Men Gain Weight in College, But Don’t Care as Much as Women

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) — It’s true that college students tend to pack on extra pounds, but women are more likely to be troubled by that weight gain than men, according to a new study.

“As women gained weight, their eating attitudes worsened and body dissatisfaction rose,” said Laura Girz, a University of Toronto graduate student and lead author of the study, published online recently in the journal Appetite.

The “freshman 15″ may be a misnomer, though. The study of nearly 500 students found undergrads add less than 10 pounds on average.

The researchers followed the incoming freshmen — whose average age was about 18 — from just before they entered college through the next four years. Besides charting weight, they assessed attitudes about eating, depression and body satisfaction, and charted how those attitudes changed as the scale shifted.

Gender differences were considerable, the researchers found.

Most students — 303 — gained some weight. Another 100 remained weight stable and 75 lost weight.

On average, the men gained about 9 pounds and the women about 7 over the entire study period.

Guys who porked up had the same attitudes about eating and well-being as the men who remained weight stable, Girz said. However, men who lost weight reported negative eating attitudes both at the study start and at the end.

The bottom line: Weight gain is linked with more preoccupation with weight and negative eating attitudes for women, but not men, while weight loss improves the negative eating attitudes only of women. Men who started out heavy and had negative attitudes about eating, Girz found, did not have better attitudes even if they lost weight.

Weight changes didn’t have much effect on depression, she added.

Girz speculated that men who were underweight to begin with might have welcomed the additional pounds.

“The first year is a really stressful time and that can have an effect on eating behavior,” Girz said. However, as students settle in, the weight control may become easier.

Students have told her that widespread availability of food on campus, large portions and school stress can undermine attempts to eat sensibly, Girz said. Stress can make some people stop eating, she noted, and prompt others to overeat.

Another expert indicated the findings were to be expected.

The gender differences “are probably not too surprising when you think about it,” said Heidi Wengreen, associate professor of nutrition, dietetics and nutritional sciences at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, who was not involved with the study.

Many college-age men may want to put on muscle mass, so the weight gain does not concern them, she noted.

Also, the transition to college is a major life change, Wengreen said. In her own research, she has found weight gain more likely for students who said they were exercising less because of school pressures and time constraints.

Girz tells students not to obsess about weight gain. “We know the more you obsess, it’s usually counterproductive,” she said. Instead, she advises college students to listen to their body and recognize signals of fullness and hunger. Instead of chronic dieting, she suggests eating a balanced diet.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics advises college students to eat breakfast, look for high-fiber foods, choose lean protein such as chicken and fish, and limit intake of alcohol and sugary drinks.

More information

To learn more about smart eating at college, visit the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Burn 200 Calories in 10 Minutes With This Killer Kettlebell Workout

The kettlebell is one of the most versatile weights out there. It’s shaped perfectly for tons of different home exercises, and adds to your functional strength because its weight shifts during your workout. Best of all, you don’t have to put it down to change positions, keeping you focused and ready to lift. Try these 5 exercises to work your core, chest, abs, and really burn off the calories. Perform each for 2 minutes to burn 200+ calories in 10 minutes.

1. Swing. Hold the kettlebell with both hands, palms facing you. You’ll want to stand with feet slightly further than hip-width apart, with knees bent slightly. Start by bending at the waist, kettlebell between your knees. Then, thrust upward so the kettlebell reaches chest height, arms extended in front of you.

2. One Arm Swing. Once you get the hang of the basic swing, try one arm swings. It’s the same movement, just hold the kettlebell with one arm. This move requires more stability and core strength, so wait until you master the double handed swing.

3. Turkish Get Up. Lay down with the kettlebell in one hand above you, arm extended. Stand up with only your legs, keeping your arm raised the entire time. Your core, glutes, shoulders and legs all go hard in this move.

4. One Arm Squat. Hold the kettlebell in one hand by your shoulder, your elbow is bent at your side. Squat as far down as you can, while reaching your free hand out in front of you for balance. Rise up, keeping the weight stationary the entire time. This move is designed to supercharge all parts of your core and torso.

5. Wind Mill. Stand with your feet just slightly wider than hip-width apart. Hold the kettlebell with one hand, and raise that arm straight up in the air. Keep your free arm by your side. The foot on this side should be pointed out slightly. Then, slide your free hand down your left leg, keeping your kettlebell hand stationary. If you want to hit those obliques, the wind mill is the way to go.

Jennifer Cohen is a leading fitness authority, TV personality, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. With her signature, straight-talking approach to wellness, Jennifer was the featured trainer on The CW’s Shedding for the Wedding, mentoring the contestants’ to lose hundreds of pounds before their big day, and she appears regularly on NBC’s Today Show, Extra, The Doctors and Good Morning America. Connect with Jennifer on Facebook, Twitter, G+ and on Pinterest.

Yoga in Times Square? Yes! Celebrate the First Day of Summer at Solstice

You love it when it comes to ringing in the New Year–so why not spend some time in New York City’s Times Square on the longest day of the year? You can celebrate the first day of summer and your love for yoga all in one place: At the 11th annual Solstice in Times Square on Friday, June 21.

Times Square—one of the busiest places in New York City or just about anywhere—will be closed off for a day-long yoga festival for more than 16,000 pre-registered participants.

The event includes speakers, booths, demonstrations, and five yoga classes. Featured instructors are all renowned yoga experts from New York City, including Colleen Saidman.

One of the event’s sponsors, Athleta, will host three fashion shows with Athleta fitness apparel, and provide free yoga mats to the first 1,200 participants that arrive to each class.

Since the Solstice in Times Square yoga festival is celebrating the longest day of the year, the first class will begin at 7:25 am (sunrise is at 5:25 am) and the last class will end around 9 pm (sunset is at 8:31 pm).

Read more:

A Yoga Routine for Strong, Slim Arms Yoga for Your Jiggly Bits Best Yoga Moves for Your Trouble Spots Yoga Poses for Anxiety, Pain, and More

Recipe of the Day: Caprese Bites

We love the classic combination of tomato and mozzarella whether it’s in an appetizer or salad.

So we’re big fans of these 25-calorie caprese bites, which make a great snack to keep you satisfied and energized throughout the day.

Cherry tomatoes are rich in potassium and vitamins (A, C, K and B6), and they’ll help you stay hydrated since they’re made up of 94.5% water. They’re also a terrific party appetizer; with just four ingredients, these couldn’t be easier to throw together.

Ingredients: cherry tomato, basil, mozzarella, olive oil.

Try this recipe: Caprese Bites 

4 Truths Nobody Ever Tells You About Training

Courtesy brightroom.com

I was never a runner. In fact, I kind of despised running—especially since my high school soccer coach used it as punishment. As an adult, however, I’ve come to love it so much I’ve completed five marathons.

But after Hurricane Sandy put the kibosh on last year’s New York City Marathon, I fell off track. Though I stayed active, for four months I never ran. Now I’m training again to run the marathon this November, and dealing with body aches and slooow runs. Yet I know I won’t quit, because I’ve found that the sucky days are the ones that make you better. Thinking of running a race, too? Here are a few other things I’ve learned along the way.

Training is a bit scary
I can’t lie. The training is grueling. Four. Long. Months. But at some point—for me, it’s after the first month—you hit your stride. And before you know it, you’re a week out from the big day.

Commitment is key
You can’t BS your way through training. Believe me, I tried once. I figured if I did my long runs I’d be OK. The problem: Training is like a ladder. Each rung prepares your body for the next, so skipping just one step weakens your foundation, making those 15- and 20-milers—and ultimately the big 26.2—tougher. My advice: Stick to a schedule. I run after work, though life can get in the way. Sometimes I’ve had to get up at dawn (wearing running clothes to bed helps!).

Find what fuels you
Sure, I love my shrinking waistline and toned thighs. But the real reason I run is it’s a total stress buster. When my granny died two years ago, the first thing I did was lace up my sneakers. There was something about falling into the rhythm of the run that soothed me and helped me wrap my mind around my grief. I ran my 2011 marathon in her honor.

You’ll surprise yourself
Some days, self-doubt tells me I won’t succeed. It’s then I have to remind myself: No one ran those miles for me. I pushed my body and found my way to the finish line. So much of running is mental (I can forge ahead!). You are showing yourself that you can do what less than 1 percent of the population can do. How’s that for an ego boost?

A Deadly Form of Diabetes That Doctors Sometimes Miss

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) — Addie Parker was a happy 4-year-old who appeared to have the flu. But within hours she was in a coma.

Tragically, her parents weren’t familiar with the signs of type 1 diabetes — extreme fatigue, thirst and sweet-smelling breath, among others — in time to save their little girl. Soon after she was diagnosed, Addie’s brain hemorrhaged. She died six days later, about a month shy of her fifth birthday.

