Diabetes Self-Care Improves Slowly, U.S. Report Finds

But nearly half of patients aren't meeting goals for blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, April 24 (HealthDay News) -- More Americans are meeting diabetes care goals, but nearly half still aren't achieving major targets for controlling blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol, government health officials say.

Just 14 percent of people with diabetes hit all the recommended health targets during the first decade of the 21st century, according to the new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Researchers found that between 1999 and 2010, the number of people with diabetes who achieved their blood sugar goals improved by about 8 percent. That same time period saw a nearly 12 percent improvement in the number of people meeting their blood pressure goals.

And 21 percent more people lowered their LDL cholesterol (the bad type) to less than 100 milligrams per deciliter during the study time period.

Tobacco use was one area where the numbers didn't move.

"The overarching theme is slow and steady improvement. Just a 1 percent improvement in hemoglobin A1C [a long-term measure of blood sugar levels] in 19 million people with diabetes is tremendous," said report author Dr. Mohammed Ali, an assistant professor of global health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and a consultant in the CDC's division of diabetes translation in Atlanta.

"There are still huge gaps," Ali said. "We have a good report card, but we have a long way to go in certain aspects, like blood pressure control and tobacco use. One in five people with diabetes still use some form of tobacco."

Almost 19 million U.S. adults have diabetes, according to background information in the study. "Probably 95 percent or higher have type 2 diabetes," said Ali. Type 2 diabetes is considered preventable. Untreated or poorly treated diabetes can lead to serious complications, including vision problems and kidney disease.

According to the report, the primary goals for diabetes care include:

Hemoglobin A1C of 7 percent or lessBlood pressure of less than 130/80 mm HgLDL cholesterol levels below 100 milligrams per deciliterNo tobacco use

The current report, published in the April 25 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, includes data from more than 100,000 adults who reported a diabetes diagnosis by a health care professional. The data was from two nationally representative studies, but neither study broke its information down by diabetes type.

"We've always been so focused on [blood sugar], but the key for anybody with diabetes is comprehensive control of risk factors. So don't forget your blood pressure. Don't forget your cholesterol. Don't smoke. These are the things, along with [blood sugar], that are really going to improve your quality of life," said Ali.

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how do I log miles with the activity search?

Trying to ease back into running and I want to log my progress...how do I actually log the mileage with the 'activity' section?

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New Organic Juice Directory Finds Fresh-Pressed Options Near You

There are few things in life more refreshing than a freshly pressed glass of fruit or veggie juice -- and these days, we've got way more options than your typical orange or tomato varieties. (Just try this Ginger and Green drink and your life will never be the same. I'm serious.) The problem is, DIY juicers are super expensive -- and it's not always easy to find a juice bar that's serving up truly healthy bevvies, without tons of sugary add-ins or residual pesticides from non-organic ingredients.

That's where this amazing new resource, PressedJuiceDirectory.com, comes in. Recently launched by organic food blogger Max Goldberg, the site has curated listings (more than 700 so far, with new locations being added daily) of the best places to get your juice on by city and state. To be listed, a location must (1) use organic ingredients, (2) serve pressed juices (i.e. not from concentrate or other extraction methods, which provide fewer nutrients), and (3) offer a green juice on the menu.

And it's not just traditional food-and-drink venues that make the list; you may discover that a nearby gym, retail store, or Pilates studio serves up the good stuff, too. And if you happen to live in or be visiting a city where juice bars just haven't caught on yet, there's also a directory of companies that will overnight organic pressed juices and deliver 'em straight to your door. I think we can all drink to that!  

What's your favorite fresh juice recipe -- and where do you get it? Tweet us at@amandaemac and @SELFmagazine.

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Image Credit: CN Digital Studio

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weight training

I'm confused! I keep forgetting this... Is it normal to put on "muscle weight" (or at least maintain current weight) instead of losing weight when you begin building muscle?

My biggest setback is that I commit to the gym for about 3 months (summer break), but then cut back when school starts again (I'm a teacher) and I can't seem to remember if I usually put on muscle weight then start to shed pounds or not!!!

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Refreshing coverage

Hydra Floral Multi-Protection BB Cream 24hr Moisture Activator, £29.00, Decleor http://www.decleor.co.uk/ available nationwide May 2013

The beauty industry has gone BB cream crazy in last 12 months, and Decleor has introduced their version of the make-up sensation. Decleor says the BB cream "provides you with all the benefits of a 24 hours moisturiser whilst naturally enhancing and complementing your skin tone." Not only does the cream give you the benefits of coverage and skincare in one, it smells amazing too. Always a refreshing bonus!

