Less than half of all Americans got a flu shot last year, so U.S. health officials on Thursday urged that everyone 6 months and older get vaccinated for the coming flu season. “It’s really unfortunate that half of Americans are not getting the protection from flu they could get,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a morning news conference.

The result is lost days from work and school and a lot of preventable suffering, hospitalizations and deaths, he said. Just one-third of adults 18 to 64 — the age group hit especially hard last flu season — were vaccinated against flu last year, according to new CDC figures.

Also, more than 100 children died from flu-related complications last year, Frieden noted. “Many of those deaths might have been prevented if children had gotten a flu vaccination,” he said. Ninety percent of the children who died were unvaccinated, he added. Dr. Paul Offit, a professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said during the press briefing that every year children die in his hospital from flu. “Parents’ reaction is invariably the same,” he said. “They can’t believe this happened to them.”

Most of these parents didn’t want their child vaccinated because they didn’t consider flu serious or they thought the vaccine wasn’t safe, Offit said. “The riskiest aspect of getting vaccines is driving to the office to get them,” Offit said. While just 46 percent of Americans overall were vaccinated against flu last year, children fared better than adults — with 59 percent of kids immunized compared to 42 percent of adults, the CDC said.

Coverage was highest among children younger than 5 years and adults 65 and older, according to the CDC’s Sept. 19 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. This year the CDC recommends the flu nasal spray vaccine for children 2 to 8 years old, Frieden said. But if the nasal spray isn’t available immediately, these kids should get the shot, he said.

There is some encouraging news in the new report, the nation’s health experts said. Slightly more than half of pregnant women got flu shots in recent years. “It’s important because pregnant women are most susceptible to severe complications from flu,” Frieden said.

Dr. Laura Riley, director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said at the news conference that the flu vaccine is safe during pregnancy. “It protects the mother from severe illness and it protects the baby from infection in the first six months of life before the baby can be vaccinated,” Riley said. Among health care workers, vaccination rates are rising, Frieden said. Overall, 75 percent of health care workers were vaccinated last flu season.

Vaccination coverage was highest among doctors and nurses, at 90 percent. “Influenza is constantly evolving, and it’s unpredictable,” said Dr. William Schaffner, past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, during the press conference. “That is why everyone 6 months and older should get a flu shot every year,” he said. “What is it about ‘everyone’ that we don’t understand?” Schaffner asked. Flu activity in the United States tends to pick up in October and usually peaks between January and March, according to the CDC.

Frieden said about 150 million doses of flu vaccine should be available for the U.S. market this year. This is up somewhat from last flu season.

Source: webmd

The number of cases and the numbers of deaths in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa already exceed the totals for all previous outbreaks combined. The first known Ebola outbreaks took place in 1976.

The current outbreak, thought to have started in December, 2013, “is an exponential crisis that demands an exceptional global response,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told a Sept. 16 news conference.

“Liberia remains the country worst affected by the epidemic,” according to the Sept. 18 WHO situation report

A separate outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of Congo in August, 2014.

Here are some figures from the Sept. 18 report, which the WHO says may be underestimates.

Number of countries with cases: 5 (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal)

Number of cases as of Sept. 14: 5,357

Number of deaths as of Sept. 14: 2,630

Number of deaths as a share of the number of total cases, West Africa: 49 per cent

Percentage of cases that were reported in the previous 21 days: 45 (That number clearly indicates the disease had been spreading rapidly, according to WHO.)

Number of new cases, Sept. 7-14: 967

Number of deaths, Sept. 7-14: 404

The disease is spreading most rapidly in Liberia, “driven by a surge of cases in the capital, Monrovia,” the WHO says. In both the previous two weeks, more than 200 new cases were reported in Monrovia, more than half the new cases reported in Liberia

On a positive note, six districts in Guinea, one in Sierra Leone, and two in Liberia reported no new cases during the 21 days ending Sept. 14. However, one area in Liberia and one in Guinea that had been Ebola-free reported their first cases during the week ending Sept. 14.
Ebola takes down health-care workers

Number of cases involving health-care workers in West Africa, as of Sept. 14: 318

Number of deaths. among those cases: 151 (47 per cent)

Number of doctors and nurses needed for a 70- to 80-bed Ebola treatment centre: 200

Number of beds available to treat an Ebola patient anywhere in Liberia: 0 (The humanitarian response to the epidemic is running short on almost everything from body bags to mobile laboratories.)

