A growing number of American children are taking drugs for a wide range of chronic conditions related to childhood obesity, according to prescription data from three large organizations.The numbers, from pharmacy plans Medco Health Solutions, Express Scripts and the marketing data collection company Verispan, indicate that hundreds of thousands of children are taking medication to treat Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and acid reflux - all problems linked to obesity that were practically unheard-of in children two decades ago.

The data, disclosed publicly in recent months or provided at the request of The New York Times, show that concerns that children will be taking adult medications - heightened recently by a recommendation by a national pediatricians group - are already a reality.

This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics said that more children, as young as 8, should be given cholesterol-lowering drugs. The recommendation was attacked by some experts as a license to put children on grown-up drugs.

While the drugs do help treat the conditions, some doctors fear they are simply a shortcut fix for a problem better addressed by exercise and diet.

Even so, some pharmaceutical companies are developing new versions, including flavored ones, of adult medications for children.

While some of the percentage increases in the three analyses are significant, doctors emphasize that prescriptions of such drugs to children represent less than one percent of their sales.

Express Scripts and Medco developed estimates of how many children might be taking such drugs by extrapolating their data - involving more than four million children - across the broader population. The companies use different assumptions to reach their estimates, but the data suggest that at least several hundred thousand children are on various obesity-related medications.

The greatest increase occurred in drugs for Type 2 diabetes, with Medco’s data showing a 151 percent jump from 2001 to 2007.

Medco’s data, released in May, showed that use of drugs to treat acid reflux problems in children, often aggravated by obesity, increased 137 percent over seven years.

Its analysis also showed an 18 percent increase in drugs to treat high blood pressure and a 12 percent increase in cholesterol- lowering medications during the seven-year period.

Express Scripts found a 15 percent increase over three years in drugs to treat cholesterol and other fats in the blood, a category that is primarily statins.

“We were amazed at how quickly the rates of drugs used have climbed,” said Donna Halloran, an assistant professor at St. Louis University who worked on the Express Scripts analysis, presented at a meeting of the American Public Health Association in November.

Verispan data recorded a 13 percent increase in high blood pressure prescriptions in the under 19 age group from 2005 to 2007.

Its numbers show, however, a less than one percent increase during the period in cholesterol-lowering drugs in children.

Some experts say that the increases in many of these obesity- related drugs reflect a systemic failure, with doctors and parents turning to them because they find lifestyle changes too difficult to implement or enforce.

“I think a lot of people in pediatrics, myself included, are struggling with what is the right management to do for these kids,” said Russell Rothman, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, who surveyed doctors and found wide variations in how children were being treated.

“You see elevated blood pressure, or elevated sugars, or elevated cholesterol and you try exercise and diet and you don’t see any improvement,” Rothman said. “I worry that some providers and some families are looking for the quick fix, and are going to want to start medication immediately.”

David Collier, director of a pediatric weight management center at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, an area where 45 percent of the children are overweight, is among doctors who support the recent recommendations that statins may be warranted in some children as young as 8.

“We have been using statins for two or three years now,” he said.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2008 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Statins, which have saved millions of people from heart disease, may have an additional role in protecting the brain from dementia, researchers say.The so-called “wonder drugs”, taken by more than four million people in Britain to lower cholesterol, are estimated to prevent about 10,000 deaths a year. Now a study has shown they halve the rate of dementia in people at high risk.

The findings are based on a study of 1,674 elderly Mexican- Americans in California who had conditions that typically lead to dementia, including diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Mary Haan, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, who led the study, said: “The bottom line is that if a person takes statins over a course of about five to seven years, it reduces the risk of dementia by half.”

Statins were established as the most effective preventive treatment against heart disease more than a decade ago and are considered so safe that one, simvastatin, is available without prescription in Britain. In May, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommended that a further 1.5 million people should be offered them. Last year, Professor Roger Boyle, the Government’s national director for heart disease, suggested that every man over 50 and woman over 60 could be offered a daily statin.

