Am I Eating My Way to Gestational Diabetes?

By Erica Kain

Throughout my last two pregnancies, it was a struggle to eat enough when so many foods repulsed me. This time my nausea has taken a vacation, and suddenly food tastes delicious. As a result, I’ve started to gain too much weight, too fast.Read More

Bill Clinton, Health Groups to Tackle Childhood Obesity

(HealthDay News) -- In what they called a "landmark agreement," former President Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association announced Thursday the launch of a national initiative on childhood obesity, aimed at getting up to 6 million American kids covered for routine visits to both primary care physicians and dietitians.

"I think we want the children of America to know, No. 1, that we want them to be healthy, we want them to grow up healthy, and we want them to start now," Clinton told reporters at his foundation's headquarters in New York City.

The new collaboration, which Clinton called "a really big deal," links medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dietetic Association with insurance companies such as Aetna, WellPoint, Blue Cross of North Carolina and of Massachusetts and private companies like PepsiCo, Owens Corning and Paychex. This, Clinton said, is "the first time our three stakeholders have come together to tackle childhood obesity in a comprehensive way."
The current initiative aims to address the obesity-related healthcare needs of almost 1 million children in the program's first year, by reimbursing doctors and registered dietitians for providing health care and in-depth nutritional counseling to kids on an ongoing basis. In addition, participating companies will offer their employees access to the initiative's benefits. The new alliance will also offer parents educational and nutritional information on tackling childhood obesity.

The planned coverage is set to ratchet up to approximately 6.2 million children (25 percent of all overweight American children) by the end of three years.

Observing that millions of American families simply don't know where to turn for help on their child's weight issues -- or just can't afford the help when they find it -- Clinton said he hoped that the new initiative would address what for many parents is "somewhere between a problem and a nightmare."

The new effort, called the "Alliance Healthcare Initiative," is the latest venture of The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, created in 2005 by the AHA and the William J. Clinton Foundation. In 2006, the Alliance helped shepherd an agreement among soft drink manufacturers that established sweetener, calorie and fat guidelines, and limited the sale of sodas in elementary, middle, and high schools attended by 35 million American students.

For his part, AHA president Dr. Tim Gardner described the new initiative as "a very historic moment" and one that is needed as the nation's medical system becomes increasingly burdened by obesity-related costs amid growing economic hardship.

He noted that the direct health care costs for the treatment of children who are already overweight or obese currently tops $14 billion annually, and, overall, obesity costs the nation an estimated $117 billion annually in both healthcare costs and lost productivity.

"We're here today because there is an obesity epidemic in this country," Gardner said. "One in three teens in this country are overweight or obese."

And, he added, "there's a risk that this generation will be the first in our history to have a shorter lifespan than their parents."

More information
For additional information on childhood nutrition, visit the American Heart Association.

Health Tip: Scuba Diving Safety

(HealthDay News) -- Scuba diving may allow you to see some amazing underwater places. But it's important to become scuba-certified before you hit the water.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, certification may help prevent these possible pitfalls of the sport:

• Failure to relieve pressure in your ears by "popping them" can lead to inner ear barotrauma, which can cause you to lose hearing and feel very dizzy.
• If you don't breathe correctly as you float to the surface after your dive, pulmonary barotrauma can occur. This can trigger symptoms including pain in the chest, difficulty breathing and a hoarse voice.
• "The bends," also called decompression sickness, also can occur as you float to the surface. This serious condition can cause nitrogen bubbles to form in the blood, and can affect the lungs, brain and spinal cord.
• An arterial gas embolism (AGE) causes bubbles in the blood, which could reach the brain. This very serious diving injury can lead to symptoms including unconsciousness, numbness, paralysis, general weakness or tingling skin.

Chronic Low Back Pain Is on the Rise

(HealthDay News) -- A North Carolina study finds that the rate of chronic low back pain has more than doubled in that state since the early 1990s -- a statistic the authors say might reflect what's happening in the country as a whole.

"We were actually surprised by what we found," said Dr. Timothy S. Carey, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina and the study's lead author.

He said his team knew that expenditures for medical services aimed at easing back pain have increased over the years. One theory for that rise has been that back pain sufferers are simply seeking more services.

