Attention, chocolate lovers: You may not be able to help yourselves. Swiss and British scientists have linked the widespread love of chocolate to a chemical "signature" that may be programmed into our metabolic systems.
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Health Highlights: Nov. 9, 2005
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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay: Diabetes Death Toll Could Triple Within 20 Years: Report Unless America''s obesity epidemic is brought under control, the number of people dying and suffering from diabetes and its complications will roughly triple by the year 2025, a new study predicts. The study, released Wednesday by the Yale Schools of Public Health and Medicine, in conjunction with the Institute for Alternative Futures, said those dire predictions will come true if the U.S. health-care system continues to fail to adequately prevent and treat the disease. "Diabetes is one of only two major causes of death in the U.S. that continues to increase while other major causes of death are declining. This is directly linked to the obesity epidemic," said Derek Yach, of the Yale School of Public Health. The study found that if the health-care system remains unchanged, by 2025:
----- FDA Cattle-Feed Testing Sometimes Too Slow: Report The U.S. Food and Drug Administration''s feed testing is sometimes too slow to prevent cattle from eating feed that might be contaminated with tissue from animals infected with mad cow disease, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. The FDA disagreed with the findings, arguing that the report unfairly zeroed in on a small part of widespread federal government efforts to prevent mad cow disease, the Associated Press reported. The GAO report cited numerous weaknesses in the FDA feed-testing program. The report said that in half of the 989 feed samples it examined, it took the FDA more than a month to determine whether or not banned cattle protein was present in the samples. Since cattle feed is usually consumed quickly after it''s made, feed may already by eaten by cattle before the FDA test results are available, the GAO report said. "If FDA''s testing program is not catching violations, and catching them in time, that needs to be corrected immediately," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told the AP. Harkin said that feed safeguards are a critical protection against mad cow disease. ----- CDC May Share Samples of 1918 Killer Flu The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will consider requests from American research labs to ship samples of the recently recreated 1918 killer Spanish flu virus. There are 300 non-government research labs registered to work with virulent germs like the Spanish flu, the Associated Press reported. The CDC said it would consider requests for samples from those labs "on a case-by-case basis," CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said Wednesday. Last month, U.S. scientists announced they had re-created the 1918 virus. It was the first time an infectious agent behind an historic global epidemic had ever been reconstructed, the AP said. Researchers said the reconstituted virus might be useful for devising defenses against a potential pandemic of bird flu, which has genetic characteristics similar to the 1918 virus. The CDC''s decision to consider shipping the 1918 virus outside its Atlanta campus was first reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Some critics of the recreation of the virus were not pleased to learn of plans to ship the germ, the news service said. The Spanish flu of 1918-19 killed 50 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 in the United States. ----- Up to $1 Billion Over 3 Years Needed to Fight Bird Flu: World Bank Between $750 million and $1 billion will be needed over the next three years to deal with the H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry, and for nations around the world to prepare for a possible human flu pandemic, a World Bank official told international delegates at a World Health Organization meeting on bird flu. Fadia Saadah also said that that cost estimate does not include the money needed to stockpile antiviral drugs and human flu vaccines, the Associated Press reported. The figures she cited cover the needs of countries already afflicted with bird flu, other countries at high risk for bird flu outbreaks, and the cost of developing plans to deal with bird flu in countries that currently lack such plans. If the bird flu mutates and is able to be transmitted between humans, "all of these figures will be multiplied by several orders of magnitude," she warned. The World Bank suggested that 90 percent of the required money be given directly to countries, while the remaining 10 percent be given to international or regional agencies, the AP reported. ----- More Sexual Content on TV: Study While it may not be all sex all the time, there are twice as many sex scenes being shown on U.S. television now than there were seven years ago, says a study released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The study also found that the number of shows that include "safer sex" messages has leveled off, the Associated Press reported. Researchers say they noted nearly 3,800 scenes with sexual content in more than 1,100 shows they looked at for their study. That compares to about 1,900 sex scenes in 1998. About 14 percent of the current shows with sexual content also had "safer sex" messages, including discussions about contraception or delaying sex. That figure is about the same as in 2002 but is up from 9 percent in the first study in 1998, the AP reported. This latest study found some sexual content in 70 percent of the shows, at an average of about five scenes an hour. The researchers defined sexual content as anything from discussion about sex, to scenes ranging from kissing to intercourse. The study also found that major networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX -- had increased levels of sexual content in their prime-time shows. There was sexual content in 77 percent of major network prime-time shows, compared with 71 percent in 2002 and 67 percent in 1998. Last Updated: Nov. 9, 2005 |