A study last year of the brains of 110 Americans who had donated their organs for research after their deaths found significantly fewer signs of the “plaques” (protein deposits) and “tangles” (twisted nerve fibres) - which are indicators of dementia - in those who had taken statins. The study, at Boston University, concluded that statins reduced the risk by as much as 79 per cent. A second study by the university, presented at a conference in Chicago yesterday, found people taking blood pressure-lowering drugs called angiotensin receptor blockers, were up to 40 per cent less likely to develop dementia. The new findings, published in Neurology, confirm the earlier studies of statins and add to the growing weight of evidence that they may play a crucial role in preventing dementia.

Professor Haan, who has studied the same group of high-risk patients for more than a decade, said the statins had a bigger effect than expected. “This showed that if you started using statins before dementia developed, you could prevent it in about half of cases,” she said.

Of the 1,674 participants in the study, just over a quarter (452) took statins at some point and 130 developed dementia or cognitive impairment.

Professor Haan said it was not clear how statins worked but it was possible that they lowered high insulin levels that could cause Alzheimer’s disease. “We aren’t suggesting people should take statins for purposes other than what they are indicated for but hopefully this study will open the door to testing for dementia and other types of cognitive impairment.”

Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “The jury is still out on how effective they [statins] are but this study adds to evidence that they may have benefits. All drugs have some side effects though, so it’s important to seek professional medical advice.

“One in three people over the age of 65 will die with dementia. A search for new treatments is crucial, yet dementia remains underfunded and under-recognised as a research priority.”

(c) 2008 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Could you improve your chances of avoiding cancer if you ate the right foods? Some studies show that there is a correlation between diet and some types of cancer. Here’s a quiz to find out how much you know about the latest research.1. The Polish Women’s Health Study found that women who ate at least four servings of raw or lightly cooked cabbage as children were 72 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.

True or false?

2. A recent study shows that men who eat three servings of broccoli a week are 41 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer.

True or false?

3. Flaxseeds contain omega-3 fatty acids, which seem to inhibit colon cancer.

True or false?

4. A Japanese study of 57,000 participants found that people who ate the most pumpkin had lower rates of gastric, breast, lung and colorectal cancers.

True or false?

5. Foods that end in “erry” such as rasberry, cherry, blueberry and strawberry, contain anti-inflammatory compounds which reduce cell damage that can lead to cancer.

True or false?

6. Raspberries are lower in fiber than most other berries.

True or false?

7. White mushrooms have no cancer-fighting benefits.

True or false?

8. In one Finnish study, men who frequently ate onions were 60 percent less likely to develop lung cancer.

True or false?

___

Source: “7 Foods Proven To Fight Cancer,” article by David Grotto, RD, published in the July edition of Bottom Line Personal newsletter. Grotto is founder and president of Nutrition Housecall, a family nutrition program in the Chicago area. He is on the scientific advisory board of Men’s Health magazine.

___

Answers: 1)True; 2)True; 3)True; 4)True; 5)True; 6)False; 7)False. In some studies white button mushrooms appear to suppress prostate cancer cells. True.

___

(c) 2008, The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.).

Visit The Sacramento Bee online at http://www.sacbee.com/

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A Type 2 diabetes diagnosis doesn’t end with just a prescription.A prescription or two may be part of that plan. But for many, treatment is far more than drugs, blood sugar checks and follow-up visits. It’s a life-changing course of diet and exercise that for some is a complete overhaul of their current lifestyles.

For newly diagnosed diabetes patients, some of whom have gone their entire lives not thinking about the foods they’re putting into their bodies, a healthy meal plan seems impossible.

“There are a lot of myths out there: You can’t eat any starchy foods. You can’t eat fruit. You can’t eat sweets. One patient told me he heard, ‘If it tastes good, don’t eat it,’ ” said Anna Reinwand, registered dietitian and diabetes educator for the Center for Diabetes Education at the Oklahoma State University Medical Center.

Faced with myths like those, it’s understandable that patients would fear meeting a dietitian.