Percentage of health-care workers that the WHO wants to be from foreign countries: 20

Number of health care workers China has sent to Sierra Leone for Ebola response: 115 (it is also sending a mobile lab and a staff of 59 to help test for infections).

Number of health professionals Cuba is sending to Sierra Leone for Ebola response: 165 (The Cubans are set to arrive in the first week of October and stay six months.)

Source: cbc

Sugars in the diet should make up no more than 3% of total energy intake to reduce the significant financial and social burdens of tooth decay, finds new research from UCL (University College London) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The study, published in the open-access journal BMC Public Health, analysed the effect of sugars on dental caries, also known as tooth decay. They show that sugars are the only cause of tooth decay in children and adults.

Free sugars are defined by the World Health Organisation Nutrition Guidance Adivisory Group as follows: “Free sugars include monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates.”

Tooth decay is the most common non-communicable disease in the world, affecting 60-90% of school-age children and the vast majority of adults. In the USA, 92% of adults aged 20-64 have experienced decay in at least one of their permanent teeth. The treatment of dental diseases costs 5-10% of total health expenditure in industrialised countries.

Researchers used public health records from countries across the world to compare dental health and diet over time across large populations of adults and children. They found that the incidence of tooth decay was much higher in adults than children, and increased dramatically with any sugar consumption above 0% of energy. Even in children, an increase from near-zero sugar to 5% of energy doubles the prevalence of decay and continues to rise as sugar intake increases.

Current guidelines from the World Health Organisation set a maximum of 10% of total energy intake from free sugars, with 5% as a ‘target’. This equates to around 50g of free sugars per day as the maximum, with 25g as the target. The latest research suggests that 5% should be the absolute maximum, with a target of less than 3%.

“Tooth decay is a serious problem worldwide and reducing sugars intake makes a huge difference.” says study author Aubrey Sheiham, Emeritus Professor of Dental Public Health (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health). “Data from Japan were particularly revealing, as the population had no access to sugar during or shortly after the Second World War. We found that decay was hugely reduced during this time, but then increased as they began to import sugar again.

“Similarly, only 2% of people at all ages living in Nigeria had tooth decay when their diet contained almost no sugar, around 2g per day. This is in stark contrast to the USA, where 92% of adults have experienced tooth decay.”

In order to address the issue of tooth decay, the authors recommend a series of radical policy changes to reduce sugar consumption.

“Our top priority is not to allow the idea of a magic single bullet to solve the problem to be developed,” says co-author Professor Philip James, Honorary Professor of Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and past President World Obesity Federation (formerly IASO). “A fundamental aspect of public health planning is to develop society wide measures which impact on the health of the whole community. There now needs to be an explicit revision of population dietary goals as it relates to every aspect of government policy.

“We need to make sure that use of fruit juices and the concept of sugar-containing treats for children are not only no longer promoted, but explicitly seen as unhelpful. Food provided at nurseries and schools should have a maximum of free sugars in the complete range of foods amounting to no more than 2.5% of energy.

“Vending machines offering confectionary and sugary drinks in areas controlled or supported financially by local or central government should be removed. We are not talking draconian policies to ‘ban’ such sugar-rich products, which are available elsewhere, but no publicly-supported establishment should be contributing to the expensive problems of dental caries, obesity and diabetes.

“The food industry should be told that they should progressively reformulate their products to reduce or preferably remove all the sugars from their products. New food labels should label anything above 2.5% sugars as ‘high’. Given the politics of big business, the most governments may do is to reduce the limit from 10% to 5% but our paper suggests that it should be 2.5%.

