
    Health-care professionals advise boomers to brace themselves: Symptoms may be misunderstood or dismissed. Diagnoses may be late. And the wrong drugs may be prescribed.
    Gerety blames the problem on a shortage of geriatricians, doctors formally trained in the ailments of old age.
    The nation already has fewer than half of the geriatricians it needs, according to the Alliance for Aging Research in Washington. By 2030, when the youngest boomer reaches 65, it may have less than a third of the necessary number.
    "Geriatricians take care of older people, not just their diseases," said Dr. Mary Norman, a geriatrician with the Dallas Diagnostic Association in Plano, Texas. "We step back and look at our patients’ lives. Then we try to maintain their health and prolong their independence as best we can."
    Florence Box, 92, of Dallas said she sought out Norman after she visited her physician for a variety of ailments and was told there was nothing more he could do for a woman her age. For someone who drives, reads 700-page biographies and works crossword puzzles, that prognosis didn’t set well.
    On her first appointment, Norman visited with her for an hour about her health and philosophy of life.
    "I was in awe," she said. "Other doctors gave me 15 minutes."
    Not every older person needs a geriatrician, but every physician who treats older patients should have some formal training in geriatrics, said Daniel Perry, director of the Alliance for Aging Research.
    "There’s not time to train enough practicing geriatricians before the age wave hits, so the task at hand is to create a cadre of academic geriatricians who can educate all doctors in the care of older people," he said.
    Even that will be difficult, health-care professionals say.
    Of 100,000 medical-school faculty, fewer than 1,000 list geriatrics as their specialty, according to the International Longevity Center. The group estimates that the nation needs two to three times that number.
    Health-care experts blame low prestige and lower pay.
    "It’s a double whammy," said Dr. David Reuben, chief of geriatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and president of the American Geriatrics Society.
    Fewer than half of the nation’s medical schools have incorporated geriatrics into their required undergraduate curriculum, the Alliance for Aging Research reports.
    Geriatricians make an average of $155,000 a year — less than half of what cardiologists and other medical specialists do, according to the University of Cincinnati’s Institute for the Study of Health.
    After incurring more than $100,000 in debt from their medical training, many young doctors choose more lucrative specialties.
    Dr. Dorothy Sherwood, associate director of the graduate medical education program at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, said none of her 84 residents in 14 years has gone on to a geriatrics fellowship.
    The main reason for geriatricians’ lower pay is Medicare.
    Soon after the oldest boomers turn 65 in five years, most doctors will begin spending at least half of their time caring for older patients, so the push is on to "geriatricize" all physicians.
    Philanthropic organizations, such as the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and the John A. Hartford Foundation, are pouring millions of dollars into medical schools that develop programs to introduce students to geriatrics.
    At the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the medical school pairs first-year students with healthy older adults for 18 months to show them a side of aging they might not see by working in a clinic or hospital.
    When Norman joined the Dallas Diagnostic Association in Plano, part of her job became advising the practice’s 35 other doctors, who are mostly internists.
    "We’ll never have enough geriatricians, so we’re helping primary-care physicians become better at screening patients for geriatric conditions," said Dr. Ziad Haydar, assistant chief of geriatrics at Baylor.
    Still, most experts agree that baby boomers won’t get improved care without a reform of Medicare’s payment system.

STUDY TOUTS COFFEE'S HEALTH BENEFITS

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Ink Spots sang "I love the java jive and it loves me" in 1940, they could not have known how right they were. Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released Sunday.

Of course, too much coffee can make people jittery and even raise cholesterol levels, so food experts stress moderation.

The findings by Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania, give a healthy boost to the warming beverage.

"The point is, people are getting the most antioxidants from beverages, as opposed to what you might think," Vinson said in a telephone interview.

Antioxidants, which are thought to help battle cancer and provide other health benefits, are abundant in grains, tomatoes and many other fruits and vegetables.

Vinson said he was researching tea and cocoa and other foods and decided to study coffee, too.

His team analyzed the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages. They then used Agriculture Department data on typical food consumption patterns to calculate how much antioxidant each food contributes to a person's diet.

They concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

That does not mean coffee is a substitute for fruit and vegetables.

"Unfortunately, consumers are still not eating enough fruits and vegetables, which are better for you from an overall nutritional point of view due to their higher content of vitamins, minerals and fiber," Vinson said.

Dates, cranberries and red grapes are among the leading fruit sources of antioxidants, he said.

The antioxidants in coffee are known as polyphenols. Sometimes they are bound to a sugar molecule, which covers up the antioxidant group, Vinson said.

The first step in measuring them was to break that sugar link. He noted that chemicals in the stomach do the same thing, freeing the polyphenols.

"We think that antioxidants can be good for you in a number of ways," including affecting enzymes and genes, though more research is needed, Vinson said.

"If I say more coffee is better, then I would have to tell you to spread it out to keep the levels of antioxidants up," Vinson said. "We always talk about moderation in anything."

His findings were released in conjunction with the annual convention of the American Chemical Society in Washington.

In February, a team of Japanese researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that people who drank coffee daily, or nearly every day, had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank it. The protective effect occurred in people who drank one to two cups a day and increased at three to four cups.

Last year, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that drinking coffee cut the risk of developing the most common form of diabetes.

Men who drank more than six 8-ounce cups of caffeinated coffee per day lowered their risk of type 2 diabetes by about half, and women reduced their risk by nearly 30%, compared with people who did not drink coffee, according to the study in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Bonnie Liebman, nutrition director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said she was not surprised by Vinson's finding, because tea has been known to contain antioxidants.

But Liebman, who was not part of Vinson's research team, cautioned that while many people have faith that antioxidants will reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and more, the evidence has not always panned out. Most experts are looking beyond antioxidants to the combination of vitamins, minerals other nutrition in specific foods, she said.

