Developing world has less than 5% chance of meeting UN child hunger target, study estimates

ScienceDaily (July 5, 2012) — Insufficient progress has been made in most developing countries to meet the United Nations' target of halving the proportion of children who suffer from hunger by 2015 compared with 1990 levels, according to a systematic analysis of data on children's height and weight, published July 5 in the Lancet. Although the nutritional status of children under five has improved overall since 1985, one in five infants and children in developing countries is still moderately or severely underweight, amounting to an estimated 110 million children worldwide. Another 148 million are mildly underweight.

See Also:Health & MedicineChildren's HealthDiet and Weight LossInfant's HealthScience & SocietyPublic HealthWorld DevelopmentEducational PolicyReferenceBody mass indexMicronutrientMalnutritionOverweight

The UN set the target as part of its Millennium Development Goals. This new analysis, led by Professor Majid Ezzati from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, estimates that while 61 out of the 141 developing countries studied are likely to meet this target, the developing world as a whole has less than a 5% chance of succeeding. Progress has been uneven between regions, with Asia and Latin America making the strongest improvements and sub-Saharan Africa falling behind.

Because nutrition has a strong effect on children's growth, nutritional status in children can be assessed using scores based on their height and weight relative to their age, called height-for-age and weight-for-age Z scores (HAZ and WAZ).

Researchers from Imperial College London, the World Health Organisation and universities in the US compiled HAZ and WAZ data from national surveys and other sources, and used statistical methods to estimate average Z scores and the prevalence of undernutrition (defined as insufficient food intake and absorption) for entire countries.

The results show that:

• The proportion of children classed as moderately to severely underweight fell from 30.1% to 19.4% between 1985 and 2011 in the countries studied. The prevalence of moderate to severe stunting (insufficient growth in height for their age) declined from 47.2% to 29.9%.

• South Asia, the region with the worst nutritional status in 1985, has improved considerably, but undernutrition is still a major issue. About one half of the world's underweight children live in South Asia, mostly in India.

• Undernutrition worsened in sub-Saharan Africa from 1985 until the late 1990s, when height and weight scores began to improve. The deterioration may have been due to economic shocks, structural adjustment, and trade policy reforms in the region in the 1980s and 1990s.

• In Ivory Coast and Niger, nutritional status was measurably worse in 2011 than it had been in 1985.

• Height and weight scores improved in all other regions, with the largest improvements in South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and Southern and Tropical Latin America. The biggest improvement in children's height occurred in China and Vietnam.

• Some countries in Latin America, such as Chile, now have almost no undernutrition. The proportion of underweight children almost halved per decade in Brazil.

• As of 2011, about half of children in Burundi, Yemen, Timor-Leste, Niger and Afghanistan are moderately or severely stunted. More than one third of children in Timor-Leste, Bangladesh, Niger, India and Nepal are moderately or severely underweight.

This new study includes estimates of all levels of malnutrition, unlike previous analyses, which excluded children who were mildly malnourished. The statistics suggest that in most countries, the improvements are due to population-wide improvements in nutrition, rather than interventions targeting high-risk children.

Professor Majid Ezzati said: "Our analysis shows that the developing world as a whole has made considerable progress towards reducing child malnutrition, but there are still far too many children who don't receive sufficient nutritious foods or who lose nutrients due to repeated sickness. Severe challenges lie ahead.

"There is evidence that child nutrition is best improved through equitable economic growth, investment in policies that help smallholder farmers and increase agricultural productivity, and primary care and food programmes targeted at the poor. We mustn't allow the global economic crisis and rising food prices to cause inequalities to increase, or cut back on investments in nutrition and healthcare."

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Keeping the flu away: Synthetic protein activates immune system within two hours

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2012) — San Diego State University researchers at the Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center may have found the secret to helping the immune system fight off the flu before it gets you sick.

See Also:Health & MedicineInfluenzaCold and FluBird FluPlants & AnimalsBird Flu ResearchVirologyMiceLiving WellReferenceFlu vaccineAntiviral drugPathogenHPV vaccine

A new study published July 6 in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, finds that EP67, a powerful synthetic protein, is able to activate the innate immune system within just two hours of being administered.

Prior to this study, EP67 had been primarily used as an adjuvant for vaccines, something added to the vaccine to help activate the immune response. But Joy Phillips, Ph.D. a lead author of the study with her colleague Sam Sanderson, Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, saw potential for it to work on its own.

"The flu virus is very sneaky and actively keeps the immune system from detecting it for a few days until you are getting symptoms," Phillips said. "Our research showed that by introducing EP67 into the body within 24 hours of exposure to the flu virus caused the immune system to react almost immediately to the threat, well before your body normally would."

Because EP67 doesn't work on the virus but on the immune system itself, it functions the same no matter the flu strain, unlike the influenza vaccine which has to exactly match the currently circulating strain.

