Health Tip: Sleep Positions While You're Pregnant

As your pregnancy progresses, sleeping may become a little more uncomfortable each month.The American Pregnancy Association offers these suggestions to help you sleep more comfortably during pregnancy:

* Try sleeping on your side -- particularly your left side, if it's comfortable. Bend your knees, and place a pillow between your knees.
* Also try a pillow under your belly, for support.
* If heartburn bothers you, prop up your upper body with pillows.
* If you feel short of breath, lie on your side or propped up with pillows.
* You should avoid sleeping on your back and on your stomach during pregnancy.

Childhood eczema tied to asthma risk later

Children with the allergic skin condition eczema are at increased risk of developing asthma well into adulthood, according to a decades-long study.Australian researchers found that among nearly 8,600 study participants followed from the age of 7, those who'd had childhood eczema were roughly twice as likely to develop asthma by middle-age.

It's not clear whether the eczema directly contributed to asthma development in these cases. However, the findings do suggest a cause-and-effect relationship between the two conditions, according to the researchers, led by Dr. John A. Burgess of the University of Melbourne.

They report the results in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The findings come from a study that began in 1968, when parents of 8,583 7-year-old children in Tasmania were surveyed about their children's health. The children also had a medical exam. At that time, 769 were found to have eczema.

The researchers found that children with eczema were twice as likely as their peers to develop asthma as teenagers, and 63 percent more likely to develop the lung condition as adults.

Other researchers have noted a phenomenon dubbed the "atopic march," which refers to the sequential development of eczema, followed by nasal allergies and finally asthma. The current findings, Burgess and his colleagues write, suggest that this march continues on well past childhood.

It's also possible that eczema directly contributes to asthma development, the researchers say. One theory is that certain immune system cells, primed for an allergic response, might migrate from an eczema patient's skin to tissue of the airways. That could make their airways more likely to inflame in response to an inhaled allergen, leading to asthma symptoms.

"Our data suggest that a causal link is possible," Burgess told Reuters Health.

"If in fact the link was causal," he added, "then aggressive treatment of childhood eczema aimed at really tight control of that disease might have an impact on the development of asthma in adolescence and in adult life."

SOURCE: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, August 2008.

Argentina investigates deaths of vaccinated kids

Argentine authorities are exploring a possible link between the deaths of 14 children and an experimental vaccine they were taking in a clinical trial run by GlaxoSmithKline.Argentina's food and drug administration is investigating whether the deaths are tied to the Synflorix vaccine, said an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

The drug, designed to fight pneumonia, ear infections and several other pneumococcal diseases, was manufactured by the London-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC, the world's second-largest drug maker.

A U.S. spokeswoman for Glaxo, Sarah Alspach, said the company is not attributing the deaths to the experimental vaccine, which is being tested in three Latin American countries and in other countries around the world.

An independent board monitoring participants' safety recommended that the Latin American trials be temporarily suspended — which they were in late June — but then gave its OK for tests to resume, she added.

"We rely on their safety review," Alspach said. "Safety is our primary concern, always, with the development of any new treatment."

More than 19,000 babies have received at least one dose of Synflorix, which Glaxo plans to test on a total of 24,000 infants, she said. The company is still enrolling participants.

But according to the Argentine official, who works at the country's National Medicine, Food and Medical Technology Administration, the agency "received complaints about irregularities in the recruitment of patients" for the drug trial and on July 31 asked that recruitment be suspended.

Glaxo stopped recruiting the following day, saying it had already gathered the necessary number of participants, the official said.

Ana Maria Marchesse, who heads one of two groups that notified the national food and drug administration, told The Associated Press that she'd witnessed "poor ethical management" of patient recruitment.

"They didn't explain to the parents that this was an experimental vaccine, and a lot of the parents who signed consent forms were illiterate," said Marchesse, a pediatrician who heads the Health Professionals' Labor Association in the northern Argentine province of Santiago del Estero, where she said seven of the 14 children died.

"In some cases, they first gave them the vaccine and then gave them a 13-page consent form to sign that I had to read three times to understand," she added.