RESISTANCE, BALANCE WORK SPREADING INTO HOMES

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Richard Seven

THE SEATTLE TIMES

Balls, bands and balancing boards are bountiful in the fitness market and bounding into our abodes.
    Physical therapists and team trainers have long used resistance training and balance work to build core strength and develop "mechanical integration." Health clubs and personal trainers are increasingly incorporating foam rollers, BOSU ("Both Sides Up") balls, stretching bands and weighted balls into workouts.
    And, after surveying fitness professionals, the nonprofit American Council on Exercise predicted that balance training would be this year’s top fitness trend.
    The items are popular paraphernalia at home because they are compact, versatile and easy to figure out. They also are handy for miniworkouts, which sometimes is all our busy days allow.
    But consumers don’t always know the best ways to use them to safely maximize potential. The key word is progression. Don’t challenge the body too much or too quickly with movements geared for top athletes.
    "Always master a technique on solid ground," says Cedric Bryant, the council’s chief exercise physiologist. "Once you get the muscular control, gradually increase the challenge. Try the move on one leg. Once you’ve got that down, then maybe try doing it on a ball or wobble board."
    Thera-Band, a division of the Hygenic Corp., provides downloadable exercises on its Web site — www.therabandacademy.com — that involve combinations of equipment and explain how to use the devices to train specific body parts or to prepare for certain sports. Spri Products (www.spriproducts.com) and Harbinger Fitness (www.harbingerfitness. com) also have Web sites.
    Thera-Band is best known for its bands and tubing, but it also offers a wide range of balancing products. The latest additions to its line of balance-training products are the Rocker and Wobble boards. The devices are often used in clinical and training settings to strengthen knees and core stabilizing muscles, as well as to increase ankle range-of-motion and flexibility and to train sensory systems.
    The Rocker Board rocks side to side, while the Wobble Board moves in multiple directions. The boards are sold through Thera-Band distributors.
    Physical therapist Phillip Page has co-written Strength Band Training (Human Kinetics, $17.95), which offers more than 100 exercises. Page urges users to inspect the bands for nicks or tears and make sure that the device is securely connected to an object such as a doorjamb.
    A good book on how to use a Swiss ball is Exercise Ball for Beginners (Harper-Collins, $21.95). And a booklet, The Great Balance & Stability Handbook (Productive Fitness, $8.95), illustrates exercises for novices and more advanced movements.

GOVERNOR'S PRATFALL SPARKED WEIGHT LOSS

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Michael Precker

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

DALLAS — Mike Huckabee, the 280-pound governor of Arkansas, had diabetes and worrisome chest pains when he presided over a fateful cabinet meeting in 2003.
    In a newly restored conference room in the state Capitol, Huckabee sat down in an antique chair — which collapsed under his weight.
    "It was an awkward moment for all of us," he says. "They’re thinking, ‘He’s our boss. Do you laugh?’ I tried to make light of it, but it was humiliating."
    The governor got up and changed his life. He lost more than 100 pounds in 15 months, and conducting that battle in the public eye earned him admirers in Arkansas and beyond.
    "I couldn’t go out there and urge our state to live a healthy life if I were a poster child for unhealthy living," Huckabee says. "A lot of people come up to me and say, if I could make this radical change, they can do it, too."
    The governor, who’s 49, has turned his experience into a new book, Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.
    It’s blunt ("If it comes through the car window, it isn’t food"), self-deprecating (Baptists "are free to eat every kind of food imaginable as long as we fry it and consume it in large portions") and a little in-yourface ("Stop ignoring signals from your body").
    He doesn’t prescribe a specific diet program or dish out recipes. For Huckabee, the key was reprogramming himself into a lifestyle that emphasizes fitness and treats food as fuel.
    He sums it up with a play on words: a 12-stop program.
    "A lot of addictions are dealt with in a 12-step process," he says. "I discovered it’s not the steps I need to take, it’s the stops I need to make. The real breakthrough wasn’t what to do; it’s how do I stop doing what I’ve been doing."
    Each stop gets its own chapter, including stop procrastinating, stop making excuses, stop expecting immediate success, stop making exceptions and stop whining.
    "I’d dieted before and lost weight before, but I’d never built a healthy lifestyle," he says. "There’s got to be a mind change before there can be a life change."
    Among other achievements, Huckabee has reversed his diabetes and run a marathon.
    "I’d read so many books that make me feel bad," Huckabee says. "I wanted to write a book that gave people hope."

TEEN GIRLS TURNING TO STEROIDS FOR LOOKS

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Linda A . Johnson

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TRENTON, N.J. — An alarming number of American girls, some as young as 9, are using bodybuilding steroids — not necessarily to get an edge on the playing field, but to get the toned, sculpted look of models and movie stars, experts say.
    Girls are getting their hands on the same dangerous testosterone pills, shots and creams that have created a scandal in major league baseball and other sports. Often, these are the same girls who have eating disorders, according to researchers.
    "There’s been a substantial increase for girls during the 1990s, and it’s at an all-time high right now," said Charles Yesalis, a professor of health and human development at Penn State University.
    Lloyd Johnston, a University of Michigan professor who heads an annual government sponsored survey on risky behavior by young people, said: "Other than pedophilia, this is the most secret behavior I’ve ever encountered."
    Overall, up to about 5 percent of high-school girls and 7 percent of middle-school girls admit trying anabolic steroids at least once, government and university studies have suggested.
    Researchers say that most girls use steroids to get bigger and stronger, and they attribute some of the increase in steroid use to girls’ rising participation in sports. But plenty of other girls are using steroids to give themselves a slightly muscular look, they say.
    "With young women, you see them using it more as a weight control and body-fat-reduction" method, said Jeff Hoerger, who runs the staff counseling program at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
    In the past couple of years, he has helped two young women using steroids — one an 11th grader whose swimmer friend suggested that steroids would help with weight loss.
    The sports medicine division at the Oregon Health and Science University found that two-thirds of Oregon high-school girls who admitted using steroids were not athletes and that girls who were considering taking steroids had tried other risky ways to get thin.
    "They were more likely to have eating disorders and to abuse diuretics, amphetamines and laxatives," said Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of the division.
    Researchers say youngsters get illegal steroids from relatives or friends, from the local gym or over the Internet.
    Dr. Eric Small, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on sports medicine, said adults should gently ask youngsters about possible steroid use.
    "Talking about supplements and steroids needs to start in the third grade," Small said. "If you wait till ninth grade, it’s too late."

