Diabetes UK Careline Scotland Launched
Diabetes UK has extended its the horn Careline putting into play to a new base in Glasgow.
This is to meet the growing need for word as in any case increasing numbers of people are diagnosed with diabetes in Scotland.
The new service has been developed to safeguard a overhaul that is more wide-awake to the needs of people living with diabetes in Scotland.
Calls from Scotland answered in Scotland
Using the despite the fact phone crowd as Diabetes UK Careline - 0845 120 2960 - calls originating in Scotland drive be answered by qualified counsellors based in Diabetes UK Scotland’s Glasgow office.
Careline Scotland is staffed by fully qualified counsellors who partake of a high level of diabetes learning and have access to broad and up-to-fashionable information. The telephone counsellors are also supported by Diabetes UK’s expert study report and be attracted to teams.
How to acquaintance Careline Scotland
By phone, email, post and in other languages
Careline Scotland’s local rate, 0845 telephone covey - 0845 120 2960 - is open between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday, and has a recorded out-of-hours service. The counsellors respond to email and postal enquiries too. Interpretation services are also on deal out to respond to callers by covering 150 different languages.
Answering a strong need
“Research conducted by Diabetes UK Scotland has shown that there is a strong need for more bumf on all aspects of diabetes, available on an on-going basis, and since long way better access to emotional support,” said Careline Counsellor-at-law, Morag Ramsay.
“Through Careline Scotland we aim to provide information and ardent in to help people living with diabetes, their families and carers learn more about the condition and how to manipulate it.”
http://www.diabetes.org.uk
Missouri Senate Votes To Move Medicaid Beneficiaries Into Managed Care Programs
The Missouri Senate on Wednesday voted to approve legislation (SB 577) that would create by 2013 a managed care health protection program called HealthNet to put in place of the state’s Medicaid program, the Kansas City Star reports. The bill would move the state’s more than 800,000 Medicaid beneficiaries into one of three groups. In the win initially arrange, which would be used mostly in urban areas with tons providers and patients, medical providers would receive a per-lenient recompense. In the second group, Medicaid would pay providers a charge as a replacement for each service rendered to patients and would be hardened mostly in sylvan areas. The final group would include patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes. Under the legislation, each beneficiary would be assigned a rudimentary responsibility physician and a healthiness care advocate, who would feat with patients to expand plans of care and to make healthful lifestyle choices. HealthNet would provide monetary incentives to physicians and hospitals that provide quality care and bonuses to patients who have healthy lifestyles. In withal, the note would spurn asseverate and matching federal funds to take under one’s wing subsidies for vigorousness insurance premiums to state residents with annual incomes up to 200% of the federal insolvency level. Nation Sen. Charlie Shields (R), who designed HealthNet, said the plan would improve the health of lower-takings state residents while helping the working poor afford health bond premiums. Missouri Democrats criticized the plan benefit of not expanding eligibility and in favour of not restoring some benefits such as dental coverage, readily obtainable before cuts were made to Medicaid in 2005 (Wagar, Kansas City Star, 4/12).
Small Businesses
In related news, the Missouri House on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a bill (HB 818) that would allow businesses with fewer than 50 employees and their workers to pay health insurance premiums with pre-tax dollars, the Star reports. The bill would permit small companies to control health costs by allowing them to set a dollar amount per worker rather than a percentage, according to state Rep. Doug Ervin (R). It also would allow workers to keep the policies if they change employers. In addition, the plan eases enrollment requirements for the state’s high-risk insurance pool and sets the maximum price of a high-risk policy at 135% of the market price for a similar policy for a healthy person, as compared to its current level of 170%. The bill also would allow about 6,000 state residents who are unemployed because of changes in free-trade laws to save money on health insurance. Critics said the bill “might help a few fragments of various markets but [would] do little to help employers afford health insurance,” the Star reports (Wagar, Kansas City Star, 4/11).
“Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
Tiny injected gel particles to help chronic lower back pain
Scientists at The University of Manchester believe injections of tiny sponge-like particles could provide an alternative to major surgery in the treatment of chronic lower back exertion.
Dr Brian Saunders from The School of Materials and Professor Tony Freemont from The Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences have developed tiny gel particles that swell and stiffen when injected into a damaged area.
Investigations have revealed that degenerated animal intervertebral discs containing the injected ‘microgels’ regain their mechanical properties.
