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Is there abnormal brain development?
January 2010
MANOA, HAWAII - A first of its kind study online at the journal Neurology examines methamphetamine use in pregnancy and found the drug seems to cause abnormal brain development in children.
"(Meth) use is an increasing problem among women of childbearing age, leading to an increasing number of children with prenatal meth exposure," said study author Dr. Linda Chang, of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii.
"Until now, the effects of (this) exposure on the developing brain of a child were little known."
Brain scans were done for 29 three- and four-year-old children whose mothers used meth while pregnant and 37 unexposed children of the same ages.
The scans used tensor imaging to help measure the diffusion of molecules in a child's brain, which can indicate abnormal microscopic brain structures that might reflect abnormal development.
The scans showed children with prenatal meth exposure had differences in the white matter structure/maturation of their brains versus unexposed children.
IOWA CITY, IA- The Disability Law & Policy e-Newsletter of the Law, Health Policy & Disability Center at the University of Iowa College of Law and the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University reported a U,S, Dept. of Justice study of "the victimization experiences of persons with disabilities." It compares the victimization rates with the non- disabled. Figures indicate the disabled older than 12 suffered approximately 716,000 non-fatal violent crimes and 2.3 million property crimes in 2007. The disabled experienced higher rates of violence than the non-disabled. The disparity was especially great for persons 12-19 who were nearly twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime as the non- disabled. Almost 20% of disabled victimized persons believed they were victims because they’re disabled. The data were collected through the Bureau of Justice Statistics administered National Crime Victimization Survey.
WASHINGTON - The Associated Press reported ambulance crews urge a virtual medical ID system to learn rapidly a patient's health history in a crisis - and which can immediately text-message loved ones that the person is hospital-bound. The Web-based registry started in Oklahoma and got a boost when the state made the program an optional health benefit for state employees. The iBracelet tries to go national as the American Ambulance Association (AAA) begins training its medics, who will urge communities to sign up. For $5 a year, basic health data and up to 10 emergency contacts are stored with a computer-assigned PIN number that's kept on a wallet card with a driver's license, key fob, or insurance card sticker. It's a complement to medical alert jewelry people with diabetes, asthma, and other conditions have used for decades to signal emergency needs. "Too many times, we don't have the information to help us treat the patients correctly," says James Finger, AAA president.
ATLANTA - Average U.S. life expectancy has reached almost 78 years - a record, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told HealthDay News. From birth in 2007, women can expect to live to 80.4 years on average and men to 75.3 years, states the CDC report. Even though we can expect to live longer than our parents, life expectancy remains lower than in many other industrialized nations, including Canada and Japan. Along with longer life expectancy, the report notes the death rate has fallen to an all-time low of 760.3 deaths per 100,000 people, continuing a long-term trend. "The risk of dying has dropped to a record low level, and life expectancy has reached a record high," said report co-author Arialdi Minino, a statistician for CDC's Center for Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics. "Ever since the 1960s, the death rate has been decreasing in the U.S.," he said. Fewer deaths from heart disease, stroke, and cancer are driving the trend, he said. Death rates vary by region/state, with the Southeast leading the U.S. West Virginia's rate is 25% higher than average; Hawaii has the lowest.
IOWA CITY, IA - The Disability Law & Policy e-Newsletter of the Law, Health Policy & Disability Center at the University of Iowa College of Law and the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University disclosed the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) became effective, Nov. 21. This law, with few exceptions, prohibits employers and health insurers from asking persons to give family medical histories affecting the terms/conditions of their employment. GINA prohibits employers from requiring genetic tests or considering an applicant's or employee's genetic history in hiring, promotion, or firing. GINA prohibits health insurers and group plans from requiring genetic testing in either denying coverage or setting premiums and deductibles.