“But what they find out is it’s not that bad. Changes will be needed in most diets, but they find out that a lot of foods taste good and are good for them,” Reinwand said.

According to the American Diabetes Association, 23.6 million Americans have diabetes, an additional 57.6 million have prediabetes, and a quarter of Americans age 60 and older have the disease.

“It’s very scary for a lot of folks because they know someone who has been affected,” Reinwand said. “The possible complications are scary — blindness, amputation. But managing diabetes has changed a lot over the last 10 years.”

Easy-to-use blood sugar meters have been a life-changer, she said. Patients can check their sugars before and after meals for instant reads on their levels.

When it comes to nutrition, Reinwand takes the approach of one step at a time, easing patients into the change. Telling a diabetic he or she can never eat pasta again is not the answer.

“Instead, use a whole-wheat pasta and scale down the portion,” she said.

Natalie Mikles 581-8486

natalie.mikles@tulsaworld.com

Cooking for diabetics

What: Diabetic cooking class

When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Central Park Hall at Expo Square

Cost: Free

What to expect: Diabetes educator Anna Reinwand will demonstrate how to make diabetic-friendly foods and will answer questions about nutrition and cooking for a diabetic. The class will be held in conjunction with the Tulsa County Free Fair.

Diabetes: 8 ways to adjust your plate

Here are some practical suggestions, good for any diet, that Anna Reinwand gives her Type 2 diabetes patients.

Try red potatoes with their skins on over regular russet potatoes.

- Make meat 1/4 of your plate, using the remainder for whole grains and vegetables.

Choose brown rice over white rice. Take advantage of fresh, seasonal vegetables, like inexpensive zucchini.

Don’t rule out fruit just because it’s sweet. In small portions, fruit is an important part of the diet.

Cut back on solid fats, such as butter.

Swap canola oil or olive oil for oils with saturated fats.

Incorporate whole grains, including wholewheat pasta, into dinner time.

Originally published by NATALIE MIKLES World Scene Writer.

(c) 2008 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

ou might have seen board-certified internal medicine physician Pam Peeke on the Discovery Health network discussing women’s health issues. But Peeke has one passion above all others - the prevention of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.”I’m traveling the country trying to get the word out about prevention treatment. There are 10 million people here that we know of with osteoporosis, and 8 million are women,” Peeke said.

“Osteoporosis thins and weakens bones, and women often don’t know they are at risk until a sudden bump or fall causes a fracture,” she said. “Women need to know the facts. The survey (a Harris interactive poll of more than 1,000 women in which she partnered) showed that women who are the most knowledgeable about osteoporosis are the most likely to follow a healthy diet, do regular weight- bearing exercise and have regular bone density testing.”

The lack of knowledge and action related to bone health revealed by the survey, she stressed, could have serious consequences, because one in two women over 50 is predicted to break a bone because of osteoporosis in her remaining lifetime. Fractures could be directly or indirectly responsible for pain or disability.

Lifestyle changes

Peeke drives home her point that lifestyle changes can go a long way in helping to prevent osteoporosis. An active athlete herself, she not only enjoys fitness activities for their own sake but also for the health benefits she derives from them.

She pointed to current osteoporosis treatments, such as daily supplements including calcium and Vitamin D and osteoporosis prescription drugs available in daily, weekly and monthly form. There also is a new once-yearly, 15-minute intravenous treatment available.

But medical treatments that can rebuild bone, though effective, cannot be done in isolation without the lifestyle changes.

“You have to take your health into your own hands. The survey showed that women are not taking responsibility for monitoring their own future health. If they put it on the back burner, they’ll never have the bone density scan.

“We found that 57 percent of women are not doing any weight- bearing activities even though over 90 percent assured us they want to live long and live well, alert and vertical for life,” she said.

At Mercy Medical Center, board-certified pharmacist Julie Drake works as an acute-care pharmacist.

“I wear many hats, and I get a lot of questions about osteoporosis wherever I go,” Drake said. “Of course, the lifestyle changes and the calcium with Vitamin D supplements are the first line. But when women do need prescription medications, they have so many choices that I think many are pretty excited.”