This development opens up the possibility of human patients being able to regain full mobility and flexibility after receiving spinal injections.
This would compare favourably with spinal fusion - a major surgical procedure with considerable recovery time for the patient, resulting in a significant loss of mobility at the fused and adjacent discs.
Degeneration of intervertebral discs causes holes in the load-bearing tissue of the disc, decreasing disc height and resulting in pain.
The microgel particles the research team have developed are like ’smart sponges’ when dispersed in water.
The material is a fluid at a low pH - in other words, a low level of acidity - and can be injected through a syringe. It changes to a stiff gel at physiological pH values - that is, once it enters the body - due to absorption of water by the particles.
During their investigations, the research team injected the material into a damaged bovine intervertebral disc and increased the pH to biological levels by injecting an alkaline solution.
Professor Freemont, who works in the Division of Regenerative Medicine in the School of Medicine, said: “This research was motivated by the urgent need for a non-surgical method for repairing intervertebral discs.
“Our approach has the advantage of restoring spinal mobility whereas spinal fusion surgery results in a significant loss of mobility at the fused and adjacent discs.”
Dr Saunders said: “Although we are encouraged by our findings, much work lies ahead to develop a viable non-surgical repair technology to replace spinal fusion as the standard surgical treatment for chronic lower back pain.”
He added that future work will investigate biodegradable microgels that release additives to stimulate regeneration of intervertebral disc tissue.
The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and The University of Manchester Intellectual Property Ltd (UMIP).
Dr Saunders and Professor Freemont recently reported their findings in the online journal Soft Matter. They now hope to secure extra funding with a view to conducting clinical trials.
http://www.manchester.ac.uk
Mutation In Brain Cells Of Descendants Of Abraham Lincoln Suggest He Suffered From Movement Disorder
Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota have discovered a gene change in the descendants of Abraham Lincoln’s grandparents that suggests the Proper Take up arms president himself might have also suffered from a disease that destroys nerve cells in the cerebellum– the release of the brain that controls movement. A divulge on this discovery resolution appear in the February print broadcasting of Description Genetics.
The joint finding of the SCA5 mutation comes ended a decade after initial chance-taking that Lincoln might take suffered from Marfan illness. People with this inherited brawl are oft preposterous and thin and can commonly have slender, tapering fingers. The rapport of the Marfan gene at Hopkins (Nature 352, 279-81 [1991]) sparked debate concerning testing of President Lincoln’s DNA to determine whether his tall stature could have been caused by that disease.
The tip discovery in Lincoln’s descendants of the gene that causes a migration disorder called spinocerebellar ataxia type 5 (SCA5), in whatever way, appears to offer much stronger evidence that the years president himself might have had SCA5, according to Jeffrey D. Rothstein, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of neurology and neuroscience and frailty chairman for research in the Department of Neurology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. SCAs are neurodegenerative disorders that precipitate extinction of coordination of limbs and eye movements, slurred speech and swallowing difficulties.
“Determining President Lincoln’s eminence relative to SCA5 would be of historical benefit and would increase public awareness of ataxia and neurodegenerative infirmity,” Rothstein said. The judgement also has wider implications because similar mutations might also be associated with other neurodegenerative diseases, the Hopkins researcher said.
The researchers discovered that SCA5 is caused by a transfiguring of the ¥â-III spectrin gene SPTBN2, which disrupts the talent of undoubted nerves in the cerebellum to respond normally to incoming chemical signals. Eventually, these nerves — called Purkinje cells — corrupted, and the personally loses fine conduct of the hasten and arm muscles. This would explain authentic descriptions of Lincoln’s uneven gait — an primitive take on board of ataxia — according to the researchers. Ataxia is an ineptness to coordinate muscle activity in the arms and legs.
“The discovery by the team of the SCA5 mutations in 90 of 299 descendants of Lincoln could enable us to substantiate whether Lincoln himself carried the evolving by studying genetic cloth obtained from artifacts containing his DNA,” said Rothstein, a co-author of the Category Genetics scratch paper.
The researchers found the mutation in all 90 affected individuals (ages 7 to 80 at linger of exam) and in 35 descendants of Lincoln who had not further started to show symptoms of SCA5 (ages 13 to 67 at time of exam), he said. The combine also found two other types of mutations in ¥â-III spectrin 2 in a French and German family, respectively. The mutations found in the American, French and German families each affected a different part of the SPTBN2 gene, and then knocked out a different generally of the ¥â-III spectrin protein.
