A new survey shows some nurseries are giving children too much in the way of fruit and vegetables, and not enough starchy carbohydrates to meet their energy needs. Have healthy eating messages left us in a state of confusion about what children should be consuming? This latest study carried out by the local government regulatory body Lacors focused on children in nursery schools across 29 English councils. While finding that some children were being given portions that were too large and too high in salt, others were simply not being offered enough at all.

The report highlighted the pressure parents, who are themselves constantly warned of the perils of childhood obesity, place on nursery staff to offer low calorie fare. It is a growing problem, according to the National Day Nurseries Association. "Parents are aware of the importance of ensuring their child eats healthily to avoid obesity and health problems in later life, but this can sometimes lead to parents making requests that their child follows a strict diet, such as skimmed milk and low-fat foods," says its chief executive Purnima Tanuku.

"Children under five have specific needs, and should not have low-fat diets as their growing bodies need fat and carbohydrates." Indeed the low-calorie, high-fibre diets which many adults have been encouraged to embrace are simply not suitable for the under fives.

No skimming

Growing rapidly, this age-group needs a diet which is - proportional to their size - much higher in calories than that of an adult. Studies have shown that children burn fat much faster than adults - and so skimmed milk and other low-fat dairy products should remain off the menu until they are much older. "And parents really shouldn't feel too anxious about puddings - sponge and custard is a good dessert to offer, surprising as that may sound," says Jessica Williams, a paediatric dietician. "This is a much better option than a handful of biscuits between meals.

"There have also been problems with the messages about red meat. It's a shame some parents feel so worried about it as it really is the best source of iron, and iron deficiency anaemia among toddlers in particular is common." Wholegrains and high-fibre dishes are fine in moderation but may fill a child up without providing the calories they need. Seen by some as a nutritional wasteland, easily-digestible white bread is not necessarily a bad option for children, particularly if they have eaten a wholegrain cereal for breakfast.

"And while the five-a-day message must certainly still be there, a child's portion does need to be smaller so they have room for the other, more substantial items on their plates. They simply won't get the calories they need from fruit and vegetables, even in large quantities."

Needing attention

There are in fact concerns that the plight of the underweight child has been forgotten amid the intense focus on childhood obesity. Studies have shown that being persistently underweight as a child can cause problems over a lifetime, from cognitive impairment to skeletal disorders. There have been calls for public health policy makers to consider both ends of the body mass spectrum when fixing priorities in child health.

©BBC Health News – Wednesday, 14th April 2010

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8620231.stm

Sensible drinking can substantially reduce your risk of a stroke, but only if you don't enjoy a cigarette at the same time, research suggests. A study of over 20,000 people in the UK found non-smokers who drank moderate amounts were nearly 40% less likely to have a stroke than non-drinkers. But once cigarettes were added, this protective effect vanished.

The findings are being presented at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Toronto. The study, led by Cambridge University, looked at 22,254 people over 12 years. There were nearly 900 strokes. People who stayed within moderate drinking guidelines - one or two small glasses of wine a day for a woman and slightly more for a man - saw a 37% decrease in their risk of stroke.

But this was only true if they did not smoke, with smoking drinkers and smoking non-drinkers seeing similar levels of risk. "Our findings could have public health implications in that we appear to have a clearer understand of the dangers of combing smoking and moderate drinking on overall stroke risk," according to lead researcher Yangmei Li.

Smoking trouble

Large quantities of alcohol are known to increase the chance of a stroke by raising blood pressure, a key risk factor. But alcohol does thin the blood, so can prevent clots forming. It may also affect the way cholesterol is carried in the bloodstream, reducing the risk of the build-up of fatty deposits in the blood vessel walls. Smoking, however, causes the arteries to fur up, making the blood more likely to clot. This increases the risk of a stroke.

The study suggests that alcohol does not prevent this process that smoking kicks off. "The links between smoking and stroke are clear - 10% of stroke deaths and a quarter of all strokes are linked to smoking. So giving up smoking is a vital step in reducing your risk of stroke," says Joe Korner of The Stroke Association.

"It is also important to note that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol does not protect against haemorrhagic strokes - those caused by a bleed, and in some cases it may in fact increase the risk. And we know that drinking more than the recommended alcohol limit increases your risk of all types of stroke."

© BBC Health News – Tuesday, 13th April 2010

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8617510.stm

 Women who eat diets heavy in certain carbohydrates may be at greater risk of coronary heart disease, according to researchers. A study of over 47,000 Italian adults found that women alone whose diets contained a lot of bread, pizza and rice doubled their heart disease risk. These foods have a high glycaemic index (GI), meaning they release energy and raise blood sugar quickly.
The findings are published in Archives of Internal Medicine. The experts say much more research is needed to understand why these high GI foods, rather than carbohydrates per se, appear to pose a risk - and why the risk applies to women and not men. Low GI carbohydrates, such as pasta, which release energy and raise blood sugar far slower, showed no such link with heart disease.

Glycaemic index

The doctors who produced the report studied 15,171 men and 32,578 women who completed dietary questionnaires over many years. This allowed the researchers to calculate overall carbohydrate intakes as well as the average glycaemic index of the foods eaten and the glycaemic loads of the diets. The glycaemic index (GI) is a measure of how much a food raises blood glucose levels compared with the same amount of glucose or white bread. The glycaemic load is calculated based on the glycaemic index of a given food and also on the total amount of carbohydrates it contains.