Because those medications now can be taken daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, she said some patients were surprised that all of them cost about the same year by year.

“Some people thought if they just took it once a month, it would be cheaper, but it does pretty much even out. And there is light at the end of the tunnel for women who are concerned about the costs. Osteoporosis medications are so long-acting, that they are saying now that five years of treatment provides 10 years of protection for the average woman who is not at high risk,” she said.

Of the new intravenous treatments that can be taken once a year or every three months, Drake added that some women who have opted for them have experienced flu-like symptoms for up to four days. Now physicians often recommend a nonprescription pain reliever like Tylenol if this occurs.

Osteo complications

The brutal truth is that 20 percent of the women older than 50 who suffer hip fractures will die from related complications.

“We have to think of it this way. Women are more likely to keep their salon appointments or manicures times than they are to take the supplement they really need to stem bone loss. You need 1,200 to 1,400 milligrams of calcium supplements with Vitamin D daily,” Peeke said.

In a perfect world, women would have a painless baseline bone density scan starting at age 40.

“If it’s a great bone scan, keep it that way. The good news for women are the many therapeutic options available to them. The prescriptions are covered by insurance. You can’t believe you can get all the calcium you need from dairy because it is not as readily bio-available.

“Our bodies are built for obsolescence,” she said. “After age 50, we are going way beyond what we anticipated in being alive and doing the vital things in life. Women need to talk with their family practitioners, their internists, their gynecologists and get going.”

Don’t wait until it’s too late

Women who ignore the recommendations for regular bone density scans and supplements or prescription therapy after menopause are at high risk for fractures. There are no advance symptoms, and when the fracture occurs, the future bone health of the patient hangs in the balance.

RISK FACTORS INCLUDE:

* Caucasian or Asian descent

* Family history of osteoporosis

* Eating disorders

* Excessive alcohol use

* Smoking

* Menopause before age 45

* Slight body frame

* Sedentary lifestyle

* Long-term use of certain medications including thyroid hormone, some antiseizure medications and cortisone

On the Net

To learn more about Pam Peeke, visit www.drpeeke.com.

Originally published by DIANA ROSSETTI GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE.

(c) 2008 State Journal Register. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

If you visit New York City these days, you’ll notice that major chain restaurants are complying with a new ordinance requiring the posting of calorie counts on menu items.Visitors to the city might be surprised to see the calorie counts on some of these meals. A chicken fajita omelette at IHOP, for instance, has 1,360 calories. The Food and Drug Administration’s recommended daily calorie intakes for adults run from 1,600 to 2,800 a day.

Given the fatty menus at many chain restaurants, one can understand why the percentage of obese people is increasing. Between 1997 and 2005 in Los Angeles County, the percentage of obese adults went from 14.3 percent to 20.9 percent.

And childhood obesity, which affects 16 percent of the nation’s young people, is becoming so common that many children suffer from diseases previously limited to adults, such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

To combat these negative trends, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, has come up with Senate Bill 1420, which would require restaurant chains with 14 or more outlets in the state to place information on calories, saturated fat, trans fat, carbohydrates and sodium content of meals on their menus.

A county Department of Public Health study released in May found that calorie postings would cause 10 percent of diners to order reduced-calorie meals. And last month, an American Journal of Public Health study found that Subway customers who see the calorie information on menu items order meals with 52 fewer calories than customers without such information.

An analysis of SB 1420 concludes that if a change in eating patterns led to a 1 percent reduction in the costs associated with obesity - such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and workers’ compensation - California could save $30 million annually.

A menu-labeling law could not only steer people toward healthier eating habits, but could also encourage restaurants to rethink some of their calorie-laden entrees. And unlike intrusive bans on certain kinds of restaurants or trans fats, SB 1420 would provide consumers with helpful information, but still allow them to make their own dietary choices.