VENDING MACHINES

Nutritious Options Can Be Found

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Amy Bertrand

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

ST. LOUIS — It’s 3 p.m. Your stomach is rumbling. You can’t concentrate on your work because you need a sugar fix. Or maybe you have the munchies and you need something salty to sustain you.
    The office vending machine shines like a beacon. But as you stare at it, you realize this is not the healthiest thing you can do. Or is it?
    Vending-machine companies are making an attempt to include more healthful fare, but they still stock candy bars and potato chips.
    Cathy Feldmeier, a registered dietitian, says she was surprised at what she found in the vending machines at the hospital where she works.
    "Quite honestly, it was disappointing."
    What she found were high-fat snacks such as mini-doughnuts and chocolate bars filled with caramel and nougat. What’s worse, some of them were in oversized packaging, combining two or three servings in one selection.
    Long blamed for some of the ills that plague overweight people, especially children, the vending-machine industry is trying to change its bad image.
    The industry’s trade association, the National Automatic Merchandising Association, recently launched a campaign to encourage healthful food choices, hoping to fend off efforts to remove machines from schools and to improve the industry’s image.
    The effort includes a color-coded rating system to indicate which foods are healthful choices and which should be eaten in moderation. Several vending-machine companies are beginning to label healthful choices.
    Aramark Corp., which supplies vending machines for St. Louis public schools among others, uses a check mark to indicate "heart-healthy choices" such as baked chips, pretzels and peanuts.
    "They are not the most popular choices," says Dana Browne, general manager for Aramark, who says that distinction at the schools goes to anything that’s spicy. "But they do go."
    Dennis Brockman, executive director at Aramark, says healthful foods are "definitely the direction we are going in our vending. It’s all about choice, and some people want to choose what’s healthy."
    Although many dietitians say nothing in a vending machine is going to be your best choice, some items are better than others.
    "When you look at a vending machine, things always seem to be high-fat and high-sugar," says Merrill Dove, director of nutrition at Imagine Weight Loss centers. "You want to try to find something that is either low in fat or low in sugar. Pretzels (which are low-fat but high carb) are always a good buy.
    "When a person is in this situation, when they have no other choice, it’s OK to go to the vending machine. You just have to make allowances for what you did during the day. If you had a high-fat snack, have a low-fat dinner."
    Some places offer refrigerated vending machines, which almost always have more healthful options.
    "If you could find sugar-free yogurt and a piece of fruit, you would have a very healthy snack," Feldmeier says.
    The cold machines also often offer milk, though rarely skim (your best choice). And if you have to get a sandwich from the machine, choose turkey or another light meat.
    Also, try wheat bread. If that’s not available, Dove suggests you remove the top of the sandwich to reduce your carb intake by half.
    Feldmeier says she’d rather see someone make a smart choice from a vending machine than skip a meal.
    "That’s where you get into trouble. You are setting yourself up for failure."
    Of course, her best advice, she says, is to plan ahead and bring a snack from home so you are never faced with going to the vending machine.
    "Vending machines are very habit-driven," Feldmeier says. "Plan ahead so you aren’t stuck."

EXERCISERS WHO QUIT SMOKING GAIN LESS WEIGHT

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Eugenie Jones

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

    How desperate are you to stay thin? I know of a product — totally legal — that can reduce your appetite, increase your metabolism, and, with regular use, help you to stay slim and trim.
    There are, however, some trade-offs. Namely, you have to be willing to inhale a variety of chemicals, including carbon monoxide (a poison found in exhaust fumes), hydrogen cyanide (rat poison), formaldehyde (used in embalming) and ammonia (the stuff that makes Mr. Clean so popular).
    You also have to be willing to live with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, emphysema, increased blood pressure, lung cancer and various other illnesses and diseases. But when you consider the payoff of a flatter tummy, shapelier thighs and an overall more-slender physique, isn’t it worth it?
    Unfortunately, that’s a question many women are answering in the affirmative. Yes, increased public awareness has cut the number of Americans who smoke.
    But studies show that the smoking rates among women are declining at a slower rate than among men. Women, typically more concerned with their weight and appearance than men, are leery of giving up cigarettes and more fearful of gaining weight.
    A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, however, holds out a degree of hope. Brown University researchers took 281 healthy but sedentary female smokers and divided them into two groups.
    Both groups took part in smoking-cessation programs. One group, however, also received three weekly supervised exercise sessions.
    The women who received the smoking-cessation training as well as the exercise training ended up in better physical condition, gained less weight (80 percent less), and were more successful (19.4 percent versus 10.2 percent) at giving up cigarettes than their non-exercising counterparts.
    Here is the exercise program used in the study:

Swim, jog or cycle 30 minutes three times a week. As your endurance improves, you can increase the duration (adding 15 to 30 minutes), or you can increase your frequency (to four or five times a week).
When you feel ready, add biweekly, 30-minute resistance training workouts to your routine. Ten to 12 exercises of hitting your major muscle groups will increase your metabolism and better enable you to lose weight and control weight gain.

U.S. RECONFIGURES FOOD PYRAMID, GUIDELINES

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Thomas H . Maugh II

LOS ANGELES TIMES

    The federal government released its new symbol of national nutrition yesterday, morphing the familiar food pyramid into 12 pyramids to reflect the nation’s diverse lifestyles and nutritional needs.
    Replacing the venerable icon that has graced the walls of school classrooms and hospital cafeterias for 15 years, the new version requires a computer to help the consumer pick out which of the 12 versions is right for them.
    The new icon, called My Pyramid, can be viewed at www.mypyramid.gov. The site has been receiving 1,000 to 1,500 hits per second and is responding very slowly, Department of Agriculture officials said.
    Instead of the old pyramid, which had food groups arrayed like building blocks, the new pyramid has rainbow-hued bands running vertically, each color representing a different food group.
    The width of the bands represents the relative proportions of each group that individuals should consume each day, with grains and vegetables predominating.
    Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said at a news conference that the new pyramid is "a system of information to help consumers understand how to put nutrition recommendations into action."
    It is based on the booklet "Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005," which was released in January. It is a series of 23 general recommendations and 18 suggestions that were meant to apply to several groups, based on age, weight, nutritional requirements and other attributes.
    One major improvement is that the new pyramid abandons the concept of "servings" — which most consumers found incomprehensible — and calls for specific serving sizes.
    In general terms, the new guidelines call for each person to consume 3 ounces of whole grain foods per day, 2 cups of fruit, 2½ cups of vegetables and 3 cups of fat-free or low-fat milk every day.
    The other change is the emphasis on exercise. The guidelines call for Americans to have 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day to remain "healthy." For those who are overweight, the call is for 60 minutes per day, while for those trying to maintain a weight loss, the recommendation is 90 minutes daily.
    The physical-fitness component is represented by a person climbing the side of the pyramid.
    The department spent four years and $2.4 million putting the new pyramid together, according to Eric Hentges, director of USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.
    This fall, food companies will begin distributing English and Spanish posters and teaching guides to reach 4 million students. Physicians and nutritionists are particularly concerned about this group because of the growing problem of obesity among youths.
    "If we don’t change these trends, our children may be the first generation that cannot look forward to a longer life span than their parents," said Eric Bost, the USDA’s undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.
    People have steadily grown fatter since the food pyramid made its debut in 1992. A report last month in The New England Journal of Medicine contended that obesity, particularly in children, was shaving four to nine months off the average life expectancy.
    The 1992 pyramid had "become quite familiar, Johanns said, but few Americans follow the recommendations."
    Knowledge about nutrition and food consumption patterns has grown significantly in the past dozen years and is reflected in the new food guidance symbols, he said. Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.

