Swine Flu Activity Down
November 20, 2009
ABC News
By Courtney Hutchison
Health officials and health care providers in many areas of the country are breathing a sigh of relief — albeit a cautious one — as the number of confirmed cases of H1N1, as well as flu-related emergency room visits and ICU cases, begins to decline.
While there is still widespread flu activity in many regions, surveillance data in at least seven states suggest that this fall’s surge in H1N1 flu activity is starting to subside. Additionally, ABC News heard from 30 hospitals throughout the country that say flu activity is down.
“We might actually be beyond the peak,” Dr. Pascal James Imperato, Dean of the SUNY School of Public Health told ABC News’ David Muir. Imperato, who has studied influenza for 37 years, says the decline in flu activity may indicate “the beginning of a downswing.”
And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a comment to ABC News, said that 2009 H1N1 activity is declining in a number of areas around the country, though they caution that levels are still well above what is expected for influenza at this time of year, and could surge again.
“The wave has crested in our region. The real question now is how long the wave will continue to roll ashore,” said Frank James, health officer for San Juan County, Wash. “We could still be seeing cases into the winter months.”
In Maryland, health officials have reported declining levels of hospitalization for swine flu since a spike last month.
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Child Food Allergies on the Rise in US
November 16, 2009
ABC News
By Courtney Hutchison
The number of kids with reported food allergies has increased dramatically over the past two decades, but are kids really becoming more allergic over time?
Whether these reports reflect more food allergies in kids or just more reporting of kids’ allergies by parents has been a topic of debate.
Now new research from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics offers compelling evidence that this spike in childhood food allergies is for real.
The study provides some of the “missing pieces” in our information on childhood allergies, says Amy Branum, lead author on the study and health statistician for the National Center for Health Statistics.
“Most of the studies … up to this point have been in small populations and one demographic … the fact that we are seeing increases in reported prevalence among children of different race and age groups gives more compelling evidence that these increases may be real,” Branum says.
The study confirmed past findings that the prevalence for childhood allergies has increased at least 18 percent since 1993, and found that the number of visits to a physician, emergency room, or hospital clinic for food allergy-related care has tripled in that time period.
“[The] indication that more children are going to their doctors and emergency rooms for food allergies … gives further evidence that we may be seeing a real rise in food allergy cases among children in the U.S.,” Branum says.
Though the study cannot rule out increased reporting by parents as a contributing factor in this trend, allergists and pediatricians agree that food allergies in kids have become a growing concern.
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Detecting a Stroke With Your Eyes?
October 16, 2009
Natural News
By S. L. Baker
If you have severe dizziness and especially if you have hypertension or high cholesterol, it’s important to be checked out to see if you are having a stroke. A trip to the emergency room for those kinds of symptoms usually involves a costly, high tech MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). But a new study from stroke researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Illinois concludes there may be a better, simpler — and far cheaper and quicker — way to distinguish a stroke from other problems that aren’t so serious but can also cause dizziness, vertigo and nausea. What’s more, the test is all natural. It consists simply of a one-minute eye movement exam performed at the bedside.
The study of 101 patients, all of whom had risk factors for stroke, was just published in the online edition of the journal Stroke. Working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Illinois in Peoria, Illinois, Johns Hopkins neurologist David E. Newman-Toker, M.D., Ph.D., found that a quick, super cheap exam of patients seen at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria for dizziness actually caught more strokes than MRIs.
“The idea that a bedside exam could outperform a modern neuroimaging test such as MRI is something that most people had given up for dead, but we’ve shown it’s possible,” Dr. Newman-Toker, who is assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement to the media.
Dizziness is a common problem and sends about 2.6 million Americans to the ER each year, according to Dr. Newman-Toker. The vast majority of these cases are the result of benign inner ear balance problems. However, for about four percent, dizziness is a sign of a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA, or “mini-stroke”). Over 50 percent of people who experience dizziness and who are having strokes don’t have other classic stroke symptoms such as one-sided weakness, numbness, or speech problems. That’s one reason ER doctors misdiagnose at least a third of stroke cases, according to Dr. Newman-Toker.
“We know that time is brain, so when patients having a stroke are sent home erroneously, the consequences can be really serious, including death or permanent disability,” Jorge C. Kattah, M.D., chairman of neurology at OSF St. Francis Medical Center and co-leader of the study, said in the press release.
Previous research has shown that people having a stroke have eye movement alterations that correlate with brain areas where stroke damage is occurring — and these eye movements are distinctly different from alterations seen with benign ear diseases. So Dr. Newman-Toker and his colleagues decided to test eye movements in dizzy patients to document whether they could distinguish which people were having strokes from those with other problems.