Experts say a lack of awareness of the signs of type 1 diabetes is all too common. Just this month, a Wisconsin toddler died apparently because of undiagnosed type 1 diabetes.

“Addie had flu symptoms,” recalled her mother, Micki Parker, who works in the operating room at a nearby hospital but was unfamiliar with type 1 diabetes.

“By the next morning, she was throwing up every hour,” Parker said. Addie didn’t have a fever, but later that day, she couldn’t get up from the bathroom floor because she was so dizzy.

Eventually, the Parkers learned that Addie’s blood sugar level was 543 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) — more than four times higher than normal, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Most people have heard of type 2 diabetes, but type 1 diabetes is far less common. It can strike at any age — even though it used to be known as juvenile diabetes — and it always requires treatment with injected insulin or insulin delivered through a pump. People with type 1 diabetes don’t produce insulin, a hormone needed to convert the food you eat into fuel for the body. Without insulin, glucose (blood sugar) rises to unhealthy levels.

Untreated, type 1 diabetes causes serious complications and even death. But it’s often mistaken for other illnesses — even by doctors.

“There’s an underawareness of type 1 diabetes in the public, and in the healthcare system,” said Dr. Richard Insel, chief scientific officer for JDRF (formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). “Missed diagnoses even occur in emergency rooms; people don’t always think of it.”

Every day, about 80 Americans are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and the total number rose 23 percent between 2000 and 2009 in children under 20. Currently, about 3 million Americans — most of them adults — are living with type 1 diabetes, according to the JDRF.

One of them is 20-year-old Amanda Di Lella, who was 13 when she knew something was seriously wrong.

“I was losing weight, but I was always hungry. I was always tired. My symptoms weren’t extreme at first, but they quickly got worse,” she said. “I went from being tired to not being able to get out of bed, from being thirsty to drinking 10 bottles of water in the middle of the night. I had lost 15 pounds, and only weighed 75 pounds when I begged my mother to take me to the doctor.”

Her pediatrician told her mother that Di Lella probably had an eating disorder and he prescribed protein shakes.

Within a few days Di Lella wasn’t waking up. Her mother took her to the hospital, at about the same time the doctor got blood work back showing that she had type 1 diabetes.

Her blood sugar level was over 400, and she was in diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA. When your body doesn’t get the glucose it needs for fuel (and when there’s no insulin, glucose doesn’t get into the body’s cells), it burns fats for energy. This produces an acidic substance called ketones, which can build up in the blood, causing DKA.

“Once you’re in DKA, you’re set up for some major complications, and approximately 30 percent of people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes still present with DKA,” Insel said.

After a week in the intensive care unit, Di Lella recovered. Her doctor apologized for the error and said he had never had a case of type 1 diabetes, so it wasn’t something he normally looked for.

Insel said it’s important to compare a child’s changes in behavior to the other children in the family. Is the child drinking excessively compared to a sibling? Is a child who has mastered nighttime bladder control suddenly wetting the bed again?

The good news is that it’s easy to test for type 1 diabetes. A urine test can detect whether there’s sugar in the blood. If that test is positive, then a simple test drawing a drop of blood from the fingertip can confirm whether you have diabetes.

Di Lella, now a student at the University of Florida, said she would advise others to “not ignore symptoms that seem so basic. Even small symptoms can be a sign of something much bigger.”

Parker said she wants other parents to know that a child with type 1 diabetes “doesn’t necessarily look sick. Trust your gut instinct, and push to have your child tested.”

The signs and symptoms of type 1 diabetes that everyone should know include:

Increased thirst Frequent urination Wetting the bed in a child who has previously had good nighttime bladder control Unintended weight loss Extreme fatigue Sudden changes in vision Unusual irritability Increased appetite A fruity odor on the breath Heavy or labored breathing More information

Learn more about the warning signs of type 1 diabetes from the JDRF.

U.S. Doctors’ Group Labels Obesity a Disease

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) — In an effort to focus greater attention on the weight-gain epidemic plaguing the United States, the American Medical Association has now classified obesity as a disease.

The decision will hopefully pave the way for more attention by doctors on obesity and its dangerous complications, and may even increase insurance coverage for treatments, experts said.

“Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” AMA board member Dr. Patrice Harris said in a statement Tuesday. “The AMA is committed to improving health outcomes and is working to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, which are often linked to obesity.”

One expert thinks the AMA’s decision, approved Tuesday at the group’s annual meeting, could lead to greater coverage by insurance companies of treatments for obesity.

“We already treat obesity as a chronic illness,” said Dr. Esa Matius Davis, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. “But this decision will bring more resources into the picture because it will, hopefully, allow for more insurance coverage and that really has been the issue of getting people the help that they need,” she said.

Treatments for obesity — including drugs, nutritional counseling and surgery, if needed — often don’t get reimbursed by insurance companies, Davis said. That means many patients aren’t getting the care they need because they can’t afford to pay the out-of-pocket costs, she said.

If insurance covered these services “it would increase referrals and treatment and that would be a huge step in the right direction,” Davis said.

Right now, Davis gets insurance coverage for her obese patients by diagnosing them with high blood pressure or high cholesterol or diabetes, or other obesity-related conditions. But, that still leaves many obese patients out in the cold, she said.

The Obesity Society, which calls itself the leading scientific society dedicated to the study of obesity, applauded the AMA’s decision. “The passage of a new American Medical Association policy classifying obesity as a disease reinforces the science behind obesity prevention and treatment,” Theodore Kyle, advocacy chair, said in a statement.

“This vital recognition of obesity as a disease can help to ensure more resources are dedicated to needed research, prevention and treatment; encourage health care professionals to recognize obesity treatment as a needed and respected vocation; and, reduce the stigma and discrimination experienced by the millions affected,” he said.

Kyle said the AMA has now joined a number of organizations that have previously made this classification, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Social Security Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Not everyone thinks the AMA’s decision was the right one, however. In fact, the move was opposed by many in the doctors’ group, including a committee that had been charged with exploring the issue. It had voted not to recognize obesity as a disease.

One of the objections to labeling obesity as a disease hinges on the way obesity is determined, using the so-called body mass index — a ratio of weight to height — that some health experts think is inexact.

That’s not the only objection.

“I have never liked the idea of characterizing obesity as a disease, because disease occurs when the body is malfunctioning,” said Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center. “Turning surplus calories into a fat reserve is not malfunction, it is normal physiology.”

Katz said obesity is largely a societal problem caused by too much food and too little physical activity. While obesity certainly needs to be treated, the aspects of culture that have led to the obesity epidemic need to be changed, he said.

“Obesity is rampant in the modern world not because of changes in our bodies, but because of changes in the modern world. We are drowning in excess calories and labor-saving technologies,” he said.

He thinks obesity treatments deserve insurance coverage.

During the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States, with more than one-third of adults (35.7 percent) and approximately 17 percent (or 12.5 million) of children and teens considered obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death.

In 2008, medical costs associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight, the CDC said.

Blacks have the highest age-adjusted rates of obesity — 49.5 percent — followed by Mexican Americans (40.4 percent), all Hispanics (39 percent) and whites (34 percent).

Among children and teens, the obesity prevalence since 1980 has almost tripled. There are significant racial and ethnic disparities in obesity rates among children. Hispanic boys are significantly more likely to be obese than white boys, and black girls are significantly more likely to be obese than white girls, the CDC said.

Obesity and overweight are labels for ranges of weight that are greater than what are considered healthy for a given height.

For adults, obesity and overweight are determined by using weight and height to calculate your body mass index, or BMI. An adult with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, while someone with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

Someone who is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs between 125 pounds and 168 pounds has a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9, which is considered healthy. That same person who weighs between 169 and 202 pounds has a BMI between 25.0 and 29.9, which is considered overweight. And if he or she weighs more than 203 pounds, they have a BMI of 30 or higher — considered obese.

More information

For more on obesity, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Recipe of the Day: Falafel Pita with Tahini Sauce

This pan-fried falafel is delicious and better for you than the deep-fried falafel you can get at food trucks and Mediterranean restaurants. In our recipe, the two main ingredients, bulgur and garbanzo beans, are combined with spices, herbs, and garlic to make tasty patties that are great substitutes for burgers.

It’s also topped with tahini sauce, a paste made from sesame seeds and olive oil, which is also healthier than the ketchup or barbecue sauce that you’d typically put on a burger.

With less than 400 calories and 10 grams of fiber (that’s more than one-third the daily-recommended intake of fiber for most of us) this is the perfect recipe for dinner tonight.

Ingredients: bulgur, garbanzo beans, egg white, parsley, mint, garlic, cayenne pepper, ground cumin, salt, pepper, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, water, lettuce, roasted red peppers, pitas.

Try this recipe: Falafel Pita with Tahini Sauce

Polluted Air Linked to Autism Risk

By Denise Mann
HealthDay Reporter TUESDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) — Pregnant women who live in smog-filled areas may be twice as likely to have children with autism, a new study suggests.