Those are the pluses. The minuses, as articulated by various restaurant-industry insiders, are a new set of burdens placed on some (but not all) legal businesses. The big-name burger chain would have its business diminished by the postings, while the greasy- spoon competitor - serving a burger every bit as fatty, if not fattier - would not.

And while no single regulation is going to sink a business, cumulatively, it can have an adverse effect.

These are fair concerns, but whether they - pardon the pun - outweigh the benefits to a better-informed dining public is an open question.

(c) 2008 San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

When God gave humans free will, he must have done so in the summertime. And then he must have sat back, laughed and said, “This ought to be good.”For most of us now trying to atone for our gluttony from Labor Day to Memorial Day, summer can be make-or-break-the-diet time. While the spirit of bathing suit season should make us willing to sweat more profusely on the elliptical machine, the flesh becomes weak when it means walking across a parking lot to the gym in 100-degree heat.

For the Weekend Dieter, summer temptation takes the form of my favorite fun, frothy, froufrou cocktails. Gimme a pool to dip my toes in and a pina colada to wrap my fingers around, and I’m sublime. A hot night out with girlfriends? Even better with cold daiquiris or frozen margaritas.

Problem is, when you’re wasting away in Margaritaville, your waistline is not. Any of the aforementioned liquid confections can pack several hundred calories and a day’s worth of sugar. And that makes the prospect of shopping for new jeans in the fall about as pleasant as a spinal tap.

To deal with this challenge, I resolved to invent lower-calorie and lower-sugar versions of my favorite summer beverages. They had to be diet-friendly but tasty enough to serve at a pool party.

After two dizzying days of recipe invention, I came up with some drinks that I’d gladly sip under an umbrella.

For a few of them, I used Splenda instead of white sugar, or other easy substitutions, “lighter” ingredients and fresh fruit. I’ve included brand-name products here because they were about the lowest in calories I could find. You could also omit or reduce the amount of liquor in them and lower the calorie count further.

Now, just because this pina colada has 127 calories and not 627 calories does not mean you should act like you’re on a cruise ship and drink six of ‘em.

Cheers to summer …see you at the elliptical machines.

Skinny strawberry daiquiri

Makes 1 drink

6 fresh strawberries

2 ounces white rum

1/2 ounce lime juice

1 ounce Splenda simple syrup (note: You may omit this if you’d like it less sweet.)

5-8 ice cubes

1. Puree strawberries in blender.

2. Add rest of the ingredients and blend to desired consistency.

Nutritional analysis per drink: 157 calories, trace fat, 9 grams carbohydrates, trace protein, no cholesterol, 1 milligram sodium, 2 grams dietary fiber, 6 percent of calories from fat.

Minimize-me mojito

Makes 1 drink

8-12 mint leaves (depending how minty you like it), torn

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 1/2 tablespoons Splenda simple syrup

1 ounce white rum

8 ounces Canada Dry low-sodium club soda

1. Put mint leaves in glass, add lime juice and muddle together.

2. Add syrup, muddle together. Add rum.

3. Fill glass with ice, add club soda and stir.

Nutritional analysis per drink: 84 calories, trace fat, 19 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram protein, no cholesterol, 32 milligrams sodium, 1 gram dietary fiber, 0 percent of calories from fat.

– Adapted from Bacardi.com

Waist-watcher’s mango margarita

Makes 1 drink

1 medium mango, peeled and cut up

Juice of 1/2 lime

Juice of 1/4 lemon

2 1/2 ounces Tropicana Light ‘n Healthy light orange juice beverage

3/4 ounce Splenda simple syrup

1 ounce tequila

5-8 ice cubes

1. Puree mango in blender.

2. Add rest of ingredients and blend to desired consistency.

Nutritional analysis per drink: 231 calories, 1 gram fat, 44 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams protein, no cholesterol, 5 milligrams sodium, 5 grams dietary fiber, 3 percent of calories from fat.