By Lisa JC

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Newborn's Placenta May Predict Autism Risk, Study Suggests

Identifying infants with higher odds could improve treatment, researchers say

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- Autism risk may be spotted at birth by examining placentas for abnormalities, new research suggests.

"We can look at the placenta at birth and determine the chance of being at risk for autism with extremely high reliability," said Dr. Harvey Kliman, a research scientist at Yale University.

One of 88 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder, the umbrella name for complex brain development disorders marked by problems with social interaction and communication, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The earlier autism is treated, the better the outcome. But children typically aren't diagnosed until behavioral symptoms begin, perhaps at age 2 or 3 years, or even later. Kliman said the children identified as at risk at birth might benefit from early treatment.

For the new study, published online April 25 in the journal Biological Psychiatry, Kliman and his team examined 117 placentas from newborns whose mothers already had one or more children with some form of autism, which put the infant at higher risk for the disorder. The researchers compared those samples with placenta samples from 100 women who already had one or more typically developing children.

During pregnancy, the placenta keeps the unborn baby's blood supply separate from the mother's while providing the baby with oxygen and nutrients. At delivery, the placenta, also called the afterbirth, follows the baby out of the womb.

The placentas from women whose older children had autism were markedly different from the others, Kliman's team found. They zeroed in on abnormal folds and abnormal cell growth in the placenta, known as trophoblast inclusions.

The placentas from the at-risk pregnancies were eight times more likely to have two or more of these abnormal folds than samples from not-at-risk deliveries. Placentas with four or more of the inclusions predicted an infant with at least a 74 percent probability of being at risk for autism, the researchers said.

"There were no [placentas from pregnancies not at risk] that had more than two of the folds," Kliman said.

The study only predicted risk of autism, however, not actual autism. The researchers will continue to follow the children.

The testing can't be done before delivery, Kliman said. "You need enough placenta [to examine]."

But the test could help spot at-risk children much earlier than is now possible, Kliman suggested. "There is no way [currently] to know at birth that your child might have autism," he said. "If you know you have a child who is at risk for autism at birth, you are ahead of the game." Interventions can begin early, when the brain is more open to change.

How the folds in the placenta relate to autism risk isn't clear, Kliman said. He and others speculated that the abnormalities in the placentas and the brains of the children affected with autism are marked by increased cellular growth, which then leads to the unusual folding. "The heads of children with autism are bigger," he said. Their brains grow rapidly early in life.

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Mechanical or Electronic Scales

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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WHO Study Identifies Riskiest Meats

Ground beef and chicken cause more foodborne illness-related hospitalizations than other meats, according to a new study.

Chicken nuggets, ham and sausage pose the lowest risk, according to Center for Science in the Public Interest researchers who examined more than 33,000 cases of foodborne illness, the Associated Press reported.

The analysis used more than 12 years of U.S. government data on outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli, listeria and other pathogens linked to specific meats.

To identify the riskiest meats, the researchers ranked them based on which contamination was most likely to lead to hospitalization. Some meats may have caused more illnesses but were less likely to cause severe illness, the AP reported.

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Breakfast?

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Announcements: Live Q&A Today, $10,000 Memory Challenge, Etc.

Hi All,

This post is simply a few time-sensitive announcements. More juicy content (really fun stuff) coming in the next post.

LIVE AND FREE Q&A TODAY! – 2 HOURS LONG, ASK ME ANYTHING

I’m doing a live two-hour Q&A session today — please join me!

Just go to this Facebook page, click “Like”, and ask me whatever you like. Here are the details:

Date: Today, April 22, Monday
Time: 4:30-6:30 PM EST (1:30-3:30 PM PST)
Where: This Facebook page

$10,000 MEMORY CHALLENGE RESULTS

The biggest memory competition ever held now has a winner. Co-created by me and Grand Master of Memory Ed Cooke, then announced on this blog, it challenged “ordinary” people to learn to memorize a pack of cards in less than a minute.

Irina Zayats, a 24 year-old Ukrainian woman, showed just how quickly a brain can be trained. Miss Zayats had no previous experience using memory techniques, but she learned to perform the gold standard of memory skills (memorizing a shuffled deck of cards) in just five days. In doing so, she won $10,000 and, to her surprise, a job offer from Memrise, the learning platform that ran the competition.