AMERICANS TAKE TOO MANY DRUGS, EXPERTS SAY
As pharmaceuticals rake in billions, some doctors call the trend dangerous

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Jeff Donn

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Alice and Ken Heckman each begin their morning by cracking open a rattling plastic tray carrying scores of pills in a rainbow of pastel colors.
    Between the two of them, they gulp 29 pills every day: a regimen of 14 drugs, with a chaser of dietary supplements.
    Here’s the curious part: Both in their 70s, they’re already pretty healthy.
    They work around the house and volunteer with several community groups. They each had heart fixes years ago — him a bypass and her a vessel-clearing stent — but fully recovered. She has well-controlled diabetes. He has worked his way through heartburn, arthritis, an enlarged prostate and occasional mild depression.
    About 130 million Americans — many far healthier than the Heckmans — swallow, inject, inhale, infuse, spray and pat on prescribed medication every month, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
    People in the United States buy more medicine per person than do residents of any other country.
    And the number of prescriptions has swelled by two-thirds in the past decade, to 3.5 billion yearly, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical consulting company. Americans devour even more nonprescription drugs, polling suggests.
    An increasing number of doctors, researchers and public-health experts say Americans are overmedicating themselves. They are buying and taking far too much medicine, too readily and carelessly, for their own health and wealth, the experts say.
    More than 125,000 Americans die from drug reactions and mistakes each year, according to Associated Press projections from landmark medical studies of the 1990s. That could make pharmaceuticals the fourth-leading national cause of death after heart disease, cancer and stroke.
    The pharmaceutical industry served up more than $250 billion in sales last year, the vast majority in prescriptions, industry consultants say. That roughly equaled sales at all the country’s gasoline stations put together, or an $850 pharmaceutical fill-up for every American.
    Do we need all these drugs? A relative handful, such as antibiotics and AIDS medicines, yank many people away from almost certain death. Though carrying some risk, other drugs — such as cholesterol-cutting statins — help a considerable minority dodge potential calamities, such as heart attack or stroke.
    The right balance of risk and benefit is still hard to strike because of heavily promoted drugs that treat common, persistent, daily-life conditions: such as anti-inflammatories, antacids, and pills for allergy, depression, shyness, premenstrual crankiness, waning sexual powers and impulsiveness in children.
    "We are taking way too many drugs for dubious or exaggerated ailments," says Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and author of The Truth About the Drug Companies.
    "What the drug companies are doing now is promoting drugs for long-term use to essentially healthy people. Why? Because it’s the biggest market."
    In fact, relatively few pharmaceutical newcomers improve the health of patients over older drugs or advance the march of medicine. Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classified about three-quarters of newly approved drugs as similar to existing ones.
    "Newer isn’t always better, and more isn’t always better," warns Dr. Donald Berwick, an adviser to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
    Confronted with mounting costs, drugmakers churn out and promote drugs with the same ingredients in a different form for a different disease.
    Of course, many pharmaceuticals improve Americans’ health. "We now have more medicines and better medicines for more diseases," says Jeff Trewhitt, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
    However, the nation also overindulges far too often, critics say.
    Drug-safety researcher Dr. James Kaye, of Boston University, remembers a medical school teacher telling the class: "All drugs are poisonous!"
    The Heckmans found out on their own. Ken Heckman lost his alertness for several months to a depression medication. His wife has come down with a rash from one heart medicine and muscle aches from a statin.
    The dangers potentially escalate when doctors prescribe drugs, as they often do, for uses not formally approved by the FDA. In a recent report, the CDC expressed concern about huge off-label growth of antidepressants. They have expanded to treat often loosely defined syndromes of compulsion, panic or anxiety, and PMS.
    Drugmakers, doctors and patients have all been quick to medicate some conditions once accepted simply as part of the human condition.
    Across the country, prescription drug sales have pushed upward by an annual average of 11 percent in the past five years.
    The aging population is partly responsible, with ailments such as cancer, heart attacks, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. Other conditions have mysteriously proliferated, including asthma, diabetes and obesity.
    Exercise and better diet ward off heart disease and diabetes just as effectively as drugs do, studies show.
    However, says Fred Eckel, who teaches pharmacy practice at the University of North Carolina, "There tends to be a reliance on drugs as the first option."

COUPLES WHO EXERCISE TOGETHER DEVELOP A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

Monday, February 21, 2005

Amy Bertrand

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

    ST. LOUIS — Somewhere between taking the kids to soccer practice, finishing your big project at work and fixing your family a healthful dinner, you forgot a couple of things. You had no time to connect with your spouse and even less time to get in a workout.
    We always seem to struggle to find enough time to fit in a workout. What better way than to make it something special for you and your spouse?
    Yes, you can multitask your workout and love life. Working out with your sweetie allows both of you to recharge not just your relationship but also your heart and other muscles.
    "You’re a mother, a daughter, a wife, a son or a husband," said Stacie Mullen, co-founder of Imagine Weight Loss Centers. "It seems there’s not enough time to be a healthy, fit woman or man."
    In this way, "Family time can be fitness time," Mullen said.
    Working out with a partner is also a great way to help you stick to an exercise plan.
    "You have someone to report to," said Heather Epperly, head trainer at the Lodge of Des Peres in St. Louis. "It makes it much harder to skip a workout. You both have to say, ‘I don’t want to go,’ because, more than likely, one of you wants to go on the day the other doesn’t."
    Mullen says that for women to lose weight, they must have support. With that in mind, here is a list of some of the best things you and your spouse can do together.