“The study does not prove that pollution increases risk for autism. It found an association,” cautioned lead author Andrea Roberts, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. “It adds to the weight of the evidence that there may be something in air pollution that increases risk for autism.”

Researchers compared exposure to air pollution among 325 women who had a child with autism and 22,000 women who did not. The women were participants in the Nurses’ Health Study II. Pollutants measured included diesel particulate matter, lead, manganese, mercury, methylene chloride, and a combined measure of metal exposure.

Twenty percent to 60 percent of the women lived in areas considered highly polluted. And the study showed that: those women who lived in the 20 percent of locations that had the highest levels of diesel particulates or mercury in the air were twice as likely to have a child with autism, compared to those who lived in the 20 percent of areas with the lowest levels of these pollutants.

In addition, those who lived in the 20 percent of locations with the highest levels of lead, manganese, methylene chloride, and combined metal exposure were about 50 percent more likely to have a child with autism than those who lived in the 20 percent of areas with the lowest concentrations.

The findings held even after the researchers took into account other factors known to affect autism risk, such as income, education and smoking during pregnancy. Overall, the association was stronger for boys than it was for girls, but the number of girls included in the new study was too low to draw any firm conclusions.

The findings, which were published June 18 online in Environmental Health Perspectives, do add to a growing body of research that suggests the air women breathe while pregnant is one of many factors linked to autism risk. Previous studies have shown that pregnant women who live in polluted areas or close to freeways are more likely to have a child with autism, but the studies were done regionally. The new data is nationwide.

Exactly how, or even if, air pollution affects the developing brain is murky. “By definition, pollution is stuff that is not good for us,” Roberts said.

Still, the overall increase in autism risk that may be attributed to pollution is low. “Let’s say a woman’s risk for having a child with autism is one in 100, women who live in the most polluted cities have a risk that is about one in 50, which means that 49 children would not have autism,” Roberts said.

“Even if the risk is doubled, it’s still low,” she explained.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that about one in 50 children aged 6 to 17 in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder, the name for a larger group of disorders that can range from the mild to the severe, and affect social and communication skills.

Other experts also urged caution in interpreting the new findings.

“There many genes, probably hundreds, and many environmental factors, probably hundreds, that increase risk of autism,” said Alycia Halladay, senior director for environmental and clinical sciences at the advocacy group Autism Speaks. “The real message is that a lot of things cause autism, namely genetics and the environment and their interaction.”

Laura Anthony, the associate director of the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., said that these risks accrue during pregnancy, delivery and within the first month of a newborn’s life. “Everything points to that as the critical period. This is the time when the brain is most sensitive because it is still developing,” she said.

The new findings don’t mean that pregnant women should head for the hills to avoid smog, Anthony added. “Even if you live someplace rural, you may be exposed to pollution while driving or you could live in a rural place right next to a plant [or factory],” she said. “We all need to campaign for cleaner air for a lot of reasons.”

Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Lake Success, N.Y., said that the new findings do add weight to previous studies that looked at the connection between prenatal exposure to airborn pollutants and later autism.

“While they do validate and affirm what other studies have found, there are many risk factors and genetic causes identified with autism,” Adesman said. “Even with the strength of this study, parents can’t presume that most cases of autism are due to airborne contaminants. It’s easier said than done to suggest that she move or not breathe the air.”

More information

Learn more about autism at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Recipe of the Day: Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms

Photo: Oxmoor House

Mushrooms are a staple in many vegetarian diets, but the bold, delicious flavors in this vegetarian recipe make it perfect for omnivores and carnivores alike.

The Portobello caps, which are stuffed with a filling made with chopped tomatoes, kalamata olives, chives, and whole-grain breadcrumbs, are baked for about 20 minutes.

One serving is 189 calories and contains 3 grams of fiber. You’ll also be getting vitamins A, C and K as well as potassium from the tomatoes.

Ingredients: mushroom caps, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, coarse salt, black ground pepper, tomato, kalamata olives, whole-grain breadcrumbs, fontina cheese, chives.

Try this recipe: Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms

Facebook Users Really ‘Like’ Organ Donor Option

TUESDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) — Adding an organ donation option to the average Facebook user’s profile prompted a dramatic rise in potential donors, researchers report.

In the day after the initiative launched last year, there was a 21-fold increase in donor registrations across the United States, according to the study in the American Journal of Transplantation.

Transplant experts collaborated with Facebook to alter the “timeline” platform on the social media giant’s site so that users could change their profile status to indicate “organ donor.” When they did so, they were given a link to their state’s official donor registry and their friends were sent a message about their new organ donor status, the researchers said.

“The short-term response was incredibly dramatic, unlike anything we had ever seen before in campaigns to increase the organ donation rate,” study leader Dr. Andrew Cameron, an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, said in a university news release.

“At the end of two weeks, the number of new organ donors was still climbing at twice the normal rate,” he added.

On the first day of the initiative, there were more than 13,000 new registrations nationwide — 21 times the normal daily average of 616. Increases ranged from about seven-fold in Michigan to nearly 109-fold in Georgia.

Registration rates remained elevated in the following 12 days but began to drop off after that. However, by the end of the study period, rates were still double the normal ones.

“The bump we saw did diminish over weeks, implying that more work is needed to assure sustainability or ‘virality’ in this case,” Cameron noted in a journal news release.

According to background information from Hopkins, more than 118,000 Americans are currently on waiting lists for donor organs. The situation has gotten worse, not better: over the past two decades, donor numbers have been stagnant, while the need for donated organs has risen 10-fold. Each year, up to 10,000 people die with viable organs for transplant that cannot be used because the deceased did not give his or her consent.

Cameron, a transplant surgeon, said he got the idea for a Facebook link-up after discussing the issue with a fellow Harvard University classmate at their 20th college reunion in 2011. That former classmate happened to be current Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

The initiative began May 1, 2012, and on that day more than 57,000 Facebook users updated their profiles to share their organ donor status with others.

“This was the first [online] effort like this designed to mobilize people for a public health cause,” Cameron said. “Now we want to build on that. Studying the response to the organ donor effort is the next step in the process of using social media for social good.”

The long-term significance of this effort will be known only when the use of social media and social networks is examined in terms of its impact on the nation’s organ supply, he added.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more about organ donation.

Saturated Fat May Make the Brain Vulnerable to Alzheimer’s

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) — A diet high in saturated fat can quickly rob the brain of a key chemical that helps protect against Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.

In a small study published online Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology, researchers found that dietary saturated fat cut the body’s levels of the chemical apolipoprotein E, also called ApoE, which helps “chaperone” amyloid beta proteins out of the brain.

“People who received a high-saturated-fat, high-sugar diet showed a change in their ApoE, such that the ApoE would be less able to help clear the amyloid,” said research team member Suzanne Craft, a professor of medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine.

Amyloid beta proteins left loose in the brain are more likely to form plaques that interfere with neuron function, the kind of plaques found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Diet also directly affected the amount of loose amyloid beta found in cerebrospinal fluid, Craft said. Those on a high-saturated-fat diet had higher levels of amyloid beta in their spinal fluid, while people on a low-saturated-fat diet actually saw a decline in such levels, she said.

“An amyloid that is not cleared — or attached to ApoE to get cleared — has a greater likelihood of becoming this toxic form,” Craft said.

The clinical trial, led by Dr. Angela Hanson of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, involved 20 seniors with normal cognition and 27 with mild thinking impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease.

The patients, all in their late 60s, were randomly assigned to diets that contained the same amount of calories but were either high or low in saturated fat. The high-saturated-fat diets had 45 percent of total energy coming from fat, and more than a quarter of the total fat came from saturated fats. The low-saturated-fat diets had 25 percent of energy coming from fat, with saturated fat contributing less than 7 percent to total fat.

After just a month, the diets caused changes in the amounts of amyloid beta and ApoE in the study participants’ cerebrospinal fluid, researchers said.

“Diet can really change levels of these toxic proteins and of these mediators that help clear these amyloids,” Craft said. “Diets that are very high in bad cholesterol seem to interfere with ApoE’s ability to clear amyloid.”

One gerontology expert, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study in the journal, didn’t think the link was quite that clear.

Although the study shows that diet can affect brain chemistry, it does not definitely tie diet to a person’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease, said Dr. Deborah Blacker, director of the Gerontology Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“Is it plausible to say this could affect the risk of having Alzheimer’s pathology in your brain? It’s not showing that,” said Blacker, who also is with the Harvard School of Public Health. “It’s showing that some of the chemicals related to Alzheimer’s pathology can shift in response to dietary factors.”

The study does, however, offer important insight into the value of good nutrition, she said.

