Category Archives: Health
Sunscreens Not Created Equal: Consumer Reports
Sunscreens Not Created Equal: Consumer Reports
Six of 12 sunscreens rated ”very good,” but pricier not always better.
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May 24, 2013 — In its new sunscreen ratings evaluation, Consumer Reports found that paying more for sunscreen doesn’t always mean better protection.
“Some of our best products were also the least expensive,” says Nicole Sarrubbo, associate editor for Consumer Reports.
Up & Up Sport SPF 50, from Target, got top honors in these latest ratings, and is one of the least expensive products tested.
Some of the pricier sunscreens, in fact, did not live up to the SPF (sun protection factor) value on the label, the testers found. Two sunscreens — All Terrain AquaSport SPF 30 and Badger Unscented SPF 34 — were rated poor in protecting against UVB rays.
Top Sunscreens This Year
Consumer Reports regularly rates sunscreens, and this time picked 12 popular products from a variety of stores. They took into account protection from UVA and UVB, how much the product stained clothing, and the cost per ounce.
Six got recommended ratings:
- Target’s Up & Up Sport, at the top spot, costs $ 1.16 an ounce.
- Walmart’s Equate Ultra Protection SPF 50, is just 47 cents an ounce. It won the CR Best Buy award of the dozen.
- Coppertone Water Babies SPF 50, at $ 1.38 an ounce.
- Walgreens Continuous Spray Sport SPF 50, at $ 1.33 an ounce.
- Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch SPF 30, at $ 1.38 an ounce.
- Coppertone Sport High Performance SPF 30, at $ 1.67 an ounce.
The six that didn’t get recommended ratings include:
- California Baby SPF 30+, at $ 6.90 an ounce (discontinued, but may still be available).
- No-Ad with Avobenzone, Aloe, and Vitamin E SPF 45, at 63 cents an ounce.
- Neutrogena Wet Skin SPF 45+, at $ 3.67 an ounce.
- Kiss My Face with Hydresia SPF 40, at $ 5.33 an ounce.
- Badger Unscented SPF 34, at $ 5.52 an ounce (discontinued, but may still be available).
- All Terrain AquaSport SPF 30, at $ 4.33 an ounce.
Bowel Issues Affect 3 Out of 4 Pregnant Women
These problems don’t significantly affect quality of life, study says
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, May 24 (HealthDay News) — Nearly three out of four pregnant women experience bowel problems such as constipation and diarrhea, but these issues don’t significantly affect their quality of life, a new study finds.
Researchers from Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., noted that these bowel issues are due to physiological and hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. Nutritional supplements that women take during pregnancy also can play a role. The study authors added that since women expect these problems to arise during pregnancy, they’re better able to tolerate them.
The study included 104 women in their first trimester of pregnancy and 66 women in their third trimester. They completed two questionnaires: one asking about the bowel disorders they experienced and another on how these problems affected their quality of life. Specifically, the women were asked if their bowel issues made life less enjoyable, limited what they could wear or eat, or made them feel embarrassed, vulnerable, angry, isolated or depressed.
The study revealed that 72 percent of the first-trimester respondents and 61 percent of the third-trimester respondents had one or more bowel disorders, including constipation, diarrhea, bloating and irritable bowel syndrome.
On a scale of one to 100, with 100 being the least impact on quality of life, the women’s average score was 94.9. The researchers said two issues had a measurable effect on quality of life: Both constipation and bloating reduced the quality-of-life score by approximately four points.
Study senior author Dr. Scott Graziano, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, advises pregnant women to drink plenty of fluids and consume 25 to 30 grams of fiber daily. The study found that pregnant women consume only 16 to 17 grams of fiber a day. Stool softeners and suppositories are safe for pregnant women, Graziano said.
The study’s findings were presented earlier this month at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ annual meeting in New Orleans. Data and conclusions from studies presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Too Few Kids Use Fast-Food Calorie Info, Study Finds
Girls and obese children are likelier to take advantage of this knowledge
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, May 23 (HealthDay News) — While some fast-food chains are required to provide calorie and other nutritional information to help customers make informed choices, kids who eat fast food at least twice a week are 50 percent less likely to use this information than kids who eat fast food less often, according to a new U.S. study.
Those most likely to use the calorie information are girls and children who are obese, said the researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study was published online May 23 in the Journal of Public Health.
“Our findings are important given the high prevalence of obesity among youth and the adverse health effects associated with obesity,” study lead author Dr. Holly Wethington said in a journal news release. “It is encouraging that a large number of youth, particularly youth who are obese, reported using the calorie information.
“This may have potential to lead to improved food and beverage choices as a way to manage weight, although more research is needed to assess whether youth know how many calories they should consume in a day given their activity level,” added Wethington, of the CDC’s division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity.
Childhood obesity has tripled in recent decades, partly due to fast food that is higher in calories, salt and fat than food prepared at home, the CDC researchers noted. In conducting the study, they analyzed mail surveys from 721 kids ranging in age from 9 to 18 years.
The survey, done in the fall of 2010, asked the children how often they ate fast food, and if they considered the calorie information on the menu. They were also asked if this information influenced their food choices. The researchers also considered the participants’ age, gender, height and weight.
Fifty-six percent of those surveyed were boys, and while most of the children were a healthy weight, 13 percent were obese.
The survey revealed that 66 percent of the kids said they ate fast food once a week or less, and 34 percent reported eating fast food two or more times a week.
Forty-two percent of the kids said they considered the calorie information when making food choices; nearly 58 percent said they never used it, the survey found.