Walking. One of the best ways you can communicate with your spouse is through walking together. Sometimes it’s tough getting your spouse to talk about "relationship issues," but if you give him a task in which he has a goal (getting to an endpoint), he’s more likely to open up, Epperly said.
Assisted stretching. Using a partner to help you get a better stretch offers better flexibility. "Having human touch involved makes things more personal," Epperly said.
Side-by-side treading. Epperly suggests working out on side-by-side treadmills. "That way one person can go faster than the other," she said, "so one person isn’t holding another back."
Racket sports. "Anytime a game is involved, you heighten the interest (from) the man," Mullen said. However, Epperly warns about too much competition between spouses. An avid racket sports enthusiast, Epperly used to play her husband lefthanded (she’s right-handed). One day, he thought he was ready for her to switch to her dominant hand. They made a friendly wager, and she beat him 10-0. "We never played racquetball again," she said. "If you are both competitive people, someone always gets hurt."
Dancing. "Dancing is one of the most romantic things you and your partner can do," Mullen said. And it’s a great way to burn calories. Fast dancing can burn 200 calories in half an hour.
Lovemaking. You can burn up to 100 calories in a half-hour. Plus, studies have shown it to be an instant anti-depressant.
Bike riding or spinning. In spinning, you ride side by side and set your own resistance, so if one partner is fitter than the other, he or she can make the workout tougher.
Boxing. "In every relationship there is frustration," said Mullen, who suggests shadowboxing or cardio kick-boxing as a way to relieve tension in a relationship. Real boxing (if both are skilled) or hitting a heavy bag can release stress.
Ab exercises. "Having great abs makes you feel more comfortable," Mullen said. "If you have better abs, you feel sexy, and strong core muscles help you in everything you do."
Interval workouts. This works great if you have a piece of cardio equipment and some weights in your home. One person gets on the treadmill (or bike or elliptical) and sprints for two minutes while the other person spends two minutes lifting weights. Then you switch, and keep switching as long as you can keep it up.

FOOD CHOICES KEY TO REACHING GOALS

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Eugenie Jones

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

    Food is a great example of our creative justification skills. We justify our high-fat and high-calorie choices with a promise of "I’ll work it off later."
    But what exactly are you promising to do? Do you promise to run an hour and 11 minutes at 11.5 mph? Because that’s what it would take to burn off a 500-calorie, 26-fatgram, McDonald’s Big Mac sandwich (based on a body weight of 160 pounds).
    If fries went with the burger, plan to run another 43 minutes to work off that extra 400 fried calories and 22 grams of fat. Or maybe you promised yourself to work off that personal-pan pizza you had for lunch at 675 calories and 29 grams of fat.
    If so, you’ll have to make good on that promise with one hour of level nine interval training on the Stairmaster. And don’t forget the calories from dessert.
    A cup of Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip Mint with 600 calories and 40 grams of fat would require a mere 90-minute spinning class.
    While it’s important to balance eating with all kinds of foods, continuously justifying high-fat and high-calorie food often results in busily burning off what we’ve just eaten but never quite breaking into the fat stored on our bodies.
    So we stall at our present weight, or, if we slack off from our exercise regimen, we gain.
    Have you ever noticed the guy who pumps iron every day? He’s always at the gym, grunting and giving it his all. Yet he doesn’t look cut, and he’s carrying more weight around the middle than he’d like.
    Maybe you’ve noticed the girl who’s in all the fitness classes and a regular on all the cardio equipment? She still needs to trim down.
    If you truly want to reach a greater level of fitness, you have to be honest with yourself. Don’t make food choices without fully knowing how what you’re putting into your mouth will affect weight-loss goals.
    Second, don’t dig yourself into a hole that you have to struggle to climb out of. Workouts lose their fun factor when you go into them with an attitude of having to work off a pizza splurge. When you select what you’ll eat, ask whether that food fits into your daily calorie allowance.
    You won’t create a caloric surplus, and your workouts will become more effective.

DOCTORS FIGHT FAT WITH EXERCISE PRESCRIPTIONS

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

J . M . Hirsch

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CONCORD, N.H. — Take two hikes, and call me in the morning.
    It might sound like an unusual prescription, but it’s an increasingly common one at a hospital where physical fitness is part of doctors’ orders for patients battling obesity.
    The effort is the result of a partnership between physicians and hiking enthusiasts. The program involves several dozen doctors writing detailed, albeit symbolic, prescriptions for getting fit and then giving patients trail maps to accomplish it.
    "The idea is to make a more specific explanation," said Dr. Charles Brackett, director of the program at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H.
    "You can say, ‘Walk this trail near your house twice a day,’ as opposed to, ‘You’re supposed to exercise more.’ "
    That personalization is key. In America — where two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese — follow-through on fitness and nutrition can be as much a problem as ignorance.
    Studies show that the more concrete a doctor’s advice, the more likely a patient is to heed it. While Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s prescriptions aren’t technically real, the hope is that the format makes the advice hard to ignore.
    It made the difference for Gloria Beattie, 72, for whom Brackett prescribed fitness in December. Winter weather has kept her off the hiking trails, but the prescription motivated her to get on her treadmill.
    Before that, the overweight woman got little exercise, adding to her existing health problems. She has lost 12 pounds and is eager for spring so she can head outdoors.
    "It had a big effect," she said of the prescription. "If no one says anything, you just keep letting it go. But if they talk to you and explain why you need it, . . . you finally come to the realization that exercise is really the thing that you need."
    Although exercise prescriptions are widely used by doctors at obesity clinics, the practice hasn’t caught on with general practitioners.
    Few primary-care doctors talk about fitness and weight loss with patients, even obese ones, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
    That’s because the medical community has been slow to address lifestyle as a means of disease prevention, said Manson, co-author of a report urging doctors to counsel patients on exercise and weight control.
    "If a prescription for medication could reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis by 40 percent, everyone would be clamoring for it," she said. "Well, a prescription for brisk walking has the potential to do just that."
    Yet more than half of American adults aren’t active enough, and a quarter do no physical activity at all, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    The pressures of a busy practice leave many doctors little time to chat about fitness. But Manson says it’s either find a way now, or spend much more time with the patient later dealing with the health consequences of obesity.
    Brackett thinks he has found a way.
    At Dartmouth-Hitchcock, exams of overweight and sedentary patients end with the doctor writing fitness advice on a prescription form, then offering a booklet of trail maps.
    The doctors hope to offer maps of more advanced trails so patients can progress to more challenging walks. The first map focuses on easy, level, sometimes even paved, paths.
    Dr. Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise, said programs such as this are badly needed because efforts to get Americans to treat exercise as recreation rather than a lifestyle generally have failed.

