Concerns grow over "distracted doctoring"

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Concerns grow over 'distracted doctoring'

Trees, dust, nuts, mold trigger allergies

Few foods are source of vitamin D

Men tend to overestimate women's desire

Ideas of acceptable weight form early

Antibodies may neutralize Alzheimer's

Performance-enhancing drug hurts brain

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Concerns grow over 'distracted doctoring'

NEW YORK, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Computers, smartphones and other devices intended to help U.S. medical staff avoid medical errors may in fact be proving a dangerous distraction, experts say.

Meant to give medical staff instant access to patient data, drug information and case studies, the technology is drawing criticism that doctors and nurses can be focused more on the screen than on the patient, The New York Times reported Thursday.

And it's not always used as intended, critics say, citing examples of a surgeon making personal calls during an operation, a nurse checking airfares during surgery and a poll finding half of technicians running bypass machines admitting to texting during a procedure, the newspaper said.

Some have described the problem as "distracted doctoring."

"You walk around the hospital, and what you see is not funny," said Dr. Peter J. Papadakos, director of critical care at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

He has seen nurses, doctors and other staff members glued to their phones, computers and iPads, he said.

"You justify carrying devices around the hospital to do medical records," he said. "But you can surf the Internet or do Facebook, and sometimes, for whatever reason, Facebook is more tempting.

"My gut feeling is lives are in danger," Papadakos said.


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Trees, dust, nuts, mold trigger allergies

MELROSE PARK, Ill., Dec. 14 (UPI) -- It may be a wonderful time of year but fresh Christmas trees, plants, air fresheners, perfumes, dust and nuts can spell misery for many, a U.S. researcher says.

"The dust from the boxes and on the decorations that have been packed away in dank basements or dusty attics is triggering reactions in my allergy and asthma patients," said Dr. Joseph Leija, an allergist at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, who provides the official allergy count for the Midwest.

For those suffering allergies, Leija suggests:

-- The clean fragrance from fresh balsam, fir and pine trees available on every corner tree lot is pleasing but it aggravates respiratory conditions. Dust, mites and other pollutants on the live tree wreak havoc on nasal passages and airways, and water in a tree holder can grow stagnant and collect mold, which is detrimental to those with allergies.

-- Never use scented candles or home fragrance oils and take a pass on the potpourri simmering pots. Far from creating an inviting home, the fragrance aggravates the sinuses and respiratory system so sufferers can't breathe.

-- Avoid real Poinsettias and fresh floral arrangements. The moist soil encourages the growth of mold.

-- Keep the humidity in check. Get a gauge and keep the humidity no higher than 48 percent to 50 percent. Too much humidity encourages the growth of mold, which triggers allergic reactions.

-- Store holiday decorations in large resealable plastic tubs that keep out dust.

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Few foods are source of vitamin D

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Vitamin D deficiency is common in winter, with earlier sunsets and weaker rays, and few foods are sources of vitamin D, a U.S. food expert says.

Phil Lempert, a food industry analyst, trend watcher and creator of the Web site supermarketguru.com, said vitamin D refers to a group of fat-soluble vitamins that can be obtained several ways -- from exposure to sunlight (ultraviolet B), by consuming certain foods and by taking supplements.

In the summer months, most people meet their vitamin D needs through planned sun exposure like sunbathing, or unintentionally from exercising outdoors in a T shirt. Direct sun exposure for 15 minutes three times a week is thought to keep the body's vitamin D stores at healthy levels, Lempert said.

"Few foods naturally contain vitamin D. Salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel, shrimp and fish liver oils are the best sources. Vitamin D can also be found in small amounts in beef liver, cheese, egg yolks and some mushrooms," Lempert said in a statement. "Other foods have been fortified with vitamin D, thus do not naturally contain the vitamin, and include milk -- cow, soy and rice -- some brands of orange juice, margarine, and yogurt. Breakfast cereals often contain around 10 percent of the daily recommended intake of vitamin D as well."

The Food and Drug Administration recommends at least 400 International Units of vitamin D daily and about 2,000 IU is 

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Men tend to overestimate women's desire

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Men looking for a quick hookup are more likely to overestimate a woman's desire for them, U.S. researchers found.

Psychologist Carin Perilloux at Williams College, and Judith A. Easton and David M. Buss of University of Texas at Austin said the study involved 96 male and 103 female undergraduates, who were put through a "speed-meeting" exercise -- talking for 3 minutes each to five potential opposite-sex mates.

Before the conversations, the participants rated themselves on their own attractiveness and were assessed for the level of their desire for a short-term sexual encounter. After each meeting, they rated the partner on a number of measures, including physical attractiveness and sexual interest in the participant.

The model afforded the ability to test the participants in multiple interactions.

The study, scheduled to be published in the journal Psychological Science, found men looking for a quick hookup were more likely to overestimate the women's desire for them. The researchers found men who thought they were hot also thought the women were hot for them -- but men who were actually attractive, by the women's ratings, did not make this mistake.

