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Personal Health: News and Notes
Winehouse is not alone; emphysema afflicts the young
Many people were shocked to learn recently that English singer Amy Winehouse, 24, showed "signs of emphysema," according to her U.S. publicist. Though copious photos show the beehived singer with a cigarette dangling from her lips, many were stunned to learn that someone that young could suffer from a disease usually associated with two-pack-a-day 65-year-olds.But Winehouse is not an anomaly. Health experts say young adult smokers are no strangers to mild emphysema, a shortness of breath caused by damage to the lungs' small air sacs.
Smoking can permanently deteriorate the lungs, irreversibly diminishing lung capacity - and the damage starts young, even in teens who smoke five cigarettes a day, according to one 1996 study from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston of 10,000 youths who smoked.
The damage can come in the form of emphysema, which is caused by some of the 4,000 to 5,000 toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke. (None in particular is known to be the source of the damage, but collectively they create chaos in the lungs.)
Activated oxygen molecules in the smoke trigger inflammation that can't be controlled, said Jonathan Samet, chairman of the epidemiology department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
- Los Angeles Times
Osteoporosis drugs can slow healing of fractures, study finds
Like many measures intended to protect your health, taking certain osteoporosis drugs may have unintended consequences. A small new study found that Merck's big seller Fosamax and similar drugs might actually slow the healing of stress fractures."While bisphosphonates like Fosamax have been proven to successfully treat osteoporosis and other metabolic bone diseases, we believe long-term use of these drugs may suppress the ability of bones to heal in some patients," says the study's lead author, Dean Lorich of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Orthopaedic Trauma.
The study followed 70 people, 25 of whom took the drug for more than five years. In that group, 19 (76 percent) suffered from a femoral stress fracture, which the researchers found in only one (2 percent) of the patients not taking the drug.
The researchers suggested that while bisphosphonates can still strengthen bones enough to prevent devastating hip fractures, some patients may benefit from taking periodic "holidays" from the medicine.
- Faye Flam
Pregnancy screening for bacteria in urine is urged
All pregnant women should be screened for bacteria in their urine even if there is no evidence of an infection, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends.High levels of bacteria found in pregnant women's urine increase the risk of urinary-tract infections and low-birth-weight babies (under 51/2 pounds), the clinical guideline recommendation in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports.
Women who are not pregnant and men need not be tested for asymptomatic bacteriuria.
Screening cultures should be taken between 12 and 16 weeks of pregnancy or at the first prenatal visit if that occurs after four months' gestation.
- Josh Goldstein
Study supports testing athletes' heart function while exercising
An average of every three days in the United States, a young, apparently healthy competitive athlete dies from a previously unrecognized heart disorder.
A study recently published online by the British Medical Journal showed that screening athletes before they competed would save lives, especially if the test included checking heart activity during exercise.
Italy has required electrocardiograms for 25 years. Researchers recently analyzed the data from more than 30,000 athletes. They found that while 1.2 percent of those tested while at rest had abnormal results, the number rose to 4.9 percent of those tested during exercise.
The researchers concluded that screenings based just on medical history and a physical exam would miss 19 in 20 people with "silent" disorders.
- Sandy Bauers