Phillips said while this study focuses on the flu, EP67 has the potential to work on other respiratory diseases and fungal infections and could have huge potential for emergency therapeutics.

"When you find out you've been exposed to the flu, the only treatments available now target the virus directly but they are not reliable and often the virus develops a resistance against them," Phillips said. "EP67 could potentially be a therapeutic that someone would take when they know they've been exposed that would help the body fight off the virus before you get sick."

It could even be used in the event of a new strain of infectious disease, before the actual pathogen has been identified, as in SARS or the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak, Phillips said.

Right now, the testing has been done primarily in mice by infecting them with a flu virus. Those that were given a dose of EP67 within 24 hours of the infection didn't get sick (or as sick) as those that were not treated with EP67.

The level of illness in mice is measured by weight loss. Typically, mice lose approximately 20 percent of their weight when they are infected with the flu but mice treated with EP67 lost an average of just six percent. More importantly, mice who were treated a day after being infected with a lethal dose of influenza did not die, Phillips said.

She said there are also huge implications for veterinary applications, since EP67 is active in animals, including birds.

Future research will examine the effect EP67 has in the presence of a number of other pathogens and to look closer at exactly how EP67 functions within different cells in the body.

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Above-normal weight alone does not necessarily increase short-term risk of death, U.S. data suggest

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2012) — An evaluation of national data by UC Davis researchers has found that extra weight is not necessarily linked with a higher risk of death.

See Also:Health & MedicineObesityDiet and Weight LossFitnessDiseases and ConditionsHypertensionChronic IllnessLiving WellReferenceOverweightDiabetes mellitus type 2Body mass indexHypertension

When compared to those with normal weight, people who were overweight or obese had no increased risk of death during a follow-up period of six years. People who were severely obese did have a higher risk, but only if they also had diabetes or hypertension.

The findings, which appear in the July-August issue of The Journal of American Board of Family Medicine, call into question previous studies -- using data collected when obesity was less common -- linking higher short-term mortality with any amount of extra weight.

"There is currently a widespread belief that any degree of overweight or obesity increases the risk of death, however our findings suggest this may not be the case," said Anthony Jerant, professor of family and community medicine and lead author of the study. "In the six-year timeframe of our evaluation, we found that only severe obesity was associated with an increased risk of death, due to co-occurring diabetes and hypertension."

Based on the study, Jerant recommends that doctors' conversations with patients who are overweight or obese, but not severely obese, focus on the known negative effects of these conditions on mental and physical functioning, rather than on an increased short-term risk of death.

By contrast, Jerant added that it is important for doctors to talk with severely obese patients who also have diabetes or hypertension about their increased short-term mortality risk and treatment, including weight loss.

"Our results do not mean that being overweight or obese is not a threat to individual or public health," said Jerant. "These conditions can have a significant impact on quality of life, and for this reason alone weight loss may be advisable."

In conducting the study, Jerant used nationwide data from 2000 to 2005 of nearly 51,000 adults aged 18 to 90 years who participated in the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys on health-care utilization and costs. The surveys include information on health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

Body mass index (BMI), or weight adjusted for height, was calculated for each respondent. The study categorized people as underweight (BMI < 20), normal weight (BMI 20 to < 25), overweight (BMI 25 to < 30), obese (BMI 30 to 35) or severely obese (BMI > 35).

Mortality was assessed using the National Death Index. Of the 50,994 people included in the UC Davis analysis, just over 3 percent (1,683) died during the six years of follow-up.

The investigators found that severely obese people were 1.26 times more likely to die during follow-up than people in the normal weight group. However, if people with diabetes or hypertension were eliminated from the data, those who were overweight, obese or even severely obese had similar or even lower death rates than people of normal weight. Consistent with a number of prior studies, underweight people were nearly twice as likely to die than people with normal weight, regardless of whether diabetes or hypertension was present.

The prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased dramatically in recent decades. An estimated one-third of all U.S. adults over age 20 are obese and another one-third are overweight. In addition to diabetes and hypertension, health problems associated with these conditions include heart disease, osteoarthritis and sleep apnea.

The relationship between weight and mortality is a controversial topic in public health. Although studies based on data collected 30 years ago showed that mortality risk rose as weight increased, analyses of more recently collected data, including the current one, call this assumption into question.

"Our findings indicate that the risk of having an above-normal BMI may be lower than in the past," said Jerant. "While this study cannot explain the reasons, it is possible that as overweight and obesity have become more common, physicians have become more aware of associated health issues like high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, and are more aggressive about early detection and treatment of these conditions."

Jerant said that the six-year period of his investigation limits the ability to make assumptions about the link between unhealthy weight and the risk of death over a longer timeframe.