Guilt-free pina colada

Makes about 4 8-ounce drinks

2/3 cup fresh pineapple

Juice from 1/2 small lime

3 ounces spiced rum

1 cup Thai Kitchen lite coconut milk

1 teaspoon Splenda

2/3 cup Dreyer’s Slow Churned No Sugar Added Vanilla Bean light ice cream

5-8 ice cubes

1. Puree pineapple in blender

2. Add ingredients and blend to desired consistency.

Nutritional analysis per drink: 127 calories, 4 grams fat, 12 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams protein, 3 milligrams cholesterol, 34 milligrams sodium, trace dietary fiber, 40 percent of calories from fat.

– Adapted from “Around the

World in 80 Cocktails” by Allan

Gage (Octopus Books, $16.95)

—–

To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dfw.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

WASHINGTON — One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. And the ones that mother gives you soon will control your cholesterol.Childhood long ago ceased to involve idyllic hours chasing small animals through the field or even careening around the neighborhood on a bicycle. But do we really need to liven it up with Lipitor?

To the cocktail of drugs young children already are taking, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that some kids as young as 8 might benefit from cholesterol-reducing medication. The reasons are too familiar: Our kids are growing too fat (just like their parents), eating lots of the wrong foods (just like their parents), getting insufficient exercise (just like their parents), and showing the warning signs of serious future health problems — high cholesterol levels — that are precursors to heart attacks (just like they are for their parents).

So, after detecting an unnerving jump in cholesterol levels among the young, the pediatrics profession is suggesting that some kids with high cholesterol and a family history of early heart disease should “be considered” as candidates to take the drugs now prescribed mostly to those who are in middle age or older. Screening for cholesterol levels, according to recommendations listed in the journal Pediatrics, should begin for some children when they are as young as 2. Can cholesterol-drug commercials on the Disney Channel be far behind?

There’s no wonder the medical profession is concerned about overweight kids who are developing life-threatening health conditions. The pediatric profession long ago recommended that children 2 and older eat less sugary food, consume whole-grain breads instead of processed, white baked goods and drink skim or low- fat milk. The children’s doctors say kids should get “60 minutes of moderate to vigorous play or physical activity daily.” And by vigorous, they don’t mean thumbing to victory in a video game or racing to get a snack during a television commercial.

“It’s appalling what we’ve let happen to our children,” says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. “And the fact that the children have such high cholesterol levels is a sign of the environment we have created for them.”

Another part of what Brownell calls our “environment” is the reliance on medication as the answer to the poor conditions we’ve created for ourselves. “As a culture, we’re very prone to creating unhealthy environments and then trying to use medicine to mop up the damage.”

The epidemic of obesity among children is real, and already it is leading to the onset of serious — and expensive to treat — diseases such as diabetes at ever-younger ages. But like another serious problem much in the news lately — sky-high energy prices — this is one that is largely of our own making.

We’ve allowed the food industry to market directly to kids, overwhelming them with a tsunami of sugary inducements in cereal ads alone. We’ve allowed vending machines full of junk food in the schools. We’ve somehow made the social activity of sitting around eating pizza while watching a sporting event as acceptable as playing the sport itself. As schools have come under increasing pressure to teach — and test — more, physical education programs and even recess for elementary-school kids often have been cut.

Just as we have a decades-long history of all the wrong habits when it comes to energy consumption, we’ve got a decades-long history of saying we want to be fit, while conscientiously ignoring most of the good advice that’s been out there for years. “The fact that young kids may need statin drugs now is a sign of how bad we’ve made it,” Brownell says. “If anything, this study should have sounded the loudest possible alarm bell that something needs to be done to provide better conditions for our children.”

When the U.S. surgeon general first reported that smoking cigarettes was a killer habit — and hardly the glamorous lifestyle choice portrayed in television and the movies — people began to quit in droves. Eventually, tobacco use became a social taboo. Schools and parents go to great lengths now to keep kids from smoking. After all, there’s no prescription drug that can cure lung cancer.

How loudly does the siren about our children’s unhealthy eating habits have to sound before we get the message that the response has to come from us — and not the pharmaceutical industry?

