Prebirth link to cause of childhood obesity

You must have noticed the strenuous efforts the Government is making to get our children healthier. It is a real cause for concern as being overweight is now much more common in the under 10′s than ever before. There are probably many factors that influence this, including lack of exercise and a high-fat diet, but a new study has shown that there is also a factor that comes into play before birth.

It was reported this month in the Environmental Health Perspectives Journal that a study done in Flanders in Belgium has revealed that when a woman is pregnant there is a link between how many environmental pollutants she is exposed to and the weight of her baby, right up to the first three years of life.

Certain chemicals are known to disrupt the endocrine system, but it hasn’t been realised that even brief exposures early in life can be a problem. Body weight may be increased if mother and baby are exposed to like pesticides, chemicals such as dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene (DDE), hexachlorobenzene, dioxin-like compounds and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – the ones found in aerosols. Children between one and three years of age were found to have a higher BMI (Body Mass Index) if exposed to these chemicals and more so if their mothers also smoked. For babies they tested blood from the umbilical cord to measure and identify any chemical pollutants at birth.

Vicks Vapour Rub – Stop rubbing?

I am afraid I am revealing my age when I recall childhood colds being resolved with a horny handed rub from my mother of Vicks VapoRub on my chest and a firm covering of a red flannel liberty bodice. It did my chest a world of good, though not so brilliant on the rubber buttons, and I still use a few drops under my nose if it is stuffy and blocked in the winter.

Alas, this popular over-the-counter treatment has come under the scrutiny of the American College of Chest Physicians and they sound a warning that it may stimulate mucus and airway inflammation. This applies particularly to infants and toddlers and they suggest it could dangerously interfere with their ability to breathe.

The study was carried out at Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Pediatrics Department as a result of treating an 18-month-old girl who went into severe respiratory distress after the salve was rubbed under her nose. Now obviously you can’t test this on children, so the researchers used ferrets to study mucus production as well as the build up of fluid in the lungs.

Who would have guessed it, but apparently ferrets have an airway anatomy and cellular composition similar to people – so no more stuffing them down your trousers as they are somewhat distantly related to us. Perhaps not kissing cousins, but you get the idea. The ferrets were regularly anointed with Vicks Vapour Rub and the results showed their mucus secretion rose significantly and that mucus clearance decreased. When relating this to children, the problem is that they have airways that are much narrower than those of adults, so any increase in mucus or inflammation can narrow them more severely.

This is not just Vicks Vapour Rub, but any similar product as some of the ingredients can cause irritation. These include camphor, menthol, Eucalyptus oil, turpentine and petrolatum, made from petroleum. Such products are not meant to be used on children under age 2, but with the best intentions some parents use it to relieve their child’s cold and flu symptoms. Unfortunately, there is a common misconception that anything you can buy over the counter is safe, but you must always read the label carefully for any warnings, and ask the pharmacist if you are in any doubt. Dr. Rubin, the chief researcher goes further and points out that cough and cold medicines and decongestants are dangerous and neither effective nor safe for young children. American College of Chest Physicians also agree, and Dr Rubin makes the case that natural therapies are a much better alternative and suggests a very old remedy indeed for congestion: using a warm water salt solution to wash out the nasal passages and some good old fashioned chicken soup to boost the immune system (home made from organic chicken of course).

If you still have a jar in the medicine cabinet, there is an alternative use for it in killing toenail fungus, as recommended by an old-fashioned doctor.  Just apply on the top, all around the toenail and as much under the nail as you can get. In a few days you will see the nail start becoming darker, which means the fungus is being killed off.

Kids health and new media dangers

We have touched on this before but with the average child now spending 7 hours a day on various forms of media it bears looking at again. Most Christmas lists will have at least one or two electronic ‘toys’ on them, plus the ones already in the home. New research from the National Institutes of Health, Yale University and California Pacific Medical Center in the USA has yet again emphasised the problems between high media consumption and children’s health problems.

This is not the usual concerns about too much violence, though they have their place, this is specifically focused on the effects on childrens health and the ‘new media’ area has not so far been put under the spotlight. Just what is ‘new media’? Well it encompasses everything from the internet to mobile phones, texting, video games, and social networking sites like YouTube and Twitter. Many youngsters organise their whole social lives on YouTube and one local family near me had their home trashed when their teenage daughter posted her birthday invitations on the site and got 100 gatecrashers instead.

