7 Ways Parents Can Influence Risk of Obesity

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Here’s a link with some good advice for parents about developing healthy eating habits http://t.co/ChlRj2hEWV from Huffington Post and an excerpt (from Kristin Kirkpatrick, M.S., R.D., L.D):

I was recently called out for not being a “fun” mom because I wouldn’t buy artificially colored “fun” junk food for my son. …

We strive to teach manners, independence and kindness to our children but we often times fail to teach something just as important — the value of exercise and healthy eating. The majority of your child’s attitudes about food and nutrition, they’re desire to be physically active and even their weight will come directly from their parent’s.

Here are eight things about you that will most likely be passed down to your children. 

1. You’ve got a weight problem While part of your child’s risk for obesity, and even how picky they might be about trying certain foods may be caused by genetic factors, the bulk of your child’s predisposition to be overweight may actually be determined by your weight.  That’s right, if you’re overweight or obese, your child’s chances of following the same fate are between 25 to 50 percent. What about your child’s other parent? If he or she is also overweight, the chances just shot up to 75 percent.

A 2012 study found that a simple formula could predict a baby’s propensity to become obese and noted in the study that based on longitudinal cohort data, that 20 percent of children predicted to have the highest risk at birth make up 80 percent of obese children. The calculation is based on five factors including birth weight, the body mass index of the parents, the number of people in the household, the mother’s professional status and whether she smoked during pregnancy…

2. You use food to reward or withhold on a regular basis …

3. In your home, junk food is its own food group A 2014 study  suggested that it wasn’t actually the vast presence of fast food establishments that was to blame for the pediatric obesity epidemic but rather overall bad habits that originated in the home. Homes that followed a “Western diet” defined in the study as having a prevalence of sugared sweetened beverages, salty snacks, high-fat sandwiches, candy and desserts were more likely to have obese or overweight kids with poor dietary habits.

The desire for junk food may actually be affected before birth as well. A 2013 animal study found that pregnant mothers who consumed junk foods, particularly fast food, actually altered the opiate signaling pathways in the brains of their offspring, making their baby’s more likely to crave foods high in fat and sugar.

4. You’re a couch potato A 2013 study found that kids whose moms encouraged them to exercise and eat well (and modeled these behaviors in themselves) were more likely to engage in physical activity and adhere to healthy eating habits. That means more movement, mom and dad, and less couch time! In addition to keeping kids sedentary, spending too much time on the couch as a family exposes your little one to more commercials that promote unhealthy foods, a risk factor for childhood obesity…

Limiting overall “screen time” in young children is also critical and has been shown  to reduce the risk for obesity and chronic conditions. Finally, if you’re thinking about letting your little one have a TV in his or her bedroom, think again! A 2012 study found that children having a TV in their room were more likely to have a higher waist circumference.

5. You’re labeling your child as “picky” Have you ever told another parent that your child is a picky eater? Simply labeling your child as picky could cause them to turn away from fruits and vegetables according to one study. The study showed that moms who labeled their child as “picky” had children who were less likely to try various types of produce and were actually less likely to eat fruits and vegetables themselves.

6. You think breakfast is for sissies Habitual breakfast in children is associated with  higher academic performance, a reduced risk for obesity and an increased intake of vitamins and minerals.

7. There’s no mealtime routine in your family … Eating as a family unit has been linked  with increased fruit and vegetable consumption and lower intakes of soft drink consumption. Further, adolescents who experience family meals often have a better diet as they head into adulthood.

Parents, it’s your job to help shape the taste buds, views about food and weight for life. That doesn’t mean your kid should never have a cookie. It just means that these foods shouldn’t be the norm. Teach your kids about which foods make them strong and which foods make them weak by using words and phrases they’ll understand such as “This salad will help you grow tall,” or “This apple makes mommy’s brain super strong.”

Most importantly, if your child already has a weight problem or less-than-perfect eating habits, it’s not too late to help him or her change. The step is recognizing the problem (few parents  actually do) and working together with your child to change behavior. I’m happy to keep my “non-fun” mom status if that means that I can help my son be a healthy eater and maintain a normal weight throughout his life. One day …perhaps he’ll realize just how “fun” being healthy, staying fit and avoiding sickness can really be.

 

How often do you wipe down your stethoscope?

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From NY Times, http://t.co/RoyhpjtPTQ; an except:

Doctors’ stethoscopes are contaminated with bacteria that can easily be transferred from one patient to another, a new study has found.

