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Is a Virus Making You Obese? Fat Chance

January 26, 2009 3:20 PM

By DAN CHILDS, ABC News Medical Unit

What if obesity was an insidious infection you could catch from your friends and colleagues?

Such is the scenario proposed in new research on an adenovirus known as AD-36. A team of scientists led by Nikhil Dhurandhar of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana reports that infection with the virus leads to the production of more fat cells in the body -- hence, a greater propensity toward obesity.

It’s not the first time that researchers have implicated this virus in obesity or the first time that researchers have sought an alternative explanation for the country’s current obesity epidemic. In December 2006, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis blamed the bacteria that naturally lives in the gut for a propensity toward obesity. A number of other studies have implicated genes for additional weight, while a July 2007 study suggested that social networks are actually associated with obesity -- in other words, your friends may make you fat.

And few went as far as a team of researchers at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, did in June 2006 to come up with alternate explanations for a populace that is rapidly becoming rounder. The group published a list of 10 “additional explanations” for obesity. Among the possible overlooked causes, the team says, are getting too little sleep, increased reliance on air conditioning, decreased smoking rates and increased levels of pollution.

But at the risk of digging the spurs into a tired pun, how much weight should we really give these alternative explanations?

“At some point it just doesn’t add up,” said Keith-Thomas Ayoob, director of the nutrition clinic at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He notes that the lifestyle behaviors most commonly associated with obesity -- too much eating, not enough exercising -- offer a much more plausible explanation.

“I think it is the elephant in the room,” he said.

But he adds that what he feels is more problematic than these alternative explanations is Americans’ need to find something to blame for obesity -- or to take on this blame themselves.

“At some point we’ve got to give ourselves a break and not blame ourselves,” he said. “Whether a virus is or isn’t responsible for our weight gain, that’s one of those things that we can’t control.”

“But we certainly can control our daily lifestyle. ... This involves less blaming and more action, which I think is a more positive thing.”

January 26, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (28)

Video Gamers May Be 'Virtually' on Their Own

January 23, 2009 3:11 PM

By AUDREY GRAYSON, ABC News Medical Unit

I have a dark secret from my past. It involves a phase in my life which I am not proud to admit that I went through.

From the age of about 12 to 16, I was a gamer. Not just any gamer, either. I was completely consumed.

The first thing I did when I woke up was run upstairs, turn on the computer, and try to play as many games as I could before I had to get ready for school. The first thing I did after school was run upstairs, turn on the computer and play games until the early hours of the morning. Then I woke up at 6 a.m. the next day and did it all over again.

Surprisingly, my grades in school didn’t suffer at all from my addiction. But the countless hours sitting in front of the computer screen, eyes glazed and palms sweating, did take a toll on one significant aspect of my life: my social life.

So it came as no surprise to me whatsoever that researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, found that video games are bad for college students’ relationships.

Researchers surveyed 813 undergraduates at the university and found that most associations with gaming were negative. Those who played video games more frequently reported a lower quality relationship with both friends and family members. Moreover, women who played video games more frequently reported a lower self-image.

More video game use was also linked to higher rates of drug and alcohol use. And the more time a person spent playing the games, the higher the risk was for negative outcomes.

But which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Did I turn to computer games because I was friendless, lonely and unhappy, or did I become friendless, lonely and unhappy because of the computer games?

“We should be cautious about how we interpret these findings,” said lead study author Laura Walker, assistant professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. “It’s important to recognize that these are correlations… we’re not saying that video game use causes these negative outcomes."

But Scott Rigby, the president of Immersyve Inc., a player-experience research firm, explained the ease with which one might “crowd out” real life obligations and experiences by becoming over-involved in a virtual world.

“The thing about video games is when you’re sitting in a virtual world, you’re not in the real world,” Rigby said. “And video games are particularly good for satisfying a lot of our human needs – real life often doesn’t give us that same kind of constant feedback, that thrill of victory every few seconds.”

“It makes sense that some people may crowd out real life experiences and become out of balance with other things in their life, work or relationships,” he added.

However, Rigby stressed that it is impossible to confirm whether there is a causal relationship between gaming and negative outcomes.

“We do think that at a certain point people have to have the time available in order to fill it with the game, but we also think that sometimes games are much denser in terms of satisfaction, so even if your life is full of hobbies and activities, you could start crowding out real life obligations with game time,” Rigby explained.

