Kids' Eczema, Hay Fever Linked to Allergic Asthma Later

New research finds that adults who suffered from eczema as children especially if they also had hay fever are nine times more likely to have allergic asthma when they're in their 40s. The findings are based on about 1,400 adults who have been followed for five decades as part of Australia's Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study. The study participants were assessed in 1968, when they were 7 years old, and then again in 2004 when they were about 44 years of age.

"In this study we see that childhood eczema, particularly when hay fever also occurs, is a very strong predictor of who will suffer from allergic asthma in adult life," lead study author Pamela Martin, a University of Melbourne graduate student at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, said in a university news release. "The implications of this study are that prevention and rigorous treatment of childhood eczema and hay fever may prevent the persistence and development of asthma."

Allergic asthma is airway obstruction and inflammation that's triggered by inhaled allergens such as dust mites, pet dander, pollen and mold. According to Martin, the study is the first to examine childhood eczema and hay fever and their connection to allergic versus nonallergic asthma. The linkage between childhood illnesses and adult asthma is called the "atopic march." "If successful strategies to stop the 'atopic march' are identified, this could ultimately save lives and health care costs related to asthma management and treatment," Shyamali Dharmage, principal investigator of the Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study.

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Weight Loss Surgery May Cut Knee Osteoarthritis Pain

Losing weight can help reduce the amount of pain experienced by obese people with knee osteoarthritis, researchers say. The new study included 24 obese adults, aged 30 to 67, with knee osteoarthritis who underwent weight loss surgery. The patients' knees were assessed before surgery and at six and 12 months after surgery. Patients who lost an average of 57 pounds within six months of having bariatric surgery showed significant improvements in knee pain, stiffness and physical function, the investigators found.

These patients also experienced improvements in quality of life, the ability to perform day-to-day tasks and sports activity. None of the patients received other treatments for their knee osteoarthritis. The findings were scheduled to be presented Saturday at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day program. "Each individual had some kind of improvement in their pain from losing weight, some more than others," lead researcher Christopher Edwards, of the Penn State College of Medicine, said in a society news release.

"There are few studies that have investigated the role of isolated weight loss in the absence of additional arthritis treatment on those individuals with radiographically confirmed osteoarthritis," he added. "Further research still needs to be performed to investigate whether knee arthritis symptom improvement continues over time and applicable to those individuals who are simply overweight, but our research suggests a strong possibility of improvement."

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Brisk Walks May Boost Memory in Older Adults

Older adults who took a brisk walk three times a week did better on memory tests and increased the size of their hippocampus, a portion of the brain involved with memory formation, researchers report. The findings suggest that loss of brain volume in old age can be delayed, and may even be reversible. Brain shrinkage is associated with memory impairment in the elderly. "We can change the brain in older adults," said lead study author Kirk Erickson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

"It's amazing that a one-year period of moderate exercise isn't just slowing down the atrophy, it's actually reversing it." For their the study, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, University of Illinois, Rice University and Ohio State University divided 120 sedentary adults in their mid to late 60s, on average, into two groups: one group walked around a track for 40 minutes of aerobic exercise, three days a week, while the other group did stretching. Both groups performed better on a test of spatial memory. Spatial memory helps us to remember things like driving directions or where we left our keys.

But the groups differed in one important way. MRI brain scans showed that after a year on the exercise program, the aerobic exercise group's hippocampus was about 2 percent bigger than it was when they started, the equivalent to a reversal in age-related brain shrinkage of about one to two years, the researchers said. Those in the stretching group had a decrease of hippocampal volume of about 1.4 percent, the investigators found. Those who showed the greatest improvements in memory also showed the greatest increases in hippocampal volume, according to the study, published online Jan. 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Epilepsy Found to Be More Common in U.S. Than Thought

A new study suggests that one of every 26 people in the United States will develop epilepsy at some point in their life. That's a higher rate than previously believed and, experts say, highlights the need for more funding and attention to the condition. "This study is an important analysis of the potential number of patients of epilepsy in the United States," said Dr. Joseph I. Sirven, the chairman-elect of the Epilepsy Foundation's professional advisory board and a professor and chairman of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Sirven, who was not involved in the study, noted that it makes two important points:

* Older adults are more at risk for developing epilepsy.