NEW YORK - HealthDay News noted millions of Americans take drugs like Nexium, Prevacid, and Prilosec to ease erosive effects of acid reflux, but do these meds put patients at risk for other ills? Experts remain divided on potential dangers these common prescriptions might pose. The drugs are called "proton pump inhibitors," or PPIs, generally ruled safe and effective. Lately, these acid-reducing meds were linked to health risks: from more hip fracture to events of diarrhea and community-acquired pneumonia. Dr. Kenneth W. Altman, associate professor of otolaryngology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, draws attention to potential effects of PPI use in the journal Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. "I really want to emphasize this is an important class of medication and it's helping a lot of people," he said. Still, the scientific literature raises questions that require study, he added, such as how the body's metabolism of PPIs affects blood levels of other drugs processed in the liver.
ZÜRICH - Many young children are wearing shoes that are too small, claims a study presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS). So, these kids may be at high risk for serious foot deformities. The Swiss study had nearly 250 boys and girls age 5-10. Scientists measured the kids’ feet plus indoor and outdoor footwear to determine whether the kids were wearing properly-sized shoes. They compared footwear measurements to sizes given on the makers’ labels to see if the shoes were marked properly. Finally, they measured the angles of the children’s toes to learn whether any of the subjects were developing a foot deformity called hallux valgus. This occurs when the big toe begins to angle toward the second toe, causing a bunion, and can become swollen and painful. "The most striking finding was that more than 90% of outdoor and indoor shoes/slippers worn by the kids were too small," says Dr. Norman Espinosa, orthopedic surgeon at the University of Zürich.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - COSMOS magazine reported scientists are developing tattoo ink for diabetics that changes color depicting glucose body concentrations. It would allow continuous monitoring of blood sugar levels. Scientists at Boston’s Charles Stark Draper Laboratories said the ink could save lives and would mean diabetics no longer need to prick their fingers painfully to draw blood and measure glucose levels manually. The glucose-sensitive ink would have to be injected into surface layers of the skin, but the tattoo would only be a few millimeters in size, said lead researcher Heather Clarke. "The ink would need to be reapplied regularly, to avoid the problem - as with regular tattoos," she said. Initially conceived to monitor blood sodium to treat heart problems and dehydration, the tattoo ink has tiny porous nanoparticles, each with molecules that detect glucose and a color-changing dye. Clarke said that when there’s glucose, the glucose-detecting molecules attach to it and the dye turns purple. If there’s no glucose, the molecules attach to the dye, turning it yellow. Normal glucose levels leave the ink orange.
GALVESTON, TX - Hospitalists account for nearly 40% of inpatient Medicare claims for general internist services, up from under 10% in 1995, researchers told MedPage Today. This was a population-based study to quantify the trend among hospitals to put general patient care in the hands of their own, full-time physician-employees. Led by Dr. James Goodwin, of the University of Texas Medical Branch, the team found large geographic variation in the practice. In some areas, hospitalists accounted for more than 70% of general inpatient care, it was noted in the New England Journal of Medicine. "The odds that a hospitalized Medicare patient would receive care from a hospitalist rose 29.2% per year 1997-2006," they said. "By 2006, almost all areas of the U.S. were served by hospitalists." While the hospitalist trend has been embraced widely since its inception in the 1990s, "it was surprising to us how much it had grown," Dr. Goodwin said. Hospitalists were defined as general internal medicine physicians with at least five evaluation-and-management billings in a year and generated at least 90% of total E-M billings in the year from services to inpatients, using data on a 5% sample of Medicare beneficiaries.
AMSTERDAM - Measuring the hippocampus yields a better idea of which healthy people will develop Alzheimer's disease than measuring the entire brain, scientists told MedPage Today. Among healthy controls and patients with mild cognitive impairment, baseline hippocampal volume and the rate of shrinkage at follow-up were the best predictors of Alzheimer's, Dr. Wouter Henneman, of VU University Medical Center, and his team wrote in the journal Neurology. Conversely, the only measure that defined between those with Alzheimer's and those with mild cognitive impairment was the rate of whole brain atrophy. Hippocampal measurements were no longer predictive. "This finding seems to reflect that, at the stage of mild cognitive impairment, considerable atrophy has occurred," Dr. Henneman said. Due to the prospect of developing disease-modifying therapies to treat Alzheimer's, early detection and monitoring of progression are particularly important, the team stated.