And looking back at the “gaming phase” of my life now, I can see much more clearly why I became so obsessed: I was an outcast. My social calendar was one big empty hole, so I filled it to the rim with computer games. The real trick is digging yourself out of that hole and coming back into the real world again.

January 23, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (14)

Think Birth Control Pills Are Dangerous? Try Pregnancy

January 15, 2009 3:19 PM

By JOANNA SCHAFFHAUSEN, ABC News Medical Unit

Since hormonal birth control first appeared in the 1960s, nearly 80 percent of women have taken it at some point in their lives. The pills and patches are so commonplace now that many of us tune out the warnings on the packaging or at the end of the commercials -- something about increased risk for heart attacks, strokes and blood clots? But a new study affirms the risks are real and well worth considering, especially for certain groups of women.

Chrisandra Shufelt and C. Noel Bairey Merz, two doctors from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, conducted a review on heart health and birth control that was published this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They found that the hormones can trigger blood clots, which in the arteries can cause heart attacks and in the brain can cause a stroke. Overall, the heart risk appeared about 2.5 times greater for women currently using hormonal birth control compared to those who were not.

The results sound very scary -- birth control pills double your risk for heart attacks -- but a little more context helps put the findings into perspective. First, women of child-bearing age have a low risk for serious heart disease; the risk for death from heart disease is about 0.002 percent per year for women under 35. So even if hormonal birth control doubles those odds, the risk is still quite tiny indeed.

There is even better news for those who don’t smoke. Studies suggest that the bulk of heart attacks and strokes caused by birth control occur in smokers. Some research even finds no increase in heart risk among healthy, nonsmoking women on birth control pills.

Also, if you’re looking for something that raises the risk for women’s heart problems, consider pregnancy. Studies show pregnancy is linked to a two- to three-fold increase in the odds of heart attack, an eight-fold increase in the odds of stroke, and as high as a 50-fold increase in the odds of blood clots. Hormonal birth control pills look quite safe by comparison.

But low-risk is not NO risk, and women should be aware of the effects that these pills and patches can have on their health. Women over 35, especially those who smoke or have high blood pressure, may want to consider methods of birth control that do not alter hormones, such as condoms or a diaphragm.

Women should also examine why they are taking the pills and determine if the health trade-offs are worth it. Hormonal birth control is “marketed now almost as a lifestyle drug,” Dr. Sharonne N. Hayes, director of the Mayo Clinic Women's Heart Clinic, told ABC News. According to Hayes, more and more women are taking birth control for other conditions such as acne and mood disorders linked to menstruation. Women must decide if treating these problems with birth control is worth the increase in heart disease risk.

Finally, though the risk remains, there is some evidence to suggest that it’s decreasing with newer forms of birth control. The review by Shufelt and Bairey Merz included several articles that found lower rates of heart disease in women taking more recent formulations of the pill or the patch. The newer versions tend to use lower doses and slightly different combinations of hormones, both of which may cut down on the risk.

January 15, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (32)

How Your Zzzs Can Ward Off Disease

January 13, 2009 1:46 PM

By DAN CHILDS, ABC News Medical Unit

Call it another reason to turn in early. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University released a study Tuesday showing that people who get less than seven hours of sleep per night were three times as likely as their well-rested counterparts to come down with a cold.

The new study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is not the first time research has suggested a link between sleep and immune function. Evidence of such a connection goes back at least as far as 2002, to a small study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In this study, researchers found that young adult subjects who had received insufficient sleep for four days straight got less immune protection from a flu shot than the subjects who got more sleep.

Dr. Akram Khan, a sleep disorders expert at Oregon Health and Science University, said research has hinted at such a connection for quite some time.

“Your mother was probably right when she told you that you need to get enough sleep,” Khan said, noting that animal studies have added more to the base of evidence supporting the link between sleep and immune function.

“Animals, when they get sick, tend to sleep a lot, and those that get sleep are more likely to recover,” he said. “If you deprive rats of their ability to sleep, eventually they will die of a bacterial infection.”

What’s more interesting, Khan said, is the possibility that an effect similar to that seen in the Carnegie Mellon study may be seen in infections other than the garden-variety cold. In short, could sleep help stave off a viral pandemic?

“Maybe people are also less likely to get infected with bird flu if they slept adequately,” Khan offered. “This could have humongous public health implications.”

And the best part may be that the remedy, in this case, is available without a prescription.