How did she do it? Here’s the full blog post, and an incredible video of her performance is below:

Posted on April 21st, 2013

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Gene-Based Blood Test for Colon Cancer Shows Promise

Early trial supports accuracy of the screening, which could be a boon in preventing the disease

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- Could screening for colon cancer someday be as easy as having a blood test? Researchers say just such a test is showing early promise in trials.

The screening checks for levels of miR-21 -- a piece of DNA known as microRNA. Researchers in the gastrointestinal cancer research lab at the Baylor Research Institute in Dallas studied several hundred patients with either colorectal polyps (noncancerous growths that often precede cancer) or full-blown cancer.

They found that measuring levels of miR-21 in the blood accurately spotted up to 92 percent of patients with colorectal cancer.

The test also accurately identified up to 82 percent of patients with advanced colorectal polyps -- growths that put people at high risk of developing colorectal cancer.

The study was published June 19 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"This blood-based test could be transformative in how we screen patients for colorectal cancer; it would save lives and could result in major savings of health care dollars," Dr. Michael Ramsay, president of Baylor Research Institute, said in an institute news release.

Other experts were cautiously optimistic.

"These results are very promising for the future of cancer screening and treatment," said Dr. Jerald Wishner, director of colorectal surgery at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y.

"Colonoscopy screening is the current gold standard to detect colon cancer. However, less than 50 percent of Americans who should be screened get screened," Wishner said. "The blood test is a less invasive screening method that will eliminate barriers to colonoscopies, including embarrassment and possible discomfort in preparation for the test."

Dr. David Robbins, associate chief of endoscopy at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, agreed that it is "only a matter of time before we can screen for the most common, and most lethal, cancers using a simple blood test."

"This well-designed study brings us one step closer to the holy grail of colon cancer eradication by identifying those at high risk for developing colon cancer by measuring a pretty straightforward genetic signature," Robbins said.

According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer is the second leading cancer killer, after lung cancer. More than 102,000 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed among Americans this year, and almost 51,000 people will die from the disease in 2013.

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Selena Gomez outside the Late Show studios

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Many Americans Breathing Cleaner Air: Report

By Carina Storrs
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, April 24 (HealthDay News) -- Although many Americans are now breathing cleaner air, others are living in cities that are more polluted than they were a decade ago, a new report shows.

"The long-term trend is positive and headed to much cleaner air," said report author Janice Nolen, assistant vice president of national policy and advocacy for the American Lung Association. "[However], there is an uptick in some areas that are a concern and some areas where the problem remains very, very serious."

The report, conducted by the American Lung Association, measured the levels of ozone and small particles in the air, known as soot, in almost 1,000 cities and counties in the United States between 2009 and 2011. About half of the 25 most polluted cities had improved since last year's report, and many of those cities were the cleanest they had been since the association began the research in 2000.

Unfortunately, the other half of the 25 most polluted cities was worse off. Even among the cities that improved, many were still near the top of the most-polluted list, including Los Angeles, which had the most ozone pollution, and Bakersfield, Calif., which had the highest level of particle pollution.

In total, there were 254 counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, and about 132 million people (42 percent of the U.S. population) live in these areas. The previous report had found that 127 million people (41 percent of the U.S. population) resided in areas with poor air quality.

In addition to the California cities, Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Cincinnati, New York City and Washington, D.C., were among the metropolitan areas that had high levels of ozone. As for year-round levels of soot, many of the same cities in California topped the list, as well as Cincinnati and Canton in Ohio; Philadelphia and Allentown in Pennsylvania; Louisville, Ky.; St. Louis; and Fairbanks, Alaska.

One expert was not surprised by the findings.

"Being from California, I knew we had a few pretty bad areas, but this report really drives it home," said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of California, Davis.

The cleanest cities, which did not have a single day of unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution from 2009 to 2011, were Bismarck, N.D.; Rapid City, S.D.; and the Fort Meyers and Palm Beach areas of Florida.

A lot of it has to do with geography, Nolen said. Ozone, also known as smog, forms when gases from car exhaust, coal-fired power plants and other sources react with sunlight. In valley areas, like around Los Angeles, these gases get trapped, whereas they are dispersed quickly in elevated areas, she said.

The current report also listed more cities with unhealthy ozone levels than the last report, which is probably explained by hotter and sunnier weather, especially in the middle regions of the United States, Nolen said.