Researchers cultured bacteria from the fingertips, palms and stethoscopes of three doctors who had done standard physical examinations on 83 patients at a Swiss hospital. They tested for the presence of viable bacterial cells, looking specifically for the potentially deadly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The study appears in the March issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Fingertips on the doctors’ dominant hands were the most contaminated, but the part of the stethoscope that touches the patients’ skin held more than twice as much bacteria as the physicians’ palms…

The authors acknowledge that the study was small and may not be applicable to other health care sites. Except for MRSA, they did not distinguish harmful from harmless bacteria.

That bacteria are found on stethoscopes is “not a surprise,” said the senior author, Dr. Didier Pittet, a professor of medicine at the University of Geneva Hospitals. He cleans his own stethoscope with alcohol swabs after each examination, but “most physicians do not.”

 

 

“More to It Than Meets the BMI”

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This blog post title is quoted from a clever editorial which reviews the use of BMI and the effect of obesity with outcomes after liver transplantation (Liver Transpl 2014; 20: 253-54, related article pages 281-90.)

Key points from editorial and study:

  • Study enrolled 202 consecutive adult (mean 51 years) patients (200-2010) as part of cohort study.  Data was obtained at time of transplantation and reviewed with retrospective analysis. NAFLD was transplant indication in 7%.
  • “Use of BMI as a marker of obesity is flawed.” Authors showed only 86% agreement between calculated BMI and percent body fat as measured with DXA.
  • Patients with high BMI due to greater lean muscle mass may have improved outcomes.  Sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass) likely has greater effect on outcomes.
  • The study shows that the combination of diabetes and obesity increases the risk of complications and prolongs hospital stays (5.81 days, P<0.01).
  • Metabolic risk factors had no effect on 30-day, 1-year, or 5-year patient survival.

Another article in same issue: Liver Transpl 2014; 20: 311-22. This study retrospectively examined 148 normal-weight, 148 overweight, and 74 obese patients who underwent living donor liver transplantation. Key finding: “there were no differences in graft survival [hazard ratio (HR) =0.955] or recipient survival [HR = 0.90]” between these groups.  Obese patients do require larger grafts which can delay identifying suitable donor.

Bottomline from editorial: “this study shows us that the combination of diabetes and obesity dramatically increases the risk of complications” but not survival.  “If there comes a day when the cost of a human life is less than the cost of a 6- to 7-day hospital stay, that is the day to reckon. None of us may survive.”

Related blog post:

Sarcopenia, fatigue, and nutrition in chronic liver … – gutsandgrowth

Missing ingredients in TPN -Case Report

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Recently one of my radiology colleagues, Dr. Laura Hayes, put together (lead author) a presentation (poster) for an upcoming meeting.  The main focus of the presentation is a TPN-dependent toddler who presented with refusal to walk due to copper deficiency.

Attached is a link to the presentation: TPN Copper.  This link is a power point presentation with numerous radiographs and even bone scan images.

Key points:

  • All TPN components except dextrose have been in periods of shortage over the last few years.
  • TPN-dependent patients may not be receiving all the needed components and their physicians may not have been notified of the specific shortage(s).
  • Copper deficiency leads to reduced activity of numerous enzymes important for function of bone, blood, skin, nervous system and hair.
  • Subperiosteal hemorrhage leads to the periosteal thickening seen in this case and is associated with the bone pain our patient experienced.
  • Increased losses of bilious fluid can increase the risk of copper deficiency due to the excretion of copper in bile.
  • Other TPN-related deficiencies reviewed include thiamine deficiency (Wernicke’s encephalopathy), Vitamin D deficiency (Rickets), and Vitamin C deficiency (Scurvy).

Another recent case report:

Oestreich AE, Cole CR. Vigorous periosteal reaction secondary to copper deficiency in an infant on total parenteral nutrition. (2013) Pediatr Radiol 43:1411-1413.

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PCORI: Spending Money to Save Money

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I hadn’t heard much about PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) until I learned about two large awards given to ImproveCareNow (ImproveCareNow | LOOP).  (This blog has previously discussed ImproveCareNow -see links below.)

Now a perspective article provides a lot more detail regarding PCORI (NEJM 2014; 370: 592-94) including the fact that it will commit as much as $1.5 billion over the next 3 years to research projects.  While this is impressive, on a side note, PCORI could benefit from a better name.  In England, a similar organization is called NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence).  Of course, NICE may be more about promoting evidence-based medicine than funding clinical effectiveness research (CER) like PCORI.