Marchesse said her group and a provincial doctors' association reported what they saw to the food and drug administration.

Glaxo's trial includes thousands of babies in Argentina, where Alspach said 12 children died; in Panama, where another two died; and in Chile. The natural infant death rate in those countries from pneumonia is 4 to 5 of every 1,000 live births — more than four times the rate seen in the study, Alspach said.

Pneumonia is the world's top killer among infectious diseases, causing more than 2 million deaths a year in children under five, mostly in developing countries, she said.

The company is testing the vaccine in more than 40 clinical studies around the world, she added. Data from other studies show the vaccine is about as safe and tolerable as competitor Wyeth's blockbuster Prevnar, a vaccine widely used against pneumococcal disease, she said.

Still, the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero is conducting a separate inquiry into the deaths of the seven children there, local Health Minister Franklin Moyano told state news media.

"While legal authorities investigate, we're in an observation phase to see if everything happened as expected, or if there were deviations that caused damage, in this case the death of seven kids," he said.

Health Tip: Don't Do Your Child's Homework

A proper home atmosphere for doing homework is important for learning and keeping up in school.The Nemours Foundation offers these suggestions:

* Create an area at home just for homework. It should be well-lit, with all of the supplies that your child needs.
* Set aside a certain time every day -- such as before a snack or after dinner -- to study and do homework.
* Minimize distractions during homework time, including music, television and phone calls.
* Don't do your child's homework. The child won't learn from mistakes if they're yours. But offer help when needed. Praise your child for doing well and trying hard.
* Be involved in your child's school work, and set a good example by reading and working at home, too.

Insurance Matters When It Comes to Kids' Health Care

Insured children in the United States are much more likely than uninsured children (91 percent vs. 69 percent) to visit a doctor's office and to have a regular annual check-up (77 percent vs. 45 percent), according to new data released Thursday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The study, conducted by University of Minnesota researchers who analyzed U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2005-07, also found that:

* About 10 million American children have chronic illnesses and 3.6 million of those children are covered by Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Chronically ill children covered by public insurance receive the same level of health services as those with private insurance, but chronically ill children with no insurance receive far less care.
* Uninsured children with chronic needs are far more likely (41 percent) to have their care delayed or to receive no care, compared to insured children with chronic needs (10 percent).
* Eight percent of children with chronic health conditions enrolled in SCHIP or Medicaid don't have a personal doctor, compared to 21 percent of uninsured children.
* Sixteen percent of children with special needs who are enrolled in SCHIP or Medicaid don't receive mental health care services, compared to 43 percent of uninsured children.

The findings highlight the importance of government insurance programs such as Medicaid and SCHIP, the study authors said.

"SCHIP and Medicaid provide an important safety net for America's families, especially for families with chronically ill children. These programs allow kids to get the care they need, so they can feel better, grow stronger and thrive in school," Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said in a news release.

"When children who need care do not receive it, their conditions worsen and are harder and more expensive to treat later. Because of Medicaid and SCHIP, millions of kids can get regular check-ups, take the medications they need to stay well and see a doctor when they are sick. Parents of any uninsured child should find out if their family is eligible for low-cost or free insurance before sending their kids back to school," Lavizzo-Mourey added.

Currently, more than nine million children in the United States are uninsured, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Most uninsured children live in families where at least one parent works full-time.

Childhood Dairy Intake Boosts Bone Health Later On

Having two or more servings of dairy products a day starting as a preschooler may lead to better bone health as an adolescent, a new report says.The study, expected to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics, found higher levels of bone mineral content and bone density in teens who consumed dairy at least twice a day since the ages of 3 to 5. These adolescents' average bone mineral content was 175 grams higher than adolescents who had consumed less than two dairy servings a day, even after researchers adjusted the results for factors that affect normal bone development, such as the child's growth, body size, and activity level.

The study highlights the significant role dairy plays in childhood as "a key source of proteins, calcium, and other micronutrients including phosphorus and vitamin D," study researcher Lynn Moore, of Boston University School of Medicine, said in a news release issued by the journal.