The researchers found that the greater the exposure to the internet, TV, movies, music and technology a child has then they have correspondingly higher health risks. So what are they risking? Primarily obesity but they also are more likely to smoke, drink and use drugs – three other key health risks. There is of course a follow on effect and they are also likely to be poor performers at school as well. What’s the cure? Well, back to the family – limit the amount of time spent on this media at home. You can have little impact outside it so it’s important to have home boundaries and don’t add to the electronic stockpile this Christmas – don’t buy them an Xbox, think outside it.

Fruit drinks and chemicals

Well it’s nice to be a world leader, but not when it comes to being up there because we have some of the highest levels of pesticides in fruit-based soft drinks. Spanish researchers checked drinks in many European countries and the USA and we came joint first with Spain, and the USA – usually home of the additives – came out well, as did Russia.

The study was reported in the December 15 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry, and has revealed a basic flaw in the regulatory system for pesticides. Although levels of pesticides are strictly regulated in fresh fruit, vegetables, and drinking water there has been no follow through on fruit-based soft drinks.

The scientists measured the levels of a wide range of common pesticides in more than 100 fruit-based soft drink samples from 15 different countries. Pesticides they tested were those that are applied to crops after harvest and are known to still be able to be present during any processing methods. These included carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil, and malathion, and were found in fairly large concentrations in most of the samples analyzed.

The main concern is for children as their systems are more vulnerable to these chemicals, and they tend to have more fruit-based soft drinks than adults do. Until there is legislation in place it would be sensible to limit such drinks or make sure they come only from organic sources – make your own by buying organic apple juice concentrate and diluting it with water.

Christmas caution

As a child I received a tin of Quality Street, a box of Black Magic, a chest of All Gold and various other chocolate treats every Christmas. After the war that kind of easy access to things we had done without was irresistible, now 60 odd years later we can see the dangers. A recent study in the USA of obese children as young as 10 showed that they had the arteries of 45-year-olds and other heart abnormalities that greatly raise their risk of heart disease. Currently about a third of American children are overweight and one-fifth are obese and although many parents think that this kind of puppy fat will melt away as they get older it is establishing eating patterns and health habits that are best avoided. Ultrasound tests on the children found that they also had more rigid arteries than was expected and this is a possible sign of plaque deposits starting to form. So if you are buying presents for children, exercise love with caution and cut down on the selection boxes and chocolate in general.

Whatever Is Tigger Doing?

At this time of year parents and grandparents are under constant bombardment to buy for Christmas and the marketing is ruthless and clever – often using favourite cartoon and tv characters. However, I did think there was one that was safe from this persuasion by well-loved characters and that was in the drug industry. Well, not any more. Pharmaceutical reps working for the drug company AstraZeneca, have been urged to used popular Disney characters to promote psychiatric drugs to children.

What A A Milne would think is anyone’s guess, but some of Winnie the Pooh’s best-loved friends have been rebranded to promote sales of Seroquel, an antipsychotic. Tigger apparently is now described as “bipolar” and poor old Eeyore – who has quite enough to worry about – is apparently described as suffering from “depression”. Presumably the Hundred Acre Wood has also been stripped of all plant life to make new and better drugs.

Mediteranean diet reduces kids asthma risk by 78%

With 1 in 11 children currently receiving treatment for asthma it is now a very common condition – but that doesn’t make it any the less worrying. We have dealt with asthma before, but some news in this week might help make life easier for some of those children, and their parents. For those who are unsure about asthma in young children, the symptoms to look out for are:

* A cough at night
* A cold that doesn’t go away
* A whistling sound when breathing out

That last symptom is particularly relevant in the UK as we apparently have the highest prevalence of severe wheeze in children aged 13-14 years than anywhere else in the world.

