Replies to post #94906 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Alex, there's one of the real drivers of health care costs .. Jamie Oliver copped some real flack
here for his "fucking bs" .. fuck this .. fuck that, but never for his encouragement to eat healthy food.

Wow, pizzas for breakfast at a primary school is absurd .. Jamie, was very gracious it sounds when he said they were nice
people who just had never been introduced to natural foods .. nice people maybe, but gawd, pizzas to children for breakfast!

Have you read, Steph's, .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=48178955 .. re the
Mississippi people introducing an Iranian primary health care program which cut infant mortality by some two-thirds
since 1979 .. lol, on reading it just now i connected it to yours and thought, wow, if Britain Oliver was abused for
pushing healthy eating in West Virginia, no wonder, Dr. Aaron Shirley, is working under the radar in Mississippi.

This, from yours, for more than one reason, was very sad to see ..

A mother starts to cry as Jamie Oliver tells her she's not feeding her children
properly, with a table packed with her regular offerings of pizza, hot dogs and pancakes

[fuagf]

Toddlers’ IQ Scores May Be Linked to Diet
Study Shows Diet High in Processed Foods May Be Tied to Lower IQ Scores
By Brenda Goodman .. WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD



Feb. 7, 2011 -- Three-year-olds who eat diets rich in fat- and sugar-laden processed foods may
have slightly lower IQ scores at age 8 than their peers with healthier eating habits, a new study shows.

The small, but measurable, difference in IQ scores detected in the study between kids who ate the most processed foods at age 3 and kids who ate the least suggests that optimizing a young child’s diet may do more than help prevent obesity .. http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/what-is-obesity ..; it may also give kids a lasting brain .. http://www.webmd.com/brain/picture-of-the-brain .. boost.

Nutrition and IQ

Researchers followed nearly 4,000 children in Southwest England from birth through age 8. They asked their parents to fill out detailed questionnaires about their youngsters’ diets at ages 3, 4, 7, and 8 1/2.

Ready-to-eat foods high in fat and sugar were considered to be processed.

After adjusting for other things that may influence intelligence testing, like age, sex, and family income, researchers found that kids who ate diets high in processed foods at age 3 had slightly lower IQ scores by age 8 1/2.

The study also showed children who at age 3 ate what the researchers termed a “healthy diet” high in salad, fruit, vegetables, rice, and pasta had an associated higher IQ at age 8 and a half.

Dietary patterns between the ages of 4 and 7 appeared to have no impact on IQ.

The study was published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Previous studies have suggested that early childhood nutrition .. http://www.webmd.com/diet/default.htm .. may play a role in intelligence and brain development.

“We know already that breastfeeding .. http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/breastfeeding-9/nursing-basics .. has quite an effect on IQ, so it makes sense that there’s something going on with diet,” says study researcher Kate Northstone, from the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol in the U.K. “I was surprised that we found this effect at 3 rather than 8. That for me is the interesting point. It was the 3-year-olds and what they ate, rather than, say, at 4, 7, and 8.”

Child IQ: Other Factors Matter

But other researchers remain unconvinced.

"The results suggest, at most, a weak relationship between characteristics of the child diet, as reported by the parent and a measure of IQ at age 8,” says Aryeh D. Stein, PhD, MPH, an associate professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta.

Stein has studied the impact of nutrition on children but was not involved in this study.

“Other studies, especially in the context of undernourished populations such as Guatemala in the 1970s, have shown that food supplementation prior to age 3 improves cognition, but there is little evidence for any substantial impact of children’s diets in Western populations,” Stein says.

“One important consideration is that social factors such as parental socioeconomic position, schooling, etc., are likely to influence both the child’s diet and the child’s performance on IQ tests, and hence the causal interpretation of observational studies such as this one remains challenging.”

Processed Food: Striking a Balance

Northstone says she understand the pressures busy parents face, and that the important thing isn’t to make sure these foods never touch a child’s lips, only that they don’t replace fruits and vegetables. .. http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/fruits-veggies-more-matters

“I have a 6-year-old boy,” Northstone says, “and I know how hard it is to say ‘no’ to the crisps and ‘no’ to the sweets and ‘no’ to the chips. You don’t have to always say ‘no.’ Just make sure they also get some fresh food, some fresh fruit, fresh veg. And every now and then, say ‘no’ to the chocolate.”

Top Picks

* 12 Tips to Prevent Viruses From Spreading
* 5 Mistakes Parents Make With Tweens and Teens
* Sick Baby or Toddler? Try These Proven Home Remedies
* 6 Things Every Diaper Bag Needs
* 19 Healthy Snacks for Kids
* Child Age 5 or Older With Asthma? Get Personalized Tips

http://children.webmd.com/news/20110207/toddlers-iq-scores-may-be-linked-to-diet

The top picks are linked inside ..