The researchers also found that children who combined their 2 or more servings of dairy with 4 ounces of meat or other nondairy protein during a day had bone mineral contents more than 300 grams higher than those children with lower intakes of both dairy and other proteins.

The findings come from analyzing data and family food diaries from the Framingham Children's Study, which gathered information from 106 children, 3 to 5 years of age at the beginning of the study, over a 12-year period. Information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was also used to determine the children's average daily intake of dairy and other foods.

Kids' Obesity Linked to Ear Infections

Damage caused by chronic ear infections in children may alter their sense of taste, making fatty and sweet foods more desirable and increasing the risk of obesity.That's the conclusion of four new studies presented Thursday at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in Boston.

In the first study, Kathleen Daly, a professor of otolaryngology at the University of Minnesota, found that "middle ear nerve damage may play a role in affecting taste in children with recurrent ear infections or chronic ear disease who get [drainage] tubes. This damage may increase intake of fattening foods."

For the study, Daly's team followed children from birth to 2 years of age who had been treated with tubes for ear infections.

"There was a trend, but not significant, for recurrent ear infection to lead to overweight," Daly said. "Other studies have reported a similar relationship between ear infections and overweight. We did not find evidence for the reverse hypothesis: larger and heavier children were more prone to ear infections and tubes than smaller and lighter children."

In the second study, led by John Hayes of Brown University, researchers found that among 110 middle-aged women with a sense of taste consistent with nerve damage, those who preferred sweet and high-fat foods tended to have larger waists.

"Surprisingly, we found that the single best predictor of body weight was not how much saturated fat they took in and not how often they ate high-fat foods, but was how much they liked high-fat and sweet foods," Hayes said.

Hayes noted that taste can vary genetically, but also through exposure to environmental changes. "Particularly with damage to the taste system and we think this happens from ear infections," he said.

Another study by Hayes' group found that preschoolers with a history of severe ear infections ate fewer vegetables, more sweets and tended to be heavier.

In the third study presented Thursday, led by Howard Hoffman, an epidemiologist at the U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, researchers found that removing the tonsils had an effect on whether children would be overweight.

"Taste does have an impact on selection of food and diet," Hoffman said. "A tonsillectomy may damage one of the nerves that carry taste information. In addition, ear infections can also alter taste. Altering taste does have an effect on the preferences for food," he said.

Hoffman's team reexamined data on 13,887 children who took part in the National Health Examination surveys during the 1960s. The researchers found that children who had had their tonsils removed were at greater risk of being overweight. Among children aged 6 to 11 who'd had a tonsillectomy, they were 40 percent more likely to be overweight at the time of the survey, compared with children who did not have a tonsillectomy.

What's more, teenage girls who'd had a tonsillectomy were 30 percent more likely to be overweight, the researchers found. Hoffman noted that tonsillectomies were a common treatment back in the 60s for chronic ear infections, which can alter the taste buds and affect eating habits.

"This data is not conclusive, but it's suggestive," he said.

In the final study, Linda Bartoshuk, of the University of Florida College of Dentistry, and colleagues collected data on 6,584 people who attended a lecture series. These men and women, between 16 and 92 years old, were asked about their history of ear infections. The researchers found that those with a history of moderate to severe ear infections were 62 percent more likely to be obese.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale University School of Medicine Prevention Research Center, thinks that alteration in taste only plays a small part in the overall obesity epidemic in the United States.

"It certainly makes sense that variations in taste, due to many factors including a history of ear infections, could influence food preferences, total food intake and weight," he said.

However, despite variation in taste perception, variation in dietary preference, and variation in the history of ear infections, researchers have projections forecasting all but universal obesity among U.S .adults within several decades should current trends persist, Katz noted.

"So while the link between taste buds and vulnerability to obesity is worthy of further exploration, the simple fact is that the entire population is vulnerable to obesity," Katz said. "The major causes of the obesity epidemic reside in the 'obesigenic' environment, rather than on our tongues."