“It doesn’t cost a thing; all you have to do is sleep an extra hour or two,” Khan said.

January 13, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (12)

Alzheimer's Drug Death Risk Means Tough Questions for Families

January 10, 2009 10:00 AM

By AUDREY GRAYSON, ABC News Medical Unit

When an elderly patient with dementia enters into nursing home care, his or her family is often faced with a difficult choice. On the one hand, they can put their loved one on an antipsychotic medication that will temper his or her aggression -- at the cost of perhaps increasing the risk of early death. Or they can face the possibility that their loved one could be kicked out of the nursing home due to his or her aggressive behavior.

Despite the fact that antipsychotic drugs for Alzheimer’s disease now carry a warning that they are linked to increased death risk in elderly patients, these medications still are often used in the nursing home setting to help manage aggression in elderly patients with dementia -- particularly if an entering patient poses a risk of harming him- or herself or others.

But this needn’t always be the case. Alzheimer’s experts say it is important that family members of elderly patients with dementia understand that there are ways of managing aggressive behavior in these patients without resorting to drug treatment.

William Thies, chief medical officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, suggested that families first look into non-pharmacological treatments for aggressive behavior in elderly demented patients, which can be as effective as antipsychotic medications.

“Non-pharmacological treatments are things like changing the environment of the patient, changing the way the patient is addressed, and eliminating certain triggering events that may cause deteriorations in patient behavior,” Thies explained.

And now that a new study published in the journal Lancet Neurology finds that the death risk for elderly demented patients taking antipsychotic medication is even bigger than previously thought, understanding the alternatives to drug treatment is more important than ever.

Researchers from King's College London studied 128 patients who were given either an antipsychotic drug or a placebo. After one year, they found that 70 percent of those taking the antipsychotic medication were still alive, compared to 77 percent of those on a placebo.

More startlingly, they found that this gap widened over time. By three years, only 30 percent of those on the drugs were alive compared to 59 percent in the placebo group.

In order to encourage families to make the best decisions for their loved ones, dementia experts say these families must consider a number of factors before turning to antipsychotic medications.

“My advice to families is to agree that the symptoms are bad enough to warrant exposing their loved ones to risk -- and mortality is not the only risk,” said Dr. Thomas Finucane, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. “If yes, to agree explicitly on what the meaningful goals of treatment are, and to stop the medicine unless a meaningful goals are met.”

January 10, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (13)

Are We More Racist Than We Think?

January 08, 2009 6:19 PM

By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN, ABC News Medical Unit

Earlier this week, "What Would You Do?" aired a segment that examined whether people respond to overt racism, concluding that we often don't speak up when confronted with  it.

Today, a new study in the journal Science shows our tolerance for racism may be even greater than we believed. The authors say that people don't respond, or even get upset, when they see racism directed at someone else.

"When they’re put in that situation, they are not upset at all, and they don’t punish or censor the racism at all," said psychologist Kerry Kawakami of York University in Toronto and one of the study's authors.

But the new study is more  an indictment of the failure to stand up to racism when it would have been easy to do so.

In Kawakami's study, 120 subjects -- none of whom were black -- were randomly divided into two groups.

Half the subjects were put in a room with a black person and a white person (both actors) and told they would be doing an experiment with a partner. The black actor would leave the room, grazing the knee of the white person on his way out.

After the black actor left the room, the white actor would respond in one of three ways: He'd say either  nothing, or "Typical. I hate it when black people do that," or use a racial slur.

Shortly after, a  black actor would return with the researcher to begin the puzzles, and the subject was asked to choose either the black or the white partner.

The second group of subjects was presented with the same scenario, but hypothetically, and were asked how upset they would be and whom they would choose as a partner.

While the subjects presented with  the hypothetical situation said they would  be upset and choose the black person as a partner, those who had witnessed the actual situation did the opposite. More than 60 percent of the those who had witnessed the racist comment  chose the white partner, while less than 30 percent of the subjects in the  hypothetical situation  said they'd  do that.

It seems most won't put their foot down when confronted with racism.

"It’s not even standing up to racism, it’s not even as costly as it was on your program,” said Kawakami, referring to ABC News' "What Would You Do" segment.

While the situation set up by ABC required someone to speak up in a crowded area, the people in the study only had to speak up in a small group, or avoid a racist partner when that was all the information they had in making their choice.