[fuagf]

Strokes are rising fast among young, middle-aged


STROKE_AGE AP – Chart compares hospitalizations
for stroke, by age group, for 1994-95 and 2006-

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, Ap Medical Writer – Thu Feb 10, 12:36 am ET

LOS ANGELES – Strokes are rising dramatically among young and middle-aged Americans while dropping
in older people, a sign that the obesity epidemic may be starting to shift the age burden of the disease.

The numbers, reported Wednesday at an American Stroke Association conference, come from the first large nationwide study of
stroke hospitalizations by age. Government researchers compared hospitalizations in 1994 and 1995 with ones in 2006 and 2007.

The sharpest increase — 51 percent — was among men 15 through 34. Strokes rose among women in this age group, too, but not as fast — 17 percent.

"It's definitely alarming," said Dr. Ralph Sacco, American Heart Association president and a neurologist at the University of Miami. "We have worried for a while that the increased prevalence of obesity in children and young adults may take its toll in cardiovascular disease and stroke," and that appears to be happening, he said.

Stroke still takes its highest toll on older people. For those over 65, there were nearly 300 stroke cases among 10,000 hospitalizations in the more recent period studied. For males 15 to 34, there were about 15 stroke cases per 10,000, and for girls and women in that age group there were about 4 per 10,000.

Several small studies had recently suggested an ominous rise among the young and among middle-aged women.

"We were interested in whether we could pick that up in a much larger, nationwide dataset,"
said Dr. Mary George, a stroke researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers examined federal records from a sample of hospitals in 41 states, covering about 8 million cases each
year. They looked at the percentage of all hospitalizations for stroke by gender and in six age groups.

For every 10,000 hospitalizations in 1994-95 compared with 2006-07, strokes rose:

_51 percent, from 9.8 to 14.8, among males 15 to 34 years old

_17 percent, from 3.6 to 4.2, in females 15 to 34

_47 percent, from 36 to 52.9, in males 35 to 44

_36 percent, from 21.9 to 30, in females 35 to 44

"The increases seen in children are very modest, but they are more so in
the young adult age groups, and we feel that deserves further study," George said.

Better awareness of stroke symptoms and better imaging methods for detecting strokes in
young people could account for some of that change, but there is no way to know, she said.

Trends went the opposite way in older people. Strokes dropped 25 percent among men 65 and older (from 404 to 303 per 10,000 hospitalizations), and 28 percent among women in this age group (from 379 to 274). Doctors think better prevention and treatment of risk factors such as high blood pressure in older people may be contributing to the decline.

At the University of California at Los Angeles, doctors are seeing more strokes related to high blood pressure
and clogged arteries in younger people, said Dr. Jeffrey Saver, director of the stroke center at UCLA.

Early estimates from 2007 death certificates suggest that stroke is now the nation's fourth leading cause of death instead of the third, partly because of better treatments and prevention among the elderly. "But at the same time we're seeing this worrisome rise in mid-life," Saver said.

Allison Hooker, a nurse who coordinates stroke care at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said her hospital also is seeing more strokes in younger people with risk factors such as smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, alcohol overuse and diabetes.

"I'd say at least half of our population (of stroke patients) is in their 40s or early 50s," she said, "and devastating strokes, too."

Also at the conference:

_A preliminary study raised concern about diet soda and stroke risk. Researchers surveyed about 2,500 adults in the New York City area at the start of the study and followed their health for nearly 10 years afterward. Researchers found that people who said they drank diet soda every day had a 48 percent higher risk of stroke or heart attack than people who drank no soda of any kind. Researchers adjusted for differences in other risk factors, such as smoking and high blood pressure.

Lead researcher Hannah Gardener of the University of Miami had no explanation for the findings but said that
for those trying to cut calories, "diet soft drinks may not be an optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages."

_The same study also found higher risks for people consuming more than 1,500 milligrams of salt a day — the limit the American Heart Association recommends. Researchers found that stroke risk rose 16 percent for every 500 milligrams of salt consumed each day. Those who took in at least 4,000 milligrams had a more than 2.5 times higher risk of stroke than those who limited themselves to 1,500 milligrams.

A teaspoon of salt contains about 2,300 milligrams of sodium. About three-fourths of the salt we eat,
though, comes from processed foods, especially tomato sauce, soups, condiments and canned foods.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110210/ap_on_he_me/us_med_stroke_younger_victims_

See also Michelle Obama's empathy vs Michelle Bachmann's ME ME ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=60067777&txt2find=obesity __