Health Tip: Bonding With Your Infant

HealthDay – 4 mins 46 secs ago (HealthDay News) -- Developing an intimate relationship with your newborn appears key to your baby's social and mental development, the Nemours Foundation says.

Bonding provides the infant with initial exposure to intimacy and helps foster the infant's self-esteem, the Foundation says.

Here are the Foundation's suggestions for new parents to promote bonding with their infants:

Provide soothing touch and skin-to-skin contact.Engage in eye-to eye contact with baby at close range.Move an object back and forth in front of baby's face.Make lots of faces and gestures for your baby to watch, learn and mimic.Talk to your baby frequently to foster a familiarity with your voice.

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Higher Doses of Vitamin D Prevent Fractures in Older Women

HealthDay – 4 mins 43 secs ago WEDNESDAY, July 4 (HealthDay News) -- In the latest study to look at the effect of vitamin D on fracture risk, Swiss researchers found that taking more than 800 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily could reduce the risk of hip fractures in older women by 30 percent.

"Vitamin D supplementation is effective in fracture reduction, including hip fractures," said study author Dr. Heike Bischoff-Ferrari, from the Center on Aging and Mobility at the University of Zurich and Wald City Hospital, also in Zurich.

"However, dose matters, as we saw this benefit only at the highest intake level of greater than 800 IU per day, and no dose below 792 IU per day reduced fracture risk," she said.

If everyone took more than 800 IU of vitamin D daily, the impact on public health could be enormous because hip fractures are the most severe and frequent fractures among the elderly, according to Bischoff-Ferrari.

Results of the study are published in the July 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Vitamin D is important for bone health, according to Dr. Anna Lasak, clinical director of the department of rehabilitation and the women's physical medicine and rehabilitation program at Montefiore Medical Center, in New York City. The body makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Sunscreen blocks this effect.

Vitamin D is also found in fatty fish, eggs and some mushrooms, she said. It's also added to dairy products, some cereals and some breads, according to Lasak. But, she said, it can be difficult, especially for elderly people, to get enough vitamin D from these sources. In addition, elderly people may have digestive issues that can cause their bodies to absorb even less vitamin D.

A number of studies have been done looking at vitamin D and bone health, and the studies have often come up with conflicting findings, with some showing benefits, while others found no benefits. In mid-June, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that postmenopausal women should not take low-dose vitamin D supplements (400 IU) because there was no evidence of benefit. The task force, however, said there wasn't yet enough clear evidence on higher doses of vitamin D to make a recommendation one way or the other.

The current study is a pooled analysis of 11 double-blind, randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation with or without calcium compared to a placebo or calcium supplementation alone.

The studies included more than 31,000 people. All of the participants in the studies were over 65, with an average age of 76. Most (91 percent) of the volunteers in the studies were women.

They found that people taking less than 800 IU daily showed no statistically significant drop in fracture risk. However, those taking over 800 IU reduced the risk of hip fracture by 30 percent and the risk of non spine-related fractures by 14 percent, according to the study.

"Our data strongly support a daily vitamin D supplement of 800 IU per day in adults age 65 and older to lower their risk of fracture, including those living at home and those living in nursing homes, including men and women, and the younger and the old," Bischoff-Ferrari said.

Lasak said 800 IU is a safe level of vitamin D intake for just about anyone. But, she said, it's better for older folks to have their vitamin D levels measured first. Some may not need additional vitamin D, but many actually need more than 800 IU a day.

"Most people do have a deficiency," she said. While 800 IU is a safe limit, that may not be enough, she said. No one should exceed levels of 4,000 IU, Lasak added. That's the upper safe limit of this nutrient.

She said it's also important to ensure that you're getting enough calcium. The recommendation is for between 1,000 and 1,200 milligrams (mg) a day, with older people needing more, she said. Lasak recommended getting the bulk of your calcium from foods, rather than a supplement, because some studies have suggested possible harm from higher levels of calcium intake from supplements.

Bischoff-Ferrari said the current analysis also suggested that higher levels of calcium supplementation (more than 1,000 mg) may reduce vitamin D's benefit.

More information

Learn more about vitamin D and bone health from the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

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Health Tip: Encouraging a Picky Eater

HealthDay – 4 mins 42 secs ago (HealthDay News) -- If your child is a picky eater, there's a good chance that it's an early attempt to exercise control, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says.

Here's how you can placate your picky eater while getting him or her to munch on more nutritious offerings:

Serve at least one food that you know that your child loves, but offer it along with other foods that other family members enjoy.Help your child feel more in control by offering two or three choices. Avoid offering too many choices, which can be overwhelming.Let kids participate in preparing, planning, shopping for and cooking meals.Make sure you eat the foods that you're encouraging your child to eat.

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Single-Embryo IVF Cuts Risk to Baby: Study

HealthDay – 4 mins 39 secs ago WEDNESDAY, July 4 (HealthDay News) -- Transplanting just one embryo during assisted reproduction treatments reduces the risk of preventable infant deaths that occur just before or shortly after birth, which is termed perinatal mortality, Australian researchers report.