“There is a huge issue about how to curtail the flow of sugars in the food chain and divert sugar. If produced at all, it should be converted into alcohol, as in Brazil, to be used as fuel for vehicles. We need a European agreement that all sugar beet production should be phased out in the EU. This production is totally unnecessary and has always been unnecessary as the sugar cane producers of the lower income countries produce enough. As part of the US/EU trade agreement, the US should no longer be promoting the export of sugar and the US should also curtail production.

“A sugars tax should be developed to increase the cost of sugar-rich food and drinks. This would be simplest as a tax on sugar as a mass commodity, since taxing individual foods depending on their sugar content is an enormously complex administrative process. The retail price of sugary drinks and sugar rich foods needs to increase by at least 20% to have a reasonable effect on consumer demand so this means a major tax on sugars as a commodity. The level will depend on expert analyses but my guess is that a 100% tax might be required.”

Source: medical xpress

US waistlines are continuing to expand, despite obesity appearing to be reaching a plateau, data suggests.

Research suggests the average adult waist size in the US increased by more than 1in (2.5cm) between 1999 and 2012. But figures for obesity as defined by body mass index (BMI) had changed little over the same period, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Factors such as lack of sleep may be to blame for growing waistlines. The researchers, led by Dr Earl Ford, analysed national data on nutrition and health in the US from 1999-2000 to 2011-12. The study included more than 32,000 men and women over the age of 20.

The researchers found:

• Average waist circumference increased from 37.6in (95.5cm) to 38.8in (98.5cm)
  The average waist circumference for men is now 40in (101cm)
  The average waist circumference for women in now 38in (96cm)
  The average increase in men was 0.8in (2cm); in women 1.5in (3.8cm)
  Abdominal obesity (tummy fat) increased from 46.4% of the population in 1999-2000 to 54.2% in 2011-2012.
  The team compared the findings with obesity data.

The researchers found obesity calculated from body mass index (BMI) did not change significantly between 2003 and 2012. “At a time when the prevalence of obesity may have reached a plateau, the waistlines of US adults continue to expand,” the researchers told the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

“The reasons for increases in waist circumference in excess of what would be expected from changes in BMI remain speculative, but several factors, including sleep deprivation, endocrine disruptors, and certain medications, have been proposed as potential explanations.” The research backs recommendations that routine measurement of waist circumference is a key step in controlling obesity.

According to NHS Choices, the risk of some health problems is affected by where body fat is stored, as well as weight. Carrying too much fat around the middle (waist) can increase the risk of developing conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Amy Thompson, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said more people were carrying extra weight around the middle, including in the UK.

“This increases your risk of heart disease and stroke, but losing weight and reducing your waist size is doable,” she said. “Try cutting down on the calories and getting more active, but don’t try to lose weight too quickly. “Slow and steady weight loss – around 1-2lb [1kg] each week – is healthier.”

Source: bbc news

Drinking a lot of soda packed with high-fructose corn syrup is, of course, not a healthy choice—but its ill effects aren’t so hard to fight. A study’s recommendation: Walk more.

In a study out this month, a researcher had two groups of students take in 75 grams of fructose daily, corresponding to a typical American eating style.

At the same time, she called on the students to cut their intake of calories not from fructose, helping them to avoid gaining weight. Each group spent a week moving twice as much as usual, amounting to about 12,000 steps, or 6 miles, per day.

Each group also spent a week moving half as much as they usually would. The low-movement week led to a significant decrease in healthiness, including a huge boost in inflammation indicators and heightened amounts of unwanted lipoproteins.

Tests even showed traits associated with the approach of diabetes. But the week of extra activity largely washed away the negative consequences of high fructose consumption.

“I don’t want people to consider these results as a license to eat badly,” the researcher tells the Times. Instead, her message is: “If you are going to regularly consume fructose, be sure to get up and move around.”

Source: fox news