REPLACING TRANS FAT LEAVES BAD TASTE

FOOD COMPANIES FACE MANY HURDLES IN RACE FOR MORE-HEALTHFUL OIL

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Kim Severson and Melanie Warner

THE NEW YORK TIMES

    Bob Pitts knows doughnuts. He fried his first one in 1961 at the original Dunkin’ Donuts shop in Quincy, Mass.
    But Pitts, the company’s doughnut specialist, cannot find a way to make a doughnut that tastes good without using partially hydrogenated oil, now considered the worst fat in the American diet.
    An artificial fat once embraced as a cheap and seemingly healthful alternative to saturated fats such as butter or tropical oils, partially hydrogenated oil has been the food industry’s favorite cooking medium for decades. It makes french fries crisp and sweets creamy. It keeps packaged pastries fresh for months.
    But scientists contend that trans fat, a component of the oil, is more dangerous than the fat it replaced.
    Studies show trans fat has the same heart-clogging properties as saturated fat, but unlike saturated fat, it reduces the good cholesterol that can clear arteries. A small but growing body of research has connected it to metabolic problems.
    The Food and Drug Administration has declared that there is no healthful level in the diet and has ordered food companies to disclose trans-fat amounts on food labels by January 2006.
    The order has sent Pitts and his counterparts at dozens of companies on an expensive and frustrating race to change America’s oil. In the past year, Pitts has tried 19 alternatives in the company’s test kitchen near Boston, but the doughnuts were either too heavy or so slick the icing slid off. Most simply didn’t taste good.
    So far, only the most healthconscious consumers are shopping to avoid trans fat. But food companies are betting that will change when the labeling law takes effect, and they already have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get rid of trans fat without changing the taste of America’s favorite processed and fast foods.
    Each year in the United States, at least 30,000 cardiac deaths could be prevented if people replaced trans fat with nonhydrogenated polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oils, according to a 1999 joint report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
    This and other studies led the government’s top medical advisers for the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences to declare in 2002 that they could not determine a healthful limit of trans fat, as they had for other dietary fats. The next year, the government approved the labeling law.
    The $500 billion food-processing industry has long defended trans fat, starting in the 1970s when scientists first raised concerns. But with the new labeling requirement looming and lawmakers searching for ways to hold food companies responsible for their customers’ health, getting rid of it has become an obsession.
    "It’s the perfect storm for these companies: concern over litigation and legislation, as well as a market opportunity of baby boomers getting older and being more concerned with their health," said Dean Ornish, the director for the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., and a consultant to PepsiCo, McDonald’s and ConAgra Foods.
    PepsiCo already has scrubbed trans fats from its Frito-Lay brand chips. Health-oriented grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats refuse to sell any processed food that contains trans fats. Last month, Gorton’s removed trans fat from its fish sticks, and Tyson Foods introduced frozen fried-chicken products without it. Executives at Kraft Foods, ConAgra, Kellogg and Campbell’s soups want to get trans fat out of most or all of their products by the beginning of next year.
    Finding a substitute for partially hydrogenated oil is more daunting and considerably more expensive than food companies first imagined because it is the perfect fat for modern food manufacturers. Produced by pumping liquid vegetable oil full of hydrogen with a metal catalyst at high heat, the fat stays solid at room temperature — an essential trait for massproduced baked goods such as crackers or cakes. But that process also creates the dangerous trans fat.
    The shorteninglike oil is an industry workhorse. Its smoothness and high melting point make it a great medium for the creamy filling in an Oreo. In the deep-fat fryer, partially hydrogenated oil can be heated repeatedly without breaking down. It also helps products stay fresh longer on supermarket shelves.
    According to one survey on trans fat issued by the FDA in 1999, partially hydrogenated oil was in 95 percent of cookies, 100 percent of crackers and 80 percent of frozen breakfast foods on supermarket shelves.
    Margarine, which was very high in trans fat, was one of the first foods to change. ConAgra Foods spent about a year creating trans-fat free versions of soft-tub margarines such as Parkay and Fleischmann’s. But the company is having a tougher time cracking the code on stick margarines, frozen dinners and microwave popcorn.
    The company tested liquid soybean oil in its Marie Callender’s frozen dinners, but the oil puddled under the roasted potatoes and the sauce slipped off the meat.
    At the Pepperidge Farm division of Campbell’s soups, in Norwalk, Conn., puff-pastry sheets and pot pies are causing the most trouble. Concoctions tested in the past year have made the crusts unpalatably dense and breadlike.
    The company had more success with its Goldfish crackers, which after two years of tinkering are made with a sunfloweroil blend and are free of trans fat. The oil, called NuSun, resists oxidation and spoilage. But it will not solve every company’s problem.
    Only 2 million acres of the sunflowers are planted each year, compared with 75 million acres of soybeans. As a result, the sunflower oil can cost 20 percent to 25 percent more, said Larry Kleingartner, executive director of the National Sunflower Association.
    Finding a way to have businesses change the oil they use is even more problematic for the fast-food industry, which uses partially hydrogenated oil in deep-fat fryers and on griddles. Some chains, such as Legal Seafood and Ruby Tuesday, replaced their oil with healthier versions, but they are the exceptions. Restaurants face no government labeling requirement.
    McDonald’s replaced beef tallow with partially hydrogenated soybean oil in 1990. In September 2002, the company vowed it would use more-healthful oil in its 13,000 U.S. stores by February 2003. Two years later, it is still serving up 6 grams of trans fat in a large order of fries.
    Giant food companies face the problem of supply and demand. There is not enough reasonably priced replacement oil that is capable of retaining the signature flavor of a McDonald’s fry, said John Jansen, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Bunge, the world’s largest processor of oilseeds such as soybean and canola.
    Until large users such as Mc-Donald’s commit themselves to the oil, oilseed growers will not produce more.
    The strongest argument against trans fat is its role in heart disease. Like lard, beef fat or butter, trans fat increases low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol. But it also decreases HDL, the good cholesterol that helps clean arteries, several studies have shown.
    Food companies argue that completely eliminating trans fat might be impossible, given that consumers don’t want the taste of favorite foods to change. That is why a coalition of edible-oil producers and food manufacturers persuaded the federal government to soften its stance on consumption of trans fat in the dietary guidelines released in January.
    The original warning that consumption of trans fat should be "limited to less than 1 percent of total calories" was replaced with the phrase "keep trans fatty acid consumption as low as possible."