DENVER - HealthDay News noted that in a decade, new asthma medications/tools have aided significantly management of this serious airway disease. When compared to children treated in the mid-'90s, kids with severe asthma 2004-2007 were less likely to need oral steroids and rescue inhalers, and lung function scores were better, states a study from National Jewish Health. "The current cohort was less likely to require chronic oral glucocorticoids, have better asthma control, and have fewer glucocorticoid-induced adverse effects (versus) a cohort of severe asthmatic kids studied a decade ago," wrote the authors. The study was presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology annual meeting. To assess whether or not newer medications had made a positive impact on asthma treatment, scientists compared 65 children referred to the hospital 2004-2007 to 164 children referred 1993-1997. All of the children had severe asthma. The present-day children were less likely to need oral steroids - 28% of the current group versus 51% of the historic group.
SEOUL, KOREA - People with osteoporosis are more likely to have vertigo, states a study in the journal Neurology. The study had 209 people with benign positional vertigo without a cause, such as head trauma or ear surgery. Vertigo is an inner ear ill and a common cause of dizziness. It’s believed to be caused by loose calcium carbonate crystals in the sensing tubes of the inner ear. Those with vertigo were compared to 202 people with no dizziness history. Those with low bone density were three times more likely to have vertigo; those with osteopenia - the stage before osteoporosis - were twice as likely to have vertigo as people with normal bone density. In women, 25% of those with vertigo had osteoporosis versus 9% of those without vertigo; 47% of those with vertigo had osteopenia versus 33% of those without vertigo. For men, 12% of those with vertigo had osteoporosis versus 6% of those without vertigo; 40% of those with vertigo had osteopenia versus 27% of those without vertigo. "These findings suggest a problem with calcium metabolism in people with vertigo," said study author Dr. Ji Soo Kim, of Seoul National University College of Medicine.
BETHESDA, MD - The National Institute of Mental Health stated initial positive results from intensive treatment of childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are unlikely to be sustained over the long term. Analysis of data from the NIMH-funded Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) was in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. MTA was a multi-site trial comparing treatments for ADHD in childhood. Initial results of the 14-month study, when 579 children were assigned randomly to one of three intensive treatment groups (medication alone, psychosocial/behavioral alone, both combined) or to routine community care were published in 1999. Scientists found the intensive medication management alone or with the behavioral therapy yielded better symptomatic relief for kids with ADHD than just behavioral therapy or usual community care. Kids who got the combination fared best in other areas of functioning, such as social skills and parent/child relations.
ATLANTA - HealthDay News noted that although the rate of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is rising, newer treatments could help ease the most serious effects by about 35%. In a study funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , scientists report up to 9.1 million people will have AMD in 2010, but 17.8 million will have it by 2050. "What we found is, due to aging, the number of cases of early and advanced AMD will (rise) dramatically no matter what," said study author David Rein, a senior researcher from RTI International in Research Triangle Park, NC. "In 2050, we project there will be 1.57 million cases of blindness [caused by AMD] with no treatment. With vigorous treatment, that number's just about 1 million." The study was in the Archives of Ophthalmology. AMD is an eye disease that causes the breakdown of the macula, located in the retina. The macula gives clear central vision, essential for reading and driving, even for just seeing people's faces. AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in people over 65, states the American Academy of Ophthalmologists. Risk factors include age, family history of AMD, high blood pressure, smoking, and obesity. There’s no cure.
