Health Studies

Even with more children living in poverty because of the rough economy, the number of children without health insurance in the U.S. has dropped by 1 million in the past three years, according to a report released Tuesday [November 29, 2011] by Georgetown University.

Here’s another health risk associated with carrying extra pounds: People who are obese get less protection from the annual flu shot, according to a study released Tuesday. But the authors said that people who are overweight or obese should get a seasonal flu shot anyway.

The study involved 461 patients who were vaccinated in 2009 at a clinic in Chapel Hill, N.C. By several measures, the vaccine appeared to wear off faster in people who were overweight or obese than it did in people of healthy weight.

Hypertension or abnormally high blood pressure (an average reading of 140/90 mmHg or greater) is a well-known and much-documented health threat. It’s a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, contributing to one in seven deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control, including nearly half of deaths related to cardiovascular disease.

Mallory Olson knew she would not succeed with diets, exercise and weight-loss camps. She had tried them all beginning in her early teens.

“I would work off 20 pounds,” she recalled. “Then it would come back plus more.”

A federal advisory panel proposes nationwide screening for critical congenital heart disease using pulse oximetry, a simple, pain-free test to measure oxygen in the blood.

Before newborns leave the hospital, they should receive a simple, pain-free test to check for signs of congenital heart disease, one of the most common types of birth defects, according to a recommendation by a federal advisory panel.

In a report published online Sunday [August 21, 2011] in the journal Pediatrics, the doctors propose nationwide screening for critical congenital heart disease using pulse oximetry, a probe placed on a hand and a foot that uses a light source and sensor to measure oxygen in the blood. Low oxygen levels signal the need for further testing to look for a heart-related problem.

The number of U.S. families providing health coverage for children through public programs is growing, according to a study by researchers at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute, HealthDay reports.

As many as 220,000 California children could be excluded from affordable health care coverage because of restrictions on programs created as a result of federal health care legislation passed last year, according to a study released today.

Researchers at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research say health care legislation restrictions will exclude many uninsured children — up to 20 percent — who are immigrants or have immigrant parents.

LONDON (Reuters) – Millions of children’s lives and billions of dollars could be saved if vaccines were more widely available in 72 of the world’s poorest countries, according to a series of studies published on Thursday [June 9, 2011].

In studies in the Health Affairs and The Lancet journals, public health experts and scientists projected that if 90 percent of children in those countries were immunized, more than $151 billion in treatment costs and lost productivity could be saved in 10 years, giving economic benefits of $231 billion.

Some 6.4 million lives could also be saved, they found.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – For babies at higher risk of childhood diabetes because of family history or genes, a gluten-free diet in the first year of life does not lower the chances of developing the disease, German researchers report.

The findings undercut previous studies, including work from the same scientists, suggesting that babies exposed to gluten as part of their early diet might be more likely to develop type 1 diabetes later in childhood.