MOST PEOPLE CAN DO MORE TO CONTROL RISK OF HEART DISEASE

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Vicki Cheng

RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER

RALEIGH, N.C. — Last year, it occurred to Marvin Malecha, dean of North Carolina State’s College of Design, that maybe he should see a doctor.
    Weeks of travel had left him feeling worn down. He would break into a sweat just trying to get to his airport gate. He thinks a screening and sonogram were the first steps to saving his life.
    Testing showed one of his main arteries was 95 percent blocked. One heart chamber was significantly enlarged; another had shrunk. The signs indicated that he might have had a heart attack already.
    Doctors used a stent to help keep his arteries clear. After cardiac rehab and losing 50 pounds, Malecha, 55, said he is like a new man.
    Cardiovascular disease remains the No. 1 killer of Americans — a distinction the disease has held almost every year since 1900, according to the American Heart Association. It kills 2,600 Americans a day.
    New diagnostic tools and high-tech tests can be helpful when trying to catch heart disease. There will be many heart screenings this month. Since 1964, February has been declared American Heart Month to draw attention to heart-disease prevention.
    Duke University doctors say that some of the best tests for whether you’re at risk for heart disease don’t require a trip to the doctor.
    Keeping track of how much exercise you do and measuring your waist circumference are just as important as getting your blood pressure and cholesterol checked regularly, said Dr. Bill Krauss, who specializes in preventive cardiology at Duke.
    If you don’t exercise roughly 30 minutes a day, five or six days a week, consider yourself at twice the risk of developing cardiovascular disease as someone who does, he said.
    And waist circumference is a good indicator of metabolic syndrome — a combination of high blood pressure, diabetes or prediabetes, high triglycerides and low HDL or "good" cholesterol.
    A healthy waist circumference for men is less than 40 inches, measured at the bellybutton, Krauss said. For women, it’s less than 35.5 inches.
    Krauss says the secret to warding off heart disease is simple: "Reduce quantity of food and get more exercise."
    One of two people will die of heart disease, said Dr. Pamela Douglas, chief of cardiology at Duke. The best protection is education.
    By following standard recommendations, risk can be cut by 85 percent.
    "You can stop smoking," she said. "You can cure obesity. You can cure a bad diet. You can cure a sedentary lifestyle."

CHAMPIONSHIP HOPES

YOUTHS - AND PARENTS - GOING FOR GOLD TURN TO PRIVATE COACHES

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Wanda J . Demarzo

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

MIAMI — Latoya Parkinson works with a private coach five times a week for two hours a day to increase her speed and agility on the track.
    She works with a personal trainer to strengthen her muscles — three days on, one day off, three days on.
    In between, the high school sophomore squeezes in three hours of homework a night. She tries to stay ahead of her honors classes in Spanish, algebra and American literature.
    Latoya, 15, is used to the demanding schedule — she has been training with a private coach since sixth grade. She added the personal trainer this year.
    Her goal: Make the 2008 U.S. Olympics team, following in the same path as fellow St. Thomas Aquinas High School graduate Sanya Richards, who received a full scholarship to the University of Texas and won a gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
    Latoya’s quest for glory is being played out by children nationwide. Parents — dazzled by visions of university scholarships, Olympic gold and multimillion-dollar contracts in the pros — are hiring personal coaches and trainers for their children soon after elementary school.
    "We’re starting to hear about middle school students using private coaches," said Jon Segal, editor in chief of the Boston-based School Sports Magazine. "There’s an amazing push for kids at a young age to start trying to get to the pros."
    But turning kids’ sports into an obsession can lead to burnout, said Len Zaichkowsky, head of sports psychology at Boston University and a consultant for the Boston Celtics and the Calgary Flames.
    "Adults shouldn’t force the issue, and they should make sure they’re not living their lives through their children’s," Zaichkowsky said. "When kids start specializing at a young age, it takes the joy out of playing."
    Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped the boom in private coaching, training and sports instruction. It’s a $4 billion-a year industry, the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute estimates.
    Felix Castillo, a seventh-grader at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in West Miami, has had a catching coach for about a year. He is 12, played on Belen’s sixth-grade baseball team and plays on a baseball travel team.
    His coach, George Fabergas, played pro baseball and coaches a dozen or more kids.
    "My son wants to continue to improve his game," said his mother, Martha Castill. "This is about making your child the best they can be so they can make that school team and later get that scholarship, or even the Olympics."
    For many, the gold ring is acquiring an agent and eventually a pro contract.
    "The world of pro sports is only getting more lucrative and high profile," Segal said, "and an increasing number of parents and kids who want to reach the pros will see others hiring private coaches . . . and realize that to remain competitive they must follow suit."
    It’s not cheap.
    The cost of a personal trainer or coach can range from $100 to $3,000 a month — and doesn’t include sports gear, special diets or physical therapy.
    Debbie and David Faber’s daughter, Jessie, a junior at Stoneman Douglas High School, has had a private tennis coach for more than two years. "It definitely helps," Debbie Faber said. "She is now ranked 29 th in the state." Jessie, 16, has already been approached by two colleges. Some of the students say it’s not about turning pro but about playing to win in a sport they like. Amanda, 18, and Emily Tramont, 15, students at Gulliver Preparatory School, thrive on competition. The sisters have played tennis for nearly a dozen years; they’ve had private lessons and coaches for the past decade.
    "For us, it’s not about going professional or a college scholarship," Amanda Tramont said. "It’s about winning."
    Latoya’s father, Keith Parkinson, said the years of training and coaching are in his daughter’s interest. "If a parent recognizes that his child has a talent, it is up to the parent to help that child reach her full potential," he said.
    "Once in a while, my daughter complains that she doesn’t get to have fun. But she knows what she must do, and we raised her with discipline."
    Latoya acknowledges that her schedule keeps her occupied most of the week but said she finds time for fun with her friends on Saturdays.
    To her and the others, working with a private trainer is essential.
    "It makes you a better athlete," said Shantia Moss, a former Pompano Beach High track star. "Most of our high school coaches don’t know that much about the sports we’re competing in."
    But most young athletes won’t ever see the pros or win a scholarship.
    Out of the 40 million youngsters playing youth sports, about 70 percent stop playing by 13. Playing sports is no longer fun for them, said Peter Roby, director of Boston’s Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society.
    "They’re sometimes playing to serve the ego and imagination of the adult," Roby said. "And for that one Venus Williams, there’s going to be 1,000 that aren’t."