But the researchers found another cause.



"A major reason for the increase in cost for back pain is not just that people are seeking a lot of care, but that there is a lot of back pain out there," Carey said. "We may need to rethink our way of dealing with this problem."

According to the study, 3.9 percent of North Carolina residents surveyed in 1992 said that they had debilitating, chronic back pain. That number rose to 10.2 percent by 2006, the researchers said.

Among people reporting ongoing, serious low back pain in 1992, about 73 percent said they had seen a physician, physical therapist or chiropractor at least once during the past year. In 2006, 84 percent said they had done so. However, the average number of health care visits remained the same, at just 19 a year.

The fraction of people with back pain who had ever had back surgery increased only slightly, from 22.3 percent in 1992 to 24.8 percent in 2006.

The findings were published in the Feb. 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The methodology of the study didn't enable researchers to ascertain the reasons for the increase in chronic lower back problems, but there are several possibilities, Carey said. One is the increase in obesity. Another is an increase in the prevalence of depression, which has been linked to back pain. Carey said that it's unclear whether back pain causes depression or whether people with pre-existing depression are more likely to develop depression.

What is clear is that chronic lower back problems remain a major public health problem.

"While no one dies from mechanical back pain, it is one of the most common reasons for work disability," Carey noted. The bill for lost productivity and back-related health care totals about $100 billion a year, he added. "In one sense, we're all paying for back pain. It ends up being reflected in our health insurance premiums and our Social Security disability costs," he said.

Carey said there appears to be a national trend toward increasing numbers of people with chronic lower back pain that causes impairment. The National Health Interview Survey showed that lower back pain and neck pain increased from 3.2 percent of the population in 1997 to 8.3 percent in 2006.

"There's not reason to believe that the population of North Carolina is that different from the rest of the U.S.," Carey said. "We have an ethnically diverse population and an age spectrum similar to the rest of the country." Because most chronic diseases tend to occur at a slightly higher rate in the southeastern U.S., he said, "it is slightly possible that the percentage [of chronic lower back pain] might be somewhat higher in the southeast, but I think the most important issue is this increase over time."

The findings also raise questions as to the effectiveness of current back pain treatments, Carey said. For example, another recent study he participated in showed that exercise remains underutilized as a means of treating chronic back and neck pain, though numerous studies show it can be effective.

Brook Martin, a University of Washington health services researcher who specializes in studying spinal services, agreed that a doubling of chronic back pain over 14 years raises serious issues about current treatment approaches.

"It makes us have to think about how to approach back pain," Martin said. "Chronic care models and clinical protocols and guidelines are not really the standard in treating back pain. This kind of highlights that this might be a real need."

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more on back pain.

Health Tip: Caring for a Canker Sore

(HealthDay News) -- If you have a canker sore, it may be painful to chew until it goes away, which usually happens on its own over time.

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers these suggestions to help relieve the pain of a canker sore:

• Take an over-the-counter pain reliever, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen.
• Try a topical pain-relieving ointment for canker sores, such as Anbesol, Zilactin-B, Orabase or Orajel.
• Rinse your mouth with a solution of equal parts Milk of Magnesia and Benadryl liquid allergy medication. Rinse with, but don't swallow the solution, every few hours.
• Take vitamin C or a vitamin B complex.
• Take zinc lozenges, or an herbal mouthwash that contains sage and chamomile.

Health Tip: Check Your Child's Car Seat

(HealthDay News) -- Use of a car seat can save a child's life, but it must be installed correctly.

The U.S. National Safety Council offers this checklist for making sure that a car seat is properly located and secured:

• Make sure the car seat is installed in the backseat -- never in the front.
• Children less than 1 year old or less than 20 pounds should ride facing the back of the car; older or heavier children can ride facing the front.
• Make sure the safety belt is securely holding the seat. Ensure that the seat is snugly strapped in and that the belt has been placed correctly.
• The harness must fit snugly, too. The clip should fit at about the level of your child's armpits.
• If your child is 40 pounds or under, continue using the car seat. Switch to a booster seat once your child weighs more than 40 pounds. The child probably will need a booster seat until he or she is about 4'9" tall and weighs about 80 pounds.