“The important lesson from the study is that dietary intervention can change brain amyloid chemistry in largely consistent and apparently meaningful ways, in a short period of time,” Blacker wrote in the editorial. “Does this change clinical practice for those advising patients who want to avoid dementia? Probably not, but it adds another small piece to the growing evidence that taking good care of your heart is probably good for your brain too.”

People focus on diet in terms of weight and heart health, but they overlook that nutrition can be key to cognitive function as well, Craft said.

“Diet is a very underappreciated factor in terms of brain function,” she said. “It’s quite well accepted for your heart and your cholesterol and your blood, but diet is critical for a healthy brain aging. Many of the things the brain needs to function properly — fatty acids, certain amino acids — come only from food.”

More information

For more on a healthy diet for the brain, visit the Alzheimer’s Association.

Lots of Americans Want Health Care Via Their Smartphone

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter TUESDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) — Plenty of Americans are eager to use their mobile phones and tablet computers to better manage their health care, a new poll finds — though the nation has a way to go before we’re all consulting Dr. Smartphone.

In a Harris Interactive/HealthDay survey released Tuesday, more than one-third of respondents who are online said they were “very” or “extremely” interested in using smartphones or tablets to ask their doctors questions, make appointments or get medical test results.

Similar numbers of respondents were eager to use mobile phones and tablets for actual health-care services — such as monitoring blood pressure or blood sugar, or even getting a diagnosis. Such phone and tablet apps are, however, either just getting off the ground or not yet on the market.

The survey results show that the demand for digital assists to health care is “strong and likely to grow,” said Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll.

But he added that big questions remain: What types of services will consumers be able to get with their mobile devices, and when?

“The devil will surely be in the details,” Taylor said, “and these are very big details.”

An expert in health-care information agreed. “Right now, we’re looking at a patchwork system,” said Titus Schleyer, who heads the Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Regenstrief Institute, based at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

Companies are developing a number of apps that, along with equipment attached to your phone or tablet, can help diagnose everything from ear infections and eye diseases to irregular heartbeats and malaria. One goal is to bring better health care to remote parts of the world.

But there are already apps out there designed for the masses — including ones to manage your blood pressure or blood sugar readings, for example. You take the reading via a monitor that plugs into your smartphone, and the app records all the information, which can then be e-mailed to your doctor or sent to your electronic health record, Schleyer said.

Of course, your doctor has to have the systems in place to do something with that information. And, Schleyer added, depending on where you live, and what health system you’re in, that may or may not be the reality.

Schleyer said he has first-hand experience with the obstacles. His wife found an app that let her record and organize her blood pressure readings, only to discover that her smartphone “couldn’t talk” to their health-care system’s portal.

She ended up just bringing her smartphone to her doctor’s visit.

“This poll shows us that the public is interested in using these apps,” Schleyer said. “But the health-care system has to make it easier for them to do it.”

Taylor said that in some other countries, services like these are more widely used because they are required or doctors are compensated to employ them. “But in this country,” he said, “most doctors and hospitals have little or no incentives to provide them. They are unlikely to offer them until it is in their interest to do so.”

Another poll finding was that, not surprisingly, younger adults are more eager to use their smartphones and tablets than older adults. Only one-quarter of people aged 65 and older were very interested in using the devices to help manage their blood pressure, for instance — compared to 38 percent of younger people.

On one hand, Schleyer noted, older adults could stand to benefit the most from such technology, because they’re more likely to have chronic health conditions and need more contact with their doctors.

On the other hand, they may simply not be as comfortable with smartphones and tablets as younger generations are, he said.

Despite the interest in tapping into smartphones and tablets for health care, some poll respondents had some misgivings. They were less inclined to want e-mail or text “reminders” to exercise, quit smoking, or take medication, for example.

Schleyer said that may be because it’s a bit like having your mom nag you electronically. Plus, many Americans are already inundated with e-mails and texts. “People may feel there’s already too much digital information flying at them,” he said.

Poll respondents were also worried about the security of their electronically transmitted medical information: 47 percent were “somewhat confident” it would be secure, while roughly 40 percent were “not very” or “not at all” confident.

That’s a valid worry, Schleyer said. However, he also doubts that a hacker would have much interest in the blood pressure readings you’re sending to your doctor. “They’re probably more interested in your credit card number.”

Schleyer thinks there’s a lot of promise for technology to improve health care for Americans — if, for instance, consumers can get not only test results sent to their phones, but also user-friendly information on what those results mean.

“But right now, none of this is mature yet,” he said.

The poll results are based on an online survey of 2,050 Americans aged 18 and older, conducted between May 22-24.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more on health information technology.

Red Meat Linked to Increased Diabetes Risk

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) — People who eat a lot of red meat increase their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, while those who cut down on red meat cut their risk.

Those are the findings of a large new study out of Singapore involving 149,000 U.S. men and women.

The researchers found that increasing the consumption of red meat can increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 48 percent.

“There is no need to have more red meat on your plate; it increases the risk of diabetes,” said lead researcher An Pan, an assistant professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore.

“It is better to reduce your red meat consumption by replacing it with other healthy food choices, like beans, legumes, soy products, nuts, fish, poultry and whole grains,” he added.

The report was published in the June 17 online edition of the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

For the study, Pan’s team collected data on three Harvard group studies: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II. All the participants answered questions about their diet every four years, resulting in more than 1.9 million person-years of follow-up.

There were more than 7,500 cases of type 2 diabetes, the researches found.

Comparing diet with the cases of diabetes, Pan’s group found that people who increased their consumption of red meat by 0.5 servings per day during a four-year period were 48 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, compared with people who ate less red meat.

Moreover, people who cut their red meat consumption were 14 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, they found.

Outside experts, however, argued about the findings.

“Epidemiological studies made by questionnaires are not accurate, and they never prove causation, no matter how big and how good the statistics are,” said Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the Clinical Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

The interaction of the many genetic and lifestyle factors that cause obesity and type 2 diabetes is remarkably complex and is still being studied, Zonszein added. “Doing cross-sectional analysis or epidemiological analysis produces questions but not answers,” he said.

Blaming red meat for diabetes is misleading, said William Evans, head of the Muscle Metabolism Discovery Performance Unit at GlaxoSmithKline and the author of an accompanying editorial in the journal.

The amount of saturated fat that is also found in many types of meat is the most likely cause for the association of red meat and risk of diabetes, he said.

“Red meat is not the bad food that it is touted to be,” Evans said. “There are many cuts of beef that are red and have as much fat as a chicken breast, and the redness in meat provides the most available form of iron from any food that we eat.”

But Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, countered that Americans are eating too much red meat.

“In 2012, Americans ate an estimated 166 pounds of meat per person,” she said. “That is a titanic amount of unhealthy saturated fat and other compounds found in meat, such as iron, zinc or N-nitroso — compounds that research suggests are linked with increased risks for diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancers.”

“A plate loaded with meat also leaves less room for vegetables, whole grains and other healthy foods,” Heller said.

Zonszein also doesn’t put the blame for type 2 diabetes on red meat alone.

“The public health message should be to eat a heart healthy and balanced diet with balanced macronutrients, and low in saturated fat,” he said.

He added, however, that “excessive caloric intake is not good, but I will eat a good steak and potatoes from time to time and enjoy it.”

“If the cause of the associated risk is saturated and total fat content,” Evans said, “the public health message should be to reduce intake from all sources, such as cheese, whole milk and meat that is rich in saturated fat, not to single out specific types of meat because of redness.”

More information

For more information on diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association.

Meatless Monday Recipe: Fregola Sarda Pasta with Tomatoes

Add a little Italian flare to your meatless Monday with a vegetarian recipe that takes less than 30 minutes to make.

Lycopene-rich cherry tomatoes are roasted with garlic, sugar, and spices to bring a rich, caramelized taste to this pasta dish.

Fregola sarda pasta—similar to Isralei couscous in look and texture—has a nutty flavor that mixes well with the pine nuts, goat cheese, olives, and Parmesan cheese.

With all the ingredients together, this meal provides 24% of your daily recommended intake of protein and is just 339 calories.

Ingredients: Cherry tomatoes, garlic gloves, sugar, oregano, black pepper, olive oil, fregola sarda pasta, pine nuts, basil, Parmesan cheese, black olives, goat cheese.

Try this recipe: Fregola Sarda Pasta with Tomatoes

Read more:

10 Tasty Tomato Recipes 5 Delicious Homemade Veggie Burger Recipes 12 Summer Fruit and Veggie Recipes 35 Summer Foods Under 90 Calories

7 Ways ObamaCare Will Rock Your Health World

There are a couple of words that cause more stress in my house than even “colonoscopy” and “root canal” and those words are “health insurance.” Over the years, my family has been insured through employers, we’ve been self-insured, we’ve signed up for insurance through the government (COBRA) after a layoff, and we’ve sought insurance as a small business owner.