A full list of funded projects is available at http://www.pcori.org/pfaawards/?viewby=priority.  From this website: “The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) was created to fund research that will provide patients and those who care for them with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed health and healthcare decisions. We do this by supporting studies that seek to answer questions important to patients and meaningfully involve patients and others across the healthcare community at all stages of the research process.”

According to the perspective article, PCORI has funded 162 CER studies, “37 (23%) focus on cancer detection, treatment or surveillance; 30 (19%) on mental health; 26 (16%) on cardiovascular diseases; and 18 (11%) on endocrine disorders, including diabetes mellitus.”

Bottomline: Though I would appreciate a better name, PCORI clinical effectiveness research projects are going to shape many important healthcare decisions.

Related blog entries:

Probiotics For Fatty Liver Disease

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Probiotics and alterations in the microbiome are being examined for a range of ailments.  However, as noted in previous blog posts, the current evidence shows only a limited number of disorders where probiotics have been proven effective.  There is more evidence, now, that probiotics may be beneficial for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

  • Am J Clin Nutr 2014; 99: 425-6. editorial
  • Am J Clin Nutr 2014; 99: 535-42.

The referenced article examined 52 nondiabetic patients with fatty liver disease in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Patients were considered to have NAFLD on the basis of an ultrasonography and an alanine aminotransferase value >60 U/L.  Those who received a probiotic were compared with a placebo group and followed for 28 weeks.

In this study, rather than a probiotic, technically, the treatment group received a synbiotic because it contained fructooligosaccharides (FOS) which are non digestible oligosaccharides in addition to a probiotic mixture.  FOS can stimulate the growth of intestinal bacteria.  The probiotic mixture included Lactobacillus case, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Streptococcus thermopiles, Bificobacterium breve, Lactobacillus, acidophilus, B. longum, and Lactobacillus bulgaricus.

Key findings:

  • There were improvements in ALT values and in baseline mild fibrosis (estimated by Fibroscan).
  • There were decreased levels of circulating TNF-α and decreased nuclear transcription factor κβ in circulating mononuclear leukocytes –both consistent with decreased systemic inflammation

Limitations: 

  1. Study did not include liver histology (biopsy).  In addition, in nearly all subjects, the fibroscans were near normal, both before and after the intervention.  Thus, the reduction in liver stiffness is not clear cut.
  2. Small number of participants.
  3. Short study period.

Bottomline: This study along with several others points towards a potential role for modulating the microbiome to improve NAFLD along with metabolic syndrome more broadly.

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OpenBiome -Nation’s 1st Human Stool Bank

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From NY Times: http://t.co/LIIk4JNMfl

An excerpt:
Around noon on a recent Friday, Donor Five, a healthy 31-year-old, walked across M.I.T.’s frigid, wind-swept campus to a third-floor restroom to make a contribution to public health.

Less than two hours later, a technician blended the donor’s stool into preparations that looked like chocolate milk. The material was separated and stored in freezers at an M.I.T. microbiology lab, awaiting shipment to hospitals around the country. Each container was carefully labeled: Fecal Microbiota Preparation.

Nearly a year ago, Mark Smith, a 27-year-old doctoral candidate, and three colleagues launched OpenBiome, the nation’s first human stool bank. Its mission: to provide doctors with safe, inexpensive fecal material from screened donors to treat patients with Clostridium difficile, a gastrointestinal infection that kills at least 14,000 Americans a year.

“People are dying, and it’s crazy because we know what the solution is,” Mr. Smith said. “People are doing fecal transplants in their basements and may not be doing any of the right screening or sterile preparation. We need an intermediate solution until there are commercial products on the market.”…

The bacteria are increasingly resistant to conventional treatments. But researchers have discovered an alternative: A donor’s stool can be transplanted in the intestine or colon of a sick patient via an enema, colonoscopy or nasogastric tube. The healthy bacteria fight off C. diff and re-establish a normal community in the gut.

A study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine found that fecal transplants were nearly twice as effective as antibiotics in treating patients with recurring C. difficile.