"We hope our findings will trigger studies that re-examine the relationship of being overweight or obese with long-term mortality," said Jerant.

The study co-author was Peter Franks, professor in the UC Davis Department of Family and Community Medicine. Franks and Jerant used public access data in conducting the study, which involved no external funding.

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Record number of Africans get AIDS drugs: UNAIDS

"A nurse at an anti-retroviral clinic gives medicines to a patient in the town of Winterton, South Africa, 2008. A record number of Africans now have access to drugs to control the HIV virus, but the continent must work harder to strengthen the lifeline, the head of UNAIDS says. (AFP Photo/Alexander Joe)" title

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New optimism about stemming spread of AIDS virus

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Dogs May Mourn as Deeply as Humans Do

HealthDay – Fri, Jul 6, 2012 FRIDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Jon Tumilson's dog, Hawkeye, was an important part of his life.

And, as it turns out, Tumilson was an important part of Hawkeye's life.

After the Navy SEAL was killed in Afghanistan last summer, more than a thousand friends and family attended the funeral in Rockford, Iowa, including his "son" Hawkeye, a black Labrador retriever who, with a heavy sigh, lay down in front of Tumilson's flag-draped casket. There, the loyal dog stayed for the entire service.

Hawkeye's reaction to his owner's death generated a lot of buzz online and in the media. But it's not unusual, according to pet experts, for some dogs to mourn the loss of a favorite person or animal housemate.

Grief is one of the basic emotions dogs experience, just like people, said Dr. Sophia Yin, a San Francisco-based veterinarian and applied animal behaviorist. Dogs also feel fear, happiness, sadness, anger, as well as possessiveness.

Dogs who mourn may show similar signs to when they're separated for long periods of time from the individual they're bonded to, she said. Of those signs, depression is the most common, in which dogs usually sleep more than normal, move slower, eat less and don't play as much.

The beginnings of such a strong inter-species bond between humans and dogs dates back some 15,000 years, when early man and the ancestor of today's dog roamed the Earth together.

Today, after thousands of years of friendship, there's a great deal of attunement between humans and dogs, not only in terms of comprehension of each other's gestures and body language but also emotionally, said Barbara King, a professor of anthropology at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

It's not just evolutionary logic, or reading peer-reviewed science literature that's convinced King that dogs (as well as cats) feel deep grief. Interviews with astute pet owners for her upcoming book, How Animals Grieve, and the power of observation, has also led her to this conclusion.

Case in point: a grainy video posted on YouTube that captured the image of a scruffy terrier running onto a busy highway in Chile to rescue another dog, hit moments earlier, by a car. As vehicles whiz by the terrier, he instinctively wraps his paws around the injured dog, dragging him off the road to safety.

"When you look at that sort of example, again, you see that these dogs are thinking and feeling creatures, and that sets the stage for grief," she said.

Through her research, King has found that in households with two dogs who've lived together for a number of years, some owners report that when one dog dies, the other gets depressed. Skeptics might point to a change in daily routine as the cause of depression or, perhaps, because the owner is upset and grieving. But King feels differently.

"The surviving dog is searching around the house for a lost companion -- looking in favorite places, going to places that they spent with their friend, very pointed actions that tell you the dog is missing his friend," she said.

In an effort to understand what dogs are thinking, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta are conducting brain scans of dogs using functional MRI (fMRI).

Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy and lead researcher on the project, hopes their work will reveal secrets of the dog-human relationship, from the dog's perspective.

Even with high-tech tools, though, determining whether canines experience grief would be tough, he admitted, because he believes it's unknown how grief looks in the human brain. If it were known, however, Berns said researchers could then look for this emotion in the dog but it would require showing pictures, perhaps movies, of the deceased human or canine.

"It would be fascinating to figure out," said Berns, who normally uses fMRI technology to study how the human mind works. "If I were to speculate, I would guess that, like people, some dogs mourn and others don't."

King agrees. After all, she said, dogs possess unique personalities and react differently, even in the same situation. Whether a dog grieves hinges on a dynamic mix of life experiences, added King, including how they were raised and what their people or animal housemates were like.

If a pet mopes around the house after the death of a canine or human companion, Yin suggests the best thing owners can do is to get their dog's mind off the loss by engaging their pet in fun activities such as a game of fetch, brisk walks and play dates with other pets. "The activity depends on what the dog historically likes," she said.

Don't expect a quick fix. It may take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, pet experts believe, before a dog's spirits begin to lift.

More information

For more on canine behavior, visit the American Veterinary Medical Association.

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Report Calls for Counseling Guidelines for Treating Transgender People

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Parenthood Seems to Protect Against Catching Colds: Study

HealthDay – Fri, Jul 6, 2012 FRIDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Parents are about half as likely to catch a cold as people without children, regardless of their preexisting immunity, a new study says.