MILAN, ITALY - The risk of developing leukemia as a side effect of a drug for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is higher than previously reported, notes a study presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting. Mitoxantrone is an immunosuppressant drug approved by the FDA for several forms of advancing MS. It’s one of only two drugs shown to benefit people with secondary progressive MS who are having attacks. However, the drug can cause heart damage at high total doses, and lifetime cumulative dose is equal to about eight to 12 doses over two to three years. Previous studies showed people with MS treated with the drug have a higher risk for leukemia. This retrospective study of 2,854 Italian people with MS receiving the drug found leukemia occurred in 0.74%. "This rate is significantly higher than what has been reported," said study author Dr. Vittorio Martinelli, of University Vita-Salute.
IOWA CITY, IA- The Disability Law & Policy e-Newsletter of the Law, Health Policy & Disability Center at the University of Iowa College of Law and the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University reported a U,S, Dept. of Justice study of "the victimization experiences of persons with disabilities." It compares the victimization rates with the non- disabled. Figures indicate the disabled older than 12 suffered approximately 716,000 non-fatal violent crimes and 2.3 million property crimes in 2007. The disabled experienced higher rates of violence than the non-disabled. The disparity was especially great for persons 12-19 who were nearly twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime as the non- disabled. Almost 20% of disabled victimized persons believed they were victims because they’re disabled. The data were collected through the Bureau of Justice Statistics administered National Crime Victimization Survey.
WASHINGTON - The Associated Press reported ambulance crews urge a virtual medical ID system to learn rapidly a patient's health history in a crisis - and which can immediately text-message loved ones that the person is hospital-bound. The Web-based registry started in Oklahoma and got a boost when the state made the program an optional health benefit for state employees. The iBracelet tries to go national as the American Ambulance Association (AAA) begins training its medics, who will urge communities to sign up. For $5 a year, basic health data and up to 10 emergency contacts are stored with a computer-assigned PIN number that's kept on a wallet card with a driver's license, key fob, or insurance card sticker. It's a complement to medical alert jewelry people with diabetes, asthma, and other conditions have used for decades to signal emergency needs. "Too many times, we don't have the information to help us treat the patients correctly," says James Finger, AAA president.
ATLANTA - Average U.S. life expectancy has reached almost 78 years - a record, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told HealthDay News. From birth in 2007, women can expect to live to 80.4 years on average and men to 75.3 years, states the CDC report. Even though we can expect to live longer than our parents, life expectancy remains lower than in many other industrialized nations, including Canada and Japan. Along with longer life expectancy, the report notes the death rate has fallen to an all-time low of 760.3 deaths per 100,000 people, continuing a long-term trend. "The risk of dying has dropped to a record low level, and life expectancy has reached a record high," said report co-author Arialdi Minino, a statistician for CDC's Center for Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics. "Ever since the 1960s, the death rate has been decreasing in the U.S.," he said. Fewer deaths from heart disease, stroke, and cancer are driving the trend, he said. Death rates vary by region/state, with the Southeast leading the U.S. West Virginia's rate is 25% higher than average; Hawaii has the lowest.
IOWA CITY, IA - The Disability Law & Policy e-Newsletter of the Law, Health Policy & Disability Center at the University of Iowa College of Law and the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University disclosed the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) became effective, Nov. 21. This law, with few exceptions, prohibits employers and health insurers from asking persons to give family medical histories affecting the terms/conditions of their employment. GINA prohibits employers from requiring genetic tests or considering an applicant's or employee's genetic history in hiring, promotion, or firing. GINA prohibits health insurers and group plans from requiring genetic testing in either denying coverage or setting premiums and deductibles.
NEW YORK - HealthDay News noted millions of Americans take drugs like Nexium, Prevacid, and Prilosec to ease erosive effects of acid reflux, but do these meds put patients at risk for other ills? Experts remain divided on potential dangers these common prescriptions might pose. The drugs are called "proton pump inhibitors," or PPIs, generally ruled safe and effective. Lately, these acid-reducing meds were linked to health risks: from more hip fracture to events of diarrhea and community-acquired pneumonia. Dr. Kenneth W. Altman, associate professor of otolaryngology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, draws attention to potential effects of PPI use in the journal Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. "I really want to emphasize this is an important class of medication and it's helping a lot of people," he said. Still, the scientific literature raises questions that require study, he added, such as how the body's metabolism of PPIs affects blood levels of other drugs processed in the liver.
