Popular News Articles

Low-Calorie Diet keeps the Heart Young
Bush Budget to Wring Savings From Medicare
Site Offers Alternative to Flu Information

Todays News (Health, Headlines, Science)

Study: Low-Calorie Diet Keeps Heart Young 2006-01-13

A very low calorie diet can help the heart age more slowly, according to researchers who released what they call the first-ever human study on the subject. The findings confirmed earlier studies on mice and rats that demonstrate the cardiac benefits of a restricted calorie diet. The study looked at the heart function of 25 members of the Caloric Restriction Society, ages 41 to 64, who consume 1,400 to 2,000 nutritionally balanced calories per day. They were compared to 25 people who eat a typical Western diet, consuming 2,000 to 3,000 daily calories on average. The result: Those limiting caloric intake had the heart functions of much younger people _ typically about 15 years younger than their age. Ultrasound exams showed group members had hearts that appeared more elastic than most people their age; their hearts were also able to relax between beats in a way similar to hearts in younger people. "This is the first study to demonstrate that long-term calorie restriction with optimal nutrition has cardiac-specific effects that (delay or reverse) age-associated declines in heart function," said Luigi Fontana, lead author and assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. The study will be published Tuesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Fontana said simply consuming less food is not the answer. Members of the study group eat food resembling a traditional Mediterranean diet, focusing on vegetables, olive oil, beans, whole grains, fish and fruit. They avoid refined and processed foods, soft drinks, desserts, white bread and other sources of "empty" calories. For the general public, the researchers recommend a moderate reduction in calories, combined with moderate, regular exercise. Research on mice and rats indicated that life span can be stretched by about 30 percent with stringent and consistent caloric restriction. That research also suggested that restricting calories can help prevent cancer. Heart attacks and strokes cause about 40 percent of deaths in Western countries, researchers said. Cancer causes another 30 percent. Fontana said those deaths are attributable to "secondary aging" from high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and other often-preventable conditions. While it has long been known that a healthy diet and exercise can reduce risks, the study suggests that caloric restriction combined with optimal nutrition can do even more. Fontana said most participants in the study had immediate relatives who suffered heart attacks or strokes, so it was unlikely their genetic makeup was a contributing factor to their unusually healthy hearts. "We don't know how long each individual will end up living, but they certainly have a longer life expectancy than average because they're most likely not going to die from a heart attack, stroke or diabetes," said professor John O. Holloszy, who worked on the study. "And if, in fact, their hearts are aging more slowly, it's conceivable they'll live for a very long time."

Return to top of page

Bush Budget to Wring Savings From Medicare

President Bush hopes to seize momentum from a just-completed budget cut bill by proposing tens of billions of dollars in savings from the Medicare program when he submits his 2007 budget on Monday. The budget is expected to wring perhaps $40 billion over the next five years from Medicare providers like hospitals and home health care providers, as called for by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, a bipartisan panel of experts that makes Medicare policy recommendations to Congress. Last year, Bush urged Congress to leave Medicare alone as the administration began implementing the new Medicare drug benefit. He instead focused on finding savings from the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled. After Congress just squeezed $28 billion from Medicaid over the next decade _ considerably less than the $45 billion proposed by Bush a year ago _ the president is looking for big savings from the rapidly growing Medicare program, said lawmakers, staff aides and health industry lobbyists. Bush is expected to steer clear of proposals asking direct election-year sacrifices from Medicare beneficiaries, who are already agitated over foul-ups in the startup of the new prescription drug program. But hospitals and other powerful interest groups are girding for battle over cuts they will be asked to take. Adopting the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's recommendations would give the White House political cover for Bush's new proposals. The commission recommended reducing payments to hospitals for both inpatient and outpatient care by about half of 1 percent below scheduled inflation adjustments. Home health care providers under Medicare fear seeing their payments frozen as recommended by MedPAC. The advisory commission also has recommended freezing payments to nursing homes and long-term care facilities. "It's doable and it's good health care policy," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said of the MedPAC recommendations. Gregg said he expects significant Medicare cost curbs to be included in Bush's budget. Elsewhere, the $2.7 trillion budget will ask virtually every domestic Cabinet department except Homeland Security to operate at or below current budget levels. The Pentagon would receive a nearly 5 percent increase in its budget, to $439.3 billion, defense officials said, with an additional $120 billion earmarked for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those war funds would be spread over both the current budget year and fiscal 2007, which begins Oct. 1. The budget will also project about $18 billion more for hurricane relief along the Gulf Coast. The White House says the burgeoning costs of the war and hurricane aid will cause the budget deficit to exceed $400 billion for the current year, up from $319 billion in 2005. The record deficit in dollar terms is $413 billion, set in 2004. Bush said in his State of the Union address Tuesday that the budget would keep his promise, made in 2004, to bring the deficit below $260 billion by the time he leaves office. The White House will not divulge details of the budget before its Monday release, but congressional aides briefed on parts of it shared some details with The Associated Press. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget hasn't been released. The Homeland Security Department would receive a 6 percent budget boost to its $33.3 billion budget for this year, but that increase depends on enactment of new fees on air travel of $5 each way. Comparable fees proposed a year ago were dead on arrival on Capitol Hill. Amtrak, the financially troubled national rail carrier, would receive $900 million under Bush's budget, a cut of about $400 million from current levels. But that's a significantly higher budget than proposed for the railroad last year, when Bush proposed eliminating Amtrak's operating subsidy in a move aimed at closing unprofitable long-distance routes _ a move resoundingly rejected by Congress. The National Institutes of Health, which funds health care research, would see its budget essentially frozen at slightly more than $28 billion. NASA, however, would receive a 3 percent budget increase and the National Science Foundation would receive about an 8 percent increase. Bush also plans to ask Congress for more than $130 million for a system employers would be required to use to verify job applicants are legally eligible to work in the U.S.