None of it has been pretty. Much of it has been pricey. Some of it has been downright painful, such as when we ended up paying out of pocket for nearly $100,000 of medical and mental health care for a family member because our insurance company decided an eating disorder wasn’t life threatening (even though the doctors said it was).

Because of my health insurance dramas, I’ve been eager to see how President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called ObamaCare, will affect families’ lives and health insurance experiences. I’ve done some research, and here are a few ways I think the ACA may rock your world in 2014 (if it hasn’t started rocking it already).

1. You won’t be the victim anymore.
I don’t know about you, but I always felt like my health insurance company was purposely torturing me. The forms were incomprehensible, trying to figure out (let alone appeal) a claim was impossibly complicated, and I felt like no one was on my side in a very out-of-control, precarious experience.

The ACA changes some of that. It began with a Patient’s Bill of Rights presented in 2010 that outlined all of the ways your insurance company could no longer mess with you, from raising your premiums without notice to throwing roadblocks into the appeals process. Some of these changes have been rolling out for a few years now, but with 2014 being a pivotal year for the ACA (see an Obamacare phase-in timeline here), taking charge of your own insurance and your own healthcare is going to be getting a lot more attention. Reviewing your bill of rights is a good start.

2. You can’t be turned down for health insurance.
Since 2010, children age 19 and under couldn’t be denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition. Starting in 2014, the same goes for everybody else. That means if you are obese, have delivered a child (yes, some insurers called that a preexisting condition), or have high triglycerides, asthma, anorexia, cancer, ADHD, schizophrenia, diabetes—you name it—you can’t be discriminated against when it comes to receiving health insurance.

No impossible-to-read small-print riders can be attached to your policy that basically prevent you from being insured for the very thing you most need to be insured for.

3. If you don’t have insurance through an employer, finding affordable insurance will be easier. 
Everyone will have to have insurance under the new law or pay a penalty. Open enrollment starts in October 2013, with coverage starting January 2014. You’ll be able to shop around to find the plan that’s right for you via health insurance marketplaces, also called exchanges. States got to choose if they wanted to run their own exchanges; if they chose not to, the federal government will run your state exchange (see the list of state exchanges in this PDF). Whether run by your state or the federal government, the exchange will establish a set of competitive rules aimed at getting you a plan that covers the Essential Health Benefits the government requires at the lowest cost. Not all of the plans out there will be able to sell on the exchange. The plans have to compete to get a spot.

You’ll also use the exchanges to apply for any federal subsidies or tax credits you’re eligible for either because you don’t have access to insurance through a job or because your income is at or below poverty level. These exchanges give you more bargaining power than you’ve had before in the insurance shopping biz. Keep in mind, what you pay for health insurance will still depend on your location, your family size, and (in some states) whether or not you smoke (see #7).

4. You’re less likely to go bankrupt because of medical bills not covered by insurance.
Right now, insurance plans can no longer limit how much they pay out to you for medical care during your lifetime. There are no maximums. Starting in 2014, there won’t be any dollar limits on what insurance plans will pay for your medical care during a single year, either. That will be a financial lifesaver for an individual or family who has a devastating and expensive health crisis occur within a calendar year.

5. If you work for a small business, they may have to offer you health insurance.
If your employer has more than 50 fulltime employees, the new law requires them to offer employees health insurance in 2014—or they’ll have to pay a penalty per employee. The good news for small businesses under 100 employees is that the company can use the state health exchanges to shop for insurance for their employees, which should help it get the kind of bargaining power that larger companies get because of their size.

Even if your employer has fewer than 50 employers, it can choose to offer insurance to its employees. The ACA has established subsidies and tax breaks to help businesses offset the cost of insurance. Read more small business info here.

6. You’re really going to have to remember to floss.
Dental care for adults is not covered under the Affordable Care Act (pediatric dental care is). Since the link between oral health and general health is well researched (heart disease, erectile dysfunction), the pressure is on you to keep those pearly whites sparkling.

The good news is you’ll be able to get your own supplemental dental insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and because of the collective buying power offered by the exchanges it might even be less expensive than what those seeking private dental insurance had to pay before. If you have kids, you might get a supplemental family dental plan and apply the pediatric federal subsidies for the children’s part of the premium cost.

7. You’re still going to want to quit smoking.
Of course, you know smoking hurts your health in numerous ways, from aging your skin to damaging your heart. After 2014, it could also hurt your pocketbook even more. The ACA allows states to charge smokers up to 50% more for a health insurance plan. This could make “affordable” health insurance pretty darn pricey, some critics say. And it prevents smokers from the very health plans that give them access to the nicotine patches and smoking-cessation programs that help them quit.

That’s why some states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia have decided not to charge smokers more. California’s legislature is debating such a provision. Still, it makes quitting before 2014 look even better, doesn’t it?

Recipe of the Day: Avocado Jewel Salad

Bored with the same old salad? You’ll love this citrusy recipe–it’s rich in healthy fats from avocado and contains oranges, one of the best superfoods for weight loss.

Only 180 calories per serving, this salad is a great source of vitamin C thanks to the limes and oranges, and is topped with toasted pumpkin seeds, which are high in zinc and may even help calm irritated skin.

Ingredients: oranges, limes, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, avocados, bibb lettuce, raw pumpkin seeds.

Try this recipe: Avocado Jewel Salad

Try This Fun, 15-Minute Playground Workout

Remember when exercise meant playing kickball with neighborhood friends and Capture the Flag during recess? As a kid, I never went in search of a new workout or felt like I needed to check it off my list for the day. I got a workout without even trying! Boy, when did exercise stop being fun?

If you can’t remember the last time you enjoyed a workout, try this one, which takes place at an outdoor playground. It’s a guaranteed fun time!

Perform each exercise listed below and complete the circuit as many times as possible in 15 minutes. Use a timer and keep track of how many rounds you do. Try to beat that number the next time you do this workout, or compete with a friend or family member to see who can do more rounds. A little friendly competition will definitely add some fun to your workout!

Monkey Bars: Use your upper body strength to take you across the monkey bars and back again. Unsure how to navigate the money bars? Here’s a tutorial.

Swing Push-Ups: Get into a plank position near a swing and then put your feet on the seat, so you’re in a push-up position. Perform push-ups with your feet on the swing seat and your arms supporting you. The instability of the swing will force you to use your core, which makes the push-ups more of a challenge. Be sure not to rush through this movement. Take it slow and really work your upper body and core.

Bench Step-Ups/Jumps: On a bench or set of stairs, step up and down at a rapid pace. Each right and left step counts as one rep. Need more of  a challenge? Jump on and off the bench for 20 reps.

Triceps Dips: Using a bench or bar, perform Triceps Dips.

Sand Mountain Climbers: In the sand, get down and do Mountain Climbers. Each leg counts as one rep. The unstable, sandy surface makes the movement challenging and fun at the same time!

Please consult your doctor before starting a new exercise program.

Read Tina’s daily food and fitness blog, Carrots ‘N’ Cake.

Skipping Breakfast May Raise Diabetes Risk

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter SUNDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) — Eating breakfast every day may help overweight women reduce their risk of diabetes, a small new study suggests.

When women skipped the morning meal, they experienced insulin resistance, a condition in which a person requires more insulin to bring their blood sugar into a normal range, explained lead researcher Dr. Elizabeth Thomas, an instructor of medicine at the University of Colorado.

This insulin resistance was short-term in the study, but when the condition is chronic, it is a risk factor for diabetes, Thomas said. She is due to present her findings this weekend at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

“Eating a healthy breakfast is probably beneficial,” Thomas said. “It may not only help you control your weight but avoid diabetes.”

Diabetes has been diagnosed in more than 18 million Americans, according to the American Diabetes Association. Most have type 2 diabetes, in which the body does not make enough insulin or does not use it effectively.

Excess weight is a risk factor for diabetes.

The new study included only nine women. Their average age was 29, and all were overweight or obese.

Thomas measured their levels of insulin and blood sugar on two different days after the women ate lunch. On one day, they had eaten breakfast; on the other day, they had skipped it.

Glucose levels normally rise after eating a meal, and that in turn triggers insulin production, which helps the cells take in the glucose and convert it to energy.

However, the women’s insulin and glucose levels after lunch were much higher on the day they skipped breakfast than on the day they ate it.

On the day they did not eat breakfast, Thomas explained, “they required a higher level of insulin to handle the same meal.”

“There was a 28 percent increase in the insulin response and a 12 percent increase in the glucose response after skipping breakfast,” she said. That’s a mild rise in glucose and a moderate rise in insulin, she noted.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

“Their study doesn’t prove causation,” said Dr. Joel Zonszein, a professor of clinical medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and director of the Clinical Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center, in New York City.

The study found only a link or association between breakfast skipping and higher insulin levels. More research is needed for confirmation, another expert said.