* A greater number of people will develop epilepsy during their lifetime than thought.

"The study suggests up to 12 million Americans will develop epilepsy, which is a greater number than expected," Sirven said. "Moreover, this is a conservative estimate and not the worst case scenario as the lifetime risk would be higher in more urban areas. Clearly, more attention needs to be paid to this condition." The findings are published in the Jan. 4 issue of Neurology. For the study, Dale C. Hesdorffer, an associate professor of clinical epidemiology at Sergievsky Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, and her research colleagues looked for the likelihood of developing epilepsy among residents of Rochester, Minn., between 1960 and 1979.

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Gene Research Brings Insight Into Deadly Childhood Brain Tumor

U.S. scientists have unraveled the genetic code for the most common type of brain cancer in children. Gene sequencing reveals that this tumor, medulloblastoma, or MB, possesses far fewer genetic abnormalities than comparable adult tumors. The discovery that MB has five to 10 times fewer mutations than solid adult tumors could further attempts to understand what triggers the cancer and which treatment is most effective.

"The good news here is that for the first time now we've identified the broken genetic pieces in a pediatric cancer, and found that with MD there are only a few broken parts," said lead author Dr. Victor E. Velculescu, associate professor with the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "And that means it's potentially easier to intervene and to stop it," he said, likening the cancer to a train that's speeding out of control.

Velculescu and his colleagues, who report their findings in the Dec. 16 online issue of Science, say this is the first time genetic decoding has been applied to a non-adult cancer. Each year this cancer strikes about 1 in every 200,000 children younger than 15 years old. Before migrating through the patient's central nervous system, MBs begin in the cerebellum portion of the brain that is responsible for controlling balance and complicated motor function.

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Daily Aspirin Linked to Steep Drop in Cancer Risk

Long-term use of a daily low-dose aspirin dramatically cuts the risk of dying from a wide array of cancers, a new investigation reveals. Specifically, a British research team unearthed evidence that a low-dose aspirin (75 milligrams) taken daily for at least five years brings about a 10 percent to 60 percent drop in fatalities depending on the type of cancer. The finding stems from a fresh analysis of eight studies involving more than 25,500 patients, which had originally been conducted to examine the protective potential of a low-dose aspirin regimen on cardiovascular disease.

The current observations follow prior research conducted by the same study team, which reported in October that a long-term regimen of low-dose aspirin appears to shave the risk of dying from colorectal cancer by a third. "These findings provide the first proof in man that aspirin reduces deaths due to several common cancers," the study team noted in a news release. But the study's lead author, Prof. Peter Rothwell from John Radcliffe Hospital and the University of Oxford, stressed that "these results do not mean that all adults should immediately start taking aspirin."

"They do demonstrate major new benefits that have not previously been factored into guideline recommendations," he added, noting that "previous guidelines have rightly cautioned that in healthy middle-aged people, the small risk of bleeding on aspirin partly offsets the benefit from prevention of strokes and heart attacks." "But the reductions in deaths due to several common cancers will now alter this balance for many people," Rothwell suggested. Rothwell and his colleagues published their findings Dec. 7 in the online edition of The Lancet.

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'Stop Smoking' Ads That Target Emotions Seem to Work Best

Television ads that encourage people to quit smoking are most effective when they use a "why to quit" strategy that includes either graphic images or personal testimonials, a new study suggests. The three most common broad themes used in smoking cessation campaigns are why to quit, how to quit and anti-tobacco industry, according to scientists at RTI International, a research institute. The study authors examined how smokers responded to and reacted to TV ads with different themes. They also looked at the impact that certain characteristics such as cigarette consumption, desire to quit, and past quit attempts had on smokers' responses to the different types of ads.

"While there is considerable variation in the specific execution of these broad themes, ads using the 'why to quit' strategy with graphic images or personal testimonials that evoke specific emotional responses were perceived as more effective than the other ad categories," lead author Kevin Davis, a senior research health economist in RTI's Public Health Policy Research Program, said in an institute news release. Davis and his colleagues also found that those who had less desire to quit and those who had not tried quitting in the past year had significantly less favorable responses to all types of smoking cessation ads. The same was true, to a lesser extent, for smokers with high levels of cigarette consumption.