Now the medical journal Allergy is suggesting a way parents can be more in control of the condition through some simple dietary changes. I have talked about the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet for heart health in adults, but now it seems it could also relieve asthma symptoms in children. In Crete, where the Mediterranean diet is the norm, an estimated 80% of the children there eat fresh fruit at least twice a day and almost that same number also have fresh vegetables twice daily as well. (Sadly the research doesn’t tell us how they get them to eat so much without a fistfight) So why is it important? Well very few children in Crete have asthma or hay fever and the researchers from the University of Porto in Portugal concluded that their best asthma-fighting foods were oranges, apples, tomatoes and grapes.

Adults on the same type of diet, who had asthma, were found to have fewer attacks and flare-ups. However, if they also included nuts in their diet at least three times a week then that produced less wheezing. A likely explanation for this is that nuts contain a lot of magnesium which helps boost your lung power.

AVOID THIS: There was however one substance that the researchers found that would double the risk of children getting asthma and allergic rhinitis – margarine. This finding confirms what an Australian study found over 7 years ago when they first warned that the polyunsaturated fats found in many margarines can double a child’s chances of having asthma.

If you want more information, please visit www.asthma.org.uk

Avoiding cot death

The tragedy of cot death (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is horrendous for any family, and anything that might help avert this tragedy is worth passing on. The best-accepted advice, and most effective, is that of always placing infants to sleep on their backs, but now new research offers another method to back that up.

There is a new study by researchers in Northern California, based on data collected from nearly 500 mothers that seems to indicate that the use of a fan in a baby’s room may reduce the likelihood of sudden death by 72%. HOWEVER, this data suggests that the protective effect applies mostly to babies in poor sleeping environments, that is those who sleep on their stomachs or in overheated rooms.

The benefit of using a fan at night became apparent when the researchers tracked those families where there seemed to be a higher risk of cot death. The figures are certainly impressive:

** 94% reduction in risk for babies who slept in rooms that exceeded 70 degrees F (21 degrees C)

** 85% reduction in risk for babies in rooms with closed windows

** 86% reduction among babies placed on their sides or stomach to sleep

** 78% reduction among those who did not use a pacifier or dummy (the handle is believed to help maintain babies’ breathing space under a blanket or in soft bedding).

It is already known that there is a link between cot death and rebreathing exhaled air, as can happen if the baby’s nose is under the covers or restricted by sleeping on their stomach. This means they are taking in an increased amount of carbon dioxide and that is dangerous because it can hurt the baby’s ability to arouse during sleep. If you decrease the chance of rebreathing air, then the cot death risk reduced, and using a fan is one way to help that. Sadly, the definitive cause of cot death is still largely a mystery. To date, perhaps the best evidence of its cause comes from a 2006 study led by researchers at the Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts who examined the brain tissue of babies who died from cot death and those who died from other causes. Researchers found that the cot death babies often have a brain weakness in a region of the brain that controls breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. The abnormality appears to weaken the responsiveness of certain functions, including arousal from sleep when the body fails to get enough oxygen. Researchers think the defect may be genetic in origin, although there are no biological tests yet to determine risk.

Natural options for childhood eczema

Eczema is a distressing condition, for the child and for the parents as it is a constant, visible, reminder of something that’s wrong in the body. Eczema is one of the first signs of allergy during the early days of life and is said to be due to delayed development of the immune system. It can affect 10-20% of all infants, and steroid treatment is often suggested. However, there are many harmful side effects, both short and long-term, associated with steroids and these are just a few of them:

** Corticosteroids mimic hormones produced by the adrenal glands and they interfere with the metabolic balance. This results in knock-on effects throughout the body and the damage is cumulative.

** They are anti-inflammatory and can suppress many symptoms, including pain and eczema. However, they also affect our fight-or-flight response and thus alter our blood flow. This can be positive in the right circumstances, but on a long term basis redirecting blood away from digestion towards the heart, lungs, and limbs means blood is less available to absorb nutrients. A lack of nutrition leads to conditions like osteoporosis developing.

** Nearly all the diseases and conditions on the list of steroid side effects can be explained by the disruption of the body’s hormone system.

** Others, such as liver damage, are the result of the excess stress placed on the organ as it attempts to detoxify the harmful substance from the body.

It is no wonder that so many parents turn to alternative medicine. But how effective is it?