The more attractive the woman was to the man, the more likely he was to overestimate her interest, while the women tended to underestimate men's desire, the study said.

The research contains messages for daters. Perilloux said women should know the risks, and be as communicative and clear as possible. Men should know that the more attracted you are, the more likely you are to be wrong about her interest.

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1 in 5 U.S. women was sexually assaulted

ATLANTA, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- About one U.S. woman in five has been raped or subjected to attempted rape, increasing the chance of having serious health problems, a U.S. health survey found.

The 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of 16,507 adults -- 9,086 women and 7,421 men -- found sexual violence affected women disproportionately, with one-third of women saying they had been victims of a rape, beating or stalking, or a combination of assaults. One in six said they had been stalked.

Twelve percent of female rape victims said they were assaulted when they were 10 or younger, while almost half said they were raped before they turned 18. About 80 percent said they had been raped before age 25.

Thirty-five percent of women raped as minors were also raped as adults, the survey found.

The researchers defined rape as completed forced penetration, forced penetration facilitated by drugs or alcohol, or attempted forced penetration.

By that definition, 1.3 million U.S. women may be victims of rape or attempted rape in a year, The New York Times said.

One in seven men reported experiencing severe violence at the hands of an intimate partner, the survey indicated. It found one in 71 men -- between 1 percent and 2 percent -- said they were raped at some point, many when they were younger than 11.

Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey, told the Times the survey results "will be surprising to a lot of people."

"I don't think we've really known that it was this prevalent in the population," she said.

Women and men -- women in particular -- said they experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after being subjected to sexual violence, rape or stalking. More female than male victims reported having illnesses subsequent to the attack, including asthma and diabetes, and both female and male victims were more likely to complain of such problems as chronic pain and generally poor health -- physical and mental.

Lisa James, director of health for Futures Without Violence -- a non-profit based in San Francisco that advocates "to prevent and end violence against women and children around the world" -- told the Times the U.S. study finding on chronic health conditions" had been observed "in smaller studies before."

"People who grow up with violence adopt coping strategies that can lead to poor health outcomes," she said.

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Ideas of acceptable weight form early

NEWCASTLE, England, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- An individual's concept of acceptable weight is formed during childhood and is not significantly influenced by later social networks, British researchers say.

Because of this, obesity prevention strategies should be implemented in early childhood and at the household level if they are to be effective, researchers at Newcastle University said.

Writing in the journal Obesity, researcher Heather Brown and her colleagues said they investigated the effects of time-constant factors such as genetics and upbringing, and compared them to changeable factors like friends and opportunities for exercise on the development of social norms regarding weight in children.

In studying body mass data from 236 adolescent siblings living together and 838 adult siblings living apart, the researchers said, they found that time-constant factors significantly influenced both groups but only the adolescent group was influenced by changeable factors.

Their findings suggest previous studies may have overestimated the effect of social networks on acceptable weight perception, the researchers said.

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U.S. teen pot smoking at all-time high

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Daily marijuana use is at a 30-year peak level among U.S. high-school seniors but alcohol use and tobacco smoking is down, a survey indicates.

Monitoring the Future, a nationally representative annual survey of eighth- 10th- and 12th-graders conducted by the University of Michigan, said for the three grades combined, the annual prevalence of marijuana use rose in 2011 to 25 percent from 21.4 percent in 2007.

"In addition, one in every 15 high school seniors today is smoking pot on a daily or near daily basis," Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator of the study, said in a statement. "And that's the highest rate that we have seen over the past thirty years -- since 1981."

In addition, "synthetic marijuana," which until this year was legally sold and goes by such names as "K2" and "spice," was added to the study's coverage in 2011. The survey said 11.4 percent of high-school seniors reported using this drug in the prior 12 months.

The federal government used temporary emergency powers in February to declare a number of chemicals used in synthetic marijuana to be Schedule I drugs -- unsafe, highly abused substances with no legitimate medical use -- for at least a year. At least 18 states have banned synthetic marijuana, the researchers said.

One possible explanation for the resurgence in marijuana use is that in recent years fewer teens

report seeing much danger associated with even regular use, the researchers said.

Alcohol use and importantly, occasions of heavy drinking, continued a long-term gradual decline among U.S. teens, reaching historically low levels in 2011, while energy drinks are being consumed by about one-third of teens, with use highest among younger teens.

The number of those who said they smoked tobacco at all in the prior 30 days fell significantly for the three grades combined, from 12.8 percent in 2010 to 11.7 percent this year.

One reason smoking has declined so sharply is that the proportion of students who ever try smoking has fallen dramatically -- 49 percent of eighth-graders in 1996 had tried cigarettes, while in 2011 it was 18 percent.

Reasons given for not smoking tobacco included increased preference for dating non-smokers, strongly disliking being around people who are smoking, thinking that becoming a smoker reflects poor judgment and believing that smoking is a dirty habit.