Girls were 80 percent more likely to consider calories than boys, and obese children were about 70 percent more likely to use calorie information.
Those eating fast food twice a week or more were 50 percent less likely to consider calorie counts than the kids who ate fast food less frequently, the investigators found.
The study authors suggested that public health and school officials could create educational programs designed to help young people understand calorie information so it can become a part of an overall weight management strategy.
“This welcome research adds to our understanding of young people and their food choices,” Lindsey Davies, president of the U.K. Faculty of Public Health, said in the news release. “It’s good news that some young people want to understand more about the food they’re eating and are using calorie information when they eat in fast-food restaurants.”
However, to fight the obesity epidemic, Davies added that it’s important to know why young people choose to eat fast food so often. Legislators could help tackle the problem by banning trans fats, which have no nutritional value and can increase the risk for heart disease, she said.
Your Pooch Could Raise Your Home’s Bacteria Count
Study found more germs and a wider variety of bacterial types in houses with dogs
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) — Man’s best friend may bring millions more microscopic pals into the average human home, a new study suggests.
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado found that homes with dogs have more bacteria than other homes, including germs rarely found in households without dogs.
“We can tell whether you own a dog based on the bacteria we find on your television screen or pillowcase,” study co-author Rob Dunn, associate professor of biology at NC State, said in a university news release.
The researchers involved 40 homes. Dunn and his colleagues wiped nine of the common surfaces in these residences — TV screens, kitchen counters, toilet seats, refrigerators, pillowcases and door handles — with sterile swabs to determine the types and amount of bacteria present.
The researchers found more than 7,700 types of bacteria in the homes, with unique groupings of bacteria depending on the location tested. For instance, bacteria found in refrigerators, on kitchen counters and on cutting boards were usually similar since they all related to food. The bacteria on doorknobs, pillowcases and toilet seats were also similar, but came more often from humans.
“We leave a microbial ‘fingerprint’ on everything we touch,” Dunn explained. “Sometimes those microbes come from our skin, sometimes they’re oral bacteria and as often as not they’re human fecal bacteria.”
But what about differences between houses? “The biggest difference we’ve found so far is whether you own a dog,” Dunn said. “For example, there are bacteria normally found in soil that are 700 times more common in dog-owning households than in those without dogs.”
The study showed bacteria in homes can be grouped into three “habitats” or categories: places people touch, places touched by food and places that collect dust. The researchers pointed out the bacteria found on pillowcases in two different homes is likely more similar than bacteria found in the same home but in another “habitat.”
“This makes sense,” Dunn added. “Humans have been living in houses for thousands of years, which is sufficient time for organisms to adapt to living in particular parts of houses. We know, for example, that there is a species that only lives in hot-water heaters. We deposit these bacterial hitchhikers in different ways in different places, and they thrive or fail depending on their adaptations.”
The study was published May 22 in the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers plan to conduct a larger study involving another 40 homes as well as samples from a national survey of 1,300 homes across the country.
“The larger sample size will help us better understand the range of variables that influence these microbial ecosystems,” Dunn said. “Does it matter if you have kids or live in an apartment? We expect the microbial populations of homes in deserts to be different from the populations of homes in Manhattan, but no one knows if that’s true. We want to find out.”
Antidepressants May Be Helpful for Some Heart Patients: Study
Emotional stress can harm cardiovascular health, experts say, so boosting mental resilience may be key
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) — Use of the antidepressant Lexapro appears to help prevent a potentially serious stress-related heart condition, a new study finds.
The condition is known as known as “mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia.” Although people with this condition may not develop noticeable symptoms, their heart muscle is not receiving adequate blood supply, according to researchers from Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C.
However, the researchers found that people taking the antidepressant Lexapro (escitalopram) were more than two and a half times less likely to be affected by the condition, which can be spurred by emotional stress.
The study was funded by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and is published in the May 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia is a serious condition, as patients with the condition tend to have worse heart problems compared to patients without it,” study author Dr. Wei Jiang, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and internal medicine at Duke, said in a university news release. “This study showed for the first time that it is treatable with an emotion-modulating medication.”
The study involved 310 people diagnosed with heart disease whose condition was stable and under control. To identify those with the stress-linked heart condition, the researchers first had participants undergo exercise stress tests on a treadmill. They also had to complete three mental stress tests: First they had to solve a difficult math problem, then trace a star while looking at their hand movements in a mirror, and then tell a story that made them feel sad or angry.
As the participants performed these tasks, they underwent echocardiograms and electrocardiograms, and had readings taken of blood pressure and heart rate.
According to Jiang’s team, 127 of the patients developed stress-related heart issues. These patients were assigned to take either Lexapro, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that’s commonly used to treat depression and anxiety, or a placebo pill.
After six weeks, the participants retook the stress tests and had their heart function re-assessed. Of the original 127, 112 completed the study. The researchers found those who took the antidepressant drug were nearly three times less likely to develop stress-linked cardiovascular trouble during the mental stress tests compared to those taking placebo.
Patients taking Lexapro also tended to have healthy changes in heart function and they reported feeling calmer and more controlled than the placebo group.
“Our findings support the hypothesis that short-term use of SSRIs improves levels of biomarkers associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes,” explained Jiang. Other SSRIs include Celexa, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.
The researchers concluded that SSRIs or other antidepressant treatments could help manage heart disease. They noted that more research is needed to determine the proper dosing of Lexapro for the treatment of stress-linked heart issues and to better understand how antidepressant drugs could also affect patients’ risk for serious health conditions, including heart attack or angina, stroke, heart failure, or death.