But where to get healthy donor stool? For doctors, it’s a tedious, time-consuming process, and some patients turn awkwardly to relatives or friends. Since September, OpenBiome has delivered more than 135 frozen, ready-to-use preparations to 13 hospitals. The nonprofit project fields dozens of requests from doctors, hospitals and patients every week. (The preparations are not sent directly to patients.) 

Carol Capps, 75, a retired nurse in Clemmons, N.C., had been in and out of hospitals for months with a C. diff infection that was not going away despite multiple courses of antibiotics. After a recurrence, her doctor suggested OpenBiome, and she received a fecal transplant. By that afternoon, Ms. Capps said, she felt like a new person and has been healthy since…

Because of the legal ambiguity, some researchers are not preparing fecal microbiota for sale (usually at cost) …

At the same time, Mr. Smith and Eric J. Alm, an M.I.T. microbiologist and adviser to OpenBiome, said the F.D.A.’s classification of fecal transplants as drugs hinders research into their possible uses to treat inflammatory bowel diseases and obesity.

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What NOT to say with functional pain

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A recent article crossed my desk (from the “G-force”) which I hadn’t seen (or at least remembered).  So, although it is not new, it is a useful reference (Pain 2006; 122: 43-52).

In brief, the authors divided 223 children (n-104 with recurrent pain, n=119 healthy children) between ages 8-16 into 3 groups: attention, distraction, and no instruction.  After the children consumed water until they felt “completely full,” they were observed with their parents.  Parents in the attention and distraction groups had received video and written instructions; whereas the no instruction parents watched a video about the university.

Questions/statements that were typical in the attention group:

  • “I know it hurts now, but you’ll be OK later”
  • “What doe it feel like?”
  • “I can imagine it must feel really uncomfortable”

Questions/statements that were typical in the distraction group:

  • “Let’s talk about something else to get your mind off of it.  Tell me about ____”
  • “What would you like to do this evening?”

Key findings:

  1. Complaints nearly doubled under conditions of parent attention and were reduced by half under conditions of distraction (in comparison to the no instruction group).
  2. Female patients in this study had greater increase in pain complaints in the attention group than male patients.
  3. After water loading, children with a history of pain had significantly more complaints in the attention group than healthy children.
  4. “Unlike parents of well children, no parent of a pain patient rated attention as having any potential for negative impact on their child.”

Take home message (from Oscar Wilde -quoted in article): “While sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of joy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain.”

Related blog post:

Anxiety and Functional Abdominal Pain | gutsandgrowth

Gluten-free diet “has legs”

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From NY Times: http://t.co/5cQijw7do9

An excerpt:

The Girl Scouts recently introduced a gluten-free chocolate chip shortbread cookie to their annually anticipated line of sweet treats…And Trader Joe’s recently joked in an advertising flier promoting gluten-free foods that it was selling “Gluten Free Greeting Cards 99 Cents Each! Every Day!” — even though it then went on to say the cards were not edible.

Makers of products that have always been gluten-free, including popcorn, potato chips, nuts and rice crackers, are busy hawking that quality in ads and on their packaging.

And consumers are responding with gusto. The portion of households reporting purchases of gluten-free food products to Nielsen hit 11 percent last year, rising from 5 percent in 2010.

In dollars and cents, sales of gluten-free products were expected to total $10.5 billion last year, according to Mintel, a market research company, which estimates the category will produce more than $15 billion in annual sales in 2016…

“About 30 percent of the public says it would like to cut back on the amount of gluten it’s eating, and if you find 30 percent of the public doing anything, you’ll find a lot of marketers right there, too.”

Never mind that a Mayo Clinic survey in 2012 concluded that only 1.8 million Americans have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes the body to attack the small intestine when gluten is ingested and can lead to other debilitating medical problems if not diagnosed.

An additional 18 million people, or about 6 percent of the population, is believed to have gluten sensitivity, a less severe problem with the protein in wheat, barley and rye and their relatives that gives elasticity to dough and stability to the shape of baked goods.

“There are truly people out there who need gluten-free foods for health reasons, but they are not the majority of consumers who are driving this market,” said Virginia Morris, vice president for consumer strategy and insights at Daymon Worldwide, a private brand and consumer interactions company…

“The reason I do believe this has legs is that it ties into this whole naked and ‘free from’ trend,” she said. “I think we as a country and as a globe will continue to be concerned about what’s going into our food supply.”