ZÜRICH - Many young children are wearing shoes that are too small, claims a study presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS). So, these kids may be at high risk for serious foot deformities. The Swiss study had nearly 250 boys and girls age 5-10. Scientists measured the kids’ feet plus indoor and outdoor footwear to determine whether the kids were wearing properly-sized shoes. They compared footwear measurements to sizes given on the makers’ labels to see if the shoes were marked properly. Finally, they measured the angles of the children’s toes to learn whether any of the subjects were developing a foot deformity called hallux valgus. This occurs when the big toe begins to angle toward the second toe, causing a bunion, and can become swollen and painful. "The most striking finding was that more than 90% of outdoor and indoor shoes/slippers worn by the kids were too small," says Dr. Norman Espinosa, orthopedic surgeon at the University of Zürich.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - COSMOS magazine reported scientists are developing tattoo ink for diabetics that changes color depicting glucose body concentrations. It would allow continuous monitoring of blood sugar levels. Scientists at Boston’s Charles Stark Draper Laboratories said the ink could save lives and would mean diabetics no longer need to prick their fingers painfully to draw blood and measure glucose levels manually. The glucose-sensitive ink would have to be injected into surface layers of the skin, but the tattoo would only be a few millimeters in size, said lead researcher Heather Clarke. "The ink would need to be reapplied regularly, to avoid the problem - as with regular tattoos," she said. Initially conceived to monitor blood sodium to treat heart problems and dehydration, the tattoo ink has tiny porous nanoparticles, each with molecules that detect glucose and a color-changing dye. Clarke said that when there’s glucose, the glucose-detecting molecules attach to it and the dye turns purple. If there’s no glucose, the molecules attach to the dye, turning it yellow. Normal glucose levels leave the ink orange.
GALVESTON, TX - Hospitalists account for nearly 40% of inpatient Medicare claims for general internist services, up from under 10% in 1995, researchers told MedPage Today. This was a population-based study to quantify the trend among hospitals to put general patient care in the hands of their own, full-time physician-employees. Led by Dr. James Goodwin, of the University of Texas Medical Branch, the team found large geographic variation in the practice. In some areas, hospitalists accounted for more than 70% of general inpatient care, it was noted in the New England Journal of Medicine. "The odds that a hospitalized Medicare patient would receive care from a hospitalist rose 29.2% per year 1997-2006," they said. "By 2006, almost all areas of the U.S. were served by hospitalists." While the hospitalist trend has been embraced widely since its inception in the 1990s, "it was surprising to us how much it had grown," Dr. Goodwin said. Hospitalists were defined as general internal medicine physicians with at least five evaluation-and-management billings in a year and generated at least 90% of total E-M billings in the year from services to inpatients, using data on a 5% sample of Medicare beneficiaries.
AMSTERDAM - Measuring the hippocampus yields a better idea of which healthy people will develop Alzheimer's disease than measuring the entire brain, scientists told MedPage Today. Among healthy controls and patients with mild cognitive impairment, baseline hippocampal volume and the rate of shrinkage at follow-up were the best predictors of Alzheimer's, Dr. Wouter Henneman, of VU University Medical Center, and his team wrote in the journal Neurology. Conversely, the only measure that defined between those with Alzheimer's and those with mild cognitive impairment was the rate of whole brain atrophy. Hippocampal measurements were no longer predictive. "This finding seems to reflect that, at the stage of mild cognitive impairment, considerable atrophy has occurred," Dr. Henneman said. Due to the prospect of developing disease-modifying therapies to treat Alzheimer's, early detection and monitoring of progression are particularly important, the team stated.