"The number of embryos transferred per procedure is the major determinant of multiple pregnancy and multiple delivery, which contribute to an elevated risk of preterm birth and low birth weight, and its

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Leave 4th of July Fireworks to Professionals

HealthDay – 4 mins 38 secs ago WEDNESDAY, July 4 (HealthDay News) -- For safety's sake, Americans should avoid using fireworks of any kind this Independence Day, experts say.

Prevent Blindness America urges consumers to attend only authorized public fireworks displays conducted by licensed operators. Individuals should not buy, use or store fireworks, including sparklers, the nonprofit organization added.

Although sparklers are sometimes considered to be safe, they were responsible for 17 percent of the injuries, including 36 percent of those sustained by children under 5 years of age, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Injuries from sparklers and other novelties also made up two out of five emergency room injuries, the CPSC found.

Overall, an estimated 6,200 people went to the emergency room between June 17 and July 17, 2011, for injuries they sustained while using fireworks, according to the CPSC. Their 2011 Fireworks Annual Report noted that children younger than 15 accounted for 26 percent of those injuries.

Prevent Blindness America announced it supports bans on the importation, sale and use of all fireworks and sparklers by non-licensed operators, such as bans established in Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.

Last year alone, there were also more than 1,100 reported eye injuries, according to the CPSC report. To help Americans avoid the emergency room this July 4th, Prevent Blindness America offered the following safety tips:

If there are specks in the eye:

Do not rub the eye.Allow tears to wash out the particles or use an eye wash.Lift the upper eyelid outward and down over the lower lid.If the speck doesn't wash out, see a doctor or visit the emergency room.

If the eye or eyelid is cut or punctured:

Do not rinse the eye with water.Do not try to remove any object stuck in the eye.Cover the eye with a stiff shield, such as the bottom of a paper cup, without applying any pressure.Visit a doctor or an emergency room immediately.

"The 4th of July should be a time when we come together to honor our country by celebrating our great nation safely and responsibly," Hugh Parry, president and CEO of Prevent Blindness America, said in an organization news release. "We hope all Americans have a wonderful holiday with their loved ones, not in the emergency room."

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about eye injuries.

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Sleep apnea gets worse in the winter: study

Reuters – 3 hrs ago (Reuters) - Respiration problems in sleep apnea - which causes people to momentarily stop breathing multiple times throughout the night, for seconds to minutes at a time - appear to worsen during the colder months of the year, according to a study from Brazil.

Changes in weight and seasonal allergies can affect sleep apnea, and researchers writing in the journal Chest wanted to see if weather changes might also have an impact.

"More sleep disordered breathing events were recorded in wintertime than in other seasons," wrote study leader Cristiane Maria Cassol from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

Cassol and her team said it could be due to several causes, including winter-related upper-airway problems that intensify the severity of symptoms and the use of burning wood to heat homes during the winter.

The team utilized data from sleep clinic patients and looked at how many times their rest was disturbed by breaks in breathing. The study included one night of sleep for more than 7,500 patients over a 10-year-period.

Researchers then compared the severity of the patients' apnea to the weather conditions at the time, including humidity, temperature and air pollution.

Patients who came in during colder months had more nighttime breaks in breathing than those who sought treatment during warmer months. During the winter, patients stopped breathing an average of 18 times an hour compared to 15 times an hour during the summer.

Similarly, the sleep clinic was more likely to see the most severe cases - people who stopped breathing more than 30 times an hour - during the colder months.

About 34 percent of patients who came in during cold weather had severe apnea, compared to 28 percent of patients during warmer weather.

The team found that certain weather conditions, such as high atmospheric pressure and humidity and high levels of the air pollutant carbon monoxide - were tied to worse cases of apnea.

But the study could not determine whether it was the weather itself that was responsible for the more severe apneas.

Jerome Dempsey, who studies breathing problems at the University of Wisconsin and wasn't involved in the study, said it makes sense that airway infections and weather could have an effect on sleep apnea, but that the changes across the seasons were small.

"There are so many things that affect sleep apnea, including the decision of when to come visit" a sleep clinic, Dempsey told Reuters Health.

In other words, it might not be the weather but the time of year that makes it more convenient for patients to take the time to seek treatment.

He added that while winter-related conditions such as colds or allergies might intensify sleep apnea, the biggest risk factor is obesity. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/MqNmmE

(Reporting from New York by Kerry Grens at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies and Bob Tourtellotte)

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With CPR, two bystanders are better than one: study

Reuters – 3 hrs ago (Reuters) - When somebody suffers cardiac arrest in a public place, the odds of survival are better when more than one bystander comes to the rescue, according to a Japanese study.

But the researchers, whose report appeared in the journal Resuscitation, said that there was no survival advantage to having multiple rescuers for cardiac arrests suffered at home, which is where most take place.

"An increased number of rescuers improves the outcomes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests," wrote study leader Hideo Inaba of Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medicine.

"However, this beneficial effect is absent in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occur at home."

The American Heart Association (AHA) and other groups say that everyone should learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, which generally means "hands-only," or just chest compressions without any mouth-to-mouth breathing.