“This is a small, but very interesting, study,” said Dr. Ping Wang, director of the University of California, Irvine, Health Diabetes Center. “The findings will have to be verified with larger studies.”

Whether the effect is short-term or long-term is not known, Wang said.

Zonszein recommends against either skipping meals or eating very frequent meals, the so-called nibbling diet. “Studies done in Europe have shown that a large meal in the middle of the day is better than a large meal at dinner,” he said.

However, he acknowledged that pattern is more of a habit in Europe than in the United States. Even so, he advises his patients to eat a good breakfast, a good lunch and a lighter dinner.

Other ways to reduce diabetes risk, according to the American Diabetes Association, are to control weight, blood pressure and cholesterol and to be physically active.

More information

To learn more about reducing diabetes risk, visit the American Diabetes Association.

Summer Cold? How to Tell If It’s Really Allergies

SATURDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) — Sneezing, watery eyes, scratchy throat? What you think is a summer cold may actually be allergies, an expert says.

“Contrary to popular belief, seasonal allergies don’t only strike in the spring and fall months,” Dr. Richard Weber, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), said in a college news release. “Allergies are also common in the summer and can even last year-round for some sufferers.”

Grass pollens and mold spores are the most common allergy triggers during the summer, and mold can be more of a problem than pollen. Mold spores are everywhere and commonly outnumber pollen grains in the air even during peak pollen season, research has shown.

Summer allergies (or hay fever) can develop even in adults who have never had allergies. In such cases, it’s easy to mistake allergies for a summer cold.

The ACAAI offers some tips on how to determine if you have a summer cold or allergies:

If symptoms last for two weeks or more, you likely have allergies. If your symptoms become progressively worse, you likely have a cold. Itchy eyes, throat and nose — along with sneezing — usually indicate allergies. If you have asthma, you may be more likely to have an allergy than a cold. About 75 percent to 80 percent of people with asthma also have an allergy. Although summer colds and allergies may not seem serious, both can progress and lead to other health problems, such as a sinus infection. If you have persistent symptoms, see an allergist for testing, diagnosis and treatment, the ACAAI advised.

There is no cure for seasonal allergies but avoiding triggers and getting treatment, such as medication or allergy shots, can provide relief and prevent progression.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about colds and seasonal allergies.

Back Pain Injections Linked to Spinal Fracture Risk

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) — Older adults who get steroid injections to ease lower back and leg pain may have increased odds of suffering a spine fracture, a new study suggests.

It’s not clear, however, whether the treatment is to blame, according to experts. But they said the findings, which were published June 5 in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, suggest that older patients with low bone density should be cautious about steroid injections.

The treatment involves injecting anti-inflammatory steroids into the area of the spine where a nerve is being compressed. The source of that compression could be a herniated disc, for instance, or spinal stenosis — a condition common in older adults, in which the open spaces in the spinal column gradually narrow.

Steroid injections can bring temporary pain relief, but it’s known that steroids in general can cause bone density to decrease over time. And a recent study found that older women given steroids for spine-related pain showed a quicker rate of bone loss than other women their age.

The new findings go a step further by showing an increased fracture risk in steroid patients, said Dr. Shlomo Mandel, the lead researcher on both studies.

Still, he said, the study, which was based on medical records, had “a lot of limitations.”

“I want to be careful not to imply that people shouldn’t get these injections,” said Mandel, an orthopedic physician with the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

The findings are based on medical records from 3,000 Henry Ford patients who had steroid injections for spine-related pain, and another 3,000 who got other treatments. They were 66 years old, on average.

Overall, about 150 patients were later diagnosed with a vertebral fracture, Mandel said. Vertebral fractures are cracks in small bones of the spine, and in an older adult with low bone mass they can happen without any major trauma.

On average, Mandel’s team found, steroid patients were at greater risk of a vertebral fracture — with the risk climbing 21 percent with each round of injections.

The findings do not prove that the injections themselves caused the fractures, said Dr. Andrew Schoenfeld, who wrote a commentary published with the study.

But the results raise an important potential risk that needs to be weighed against the benefits. “This brings to light something that should be part of doctor-patient discussions,” said Schoenfeld, who is based at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.

He cautioned, however, that the findings may apply only to certain patients — namely, older adults with waning bone mass. “We don’t know if this would apply to elderly people with normal bone mass,” Schoenfeld said.

Complicating matters, steroid injections seem to benefit only certain types of spine-related pain. The “best medical evidence” that they work is for cases of leg pain caused by a herniated disc compressing a nerve, Schoenfeld said.

Herniated discs are a common source of pain for younger people. “If you’re 35 and have a herniated disc, these findings don’t really apply to you at all,” Schoenfeld said.

When it comes to spinal stenosis — the most common source of problems for older adults — steroid injections can aid leg pain and cramping. But there is “very sparse” evidence that the injections ease pain concentrated in the low back, Schoenfeld said.

If that’s the primary problem for an older adult, the potential side effect of a vertebral fracture could outweigh the small chance of benefit.

Epidural steroids have been getting negative press of late. U.S. officials are currently investigating a deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to epidural steroids produced by one Massachusetts pharmacy. And a study released in March found that steroid injections were less effective at relieving back pain than surgery and other treatments.

But both Schoenfeld and Mandel said the treatment still has a role in treating certain spine-related pain. They said older patients who have already found leg-pain relief from steroid injections may want to stick with them. But they should at least be aware of the potential fracture risk.

If they opt to continue the treatment, Mandel said, they may want to talk with their doctor about ways to preserve their bone mass — such as calcium and vitamin D supplements.

“There are also a number of other options for spinal stenosis,” Schoenfeld said. Normally, doctors would start conservatively, with physical therapy or medications such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or drugs that target nerve pain, including gabapentin (Neurontin) and pregabalin (Lyrica).

Steroid injections would be the middle ground for patients who don’t respond to those treatments but want to put off surgery, Schoenfeld said. Surgery to relieve pressure on the nerves is often effective, said Schoenfeld, although someone with spinal stenosis may later develop the narrowing in another area of spine.

More information

Learn more about spinal stenosis from the U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

Does Your Pet Have Cancer? They Can Join Clinical Trials Too

By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) — If you hear that a friend’s beloved family member has joined a clinical trial for cancer treatment, don’t assume the patient is human.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in older dogs and cats, and clinical trials offer hope that effective medications will be developed — for humans and their four-legged friends, cancer experts say.

The new National Veterinary Cancer Registry, launched last month by a national team of animal and human cancer doctors, will point pet owners toward clinical trials that might benefit their beloved companions and speed up the development of life-saving therapies for humans.

“We will be able to decrease the cost and beat the time involved in drug discovery,” said the registry’s founder, Dr. Theresa Fossum, a professor of surgery at Texas A&M University’s college of veterinary medicine.

Because many similar diseases affect people and their animals, veterinarians and physicians say a lot can be learned from studying how treatments work in cats and dogs.

The drug-assessment process could be accelerated by a simple fact: dogs age many times faster than humans, and their cancers progress more rapidly too. Also, many canine and feline cancers — including sarcoma; non-Hodgkin lymphoma; leukemia; mesothelioma; and bone, ovarian, kidney, uterine and oral cancers — are virtually the same cancers humans have.

Experts not involved with the registry said the concept of the database looks promising.

“These clinical trials would be more real-world than a lab experiment,” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, associate professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine and head of the Yale Human Animal Medicine Project, which studies clinical connections between human and animal medicine.

Dogs often are an interesting model for better understanding environmentally induced cancers, Rabinowitz said. “Asbestos causes cancer in humans 35 years [after exposure], but if you’re a dog, you get it in four to five years, so we can see how the cancers develop more naturally,” he said.

Fossum said she has always been bothered by the slow and cumbersome way drugs are tested. “If it’s a cancer drug, they’re going to put a human tumor in a mouse … but it’s not very predictive of how drugs will work in people,” she said.

Then, after tests to see if the drugs might be toxic in humans, the drugs are evaluated in human clinical trials, which take more than a decade to conduct. “So the drugs that are coming out now were starting [to be evaluated] 12 years ago,” she said.

Testing the drugs in pets speeds up the process, allowing researchers to determine if a medication works before taking it to human clinical trials, Fossum said. With a pet owner’s informed consent, “we can try a new drug that seems promising a lot sooner,” she said.

The concept of a cancer database for dogs and cats could expand to include other diseases, such as diabetes. About 800,000 dogs have type 1 diabetes in the United States, Fossum said. Other conditions that a veterinary registry could serve include endocrine, neurological and cardiac issues.

About 6 million dogs and 6 million cats in the United States receive a cancer diagnosis each year, according to the Animal Cancer Foundation, in Norwalk, Conn. If your dog or cat is one of them, you can register your pet with the National Veterinary Cancer Registry.

The registry was created by a consortium of animal and human cancer doctors, including specialists from the Baylor Healthcare System in Texas, the Texas Veterinary Oncology Group and the CARE Foundation, a Florida-based animal rescue and wildlife education organization.

