Health News - Thursday, March 15, 2007
Fewer than a third of U.S. adults eat enough fruits and vegetables, according to the CDC. From coast to coast, no state (or Washington, D.C.) meets the CDC's goals for adult fruit and vegetable consumption.
People should eat at least five daily servings -- two or more servings of fruit, and three or more servings of vegetables -- as part of a balanced diet, says the CDC. But today the agency reported that in 2005, fewer than 33% of U.S. adults reported eating at least two daily servings of fruit and barely 27% claimed to eat three or more daily servings of vegetables. The government wants at least 75% of people age 2 and older to meet the fruit consumption goal, and at least 50% to meet the vegetable consumption goal, by 2010. Continue reading
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is asking manufacturers of sedative-hypnotic sleeping pills to warn consumers and health professionals about potential risks like sleep-driving, anaphylaxis, cooking and eating food, and making phone calls while asleep. The FDA defines sleep-driving as "driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic product, with no memory of the event".
The sleeping pills or sedative-hypnotic drugs affected are: Ambien/Ambien CR (Sanofi Aventis), Butisol Sodium (Medpointe Pharm HLC), Carbrital (Parke-Davis), Dalmane (Valeant Pharm), Doral (Questcor Pharms), Halcion (Pharmacia & Upjohn), Lunesta (Sepracor), Placidyl (Abbott), Prosom (Abbott), Restoril (Tyco Healthcare), Rozerem (Takeda), Seconal (Lilly), Sonata (King Pharmaceuticals) Continue reading
A new study suggests that drinking a single alcoholic beverage daily may increase a woman's risk of developing invasive breast cancer by 9 percent. Drinking just over two drinks daily may increase their breast cancer risk by 32 percent, Dr. Shumin M. Zhang of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues found.
"Moderate alcohol consumption increases your risk of breast cancer," Zhang told Reuters Health. "If you drink alcohol, you should think about the risks and benefits, there is a risk definitely." Beer, liquor, and white wine all conferred increased risk, but not red wine. Zhang said it's possible chemicals in red wine such as resveratrol and other polyphenols could counteract the harmful effects of alcohol. But, she added, the findings don't prove red wine is safe. Continue reading
About half of U.S. college students binge drink or abuse drugs, and the number who abuse prescription medication such as painkillers is up sharply, a report released on Thursday found. The study, issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York, provides a detailed look at substance abuse among America's college students based on surveys, interviews and other research.
"I think we have, by almost any standard, a serious public health problem on the college campuses. And it's deteriorating," Joseph Califano, who heads the center and served as U.S. health secretary from 1977 to 1979, said in a telephone interview. The report found that 49 percent of full-time college students ages 18 to 22 binge drink (consuming five or more drinks at a time), or abuse prescription drugs such as painkillers or illegal drugs like cocaine and marijuana. That translates to 3.8 million students. Continue reading