(c) 2008 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

If you’ve always thought that research claiming health benefits from things like being happy is a bunch of unsupported hooey, you might want to look at a study out of New England in the current Annals of Family Medicine.Doctors asked 2,816 adults over age 35 with no history of a heart attack: “Compared with persons of your own age and sex, how would you rate your risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 5 years?”

Nearly half the men who rated their own risk as “low” would have been classified by objective medical tests as being at high risk. Yet when researchers checked the accuracy of their predictions against death records 15 years later, it turned out that men who believed they were at lower-than-average risk actually had a three times lower rate of death from heart attacks and strokes even after smoking, cholesterol and a dozen other factors were considered.

No such link was found for women, which the researchers speculate may be because the study began in 1990, when heart disease was seen as a threat mainly for men.

So why should optimism make such a difference?

The authors’ working theory has to do with perception of risk. When a healthy outcome can be achieved by a simple behavior, such as getting a shot, a heightened sense of risk can be a motivating factor, they write.

But preventing cardiovascular disease involves complicated interrelationships among diet, exercise, drugs, monitoring, and knowledge of constantly changing medical theory. With progress hard to achieve, a heightened sense of risk is less likely to motivate and more likely to cause stress and fear, the researchers say — and to trigger unhealthy coping behaviors like overeating, alcohol abuse and avoiding the doctor.

Believing you are at less risk may actually make it so.

“It is not clear whether we should seek to disabuse people of optimistic ‘misperceptions’ in pursuit of changing behavior,” the lead author, University of Rochester Medical Center researcher Robert Gramling, said in a statement.

“Perhaps we should work on changing behaviors by instilling more confidence in the capacity to prevent having a heart attack, rather than raising fears about having one.”

Contact staff writer Don Sapatkin at 215-854-2617 or dsapatkin@phillynews.com.

—–

To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

If you visit New York City these days, you’ll notice that major chain restaurants are complying with a new ordinance requiring the posting of calorie counts on menu items.Visitors to the city may be surprised to see just how high the calorie counts on some of these meals are. A chicken fajita omelette at IHOP, for instance, weighs in at 1,360 calories. According to the Food and Drug Administration, recommended daily calorie intakes for adults run from 1,600 calories a day to 2,800 a day. So eating that omelette takes a huge bite out of one’s recommended calorie intake.

As Americans dine out more and more, one can understand why the the percentage of obese people is increasing. Between 1997 and 2005 in Los Angeles County, the percentage of obese adults went from 14.3percent to 20.9 percent.

And childhood obesity, which affects 16percent of the nation’s youth, is becoming so common that many children suffer from diseases previously limited to adults, such as high cholesterol and blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended that doctors consider administering powerful cholesterol-reducing statin-class drugs to children as young as 8 years old.

To combat these negative trends, some lawmakers advocate policies such as restricting the number of fast-food restaurants in certain areas. We prefer a different approach, however. Senate Bill 1420 by Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, proposes that restaurant chains with 14 or more outlets in the state place information on calories, saturated fat, trans-fat, carbohydrates and sodium content of meals on their menus or menu boards.

A county Department of Public Health study released in May found that calorie postings would cause 10 percent of diners to order reduced-calorie meals - a significant step in controlling average annual weight gains in the county.

Last month, the American Journal of Public Health published a study on Subway customers. It found that those customers who see the calorie information on menu items order meals with 52 fewer calories than customers without such information.

An analysis of SB 1420 concludes that if a change in eating patterns led to a 1 percent reduction in the costs associated with obesity - such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and workers’ compensation - California could save $30 million annually.

A menu-labeling law, we think, will not only steer people toward healthier eating habits, but it will encourage restaurants to rethink some of their calorie-laden entrees. SB 1420, which passed the state Senate and is now moving through the Assembly, provides consumers with helpful information but doesn’t restrict the diner’s freedom to choose. We hope it passes the Assembly and eventually gets the governor’s signature.

(c) 2008 Daily Breeze. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.