Worth Noting Peer Relationships Crucial in Quitting Smoking A person is more likely to quit smoking if those around him or her quit too, according to a study from Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego. Researchers plotted a densely interconnected social network of 12,067 people among subjects in the Framingham Heart Study and found clusters of smokers and non-smokers in the cohort extending to three degrees of separation. Whole groups of people were quitting smoking at the same time, they reported in the The New England Journal of Medicine. Having a spouse quit smoking decreased a person’s chances of smoking by two-thirds. Smoking cessation by a sibling decreased chances by 25 percent; cessation by a friend reduced chances by 36 percent, and having a co-worker in a small office quit cut the chances by 34 percent. "Smoking behavior spreads through close and distant social ties," the researchers reported, "groups of interconnected people stop smoking in concert, and smokers are increasingly marginalized socially." The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The abstract to the report may be found at: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/358/21/2249, and the full report at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/21/2249. -------------------------------- Teenagers Do Not Engage in Oral Sex to Preserve Their Technical VirginityAccording to a commonly held belief, adolescents engage in oral sex rather than vaginal sex to maintain their technical virginity. But a study by the Guttmacher Institute--the first of its kind--finds that is not so. The survey of more than 2,200 males and females between the ages of 15 and 19, found that those who identified themselves as virgins were far less likely to have engaged in oral sex than those who had had intercourse. According to the study, which was posted on the Guttmacher website and will appear in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, teenagers become sexually active in many ways simultaneously. While previous studies had indicated that oral sex was increasing among adolescents as an alternative to intercourse, the sampling size of those studies was small and not nationally representative, the Institute researchers said. The Guttmacher study found that 55 percent of teens admitted to have engaged in oral sex while 50 percent said they had vaginal sex. Oral sex was far more common among those engaging in intercourse than those who were not. The data came from the National Survey of Family Growth. The complete Guttmacher study may be found at http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/JAH_Lindberg.pdf?sid=ST2008051901235. -------------------------------- The following information appeared during the month of May 2008 in the News Alerts section of the website of the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, at www.healthinschools.org. Senate Votes to Block Medicaid Changes The U.S. Senate voted Thursday, May 22, to postpone new rules formulated by the Bush Administration that would have cut $13 billion over the next five years from Medicaid payments to the states. The bill passed by a 75-22 voice vote, enough to override a promised veto. A majority of Republicans broke ranks to vote for the measure, which was included in the Iraq and Afghanistan war spending bill. The changes in the rules would have taken effect this year, but the moratorium pushes them back into April 2009, when a new administration would be in the White House. Meanwhile, on May 21, the House had shown its support for a moratorium by passing stand-alone legislation (H.R. 5613) with similar provisions by a veto-proof majority, as well as including the provisions in its war-spending bill. Differences between the Senate and House versions of the war bill could delay final passage for months. The administration said the new rules would eliminate payments it doesn't think appropriate for Medicaid, but the changes are opposed by governors of all 50 states, which would have to pick up the financial burden. The Houses’ stand-alone legislation may be found at http://thomas.loc.gov. Enter H.R. 5613 under Bill Search. May 22, 2008 Teenage Girls Who Exercise May Get Protection from Premenopausal Breast Cancer Women have long been advised that exercise lowers the risk of premenopausal breast cancer. A study published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute has found that starting exercise as young as 12-years-old provides some protection for later in life. The study tracked 64,777 nurses in the Nurses' Health Study II, asking about their leisure-time physical activities from age 12 to the present. During the six years of the study, 550 of them developed breast cancer. "The women who regularly engaged in high amounts of physical activity during adolescence and early adulthood had a lower risk of premenopausal breast cancer than women who engaged in less activity," the study found. The physically active women were 23 percent less likely to develop cancer, and the biggest impact was regular exercise from ages 12 to 22. Women who exercised vigorously (for example running for three hours and 15 minutes per week or who walked for 13 hours) had the lowest risk. The study may be found at: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/10/728. May 20, 2008 Senate Subcommittee Hears Plans to Aid Children With Food Allergies The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families held hearings May 14 on ways to protect children with food allergies. An estimated 12 million Americans--2.2 million of them school-age children--have food allergies, some of them potentially fatal. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health, said research funding for food allergies has increased from $1.2 million in fiscal year 2003 to $13.4 million in 2008. NIAID-supported research includes basic and preclinical research on the immune mechanisms involved, research to understand the epidemiology and genetics of the allergies, and clinical studies to treat and prevent them, he said. The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) unveiled a five-step program to improve the lives of those with allergies, including guidelines for schools. Dr. Hugh Simpson, president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, told the senators his organization supported FAAN's initiative. The initiative can be found at http://www.foodallergy.org/media/press_releases/FAAN_Unveils_Five_Steps.pdf and the Senate subcommittee's page on the hearings is at http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2008_05_14/2008_05_14.html. May 13, 2008 States are Backing Away from Abstinence-Only Programs and are Looking for Alternatives Health and government officials are working to end abstinence-only programs and seeking to expand other types of sexual education initiatives in the face of mounting evidence the programs do not work, according to a Medical News and Perspectives article in the May 7, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Many states now refuse to take funding for the programs because of restrictions that come with the money, according to the article. "By 2005, there were more than 800 programs funded with over $1.5 billion," said John Santelli of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, "and increasingly professionals, parents, policy makers, and adolescents have been raising concerns." The concerns have led to pressure to revamp sex education programs, he said. Abstinence only--the requirement that schools teach that abstinence from sex is the only way to avoid pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and other health problems--began in 1982 and became a major factor in sex education in 1996, part of the conservative movement's social issues program. President Bush's 2009 budget, which cuts funding for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention functions, allocates $204 million to abstinence-only initiatives. Much of the money goes to the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program aimed at adolescents. Recipients must agree not to take other funding--even non-federal--for more extensive programs. Multiple studies, particularly one by Mathematica Policy Research Inc., a non-partisan group, concluded the programs have "no measurable impact on initiation rates, ages of first intercourse, or numbers of partners, no impact on pregnancies, births or STDs." A 2004 Congressional review also charged the programs were replete with scientific inaccuracies. Seventeen states now have declined to apply for the funds, and more than 20 insist on greater scientific rigor in the programs they do employ. The JAMA article may be found by subscribers at http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/299/17/2013. The Mathematica study mentioned in the article is at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/abstinence07/report.pdf. May 2, 2008 Almost 70 Measles Cases Reported in U.S. Since January Measles, the once-common childhood disease declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, has made a comeback. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from January 1 through April 25 of this year, 64 confirmed cases of the highly contagious disease have been reported, the highest number since 2001. The outbreaks are still ongoing in Arizona, New York, Michigan and Wisconsin. CDC said 10 of the patients acquired the disease abroad and the others caught measles from one of them. Only one of the patients had been inoculated; 14 were too young for vaccination. Many of the rest of the children were not vaccinated because their parents objected, the CDC reported. The disease still is common worldwide and in 2005, 311,000 children under the age of 5 died from measles. Symptoms include rash, high fever, coughing and runny nose. Complications include ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis and even death. CDC said the case "remind us that it is important to vaccinate children and adults to protect them against measles." The CDC study may be found at http://www.cdc.gov/Features/MeaslesUpdate/. |
