Health Headlines - November 8

Double H1N1 vaccine, but still not enough

Federal health officials said Saturday that there is twice as much H1N1 vaccine -- 38 million doses -- available as two weeks ago.

"The majority of this is injectable doses," Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a briefing in Atlanta.

"If all goes well, we are expecting about 8 million doses to be available in the week ahead that's if everything goes well. As vaccine supplies increase, we think things should go better, but we still don't have enough vaccine."

State and local health departments are in the best position to determine how to effectively use and direct the vaccine doses that become available, Schuchat said.

"The key now is focusing on the priority groups, children and young adults up through age 24, pregnant women, parents or caretakers of babies under 6 months. People with chronic conditions and health workers," Schuchat said.

The Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department in Illinois developed an innovative program to provide the H1N1 vaccine to children with special needs via a clinic where the nurse comes out to the car to give the vaccination.

There have been some 90 million people vaccinated for seasonal flu, but more is needed. Usually seasonal flu strains don't increase until December through May.

"Everything we are seeing is the H1N1 virus," Schuchat said. "Hopefully, there will be additional supplies of seasonal flu vaccine."

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Steaming food may reduce chronic disease

Inflammatory markers declined by as much as 60 percent in those eating poached, stewed or steamed meals, U.S. researchers found.

Lead author Dr. Helen Vlassara of New York City's Mt. Sinai School of Medicine said inflammatory markers have been linked to increased risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, suggested inflammation linked to oxidants -- in particular those that proliferate in fried, grilled or baked food -- may overwhelm the body's defenses.

"The good news is that unlike genetics, we can control oxidant levels," Vlassara said in a statement.

In a clinical study involving more than 350 people, Vlassara and colleagues randomly assigned a subset of 40 healthy participants -- either between the ages 18-45 or older than 60 -- as well as another nine patients with kidney disease to eating either a regular Western diet or one of similar caloric and nutrient content but lower in oxidants because meals were poached, stewed or steamed rather than fried or grilled.

Vlassara says oxidant-producing cooking can be addictive since these methods provide flavor. However, she advises keeping the heat down and the water content up in food as well as avoiding pre-packaged and fast foods could help the body restore its own defenses.

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Testosterone relevant to women's health

Higher levels of testosterone, the principal male sex hormone, but present in women, may put women at greater heart risk, U.S. researchers said.

The study, published in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found women with the highest testosterone levels -- in the top 25 percent of this study group -- were three times as likely to have coronary heart disease compared to women with lower testosterone levels.

The researchers, who measured levels of testosterone in 344 women between the ages of 65-98, also found women in the top 25 percent three times as likely to have a group of metabolic risk factors called the metabolic syndrome -- in particular they had a greater degree of insulin resistance where the body does not use insulin efficiently.

"For many years, androgens like testosterone were thought to play a significant role in men only and to be largely irrelevant in women," study researcher Dr. Anne Cappola of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia said in a statement.

"Further studies are needed to determine if a causal relationship exists between testosterone and insulin resistance and to provide more insight into the role testosterone plays in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in women."