The researchers said that unknown "psychological or behavioral differences between parents and nonparents" might help explain their findings.

"We found parenthood predicted a decreased probability of colds among healthy individuals exposed to a cold virus," study leader Rodlescia Sneed of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and co-authors reported.

For the study, the researchers examined information on 795 adults from three previous studies. Volunteers in the studies were given nose drops either containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold, or a flu virus.

After being exposed to the virus, about one-third of participants developed a cold. The study found, however, that there was a 52 percent lower rate of colds among parents compared to volunteers who didn't have any children.

This protective effect increased along with the number of children parents had. And when parents didn't live with any of their children, their risk of having a common cold dropped even more -- to 73 percent lower than nonparents.

The study is published in the July issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

Parents were less likely to catch a cold regardless of whether they had protective levels of antibodies, the study authors noted in a journal news release. Being married had no effect on the findings. However, the risk of colds was not lower for the youngest parents studied, those aged 18 to 23.

Psychological or behavioral factors could play a role in their findings, the investigators said.

The researchers also suggested that being a parent may improve the regulation of immune factors that are triggered in response to infection. More research is needed, they said, to explain how being a parent affects the body's response to the common cold.

"Our results, while provocative, have left room for future studies to pursue how various aspects of parenthood (

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Meditation Method a Matter of Taste

HealthDay – Fri, Jul 6, 2012 FRIDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- People who want to learn to meditate should select a method that makes them feel comfortable, rather than choose a technique just because it's popular, a new study indicates.

Researchers from San Francisco State University report that by finding a form of meditation that works for them, people are less likely to quit. As a result, they will enjoy the personal and medical benefits of the practice, including reduced stress, lower blood pressure and help with addiction.

"Because of the increase in both general and clinical use of meditation, you want to make sure you're finding the right method," study author Adam Burke, professor of health education at San Francisco State and director of its Institute for Holistic Health Studies, said in a university news release.

In conducting the study, the researchers compared nearly 250 user opinions on four popular meditation methods: Mantra, Mindfulness, Zen and Qigong Visualization. The participants were taught each method and asked to practice at home. At the end of the study, they were asked about their preferences for each technique.

The two simpler methods, Mantra and Mindfulness, were preferred by 31 percent of the participants. Twenty-two percent chose Zen and 15 percent said they preferred Qigong.

The study authors said their findings show that people new to meditation would benefit from a simpler and more accessible practice. They noted, however, that there is not one technique that is best for everyone.

"It was interesting that Mantra and Mindfulness were found to be equally compelling by participants despite the fact that they are fundamentally different techniques," Burke said.

Mindfulness recently gained widespread popularity, and is usually the only form of meditation someone new to meditation knows about, he added.

"If someone is exposed to a particular technique through the media or a health care provider, they might assume because it's popular it's the best for everyone," Burke said. "But that's like saying because a pink dress or a blue sport coat is popular this year, it's going to look good on everybody."

The study authors said more research is needed to determine if certain meditation methods are better at helping to treat specific health issues, such as addiction. They added that more studies also are needed to explore if there are ways to predict which method of meditation a person should practice.

The study was published online July 7 in EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing.

More information

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine provides more information on meditation.

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Can Fertility Treatments Influence Later Breast Cancer Risk?

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Many Hospitalized Kids Struggle With Pain

HealthDay – Fri, Jul 6, 2012 FRIDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Many children who are hospitalized suffer from moderate to severe pain despite advances in medicine's understanding of how pain works and the best ways to treat it, a new study finds.

The research is based on medical records and, in some cases, surveys of 199 patients treated at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in 2007 and 2008. Almost nine out of every 10 children experienced pain, and it was moderate to severe for 40 percent of them. In some cases, children still had pain despite treatment.

"This study was designed as a pulse check to gauge our own progress," lead investigator Lori Kozlowksi, a pediatric pain specialist at Hopkins Children's Center, said in a Hopkins news release. "Our verdict is that while we've made tremendous strides, there's still work to be done."

According to the news release, previous research has found that people who are exposed to intense pain as children can become more sensitive to pain as adults. Pain can also lead to a variety of health problems, especially if it's not treated properly.

"Pain is the fifth vital sign which, together with blood pressure, heart rate, breathing and temperature, can provide important clues about a patient's well-being," senior investigator Dr. Constance Monitto, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said in the news release. "Treating a child in pain is a fundamental responsibility of every physician and nurse."

The researchers also found that kids who undergo surgery experience more pain than those who don't, and it's more challenging to relieve pain in cancer patients. Girls are more vulnerable than boys to pain, and many of those who were prescribed opioid painkillers "as needed" never actually got any.

The study was recently published online in the journal Pain Management Nursing.

More information

For more on pain management in children, go to Stanford School of Medicine.

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Parkinson's Patients Experience Declines Years Before Diagnosis

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