In addition to geography and climate, "a lot of transportation-related sources -- cars and trucks and shipping ports -- contribute to [the ozone] problem in the California area, and a lot of the most polluted cities in the eastern part of the country have coal-fired power plants," Nolen said.

To reduce the level of smog-causing vehicle emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rules in March that would require less sulfur in gasoline and stricter vehicle emissions standards. Similar requirements went into effect in California in 2012.

Although health and environmental groups and the automobile industry support the proposal, oil companies oppose it, Nolen said. "We are encouraging people to support the EPA rule," she added.

Nolen recommended that people keep track of the air quality in their area through the AIRNow.gov website.

"If it is a high-alert day, drive less and don't burn wood or trash," she said.

Unfortunately, only about a third of counties in the United States have air-quality monitors, because they are expensive to install and collect, Nolen said. For the first time, however, this year's report has information on every county, using data from nearby cities and counties for areas that don't have their own monitors.

Both ozone and particle pollution can affect respiratory health, worsening breathing and increasing the risk of asthma attacks, respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

"People thought problems were limited to the lungs, but over the past 15 years quite a bit of work has shown things like cardiovascular effects," Hertz-Picciotto said. Studies have found links between high levels of ozone and soot and increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, as well as lower birth weights and increased risk of infant mortality.

Air quality can have the biggest effect on vulnerable groups of people, including young children, older adults and people with weak immune systems, Hertz-Picciotto said.

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Janice Nolen, assistant vice president, national policy and advocacy, American Lung Association, Washington, D.C.; Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor, chief, environmental and occupational health, department of public health sciences, University of California, Davis; American Lung Association report, State of the Air 2013

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Day Care May Help Kids of Depressed Moms

They showed fewer signs of emotional problems if they weren't cared for solely by their mother

By Randy Dotinga

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- Young children of depressed mothers may develop fewer emotional problems if they spend time in some kind of day care, a new study suggests.

The Canadian research doesn't definitively prove that kids gain benefits from getting care from people other than their troubled mothers, and it doesn't examine the potentially high costs of alternative types of care. Nor does the study look at the role of fathers in caring for the kids.

However, experts said the study provides strong evidence of the value of day care when a mom is struggling with depression.

"The main message is that day care looks like it makes a huge difference in the long term," said Alan Kazdin, a child psychiatry professor at Yale University. "It's not trivial, and it's not just babysitting."

At issue are the children of mothers with depression, a condition that's estimated to strike 30 percent to 40 percent of mothers of childbearing age at some point. While it's difficult to fully understand how these kids are affected, "depressed mothers are likely to be more disengaged, inconsistent, negative and unresponsive, and less likely to be warm and supportive," explained Susan Campbell, a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

In the new study, the Canadian researchers followed 1,759 children between the ages of 5 months and 5 years. The investigators tracked the children's emotional problems (such as separation anxiety and inability to socialize with others) after the age of 17 months.

The researchers also followed their mothers, looking for signs of depression. And they monitored whether the kids were regularly cared for by relatives, outside babysitters or in day-care centers.

After adjusting statistics so they wouldn't be thrown off by various factors, the investigators found that about 12 percent of kids of non-depressed mothers showed signs of emotional problems, said study author Catherine Herba, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal. But that number jumped to 32 percent among children of mothers who were depressed and didn't receive regular child care from anyone other than their mothers.

However, that number fell to 7 percent among kids whose mothers were depressed and were in day care; it fell to between 15 percent and 18 percent for those whose mothers were depressed and were cared for by a relative or babysitter, Herba said.

What's going on? Campbell said group child care can provide structure, toys and activities, and opportunities to socialize with others kids while giving stressed-out mothers a break.

Herba said future research should explore other aspects of how child care influences the lives of kids, such as how the quality of care affects the outcome. For now, she said, "we need to think about how we can better support mothers and families."

The study was published online June 19 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

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Body cream boost

Serenity Spa Body Cream, £9, Affinity Bay http://www.affinitybay.com/

There's nothing better than healthy, hydrated skin. Affinity Bay brings you their Serenity Spa Body Cream Lotion that intensely moisturises your skin leaving it feeling lusciously soft - and instant moisture-boost! Specially formulated with sea minerals and essential oils, the body cream is a natural way to lavish skin, leaving you feeling 'renewed, younger and energised'.

By Lisa JC

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