Because the registry is new, it may take some time before effective clinical trial matchmaking can occur between animals and drug developers, Fossum said.

More information

Learn more about the connection between animal and human health from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Recipe of the Day: Veggie Stack with Basil

Photo: Quentin Bacon

This veggie tower delivers nutrient power! What could be better than eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and red onions on a bed of couscous? (You can also use quinoa or brown rice instead of couscous.)

This vegetarian recipe delivers 10 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, and is about 300 calories per serving. It also has a large helping of vitamin C from the zucchini, squash, and onions.

Melt some part-skim mozzarella cheese on top, garnish with basil, and this flavorful veggie dish is ready to be enjoyed.

Ingredients: red wine vinegar, honey, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, couscous, red onion, tomato, shredded part-skim mozzarella, basil leaves.

Try this recipe: Veggie Stack with Basil

Global Population Could Hit 11 Billion by 2100: UN Report

THURSDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) — The world’s population could reach nearly 11 billion by 2100, the United Nations predicts, which is about 800 million (8 percent) more than the previous projection of 10.1 billion issued in 2011.

The revised estimate is mostly due to a slower-than-expected decline of birth rates in Africa. The current African population is about 1.1 billion and that is now expected to reach 4.2 billion by the end of the century.

Fewer population changes are expected in other regions of the world. Europe may see a small decline in population due to birth rates that continue to be below replacement level, while some other areas may see slight population increases due to longer life expectancies, said Adrian Raftery, a professor of statistics and sociology at the University of Washington.

Raftery and colleagues at the University of Washington Center for Statistics and Social Sciences developed the statistical methods used in the new U.N. global population estimates.

The projected increase in global population will cause challenges but other pressing matters, such as poverty and climate change, have sidelined the topic. But both of these problems are linked to world population, Raftery said.

“These new findings show that we need to renew policies, such as increasing access to family planning and expanding education for girls, to address rapid population growth in Africa,” he said in a university news release.

The world’s population passed 6 billion in 1999 and reached 7 billion in 2011, according to the United Nations report, which was issued June 13.

More information

PopulationGrowth.org has more about the problems associated with population growth.

5 Foods With a “Healthy” Label That Aren’t

TUESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) — Clever food labeling can fool well-intentioned consumers into believing that foods labeled sugar-free, fat-free or whole-wheat are healthy choices, a dietitian says.

“Consumer food marketing can be extremely persuasive, and the right buzzword on a package can lure a shopper into making an unwise purchase,” Kari Kooi, a registered dietitian at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, said in a hospital news release. “We need to educate consumers on how to read nutrition labels so they can avoid falling prey to the ‘health halo’ effect.”

Studies have shown that this “health halo” effect leads some people to eat twice as much or more of these foods because they are marketed as healthy, she says.

Five foods Kooi recommends avoiding are:

Vegetable chips. These are marketed as healthy substitutes for vegetables but the nutrition labels on most brands read the same as potato chips. Many of the vegetables’ nutrients are lost in the processing of these chips. Choose real vegetables instead. Nutrient-enhanced waters. Most are nothing more than colored sugar water that contain empty calories that contribute to weight gain. Claims that some of these products are a healthy choice because of added vitamins are just marketing hype, Kooi said. Taking a daily multivitamin with a glass of water is a better option, she said. Muffins. If they’re sprinkled with a few oats or packed with blueberries, consumers think they’re a healthier choice than donuts. But muffins are really nothing more than cupcakes without icing, said Kooi. She also noted that mega-size muffins sold in coffee shops can contain 500 to 600 calories. Premade smoothies. Most commercial ready-made smoothies are loaded with sugar and calories. You’re better off making your own smoothies with high-quality, nourishing ingredients such as low-fat Greek yogurt, skim milk and fresh or frozen fruits, Kooi says. Frozen yogurt. Although made with low-fat or fat-free dairy ingredients, frozen yogurt typically contains high amounts of added sugar. Many of the live and active cultures added to frozen yogurt cannot survive freezing, so you won’t get any probiotic benefits, Kooi said. Probiotics help maintain the balance between good and bacteria in the digestive tract. More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about nutrition.

Move of the Week: Thigh Shaper

Let’s face it. Thighs are one of the more difficult areas on our body to tone.

But our Move of the Week, the Thigh Shaper, helps slim and strengthen both the inner and outer thighs, so you’ll be shorts-ready in no time. The move also requires assistance from your core, working your ab muscles.

The Thigh Shaper requires a stability ball, or for added difficulty, use a weighted medicine ball. Use a yoga mat or find a padded area on the floor to complete the move.

How to do it:
Lie on your left side on the floor with the ball between your calves. Support your head with your left hand and balance yourself with your right hand on the floor in front of you. Squeeze the ball between your legs, slightly lifting your left leg off the floor.

Hold for a second, then relax; that’s 1 rep. Do 3 sets of 10–12 reps, resting up to 30 seconds between sets; repeat on your right side.

Try this move: Thigh Shaper

Read more:

5 Quick-and-Easy Moves for Strong Legs Get Gorgeous Legs With This Workout Dance Your Way to Toner Abs and Legs Fit at Every Level: 3 Steps to Amazing Legs

Recipe of the Day: Shrimp Tartines with Slaw

Photo: Quentin Bacon

Tartines are great because you can get more flavor with less bread than with a regular sandwich. In this summery tartine, a creamy slaw is topped with freshly grilled shrimp.

It’s perfect for a light lunch or snack and one tartine has 192 calories and 7 grams of fat. To lower the amount of fat, use low-fat mayo or substitute mayo for Greek yogurt, which has more protein for less fat and calories.

Ingredients: mayonnaise, reduced-fat sour cream, shallot, dill pickle relish, fresh tarragon, large shrimp, olive oil, salt, pepper, baguette, coleslaw.

Try this recipe: Shrimp Tartines with Slaw

Read more:

10 Healthy Herbs to Grow and Eat at Home Tasty Recipes You Can Make with Frozen Shrimp 5 Homemade Veggie Burger Recipes 18 Recipes to Celebrate Independence Day

Recipe of the Day: Cheese and Olive-Stuffed Tomatoes

Photo: Jan Smith

You only need five simple ingredients for this colorful tomato dish that you’ll want to make over and over again.

It’s only 79 calories per serving, with 5 grams of fat. The secret? Low-fat feta cheese, which delivers delicious flavor with less saturated fat than other types of cheese.

If you’re not a fan of olives, substitute in capers or even pine nuts. Capers will deliver a similar taste as olives, while pine nuts can add a tasty crunch. Make this dish for a light lunch or as a side for fish, steak, or chicken.

Ingredients: tomatoes, feta cheese, kalamata olives, fresh flat-leaf parsley, fresh basil.

Try this recipe: Cheese and Olive-Stuffed Tomatoes

Do Narcissists Use Twitter and Facebook More Than Other People?

TUESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) — All those “status updates” and “tweets” that people post as they clamor to be part of the online social network may reflect a troubling trend toward self-absorbed behavior in the United States, a new study suggests.

The University of Michigan researchers examined whether narcissism was related to the number of daily Facebook and Twitter postings by 486 college students and 93 adults, and to the amount of time they spent on each site.

The college students’ average age was 19, and three-quarters were women. The average age of the adults was 35, and most of them were white women.

“Among young adult college students, we found that those who scored higher in certain types of narcissism posted more often on Twitter,” study author Elliot Panek, who recently completed his doctorate in communication studies, said in a university news release. “But among middle-aged adults from the general population, narcissists posted more frequent status updates on Facebook.”

Facebook functions as a mirror for narcissistic adults, Panek explained.

“It’s about curating your own image, how you are seen, and also checking on how others respond to this image,” he explained. “Middle-aged adults usually have already formed their social selves, and they use social media to gain approval from those who are already in their social circles.”

Twitter is the social media tool of choice for narcissistic college students.

“Young people may overevaluate the importance of their own opinions,” Panek said. “Through Twitter, they’re trying to broaden their social circles and broadcast their views about a wide range of topics and issues.”

The findings, published online June 11 in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, suggest that narcissistic college students and adults use social media in different ways to inflate their egos and control other people’s perceptions of them, according to Panek.

He and his colleagues weren’t able to determine whether narcissism leads to increased use of social media, whether social media use leads to narcissism, or whether other factors explain the association.

More information

The American Psychological Association has more about narcissism.

Try This Recipe for Gluten-Free Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Avoiding gluten in your diet? If so, you might feel like you’re missing out when it comes to dessert. Brownies? Cake? Cookies? Perhaps just the thought of these tasty treats makes you crave them even more. Of course, you don’t want to miss out on any of the fun that goes along with enjoying dessert, so here’s sweet recipe for you!