Return to top of page

Site Offers Alternative to Flu Information

2006-02-25 You can learn a lot about bird flu and the specter of a global human flu epidemic by checking official information from the government or medical groups. But thousands of times a day, people turn to a much different source. It's Flu Wiki, a Web site maintained by a 52-year-old writer who specializes in risk communication. It draws in part on contributions from people who don't reveal their names, much like Wikipedia, an encyclopedic Web site that lets anyone contribute. Why should anybody trust a source like this? "I'm working with some of the best scientists in the country on the subject of pandemic influenza," said Melanie Mattson, who maintains the site. "If I have a question about what's going on I ask them." And Flu Wiki, the Virginia resident said, is "probably the most complete authority in English on pandemic influenza on the Internet." Even for a site with more than 1,200 pages of content, that's a bold claim. The field includes not only an official U.S. government site, http://www.pandemicflu.gov, but also others from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. There are also plenty of bloggers who focus on flu. But Flu Wiki also offers the wisdom of its expert contributors, Mattson said. She can't identify them publicly, mostly because they fear losing federal money for giving opinions that clash with the Bush administration, she said. The disagreements aren't so much on the basic science of bird flu, but rather on what to do about it. Flu Wiki, which averages up to 5,000 hits a day, impressed some flu experts who examined it recently at the request of The Associated Press. Dr. Arnold S. Monto of the University of Michigan said he found the site's information reliable in general. Such sites can provide "a single place for people to go who want to get information which they may have to troll for in some of the official sites," he said. Peter Cowen of North Carolina State University, moderator of a disease-monitoring Web site sponsored by the International Society for Infectious Diseases, said he had mixed feelings about Flu Wiki. "In general they have a lot of good information," but some of the site's links lead to places with information of questionable value, Cowen said. Still, on balance, he said, "it looks pretty good." The site, launched last June, offers key facts about bird flu, updated news stories, a roundup of official flu plans, tips on preparedness and a discussion forum. Volunteers have translated critical information into French, Spanish and Turkish. Norwegian may be next. Mattson said she and her collaborators established it because too little attention was being paid to the possibility of a worldwide flu outbreak, and the public was in danger because they weren't getting basic information. The goal is to help individuals and local communities prepare for a possible pandemic, she said. But at the moment, she doesn't see much local planning going on. "I'm not sure my town council is even aware of pandemic influenza," she said. Her own home is stocked with a two-week supply of food and water, originally for hurricanes. She plans to expand that inventory for a possible flu pandemic. Her goal? "Eight weeks is good, 12 weeks is better," she said. Mattson said she became concerned about the possibility of a pandemic flu after a bird flu virus jumped to people in Hong Kong in 1997, causing six deaths. A lifelong student of epidemiology and public health, she'd hoped to be an epidemiologist until she ran into organic chemistry in college. And she caught the flu and then pneumonia in the two previous flu pandemics in the 1950s and 1960s. "Needless to say, I'm a little more sensitive to the subject of influenza than probably most people are," she said.

Return to top of page