"These findings suggest that smokers clearly differ in their reactions to cessation-focused advertising based on their individual desire to quit, prior experience with quit attempts and, to a lesser degree, cigarette consumption. These are important considerations for campaign creators, designers and media planners," Davis said. The study, published online in the journal Tobacco Control, used data from 7,060 adult smokers in New York State who took part in an online survey. On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a new "comprehensive tobacco control strategy" that would include not only graphic photos on packs of cigarettes, but bold statements such as "Smoking Will Kill You."

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Number of Uninsured American Adults Hits Record High

Nearly 50 million Americans have gone without health insurance for at least part of the past year up from 46 million people in 2008, federal health officials reported Tuesday. Those people included not only those Americans living in poverty, but an increasing number of middle-income people, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The bottom line is that uninsurance of young and middle-class adults increased by 4 million people from 2008 to the first quarter of 2010," CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said during a news conference Tuesday.

What's more, the number of people without insurance for a year or more increased from 27.5 million in 2008 to 30.4 million in the first quarter of 2010, Frieden said. "That's an increase of 3 million of chronically uninsured adults." These findings debunk two myths about health insurance, Frieden said. "The first myth is that it's only the poor who are uninsured. In fact, half of the uninsured are over the poverty level," he said. "The second myth is that it's only healthy people who are uninsured and that young healthy people make a choice not to have health insurance. In fact, more than two out of five individuals who are uninsured at some point during the past year had one or more chronic diseases," he said.

During the past 10 years, the number of U.S. adults without insurance for at least part of the year has risen an average of 1.1 million people a year, and about half are middle-income adults, according to the report. People without health insurance are more likely to skip medical care because of cost. This can lead to poorer health, higher long-term health care costs and early death, the report said. Uninsured adults with chronic medical problems are three times more likely to skip medical care, compared to those with insurance. For instance, more than 40 percent of people without insurance who suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure or asthma skipped getting care due to costs, the report found.

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More Older Americans Living With HIV

Better treatments are extending the lives of people with HIV, but aging with the AIDS-causing virus takes a toll that will challenge the health care system, a new report says. A survey of about 1,000 HIV-positive men and women ages 50 and older living in New York City found more than half had symptoms of depression, a much higher rate than others their age without HIV. And 91 percent also had other chronic medical conditions, such as arthritis (31 percent), hepatitis (31 percent), neuropathy (30 percent) and high blood pressure (27 percent). About 77 percent had two or more other conditions. About half had progressed to AIDS before they got the HIV diagnosis, the report found.

"The good news is antiretroviral therapies are working and people are living. If all goes well, they will have life expectancies similar to those without HIV," said Daniel Tietz, executive director of the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America. "But a 55-year-old with HIV tends to look like a 70-year-old without HIV in terms of the other conditions they need treatment for," he said Wednesday at a meeting of the Office of National AIDS Policy at the White House in Washington, D.C. The research included interviews with 640 men, 264 women and 10 transgender people. Dozens of experts on HIV and aging attended the meeting, which was intended to identify the needs of older adults with HIV and to explore ways to improve services to them.

Currently, about 27 percent of those with HIV are over 50. By 2015, more than half will be, said the report. Because of their special needs, this poses challenges for public health systems and organizations that serve seniors and people with HIV, Tietz said. HIV can be isolating, Tietz said. Seventy percent of older Americans with HIV live alone, more than twice the rate of others their age, while about 15 percent live with a partner, according to the report. The survey found that loneliness was higher among HIV-positive adults than for other older Americans. One reason is that many men and women conceal the condition from friends and family for fear of stigma or rejection, both real and imagined, Tietz said.

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One-Third of U.S. Adults Could Have Diabetes by 2050: CDC

The number of American adults with diabetes could double or triple by 2050 if current trends continue, warns a federal government study released Friday. The number of new diabetes cases a year will increase from 8 per 1,000 in 2008 to 15 per 1,000 in 2050, predicts the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2050, between one-fifth and one-third of all adults could have diabetes with virtually all the increase attributed to type 2 diabetes, which is largely preventable.

