Moms-to-be can protect babies from asthma by eating fish: study
ISLAMABAD: Pregnant women who consume two to three servings of fish a week are as likely to protect their newborns from developing asthma, finds a recent study.
Researchers at University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, have found that children whose mothers consume high doses of Omega-3 fatty acids daily during the third trimester are less likely to develop such breathing problems.
The New England Journal of Medicine study included 346 pregnant women in their third trimester who took Omega-3 fatty acids daily and 349 who took a placebo, Health News reported.
The investigators also divided the trial population into three groups based on their blood levels of Omega-3 fatty acids.
The population with the lowest blood levels benefited the most from fish oil supplementation.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology randomised pregnant women in their third trimester into fish oil, placebo and "no oil" groups.
The fish oil group took Omega-3 fatty acids daily as did the placebo (olive oil) group.
The "no oil" group was informed of the trial proposal and therefore could consume fish oil or fish during the third trimester if they chose to do so.
The findings indicated that the fish oil and the "no oil" groups took less asthma medication as they aged to 24 years old, inferring both groups developed less asthma.
"Omega-3 fatty acids cannot be synthesised by humans and therefore are essential nutrients which are derived exclusively from marine sources," said iChen Hsing Lin from University of South Florida. "It may be premature to recommend daily high dose fish oil supplementation during the third trimester."
A professor at the university, Richard Lockey, said that with almost equal to slightly higher cost, consuming 8-12 ounces (2-3 servings) of fish a week not only may attain the same asthma protection, but strengthens the nutritional benefits to infant growth and development.
Road to fitness: is running actually good for you?
When you have the green light from the doctor and are ready to hit the track, there are still some rules to keep in mind-AFP
PARIS: As New York limbers up to host the world´s biggest marathon on Sunday, runners around the world will be picturing its storied finish line to push for that extra kilometre (mile).
But is running actually good for your health? Yes, say experts, as long as you are careful.
Running for a longer life
Runners are 30 percent less likely to have a premature death and 45 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than non-runners, according to a US study published March in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases.
They can even expect to live for three years longer, the study found. And these benefits appear to exceed that of all other physical activities.
"Running may be the most cost-effective lifestyle medicine from a public health perspective," the study´s authors said.
The research analysed the data of 55,000 men and women aged 18 to 100 from a 2014 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).
"Running has many benefits. It is good for the entire cardiovascular system, from the heart to blood vessels," sports cardiologist Stephane Cade told AFP.
Running also has a positive effect on your mind.
"It helps your mental health by producing hormones, endorphins, which give you a feeling of well-being," said Julien Schipman, a sports health specialist at France´s Institute of Sport and Performance (INSEP).
But there are risks
So running can be very good for your health, but you need to take precautions.
"Someone who has never done it before should see a doctor for a check-up," said Schipman.
Your age, weight, medical history and lifestyle -- whether you smoke or drink -- can all add up to make running a more risky prospect.
"After 30 to 35 years, the biggest risks are heart attacks and sudden death," Cade said.
"Deaths are often linked to heart disease which went unnoticed until being triggered by running."
A recent example came in October, when Tunisia´s 56-year-old health minister died of a heart attack while running 500 metres in a charity marathon.
Beyond heart risks, runners need to listen to their body to avoid injuries to their legs, lower back and especially their knees.
"Tissues such as ligaments, tendons and cartilage are particularly at risk because they adapt more slowly than muscles to increased mechanical load," according to a Dutch study in 2015.
How often do you need to run?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends adults have 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity, such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity, like running, every week.
But, according to the JACC 2014 study, running five to ten minutes a day could be as beneficial as a long jog when it comes to preventing cardiovascular disease.
The study did not find a significant difference between those who ran 50 minutes a week and those who ran 180 minutes a week -- even if they ran slowly.
"The benefit is greater if you vary the pace when you run -- it is better for the heart," Cade said.
Before you start
When you have the green light from the doctor and are ready to hit the track, there are still some rules to keep in mind.
"Avoid running in hot weather or high pollution," warned Schipman.
"It is recommended that you change your shoes every 1,000 kilometres or every year."
As well as traditional shock-absorbing running shoes, minimalist shoes are currently in fashion, with thin soles to give the sensation of running barefoot.
Barefoot runners tend to land on the ball of their feet first, rather than their heels.
Studies have not yet conclusively determined which is better to avoid injury when running.
First test of anti-epilepsy surgeries in children shows dramatic benefit
Brain surgery for children whose epilepsy is resistant to drug therapy can produce a 10-fold increase in the odds of being seizure-free after one year and can do it without affecting IQ, according to a new Indian study of 116 patients in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Seventy-seven percent of the children were free of seizures at one year after the surgery, compared with seven percent in a control group of youngsters who received medical therapy alone while waiting for surgery. Behavior and quality of life also improved.
But surgery also produced serious adverse effects in one-third of the children, most frequently a weakness on one side of the body, known as hemiparesis. The researchers said that was to be expected and, without surgery, patients probably would have experienced similar problems as a result of their continuing seizures.
“What the study clearly shows is surgery for children produces seizure freedom compared to children not operated on for similar conditions,” senior author Dr Manjari Tripathi, a professor of neurology and epilepsy at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.
Not only “does it reassure us that several surgical procedures are effective,” she said, it demonstrates that surgery “should be done as early as possible” once it becomes clear that a child is not responding to two anti-seizure medications.
