Health Highlights: Feb. 20, 2006

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

McDonald''s Served with Lawsuits

At least three U.S. lawsuits have been filed against McDonald''s Corp. after it revealed last week that its french fries contain wheat and dairy products.

The company acknowledged last week that wheat and dairy ingredients are used to flavor the french fries. Until recently, the company said the fries did not contain wheat or dairy products, which can trigger allergic reactions or other problems in some people.

An Illinois woman filed a suit last Friday that accuses the fast food giant of misleading the public. The woman has celiac disease. People with this disorder suffer gastrointestinal symptoms when they eat gluten, a protein found in wheat, the Associated Press reported.

Another lawsuit was launched by a Florida couple who said their 5-year-old daughter has a gluten intolerance. And a Los Angeles woman who sued McDonald''s said she''s a vegan and would not have eaten the french fries if she''d been aware they contained dairy products, the AP reported.

A few weeks ago, McDonald''s announced that a new testing method revealed that its french fries contain a third more trans fat than previously believed.

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Possible Link Between MS and Metals: Study

Problems in the body''s ability to process aluminum and iron may be linked to multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a U.K. study that compared the levels of the metals in the urine of MS patients and in people without the disease.

The study included 10 patients with the relapsing-remitting MS and 10 with more advanced secondary progressive MS, along with 20 people in a control group who did not have MS, BBC News reported.

Iron levels were significantly higher in the MS patients, particularly in those with the secondary progressive form of the disease. Patients with relapsing-remitting MS were found to have extremely high levels of aluminum -- up to 40 times higher than people in the control group, BBC News reported.

It''s currently believed that genetic susceptibility and environmental factors lead to the development of MS.

"We hypothesize that susceptibility genes may have something to do with how iron in metabolized in the body -- something may be going wrong," the study authors suggested. "And it may be that aluminum is a previously unrecognized factor that exacerbates that problem, which then manifests itself in some as MS."

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Boys at Greater Risk of Burns

Boys are twice as likely as girls to burn themselves, according to a Swedish study of 148 children ages six and younger who required treatment for burns.

Nearly 75 percent of the children were younger than three and two-thirds were boys. The study authors also found that 96 percent of the accidents could have been prevented and said this suggests that parents need to pay more attention to burn risks, BBC News reported.

Boys may be more at risk because they tend to be more physically active.

The study found that 80 percent of the burn injuries were scalds -- 71 percent of those were caused by hot liquids and the remainder caused by hot foods. In many of these cases, children reached up and pulled hot food or liquid off a stove, BBC News reported.

Most of the burn injuries occurred among children between the ages of one and two -- an age at which parental observation of toddlers is crucial, the authors said. Parental education about preventive measures could reduce the incidence of childhood burns.

The study appears in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

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Pig Islet Cells Reverse Diabetes in Monkeys

In a finding that may be an important step forward for diabetes treatment, researchers at the University of Minnesota were able to reverse diabetes in monkeys by transplanting insulin-producing cells from pigs.

This "proof of principle" study of a dozen monkeys showed that pig islet cells, which make insulin, can cure diabetes in animals closely related to humans, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

After they received the pig islet cells, the diabetic monkeys survived without insulin shots for up to six months. Some of the monkeys did reject the pig islet cells. The findings appear in the journal Nature Medicine.

The results may prove to be a breakthrough for scientists, who have been trying to determine whether islet cells from one species could be used to control diabetes in another species.

"I would say it''s one of the more promising things on the horizon," Dr. Brian Flanagan of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in New York, told the Star Tribune.

The use of pig islet cells could help make up for the shortage of human islet cells.

"This overcomes the issue of source, so potentially you have an unlimited supply of islets for transplantation. That is a major hurdle to overcome," Flanagan said.

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Animal Diseases a Growing Human Health Threat: Experts

Animal diseases that mutate and infect humans are a growing global health threat, scientists warn.

Over the past 25 years, there have been 38 diseases that have made the jump from animals to humans, scientists note. Each year over the past quarter century, at least one new pathogen and numerous variations of existing pathogens have infected humans for the first time, the Associated Press reported.

"Humans have always been attacked by novel pathogens. This process has been going on for millennia. But it does seem to be happening very fast in these modern times," Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said at a weekend news conference at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Factors influencing increased animal-to-human disease transmission may include human interaction with the environment in a world that''s more densely populated and growing warmer, along with faster, more extensive travel, the AP reported.

While most diseases that jump from animals to humans never cause pandemics, experts are increasingly worried that the H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate into a form that''s easily transmitted between humans and cause a pandemic.

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Last Updated: Feb. 20, 2006