An aging population, an increase in minority groups at higher risk for diabetes, and the fact that diabetes patients are living longer are among the reasons for the steep projected rise. "These are alarming numbers that show how critical it is to change the course of type 2 diabetes," Ann Albright, director of CDC's Division of Diabetes Translation, said in an agency news release. "Successful programs to improve lifestyle choices on healthy eating and physical activity must be made more widely available, because the stakes are too high and the personal toll too devastating to fail."

Another expert agreed. "These data are accurate and reflect reality," said Dr. Mary Ann Banerji, professor of medicine and director of the Diabetes Treatment Center at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, New York City. "Taking into consideration minorities and longer life expectancy, the real burden of diabetes is much greater than many people thought." Banerji believes that "we need to act now. Immediate changes in diet, physical activity, stress and sleep are known to decrease diabetes and obesity. We can make changes in our physical environment to promote greater physical activity and we should consider changes in national food policy."

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Discrimination Can Hurt Teens, Body and Soul

Discrimination experienced by U.S. teens from Latin American and Asian backgrounds can affect their grades and health, and is associated with depression, distress and reduced self-esteem, a new study has found. University of California, Los Angeles researchers asked 601 high school seniors, who generally range in age from 17 to 19 years, to record any discriminatory events or comments they experienced over two weeks. They were also asked to note any physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomachaches and general pain.

Nearly 60 percent of the teens reported discrimination from other teens, 63 percent reported discrimination from adults, and 12 percent said they experienced discrimination every day. Latin American teens reported more adult discrimination than Asian American teens, while Asian American teens reported more adult discrimination than white teens of European descent. Both Latin American and Asian American teens reported more discrimination by their peers than the white teens. Teens who experienced higher levels of peer or adult discrimination reported more aches, pain and other symptoms, and had lower overall grade-point averages, the investigators found.

The study was released online in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Research on Adolescence. Discrimination can be especially hard on teens, the study authors noted. "These are the years when social identity is arguably more salient among teenagers who are struggling with defining who they are. Adding on a 'layer' of discrimination is not an easy thing for them to deal with," one of the study authors, Andrew J. Fuligni, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, said in a university news release. "Discrimination significantly predicted lower, higher levels of depression, higher levels of distress, lower self-esteem and more physical complaints," Fuligni added. "So the bottom line? Discrimination is harmful."

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Most Americans Still Not Eating Enough Fruits, Veggies

In 2000, the U.S. government set modest goals for the amount of fruit and vegetables people should eat, but a decade later the majority of Americans are not even close to reaching those thresholds, health officials said Thursday. In fact, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2009, 67.5 percent of adults ate fruit less than two times daily and 73.7 percent ate vegetables less than three times per day. The goals of Healthy People 2010 were for 75 percent of people to eat at least two servings of fruit and 50 percent to eat at least three servings of vegetables every day. "Over the last decade we have looked at behavioral intervention, like counseling to get people to include their fruits and vegetables," said report co-author Dr. Jennifer Foltz, a researcher in the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. "But it's not so easy."

"In the next decade, we are going to work on making the healthy choice the easy choice," she said. New programs will involve promoting gardening, farmer's markets and bringing more fruits and vegetables into schools and workplaces, Foltz said. In addition, Foltz said there could be programs to help retailers increase the availability of fruits and vegetables through incentives like tax breaks as well as making it easier for low-income people to afford fresh fruit and vegetables. Foltz noted that low-income Americans are more likely not to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices, which is why programs specifically targeted at this population are needed.

The report is published in the Sept. 10 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Despite efforts to increase healthy eating, over the past decade there has been a 2 percent decrease in fruit consumption and no change in the vegetable consumption, the researchers found. No state has yet met the Healthy People 2010 goals, Foltz said. In fact only one state, Idaho, rose in the amount of fruits and vegetables ate while 10 states saw a decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption. The 10 states where significant decreases in fruit and vegetable consumption were seen are Arizona, Kansas, Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the report.