After seven years, 463 participants had developed coronary heart disease. The researchers found that the women whose diet had the highest glycaemic load had more than double the risk of heart disease compared with those women with the lowest glycaemic load. The authors concluded: "Thus, a high consumption of carbohydrates from high-glycaemic index foods, rather than the overall quantity of carbohydrates consumed, appears to influence the risk of developing coronary heart disease." The researchers believe that a high-glycaemic diet may dampen 'good' cholesterol levels in women more than in men. But further research is needed to verify the absence of a link between high-glucose foods and cardiovascular disease in men, says the study.

Victoria Taylor, senior heart health dietician at the The British Heart Foundation, said that for women, choosing lower GI foods could be useful in helping them to reduce their risk of coronary heart disease. She said: "They could try broadening the types of bread and cereals they eat to include granary, rye or oat; including more beans, pulses; and accompanying meals with a good helping of fruit and vegetables."

© BBC Health News – Monday, 12th April 2010

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8615537.stm

The foods we choose to eat may determine our risk of dementia, mounting evidence suggests. Latest work in Archives of Neurology shows sticking to a diet rich in nuts, fish and vegetables significantly cuts the chance of developing Alzheimer's. A "Mediterranean diet" containing plenty of fresh produce and less high-fat dairy and red meat has long been thought to improve general health. Experts believe it is a combination of nutrients in foods that is important. But they stressed that diet was not the sole cause or solution where dementia is concerned.

Good combinations

Dr Yian Gu and colleagues at Columbia University Medical Centre in the US studied the diets of 2,148 retirement-age adults living in New York. Over the four years of the study, 253 of these older adults developed Alzheimer's disease. When the researchers scrutinised the diets of all of the individuals in the study, a pattern emerged. Adults whose diets included more salad dressing, nuts, fish, poultry, fruits and green leafy vegetables, and less high-fat dairy, red meat and butter, were far less likely to develop dementia.

But it is the varying levels of specific nutrients that these food combinations offer that is important, say the researchers. Diets rich in omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, vitamin E and folate but low in saturated fat and vitamin B12 appear to be best. Experts have long suspected that nutrients might modify dementia risk. Folate reduces circulating levels of the blood amino acid homocysteine which has been linked to Alzheimer's. Similarly, vitamin E might be protective via its strong antioxidant effect, while monosaturated and saturated fatty acids could increase dementia risk by encouraging blood clot formation, say the researchers.

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "Understanding the connection between diet and dementia risk may help prevent the development of diseases like Alzheimer's for some people. Adapting our lifestyles as we get older - by exercising regularly, watching what we eat and maintaining an active social life - can reduce dementia risk. Unfortunately, no diet or lifestyle factor can eliminate dementia risk entirely." With 35 million people worldwide living with dementia, she said it
was important to focus efforts on research to develop new treatments.

© BBC Health News – Monday, 12th April 2010

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8615456.stm

Maternal deaths have fallen worldwide, from about half a million a year in 1980 to less than 350,000 in 2008, according to new data. Countries such as China are making significant progress but there have been surprising increases in others, including the US, say researchers. UK deaths are very low, but have not fallen in the past 20 years, the study, published in the Lancet, found. Making childbirth safe for all women has long been an international goal, but progress in some countries has been slow. In the latest study, a team led by the University of Washington in Seattle, looked at data from thousands of observations of maternal deaths for 181 countries between 1980 and 2008. They estimated there were 342,900 maternal deaths worldwide in 2008, down from 526,300 in 1980.

More than half of all maternal deaths were in only six countries in 2008 - India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But some countries - including China, Egypt, Ecuador and Bolivia - had made significant progress towards achieving international goals on maternal mortality.
Lead author Dr Christopher Murray said: "There are still too many mothers dying worldwide, but now we have a greater reason for optimism than has generally been perceived." He said finding out why a country such as Egypt has had "such enormous success in driving down the number of women dying from pregnancy-related causes could enable us to export that success to countries that have been lagging behind".

Mixed progress

The picture in high-income countries is less clear. One of the most surprising findings was an increase in the number of expectant mothers dying in the US, from 12 in every 100,000 live births in 1990, to 17 in 2008. The authors say the trend can be explained in part by changes in the way maternal deaths are recorded in the US.
In the UK, maternal mortality rates fell between 1980 and 1990, and then levelled off - which reflects the trend in most western European countries. The rate per 100,000 live births in the UK is eight, with Germany and Spain at seven, and France at 10.

Commenting on the statistics, Cathy Warwick, General Secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said it was clear that around the world needless deaths can be avoided. But she expressed concern that the UK rate - although very low - is not falling. She added: "It is possible that this is due to increasing levels of ill health amongst pregnant women and possibly to greater numbers of older women giving birth."

Lancet editor Dr Richard Horton said there was a dramatic difference between the latest estimates and those last reported by the UN. He added: "Two decades of concerted campaigning by those dedicated to maternal health is working. "Even greater investment in that work is likely to deliver even greater benefits. Women have long delivered for society, and, slowly, society is at last delivering for women. This is a moment to celebrate - and accelerate."

© BBC Health News – Monday, 12th April 2010

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8616250.stm