NEW US GUIDELINES FOCUS ON LOSING WEIGHT

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Marian Burros

THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — The federal government issued new dietary guidelines for Americans yesterday, and for the first time since the recommendations were introduced in 1980, they emphasize weight loss instead of healthful eating and cardiovascular health.
    The guidelines, which follow several years of reports that Americans are fatter than ever, recommend eating many more fruits and vegetables, more low-fat milk and more whole grains, and increasing exercise to as much as an hour and a half a day.
    In announcing the guidelines, Ann M. Veneman, the agriculture secretary, and Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, sounded more like diet gurus than cabinet members. Veneman noted that Americans spend $42 billion a year on diet and health books, indicating the nation’s desire to slim down. Thompson characterized the guidelines as the government’s version of a diet book.
    Even critics of government nutrition policies applauded many of the changes, including recommendations that Americans eat less added sugar and fewer trans fats. But some said they were disappointed that no limits were set for the amount of those substances people should eat.
    For example, the guidelines recommend that consumers limit trans fat — the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that have been found to be worse for the body than even saturated fat. But although the advisory committee report that was the basis for the guidelines capped intake of trans fat at 1 percent of total calories, that limit was not included in the recommendations.
    That was a victory for food manufacturers who rely on hydrogenated oils for a variety of processed foods, and who lobbied against the numeric limit. While many companies are eliminating trans fats from their products, the Agriculture Department estimates that they are in 40 percent of processed foods.
    Dr. Kelly Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, and a prominent food industry critic, said that overall, he was pleased: "These guidelines are a clear step ahead of where previous ones were. The issues on weight control are more specific than in the past, specifically with exercise and the suggestions on limiting added sugars and caloric sweeteners and things like soft drinks."
    Among the changes in the guidelines is a call for whole grains to make up half the grains in people's diets, at least three ounces every day. The daily servings of fruits and vegetables rose to nine, from five. The guidelines recommend three cups of low-fat or fat-free dairy products a day, up from two cups.
    Previously, the government had recommended a half hour of exercise a day. The new guidelines say that is a minimum and that 60 minutes a day are needed to keep from gaining weight and 90 minutes are needed to lose weight.

BEEF INCREASES CANCER RISK, STUDY FINDS

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Misti Crane

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

   Lose the T-bone.
    Keep the veggies, but don’t expect miracles.
    New research in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association further illuminates how what we put in our mouths translates into cancer prevention, or doesn’t.
    An American Cancer Society study of more than 148,600 men and women further links meat consumption and elevated colorectal cancer risk. Those who continually ate the most beef and processed meats had a 50 percent higher risk of cancer in the lower colon and a 43 percent higher risk of rectal cancer.
    Researchers defined high meat consumption as at least 3 ounces per day for men and 2 ounces per day for women.
    Those who eat large amounts of red meat and processed meat "should cut back and choose lean cuts and smaller portions," said Marji McCullough, senior epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.
    Processed meats include bacon, sausage, hot dogs and lunch meat.
    More than 20 studies have looked at the relationship between meat and colon cancer, but this one was important because of its size and because it looked at eating patterns over time, McCullough said.
    Another large European study of cancer and nutrition has found that high fruit and vegetable consumption provides no protection against breast cancer.
    Despite repeated recommendations that women eat fruits and vegetables to ward off breast cancer, the researchers found no evidence to support that connection.
    Neither study looked at the effect of diet during childhood, which was the most significant limitation of both of them, Dr. Walter C. Willett of Harvard wrote in an editorial that accompanies the research.
    While the breast cancer study is somewhat disheartening, it shouldn’t be construed as an excuse for women to dump a healthy lifestyle, experts said.
    "It does alarm me that people are just going to see this one study and say, ‘To heck with the fruits and vegetables,’ " said Nicole Wimsatt, a cancer services dietician for Mount Carmel.
    A plant-based diet low in fat and sodium with moderate (if any) alcohol consumption and no tobacco use continues to be the best recommendation for anyone looking to prevent an array of diseases, including various forms of cancer, she said.
    Various studies have linked diets high in fruits and vegetables to the reduction in risk for several cancers, including colon, stomach and lung, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research.
    Everyone should strive for five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily, Wimsatt said.
    "Eating fruits and vegetables makes sense. You can’t just do something just to prevent breast cancer, but you have to do something for your overall health," said Electra Paskett, an epidemiologist and breast cancer researcher at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.
    While pointing out that the links between diet and the risk of cancer need more investigation, Willett encouraged continuing efforts to promote dietary improvements, both for heart health and cancer prevention.
    "Fortunately, substituting pistachio-encrusted salmon and gingered brown basmati pilaf for roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy is not a culinary sacrifice," Willett wrote.

DUBLIN ASKED TO RECONSIDER ITS SCHOOL-LUNCH OFFERINGS