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Exposure to Violence May Aggravate Asthma, Study Finds

People with asthma who witness violence in their neighborhoods are at increased risk for asthma-related hospitalization and emergency department visits for asthma or any cause, finds a new study. It included 397 adults with moderate to severe asthma who lived in an inner-city community and were followed for six months by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers. Nearly one-quarter of the participants had previously been exposed to violence, and these people had nearly twice the rate of subsequent hospitalizations or emergency department visits for asthma as those who hadn't been exposed to violence. The study also found that exposure to violence was associated with lower asthma-related quality of life, and that younger adults were more likely to be exposed to violence and more likely to have had an emergency care visit in general.

The study appears in the September issue of the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology. It's not clear how exposure to violence affects asthma, but the researchers suggested that it may be a marker for physical or social conditions that contribute to the development of asthma, exacerbate symptoms, and interfere with successful treatment and management of the disease. These conditions may include air pollution, inadequate housing and limited access to pharmacies. It's also possible that the stress of living in a poor, violence-affected community directly affects the health of people with asthma.

The researchers said, adding that the two theories were not mutually exclusive. "Because overall ED visits increased and there was a trend toward increase in overall hospitalizations, our findings suggest that exposure to violence is associated with far reaching health effects beyond the single condition of asthma," lead author Dr. Andrea J. Apter, a professor of medicine and chief of the allergy and immunology sections in the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine, said in a U Penn news release.

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Most Study Volunteers Seem Willing to Share Genetic Data

Most Americans are willing to have their genetic information shared in a national database, but they first want to be asked, researchers report. The new study included participants in the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study, a long-term project tracking age-related changes in thousands of patients that's being conducted by a team at the Group Health Research Institute and the University of Washington in Seattle. When asked if their anonymous genetic and medical data could be shared in a national database, 86 percent of the ACT participants agreed. The researchers then surveyed 365 of the participants whose reason for agreeing to share their genetic data was mostly due to their "desire to help others."

Of those 365 people, 90 percent said it was important to have been asked for reconsent, which is additional informed consent that's given by research participants before their information is used for a purpose beyond what they agreed to originally. Alternatives to reconsent such as opting out, being notified, or receiving neither individual permission nor notification were unacceptable to 40 percent, 67 percent and 70 percent of the surveyed participants, respectively, the study authors found. "We were surprised that so many people felt it was important for us to ask them, even though they decided to give their consent. This indicates that even if most of a study's participants would agree to data sharing, it's still crucial to ask them," lead author Evette J. Ludman

The study is published in the September issue of the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. "Trust is a two-way street, and human research requires lots of trust," Ludman said. "People have an understandable feeling of ownership over their bodies and medical records, including their genetic information. Researchers show we're worthy of trust when we ask research participants for permission to use their information in a way that they haven't already agreed to."

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Casual Sex Can Lead to Long-Term Relationships: Study

People who "hook up" for casual sex can have as rewarding a long-term relationship as those who take it slowly and establish a meaningful connection before they have sex, says a new study. University of Iowa researchers analyzed relationship surveys and found that average relationship quality was higher for people who took it slowly than for those who became sexually involved in "hook-ups," casual dating, or "friends with benefits" relationships. However, having sex early on wasn't the reason for this disparity, according to UI sociologist Anthony Paik. When he factored out people who weren't interested in getting serious, he found that those who became sexually involved as friends or acquaintances and were open to a serious relationship were just as happy as those who dated but delayed having sex.

The study analyzed a survey of 642 heterosexual adults in Chicago. To measure the quality of the relationships, people answered questions about how much they loved their partner, their level of satisfaction with intimacy in the relationship, the future of the relationship, and how their lives would be different if the relationship ended. "We didn't see much evidence that relationships were lower quality because they started off as hook-ups," Paik, an assistant professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said in a UI news release. "The study suggests that rewarding relationships are possible for those who delay sex. But it's also possible for true love to emerge if things start off with a more 'Sex and the City' approach, when people spot each other across the room, become sexually involved and then build a relationship," he added.

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