About 50 million people worldwide suffer from epilepsy, and drugs can’t control the seizures in approximately 30 percent of the cases.
“This is the first randomized study to look at surgical outcome in children,” said Dr Donald Schomer, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He was not involved in the research.
“The results are impressive,” he told Reuters Health by phone. Adults who undergo surgery often suffer from the collective effect of years of uncontrolled seizures. “The study in kids shows if you reduce the time from the onset of seizures from the 15 to 20 years you see in adults down to four to five years, the outcome is much better. It’s documentation that these techniques really work.”
Although 77 percent were judged by the Tripathi team to be seizure-free at the end of the study, some of those children actually had seizures immediately after surgery. Yet the cases were judged to be a success because the seizures decreased in frequency over time. Ultimately, 37 percent never had a seizure in the year after surgery.
When all seizures were taken into account, children who did not have surgery were four times more likely to have a seizure during that year than youngsters in the surgery group, the researchers calculated.
Success rates ranged from 87 percent to 100 percent depending on the type of surgery used to correct the child’s particular brain abnormality.
Surgery improved quality of life and social well-being, and it didn’t affect IQ, something that can decline with ongoing seizures. But Dr Schomer said the children were only followed for one year, and “that may be too soon to see a noticeable change” in the intelligence quotient.
Post-surgery weakness was seen in 15 of the 19 patients who had a serious side effect following surgery.
The weakness “is significant,” Dr Tripathi said. “The child may not be able to ambulate by his- or herself. But with physical therapy, all regain the lower and upper limb function within six months. The only thing that does not improve is the wrist and the fingers. They are left with this minor deficit. But even before surgery, some of them have this weakness.”
Other side effects depended on the area of the brain that was removed or disconnected from the rest of the brain.
In contrast, 16.5 percent of the children waiting for surgery had a serious injury as a result of their continuing seizures.
The surgery “had a transforming effect on how they get along in life,” Dr Tripathi said. “Many could go back school earlier or go back to being tutored, and get on with their life.”
But a major problem facing these children is getting insurance companies to pay for such surgeries, said Dr Schomer of Beth Israel.
Rather than pay $35,000 to $50,000 on surgery that might cure the problem and prevent further damage to the child, insurance companies prefer to demand that more drugs be tried, even if the odds of them working in drug-resistant cases is small, he said.
“Studies like this lend credence to the idea that the earlier you do it, the better the outcome,” he said. “I hope insurance companies will look at this and realize that early detection and surgery, if appropriate, will ultimately save them money in the long term.
Depression, fatigue tied to more hospital stays for terminal cancer
Patients with advanced cancer may spend more time in the hospital when they have untreated symptoms like fatigue and depression, a recent study suggests. Photo: Reuters file
Patients with advanced cancer may spend more time in the hospital when they have untreated symptoms like fatigue and depression, a recent study suggests.
The study focused on 1,036 advanced cancer patients who had unplanned hospital stays. More than half of them had moderate or severe fatigue, poor wellbeing, drowsiness, pain and lack of appetite, and more than one in four had depression or anxiety.
Overall, these unplanned hospitalizations lasted an average of 6.3 days, but stays were longer when patients were depressed. Within 90 days of being sent home, 43 percent of the patients were hospitalized again; repeat hospitalizations were more common among people with anxiety.
Efforts to alleviate patients’ symptom burden “hold great promise for improving patients’ experience with their illness, enhancing their quality of life, and reducing their health care utilization,” said lead study author Dr Ryan Nipp, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The findings can help clinicians and policymakers assess the extent to which uncontrolled symptoms contribute to excessive and costly cancer care, Nipp said by email.
Although many terminal cancer patients would prefer to remain at home, more than half of them are admitted to the hospital at least once during their last month of life, and 10 percent are hospitalized at least twice during this time, researchers note in the journal Cancer.
None of the patients in the current study were receiving treatment designed to cure their tumors.
Within 90 days of being admitted to the hospital, 42 percent of the patients died. The odds of death were higher for patients who reported being depressed or suffering physical and psychological problems.
The study was done at a single medical center, and most of the patients were white, married and educated beyond high school. The results might be different for a more diverse group of patients, the authors note.
And while the research showed a link between uncontrolled physical and mental health problems and more hospital time, the study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how these untreated issues might increase use of health services, the researchers also point out.
Even so, the study adds to evidence that these untreated symptoms may lead to avoidable treatments that may drive up health care costs, said Dr. Preeti Malani, a researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who wasn’t involved in the study.
“From an overall perspective, every day that an individual with advanced cancer is in the hospital, that’s a day he or she isn’t home, so this is also an important quality of life issue,” Malani said by email.
Part of the problem may be that patients don’t know about their options for palliative care that focuses on comfort rather than a cure, or they lack access to these services, Malani added.
“Improved access to palliative care would be helpful for symptom management as well as avoiding hospitalizations and aggressive treatment that doesn’t provide benefits,” Malani noted. Care teams need to make palliative care part of routine care, she said.
Part of the problem may be helping patients transition from aggressive treatment to comfort care, said Dio Kavalieratos, a researcher at the Palliative and Supportive Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who wasn’t involved in the study.
“It intuitively makes sense that if a patient’s symptoms are under control, that is one (more) reason that they would be able to stay comfortably at home instead of in the hospital,” Kavalieratos said by email. “Unfortunately, most cancer therapy is so focused on treating the cancer itself, that concerns like symptoms, emotional well being, and quality of life sometimes aren’t the top priority
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