Complementary Therapies in Medicine is a peer-reviewed journal that recently reported a German study showing that homeopathy has better results than steroids for eczema. The study’s focus was on patients’ and doctors’ perceptions of improvement, both in terms of the eczema itself and quality of life over a one year period. The participants were patients aged 1-16 year-olds with eczema, and those that were treated with homeopathy had equal or better results than those treated with corticosteroids. Further, that those children whose conditions were worse at the beginning of the study had greater degrees of improvement with the homeopathic treatment.

Questionnaires were filled out by doctors and their patients, or when necessary, by their parents at the beginning of the study, at six months, and again at 12 months. The study focused on subjective results, not clinical tests, because although clinical tests may show differences in children with eczema and asthma in a biomarker like immunoglobulin E, it doesn’t have any bearing on the patient’s well-being.

Homoeopathy is a standard practice among doctors in both Germany and France, and often included in their medical training. Two groups of patients were studied, one who only had homeopathic treatment and the other who only received conventional medical treatment. The children treated with homeopathy started with worse symptoms than the control group and both groups showed significant improvements over 12 months. Here are the percentages of improvement reported by patients and their doctors after 12 months, and interesting the patients rated their improvement at lower levels than their doctors did.

Self Assessment Improvement:

* Homeopathy, 27% * Conventional, 38%

Doctor’s Assessment of Improvement:

* Homeopathy, 91% * Conventional, 75%

The study also bore out previous research which indicated that people with a higher educational level are more likely to opt for alternative treatments such as homeopathy. 64% of the homeopathic parents’ had almost double to the level of education than the parents who opted for the conventional medical option.

Reading helps overweight girls

I am a fan of reading, whatever the reason given, but when it can actually help overweight girls then it seems a win-win situation. New research on obesity at Duke University in the USA has found reading, if the material is right, actually encouraged weight loss in girls aged from 9-13 who took part in their study.

Getting children to lose weight is not something they can do alone, so Duke Children’s Hospital, has a family-focused weight loss programme that addresses the patients’ medical, dietary and behavioural needs. As part of the study, 31 girls who took part were given a novel called Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Girls). It’s the 6th in a series about the Beacon Street Girls by US author Annie Bryant, and in it the main character is an overweight preteen girl who struggles with low self-esteem, feelings of isolation and teasing because of her size. Another group of 33 girls read a different book called Charlotte in Paris, which did not have an overweight heroine, and another group of 17 girls read neither book.

They were all assessed after six months, and ALL the girls who read books had lost weight, but the girls who read Lake Rescue lost more.

The idea behind the study was to find a way to motivate the girls without resorting to the usual carrot and stick approach of so many dietary approaches and avoiding the often authoritative voice that goes with that. Lake Rescue was the perfect instrument, because it presents a likable character the girls could relate to and whom they could emulate. As the book progresses, its heroine learns to make healthier lifestyle choices and finds a mentor to help keep her on track. In other words, she learns that she can become healthier, and through her actions and the, ‘I can do it’ attitude really resonated with the preteen girls in the study.

The amount of weight lost was not huge, but the positive effect on the girls’ self-esteem would, the researchers believe, have a long-lasting effect that would help them maintain the weight loss. Healthy 9-13-year-old girls typically have a BMI between 16 and 19; the BMI of the girls in the study group was on average between 27 and 28. Without intervention, if these overweight girls were to continue to increase their BMI at their old rate, then in six months they would probably be at 28. Now, instead of going from 27 to 28, they are now going from 27 to 26.3, which would put her in the normal BMI range by time she is 13. If the weight is left unchecked, these girls would have a BMI of over 30 by the time they are 13, which would be obese even by adult standards.

Other Options?

The only viable option for obese pre-teens at the moment is a combination of lifestyle and behaviour-modification programmes, combined with counselling, which can be effective but unpredictable. There are some drugs available to counter severe weight-loss, but these are not suitable for anyone under the age of 15 – and used with caution by anyone over that age. The other newer option for obesity is to have a gastric bypass operation, but again this is far too risky for this younger age group.

As I said, I am all for encouraging reading, and buy Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Girls). If anyone knows of a similar story from a UK author that also features an overweight girl in a similar situation then I would be very happy to hear about it.

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