And even when  they were alone in a room with a racist, the people in the study said nothing.

“Nobody in our study said anything to the white person,” said Kawakami.

Additionally, Kawakami said, the people in the study who had witnessed racism apparently did not experience any distress because of it.

Many see the election of Barack Obama as a sign that racism has ended in the United States, but experiments like these signal it has not vanished entirely.

Kawakami said racism might persist partly because there is not enough said to people who make racist comments.

“Racist behavior is not censored, is not punished in our society, and that could be one reason why it’s still so prevalent,” she said.

January 8, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (7)

A Note From the FDA: There Are Beetles in Your Juice

January 07, 2009 11:33 AM

By KIRK FERNANDES, ABC News Medical Unit

So, you know all those ground-up bugs you’ve been drinking and eating? Ooh … awkward moment. You didn’t know you were gulping down ground-up bugs, did you?

Well, it turns out that one of the best ways to make a “natural” red food coloring is to crush the dried bodies of the female Dactylopius coccus -- a cactus-eating insect from the Americas.

The resulting scarlet hue brightens some of our popular juices, candies, yogurts and ice creams. And the same coloring can be used in makeup including lipstick.

Earlier this week the Food and Drug Administration issued a rule requiring manufacturers using the dye -- known as carmine, or cochineal extract -- to label it as such in foods and cosmetics.

But not because of the gross factor. Instead, the FDA is doing so to help prevent dangerous anaphylactic reactions in people who are allergic to the insects and are unknowingly ingesting and/or rubbing the colorful bug powder on their faces.

The labeling of "these color additives in all foods and cosmetics is necessary to ensure their safe use," stated the FDA report issued Monday.

The new requirement was, in part, a response to a citizen petition about the allergic reactions, first launched in 1998 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, according to the FDA report. But the final rule doesn’t go as far as the center had wanted: an overall ban of the ingredient or a required label to explain that carmine is "insect-derived."

"We wanted people to know that it comes from an insect," said Michael Jacobson, the center's executive director. "Vegetarians, Jews, anybody else who has concerns about eating animal products should know that."

It should be noted that cochineal allergies appear to be rare. The FDA collected 14 reports of adverse reactions during a 10-year period. And the agency is not considering it a "major food allergen" like other foods such as shellfish and tree nuts, which are covered by the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004.

A quick scan of the medical literature turned up a few reports of people with occupational asthma linked to carmine, including two workers at a carmine factory and two butchers who used the coloring in their sausages (both in Spain).

Manufacturers don’t have to start adding the “carmine” or “cochineal extract” labels until 2011, but you can find many products from familiar brands that are already noting the special ingredient.

Image of D. coccus cortesy of Peter J. Bryant, University of California, Irvine.

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Got allergy? Get answers from dozens of experts at the ABCNews.com OnCall+ Allergy center.

January 7, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (53)

Jett Travolta’s Death: Beyond the Media Coverage

January 07, 2009 10:01 AM

By DAN CHILDS, ABC News Medical Unit

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, a Google search revealed 5,971 results for news stories featuring the term “Travolta.” This was little surprise, considering the intense news media spotlight on the death of 16-year-old Jett Travolta in the Bahamas Friday.

Since the news was announced, the ABC News Medical Unit has spoken to experts in a variety of medical specialties for comments on what could have caused the boy’s death.

We heard back from several of these experts, but one response that stood out was from Dr. Nancy Minshew, a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh. While we initially expected that Minshew’s expertise in the area of autism research would be a boon to our reporting, it was her experience as a parent who had lost a child that resonated with us.

Here are excepts from Minshew’s message, reprinted here with her permission:

“I don’t know what anyone can say about this death, except that it is every parent's worst nightmare and it is just the beginning. Who cares what caused it?

“The phone call from out of nowhere -- the police or the hospital call to ask: ‘Are you the parents of...’ It happens suddenly. It happened to me. My son died in a car wreck six years ago, and I got a call at 4 a.m. You suddenly become a member of a not-so-small club you can never resign from, and that will grieve you until you die. It will cause you to question your most fundamental beliefs.

“I would like to say these parents will feel better soon, but they won’t. Maybe in two years or three they will feel better, but not this year or next year. And not before they question every thing they did or did not do. ... Every invasion of their privacy with speculation about cause will cause pain. Empathy would help. That is all I can say about that.”

What do you think?

January 7, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (19)