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Second-guessing linked to unhappiness

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Fretting over which coffee maker to buy or second-guessing oneself over a house one has bought may be a recipe for unhappiness, U.S. researchers say.

Joyce Ehrlinger, an assistant professor of psychology Florida State University, said individuals identified among psychologists as "maximizers," tend to obsess over decisions -- big or small -- and then fret about their choices later, while "satisficers," tend to make a decision and live with it.

Ehrlinger, doctoral candidate Erin Sparks, and Richard Eibach, a psychology assistant professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, found the maximizers' focus on finding the best option ultimately undermines their commitment to their final choices. As a result, they miss out on psychological benefits of commitment," leaving them less satisfied than their more contented counterparts -- the satisficers.

"Because maximizers want to be certain they have made the right choice, they are less likely to fully commit to a decision, and most likely, they are less happy in their everyday lives," the study authors said in a statement. "Current research is trying to understand whether they can change. High-level maximizers certainly cause themselves a lot of grief."

The study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, said a maximizer's lack of contentment creates a lot of stress, so the trait could potentially have an enormous effect on health.

Even after considerable deliberation, a high-level maximizer may still feel unhappy, even depressed, with his or her final decision, the study said.

"Identifying the 'right' choice can be a never-ending task," Ehrlinger said. "Maximizers might be unable to fully embrace a choice because they cannot be absolutely certain they chose the best possible option."

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Antibodies may neutralize Alzheimer's

TROY, N.Y., Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A simple process may make antibodies that neutralize the harmful protein particles that lead to Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers suggest.

Antibodies are large proteins produced by the immune system to combat infection and disease. They are comprised of a large Y-shaped protein topped with small peptide loops that bind to harmful invaders in the body, such as a viruses or bacteria.

Once an antibody is bound to its target, the immune system sends cells to destroy the invader, and finding the right antibody can determine the difference between death and recovery, Peter Tessier, assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., said.

Only a very specific combination of antibody loops will bind to and neutralize each target, and with billions of different possible loop arrangements and sequences it seems impossible to predict which antibody loops will bind to a specific target molecule, Tessier said.

In his research, he uses the same molecular interactions that cause the Alzheimer's proteins to stick together and form the toxic particles that are a hallmark of the disease.

"We are actually exploiting the same protein interactions that cause the disease in the brain to mediate binding of antibodies to toxic Alzheimer's protein particles," Tessier said.

The Alzheimer's antibodies developed by Tessier and his colleagues only latched on to the harmful clumped proteins and not the harmless monomers or single peptides that are not associated with disease.

In the long term, the findings might help develop new drugs to combat Alzheimer's disease, Tessier said.

The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Performance-enhancing drug hurts brain

ZURICH, Switzerland, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Erythropoietin, considered a "performance enhancing" substance for athletes, may increase risk of vascular problems in the brain, Swiss researchers said.

Peter Rasmussen of the Zurich Center for Integrative Human Physiology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, found short- or long-term use of EPO raised blood pressure by constricting arteries, which reduces the flow of blood to the brain.

Rasmussen and colleagues evaluated the effects of acute high doses of EPO for three days, and chronic low doses of EPO for 13 weeks, in two groups of healthy males.

Responsiveness of brain vessels during rest and during bike-riding exercise, with and without hypoxia -- low oxygen concentration -- was examined. Blood vessels were analyzed using ultrasound measurements and by measuring how much oxygen reached the brain.

The study, published by the journal of the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology, found that prolonged EPO administration increased hematocrit -- the concentration of red blood cells in blood -- while acute administration did not. The study found both groups had increases in blood vessel constriction and higher blood pressure.

"EPO is used by doctors to increase red blood cells in sick people who can't make enough of them. When EPO is used by healthy bikers and runners to boost their performance, it's called cheating," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor in chief of The FASEB Journal. "Now we know that folks who use EPO covertly are cheating not only the time-clock, but themselves. Not only is EPO likely unsafe in healthy athletes, but there are many other ways to build up stamina without drugs."

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Hodgkin's survival better with chemo

KINGSTON, Ontario, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Patients with limited stage Hodgkin's lymphoma improve their chance of long-term survival with chemotherapy not radiation treatment, Canadian researchers say.

Dr. Ralph Meyer, professor of oncology at Queen's University and director of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, said patients diagnosed with Stage 1A or Stage 2A Hodgkin's lymphoma were treated previously with chemotherapy and extensive radiation. However, the combination often results in long term-complications from radiation exposure including heart conditions or subsequent cancers, Meyer said.

The study proves chemotherapy alone increases survival rates in the early stages of the disease. The trial began in 1994 and has recently undergone its final analysis, Meyer said.

"Today's practices incorporate reduced amounts of radiation as compared with those tested in the trial, but the results demonstrate chemotherapy alone will be a preferred option for many patients," the study said.

The findings were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and Meyer presented the results at the American Society of Hematology conference in San Diego.


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