DENVER - HealthDay News noted that in a decade, new asthma medications/tools have aided significantly management of this serious airway disease. When compared to children treated in the mid-'90s, kids with severe asthma 2004-2007 were less likely to need oral steroids and rescue inhalers, and lung function scores were better, states a study from National Jewish Health. "The current cohort was less likely to require chronic oral glucocorticoids, have better asthma control, and have fewer glucocorticoid-induced adverse effects (versus) a cohort of severe asthmatic kids studied a decade ago," wrote the authors. The study was presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology annual meeting. To assess whether or not newer medications had made a positive impact on asthma treatment, scientists compared 65 children referred to the hospital 2004-2007 to 164 children referred 1993-1997. All of the children had severe asthma. The present-day children were less likely to need oral steroids - 28% of the current group versus 51% of the historic group.
SEOUL, KOREA - People with osteoporosis are more likely to have vertigo, states a study in the journal Neurology. The study had 209 people with benign positional vertigo without a cause, such as head trauma or ear surgery. Vertigo is an inner ear ill and a common cause of dizziness. It’s believed to be caused by loose calcium carbonate crystals in the sensing tubes of the inner ear. Those with vertigo were compared to 202 people with no dizziness history. Those with low bone density were three times more likely to have vertigo; those with osteopenia - the stage before osteoporosis - were twice as likely to have vertigo as people with normal bone density. In women, 25% of those with vertigo had osteoporosis versus 9% of those without vertigo; 47% of those with vertigo had osteopenia versus 33% of those without vertigo. For men, 12% of those with vertigo had osteoporosis versus 6% of those without vertigo; 40% of those with vertigo had osteopenia versus 27% of those without vertigo. "These findings suggest a problem with calcium metabolism in people with vertigo," said study author Dr. Ji Soo Kim, of Seoul National University College of Medicine.
BETHESDA, MD - The National Institute of Mental Health stated initial positive results from intensive treatment of childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are unlikely to be sustained over the long term. Analysis of data from the NIMH-funded Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) was in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. MTA was a multi-site trial comparing treatments for ADHD in childhood. Initial results of the 14-month study, when 579 children were assigned randomly to one of three intensive treatment groups (medication alone, psychosocial/behavioral alone, both combined) or to routine community care were published in 1999. Scientists found the intensive medication management alone or with the behavioral therapy yielded better symptomatic relief for kids with ADHD than just behavioral therapy or usual community care. Kids who got the combination fared best in other areas of functioning, such as social skills and parent/child relations.
ATLANTA - HealthDay News noted that although the rate of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is rising, newer treatments could help ease the most serious effects by about 35%. In a study funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , scientists report up to 9.1 million people will have AMD in 2010, but 17.8 million will have it by 2050. "What we found is, due to aging, the number of cases of early and advanced AMD will (rise) dramatically no matter what," said study author David Rein, a senior researcher from RTI International in Research Triangle Park, NC. "In 2050, we project there will be 1.57 million cases of blindness [caused by AMD] with no treatment. With vigorous treatment, that number's just about 1 million." The study was in the Archives of Ophthalmology. AMD is an eye disease that causes the breakdown of the macula, located in the retina. The macula gives clear central vision, essential for reading and driving, even for just seeing people's faces. AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in people over 65, states the American Academy of Ophthalmologists. Risk factors include age, family history of AMD, high blood pressure, smoking, and obesity. There’s no cure.
MILAN, ITALY - The risk of developing leukemia as a side effect of a drug for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is higher than previously reported, notes a study presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting. Mitoxantrone is an immunosuppressant drug approved by the FDA for several forms of advancing MS. It’s one of only two drugs shown to benefit people with secondary progressive MS who are having attacks. However, the drug can cause heart damage at high total doses, and lifetime cumulative dose is equal to about eight to 12 doses over two to three years. Previous studies showed people with MS treated with the drug have a higher risk for leukemia. This retrospective study of 2,854 Italian people with MS receiving the drug found leukemia occurred in 0.74%. "This rate is significantly higher than what has been reported," said study author Dr. Vittorio Martinelli, of University Vita-Salute.