These Gluten-Free Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies combine white chocolate morsels with dried cranberries, honey, and almond flour for a seriously delectable treat. These cookies are soft, chewy, and loaded with bits of white chocolate and dried cranberries. They’re some of the best gluten-free cookies I’ve ever eaten!

Ingredients:

1.5 cups almond flour/meal 1/2 stick of butter, softened (4 tbsp) 1 large egg 1/4 cup honey 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup white chocolate morsels 1/2 cup dried cranberries Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well until batter is blended evenly. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes. Remove dough from refrigerator. Roll batter into 1-inch balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake cookies for approximately 13-15 minutes until the tops start to lightly brown. Remove cookies from baking sheet and allow to cool on wire rack. Eat and enjoy! Makes 12-15 cookies

Read Tina’s daily food and fitness blog, Carrots ‘N’ Cake.

Read more:

Pre-Made Cookie Dough Showdown 27 Healthy Chocolate Recipes Do Gluten-Free Diets Take Off Pounds?

Take a Walk After Dinner! It Could Cut Your Diabetes Risk

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) — Older adults at risk for getting diabetes who took a 15-minute walk after every meal improved their blood sugar levels, a new study shows.

Three short walks after eating worked better to control blood sugar levels than one 45-minute walk in the morning or evening, said lead researcher Loretta DiPietro, chairwoman of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in Washington, D.C.

“More importantly, the post-meal walking was significantly better than the other two exercise prescriptions at lowering the post-dinner glucose level,” DiPietro added.

The after-dinner period is an especially vulnerable time for older people at risk of diabetes, DiPietro said. Insulin production decreases, and they may go to bed with extremely high blood glucose levels, increasing their chances of diabetes.

About 79 million Americans are at risk for type 2 diabetes, in which the body doesn’t make enough insulin or doesn’t use it effectively. Being overweight and sedentary increases the risk. DiPietro’s new research, although tested in only 10 people, suggests that brief walks can lower that risk if they are taken at the right times.

The study did not, however, prove that it was the walks causing the improved blood sugar levels.

“This is among the first studies to really address the timing of the exercise with regard to its benefit for blood sugar control,” she said. In the study, the walks began a half hour after finishing each meal.

The research is published June 12 in the journal Diabetes Care.

For the study, DiPietro and her colleagues asked the 10 older adults, who were 70 years old on average, to complete three different exercise routines spaced four weeks apart. At the study’s start, the men and women had fasting blood sugar levels of between 105 and 125 milligrams per deciliter. A fasting blood glucose level of 70 to 100 is considered normal, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The men and women stayed at the research facility and were supervised closely. Their blood sugar levels were monitored the entire 48 hours.

On the first day, the men and women did not exercise. On the second day, they did, and those blood sugar levels were compared to those on the first day.

The men and women were classified as obese, on average, with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30. The men and women walked on a treadmill at a speed of about three miles an hour (a 20-minute mile, which DiPietro described as the lower end of moderate).

The walks after meals reduced the 24-hour glucose levels the most when comparing the sedentary day with the exercise day.

A 45-minute morning walk was next best.

Walking after dinner was much better in reducing blood glucose levels than the morning or afternoon walking, DiPietro found.

Walking a half hour after eating gives time for digestion first, DiPietro said. Within that half hour, she said, “the glucose starts flooding the blood. You are using the working muscles to help clear the glucose from the blood stream.” The exercise “is helping a sluggish pancreas do its job, to secrete insulin to clear the glucose,” she said.

The briefer, more frequent exercise may also sound more doable to sedentary older adults, she said. “Committing to do this with someone would work best,” DiPietro said. “It can be coupled with things like walking the dog or running errands.”

The findings make physiological sense, said Dr. Stephen Ross, attending physician at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

“If you are exercising right after you eat, that would cause blood sugar to decrease because more of the glucose would go to the muscles to help the muscles with their metabolism,” he said.

The brief walks, Ross said, may also fit a person’s schedule better.

DiPietro cautioned, however, that “you have to do it every day” to get the benefit. It’s not a prescription for fitness, she said, but simply to reduce diabetes risk.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. National Institute on Aging and the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

More information

To learn more about diabetes risk, visit the American Diabetes Association.

Would You Wear These Crazy-Looking Flip-Flops?

Would you wear these sandals? Wellrox gave us a pair of their shoes–basically flip-flop sandals with toe separators to better secure your feet–to try out. And while they’re not the best looking shoes, we found that they are comfy.

Tons of shoes are popping up from varying brands such as Wellrox, Oofos, and Therafit, with claims that they can correct body alignment, provide foot relief, and help with balance and support.

What we liked about the pair from Wellrox: You know when you’re walking in sandals and have to grip with your toes with every step? Well, there’s no need with these–they do all the work for you.

The contour beds of the shoes are meant to bring relief to aching feet. They do have a nice cushiony arch, which seems to give your feet more support.

We asked podiatrist Dominic Catanese, MD, for his take on such shoes.

“I’m really big about contour foot beds in sandals,” says Dr. Catanese, director of Podiatric Surgery at Montefiore Medical Center and Associate Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “I see tons of problems come summer when people get into really flat or thin soled leather sandals. Some people can tolerate them, but for a lot of people they create problems.”

Wellrox’s purpose behind the toe separator and foot arch combo is to help align the toes to better balance the body and relieve aching feet and leg muscles.

Dr. Catanese says he believes Wellrox are good, supportive sandals, though he says people would need to try them out for themselves to see how the toe separators feel on their feet.

We did love the concept behind the shoes and the feel of each step when wearing them, but we weren’t as keen on the looks–there are prettier summer shoes out there. And the shoes range from $89-$110 (available at Macy’s and other stores), which is a bit pricey. I’m not sure I’d spring for the $98 pair I tried out, unless they were better looking. (Although they do come in a variety of colors, including pink, red, brown, gray, green, and multiple styles, including flowers, glitter, and even cheetah print, as well as shoes that look more like sandals than flip-flops.)

Dr. Catanese says these shoes might be perfect for doing chores around the house. If you do the laundry and clean the kitchen in them, it might help prevent back and foot pain that could result from those activities.

If you’re looking to provide some relief for your aching feet, these therapeutic shoes may be your answer.

U.S. Ends Effort to Limit Access to ‘Morning-After’ Pill

TUESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. government has dropped its effort to block a court order that would make the morning-after contraceptive pill available over-the-counter to all women and girls.

After fighting for an age threshold on the nonprescription use of the Plan B One-Step pill for months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement late Monday that it would heed the ruling of Judge Edward Korman, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The drug prevents conception if taken within 72 hours of having sexual intercourse.

The Obama administration appears to have concluded that it could lose its case, and would have to weigh whether to request that the Supreme Court hear any appeal, the New York Times reported.

Women’s reproductive rights groups, which had sued the government to clear the way for broader distribution of the drug were happy with the decision, the Times reported, but they still wanted to see the details of how the change would be implemented.

“We will not rest in this fight until the morning-after pill is made available without delay and obstruction,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which represented the plaintiffs in the case, the newspaper reported.

“This is a huge breakthrough for access to birth control and a historic moment for women’s health and equity,” Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in a news release. “The FDA’s decision will make emergency contraception available on store shelves, just like condoms, and women of all ages will be able to get it quickly in order to prevent unintended pregnancy.”

However, the decision is certain to anger abortion rights opponents, who oppose allowing young girls access to the drug without the consent or involvement of a parent or a doctor.

Korman first issued his order April 5, igniting a battle over whether young girls could gain access to emergency contraception without a prescription. Soon after, on April 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lowered to 15 the age at which people could purchase the Plan B One-Step pill over-the-counter — two years younger than the prior age limit of 17.

A day later, on May 1, the Obama Administration stepped in to appeal the Korman decision.

At the time of the FDA’s move to lower the age limit, agency commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said in a news release that, “research has shown that access to emergency contraceptive products has the potential to further decrease the rate of unintended pregnancies in the United States.”

“The data reviewed by the agency demonstrated that women 15 years of age and older were able to understand how Plan B One-Step works, how to use it properly and that it does not prevent the transmission of a sexually transmitted disease,” Hamburg said.

Plan B prevents implantation of a fertilized egg in a woman’s uterus through the use of levonorgestrel, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone used for decades in birth control pills. Plan B contains 1.5 milligrams of levonorgestrel, more than the pill contains. It is considered a form of birth control, not abortion.

Other brands of emergency contraception include Next Choice and Ella.

Planned Parenthood has long pushed for wider access to emergency contraception, with Richards calling it “an important step forward.”

But conservative groups have objected to the move. In April, Janice Shaw Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank for the conservative women’s group Concerned Women for America, called Korman’s ruling “a political decision, made by those who stand to profit financially from an action that puts ideology ahead of the nation’s girls and young women.”

More information

There’s more on emergency contraception at the World Health Organization.