Studies have shown this is just as effective as the traditional way when it comes to helping adult cardiac arrest victims.

The Japanese study found that among more than 5,000 adults who went into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, the odds of surviving were up to two-times higher when more than one person tried to help.

Six percent of victims were alive one year later when three or more "rescuers" were there, versus 3 percent when only one person came to their aid. When two people responded, the survival rate was 4 percent.

The researchers did not know if all of those rescuers performed CPR. Some may just have tried to help in some way, the researchers noted.

Still, the findings do show that the more bystanders who jump into action, the better, said Michael Sayre, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Ohio State University in Columbus, who is also a spokesman for the AHA.

"The study confirms the importance of bystanders responding to cardiac arrest, and the importance of early CPR," he told Reuters Heatlh.

Inaba's team found no clear reason why there was no survival advantage to having multiple rescuers when a cardiac arrest occurred at home, and Sayre agreed that many factors could be at work. Among others, those who are out and about when cardiac arrest strikes may be relatively healthier.

Cardiac arrests in the elderly and frail are very likely to happen at home.

CPR alone cannot restart the heart when it stops, but it can keep the flow of blood and oxygen moving until medical help arrives. So along with performing CPR, bystanders need to immediately call for emergency help.

According to the AHA, more than 380,000 people in the United States go into cardiac arrest outside a hospital each year, but most people have either not learned CPR at all or their training has lapsed.

"Hands only" CPR is easily learned, with or without a class, Sayre said. The AHA website has a teaching video at: http://bit.ly/LhVoQl.

The basic instruction is to give strong, steady chest compressions at a rate of 100 per minute. Experts have pointed out that humming the Bee Gees' 1970s disco song "Stayin' Alive" will help rescuers find the 100-beat-per-minute rhythm.

"Learning CPR is something people often feel that they can put off," Sayre said. "But you never know when you'll be called upon to act." SOURCE: http://bit.ly/LjRENu

(Reporting from New York by Amy Norton at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies and Bob Tourtellotte)

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FDA approves first rapid, take-home HIV test

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Russia fears new epidemic of synthetic marijuana

Russia's leading anti-drug crusader says the abuse of synthetic marijuana is turning into a "horrible" epidemic in his country.

Experts say a range of hallucinogens known as "spice" are very hard to kick, and addicts lose sleep, weight and get kidney and brain disorders from them.

Evgeny Roizman, who spoke Wednesday, heads a rehabilitation clinic in the central city of Ekaterinburg.

Concerned about the spread of "spice," Russian drug enforcement agencies have banned several of its chemical ingredients. But producers can easily change the chemical makeup to come up with new brands, which are advertised online and widely sold across Russia.

Components of "spice" have been banned in several European nations and in parts of the United States.

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UN limits melamine in formula after China scandal

A U.N. commission has set a recommended limit on the amount of melamine allowed in liquid infant formula after a 2008 scandal in China in which six babies died from drinking formula and milk products containing the industrial chemical.

Two years ago, the U.N. food security body known as the Codex Alimentarius Commission set the maximum limit of melamine in powdered infant formula at 1 milligram per kilogram of formula. On Wednesday, the commission said it had adopted a limit for liquid formula at 0.15 milligrams/kilogram.

The recommendations are not binding. The commission, which is jointly run by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, is made up of 184 government representatives plus the European Commission.

Melamine is used to make dishes and kitchenware, and trace amounts can sometimes get into food from packaging. In China, melamine was being added to watered-down milk to elevate protein levels. In addition to the six deaths, some 300,000 babies became sick after consuming the tainted formula and milk.

The U.N. commission also made recommendations to limit the spread of salmonella and listeria in pre-packaged melon slices. Codex said the exposed pulp from the fruit can become a breeding ground for bacteria and that the risk was increasing since melon is increasingly being sold in easy-to-eat slices. It recommended that melon be wrapped quickly and refrigerated at 4 degrees Centigrade (39.2 Fahrenheit) or less.

And Codex issued a warning about dried figs: the fruit can host carcinogenic aflaxotoxins, which are produced by mold, if not stored properly. The commission agreed to limit the amount of aflaxotoxins in dried figs at 10 micrograms/kilogram.

The commission, which wraps up its meeting Saturday, is expected to make recommendations on a big issue in livestock circles: the use of growth-promoting veterinary drugs. The commission plans to set maximum residue limits for these drugs, though its members are deeply divided on the issue.

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US approves over-the-counter HIV home testing kit

"A sign for free HIV testing is seen outside a Walgreens pharmacy in Times Square in June 2012. The United States announced Tuesday that it had authorized the first over-the-counter home testing kit for HIV, the virus that leads to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). (AFP Photo/Mario Tama)" title

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Pakistan, Afghanistan report rise in polio: study

"A Pakistani child, Jamshid, 8, who suffers from polio, sits outside his house on the outskirts of Islamabad in 2011. Conflict in Afghanistan and vaccination problems in Pakistan have led to a rise in polio cases there, imperilling efforts to wipe out the disease worldwide, a study said Wednesday" title

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