Personal Health: News and Notes
Myths abound on weight loss
A team of experts studied more than a dozen ideas about obesity that are widely believed to be true but that aren't supported by evidence. Here are some diet myths they busted in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Eating a little less or exercising a little more will lead to large weight loss over time. This myth, that 3,500 calories equal one pound, was from short-term experiments. In the long term, the body compensates to slow down weight loss. So it's harder to lose weight.
It's important to set realistic weight-loss goals so dieters aren't frustrated. Studies on this reasonable-sounding assumption have found that realistic goals have no impact on the amount of weight lost. And some studies have found that those who set the most ambitious goals lost the most weight.
Slow, gradual weight loss is easier to sustain than large, rapid weight loss. In fact, clinical trials have found that people who jump-start their diets by dropping a lot of weight in the beginning (by consuming only 800 to 1,200 calories per day) had the best results in long-term studies.
You can burn 100 to 300 calories by having sex. Sex burns calories at about the same rate as walking at a pace of 2.5 mph. "Given that the average bout of sexual activity lasts about 6 minutes," the authors write, a man in his early to mid-30s might burn 21 calories.
- Los Angeles Times
Eat greens but clean them first
A government study has fingered greens such as lettuce and spinach as the leading source of food poisoning - a distressing conclusion for experts who urge us to eat vegetables.
"Most meals are safe," said Dr. Patricia Griffin, a government researcher and one of the study's authors who said the finding shouldn't discourage people from eating produce. Experts repeated this oft-heard advice: Be sure to wash or cook those foods thoroughly.
And while more people may have gotten sick from plants from 1998 through 2008, more died from contaminated poultry, the study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found.
Each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans - or 48 million people - get sick from food poisoning. That includes 3,000 deaths, the CDC estimates.
- Associated Press
Migraine drugs do less for kids
Drugs to prevent or treat migraines in adults aren't effective for children, according to two studies that suggest doctors should reevaluate use of the drugs by young patients.
An analysis of 21 studies, conducted by the Medical College of Wisconsin and published last week in JAMA Pediatrics, showed that the seizure medicine Topamax and the antidepressant trazodone reduced episodic migraines more than placebo in children. But clonidine and propranolol, for high blood pressure; flunarizine, a calcium channel blocker; pizotifen, a migraine drug; and valproate, an anticonvulsant, were no better than placebo.
Children taking a placebo, rather than the study drugs, reduced their migraines on average by three headaches a month.
About 8 million U.S. children, or 1 in 20, get migraines, experts estimate. A second analysis by the Food and Drug Administration of studies of migraine drugs called triptans found that many children got better without them. - Bloomberg News
Docs talking less about weight
New research suggests that many physicians don't know how to constructively discuss a patient's weight or they avoid the subject entirely.
A Pennsylvania State University study in the journal Medical Care found that weight counseling by primary care doctors has fallen even as the nation's obesity rate has increased.
The researchers compared federal patient survey data from the mid-1990s with data from 2007-08. Patients seen in the later period received weight counseling in 6 percent of visits - a 46 percent lower chance than in the earlier period. Yet the fraction of overweight or obese adults jumped from 52 percent to 63 percent.
The authors said barriers for doctors include pessimism that patients can change, time limitations during appointments, and inadequate training to address the topic.
- Orange County Register