Rebecca Thompson, a marketing manager at General Mills, said ..“When you think about the dynamics in a household, where there are likely to be three other people eating at the same time as one person with celiac or gluten sensitivity, it’s much easier to prepare one meal for everyone.”…

General Mills, whose brands include Bisquick, Pillsbury and Betty Crocker, might seem like the least likely company to embrace gluten-free. But in the mid-2000s, more and more customers began seeking alternatives to its traditional products.

So in 2008, it began reformulating its Chex cereals, underscoring the first change, to Rice Chex, with a major marketing effort. It was relatively easy to tweak Chex by switching a few minor ingredients. But the next year, Betty Crocker introduced gluten-free brownies, cookies and cakes in a far more complicated process…

Gluten-free customers are valuable, ringing up roughly $100 in sales with their average grocery basket compared with $33 for the overall average basket, according to Catalina Marketing…

Last August, the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees food labeling, ruled that products labeled gluten free were permitted to contain no more than 20 parts of gluten per million, which made it more difficult for large food companies to get into the business. “You really need to have a captive facility because wheat floats,” Mr. Hughes said.

Sales of Udi’s and Glutino were up 50 percent last year, and Boulder Brands is finding more demand from regional food service businesses and institutions. Udi’s hot dog buns are available now in most major baseball parks, and Dunkin’ Donuts and others are turning to the company for individually wrapped gluten-free bagels and muffins…

Mr. Hughes said. “We think this is a trend with long legs because there is some insulation from the big players — it’s hard to produce gluten-free — and because so much of the category is represented by $10- and $15-million mom-and-pop businesses.”

Interest in gluten-free products also has been a boon for fruits and vegetables and other foods that are inherently gluten-free. Popcorn Indiana, for example, has labeled its ready-to-eat popcorn gluten-free since before the fad began, in part because the chief executive, Hitesh Hajarnavis, has children who have food allergies. “I had become an avid reader of labels, and so when I came over to Popcorn Indiana, I knew the value of having a clear gluten-free label for what was then a very small number of people with gluten allergies,” Mr. Hajarnavis said… “But there is a growing population of people who have somehow heard that gluten-free is healthier or think of it as fashionable, and when they remove gluten from their diet, they’re inadvertently taking out a lot of processed foods and are really feeling the benefits of eating healthier foods.”

Celiac Update: Quinoa –probably OK for gluten-free diet based on small study.  Here’s the link: nature.com/ajg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ajg2013431a.html … (from KT Park twitter feed)

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‘Little’ Knowledge Exists Regarding Medicines for Neonates

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Despite federal legislation encouraging the study of products used in the pediatric population, very little of these studies has translated into meaningful information regarding neonates (JAMA Pediatr 2014; 168: 130-36, thanks to Ben Gold for this reference).

This publication reviewed studies submitted to the FDA between 1997-2010.  The authors identified all drugs with pediatric studies that included neonates.  Subsequently, the use of these drugs was examined in a oohort of neonates admitted to 290 neonatal intensive care units (NICU) (Pediatrix Data Warehouse) in the U.S. form 2005-2010.

Key findings:

  • 28 drugs (in 41 studies) were examined in neonates. This led to 24 labeling changes.
  • 11 of 24 neonatal labeling changes included an approval for use in neonates, including 4 for HIV and 3 for anesthesia.
  • 13 of 24 labeling changes were the following: “safety and effectiveness have not been established.”  These drugs included several reflux medications: esomeprazole, lansoprazole, pantoprazole, and ranitidine.
  • In the Pediatrix database involving 446,335 hospitalized neonates, there were 399 different drugs identified that had been administered.  Of the 28 studied drugs, the gastroesophageal reflux medicines were used most frequently.  13 of the 28 studied drugs were not used at all in the NICUs.
  • Of the 11 drugs with a neonatal indication, 7 were never used in the Pediatrix neonatal population and the other 4 drugs were used infrequently.

Conclusions:

  • Neonates are a vulnerable and an understudied population
  • Most of the exposure to drugs was off-label for neonates.
  • Most often, off-label drugs were prescribed “despite studies indicating they were not effective…For example, ranitidine, lansoprazole, and inhaled nitric oxide (for the prevention of bronchpulmonary dysplasia) were the top 3 drugs used in neonates…none have FDA labelling for the indication studied because of lack of efficacy.”
  • Furthermore, drugs like ranitidine and lansoprazole” are associated with serious adverse effects in neonates.” (Clin Perinatol 2012; 39: 99-109)

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