The mutation of the SPTBN2 gene disrupts the normal figure of ¥â-III spectrin, a protein that is pitch to the own functioning of Purkinje cells, according to Rothstein, who cloned the protein in 2001 and first described its situation in the understanding. Specifically, ¥â-III spectrin helps to glue another protein, called “glutamate transporter EAAT4,” into the membrane of the Purkinje stall.
In the stylish study, the investigators showed in isolated cells that EAAT4 tends to migrate promptly through the membrane of Purkinje cells. This swing disrupts the ability of the presumptuousness-signaling chemical glutamate to bind with EAAT4, Rothstein said. “The loss of the ability of ¥â-III spectrin to anchor EAAT4 in place so it can respond to glutamate could while away to signaling abnormalities over beat,” said Rothstein. “And over time, that could cause Purkinje cell death and lead to the symptoms of SCA5.”
A further burden of these findings is that SCA5 mutations could affect the complex decline of proteins in other nerve cells, the researchers said. Specifically, the spectrin’s interaction with a molecular “motor” that shuttles proteins through the cell suggests that mutated forms of this protein would disrupt this critical ceremony.
The motor, which transfers proteins along cellular highways called microtubules, as well as glutamate transporters are implicated in a to the utmost range of processes that are level to proper functioning of nerves, Rothstein distinguished. Disruption of the motor appears to occur in several neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), he added. ALS is a preordained disease involving the cells in the perception and spinal string that control muscles. Motor disruption also occurs in Huntington’s sickness (HD), a genetic disorder that causes degeneration of brain cells in absolute areas of the perceptiveness, resulting in frantic movements, loss of genius abilities and emotional disturbance. In withal, disruption of protein transport through the long arms of nerves called axons occurs in Alzheimer’s infection, he added.
“The results of our jobless and that of other researchers suggest that precise albeit out of the ordinary ¥â-III spectrin mutations disturb contrastive cellular processes, all of these multifarious disruptions later cause the obliteration of a particular brain cell,” he said. “So further studies of SCA5 intent likely forearm insight into molecular mechanisms undistinguished to SCA5 and other neurodegenerative diseases. In new years we force discovered drugs that can soften the glutamate transporter and its gene, and that scrutinize could someday be advantageous in return treating patients with spinocerebellar ataxia.”
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Article adapted by Medical Dirt Today from original press release.
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The paper’s senior author is Laura Ranum, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota. Other authors of this study cover Yoshio Ikeda, Katherine A. Dick, Marcy R. Weatherspoon, Karen R. Armbrust, Joline C. Dalton, H. Brent Clark, and John W. Day (University of Minnesota); Dan Gincel (Johns Hopkins); Giovanni Stevanin, Alexandra D¡§©örr, Alexis Brice (Salpetriere Hospital, Paris, France); Christine Z¡§©öhlke (University of L¡§©öbeck, Germany); Katrin B¡§©örk (University of T¡§©öbingen, Germany); and Lawrence J. Schut (Centra-Safe keeping Clinic, St. Cloud, Minnesota).
This work was funded in release by the Programme Hospitalier de Recherche Clinique, the Verum Raison d’etre, the European Community (EUROSCA integrated project), the National Ataxia Inauguration, the Bob Allison Ataxia Research Center, the Minnesota Medical Creation, and the Jingoistic Institutes of Health.
Contact: Eric Vohr
evohr1@jhmi.edu
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Insurance Denies Life-Saving Surgery, Calling It “Cosmetic”
“Aetna healthiness surety has denied me coverage to handle a disconnected jawbone and too little airway, which is called mandible/maxillary hypoplasia,” explains Karen George of Woodbridge, Virginia. “Aetna stated they see no necessity to save surgery except for cosmetic reasons notwithstanding the incident that I have medical difficulties letters from six different doctors.”
“A physician, who is a renowned specialist in this field, pleaded with Aetna stating that my accustom is life-portentous unpaid to a inadequate airway. I am in outre pain, take continually doses of Klonopin, Flexeril, and Lortab, but still Aetna has denied me coverage.”
“The specialist stated that his proposed surgeries would drastically improve my quality of mortal and level of pain. Without them, I have had to suffer sedation procedures to manipulate my jaw and remove accumulation growing in jail the disconnected jawbone. This intention continue unless I force the surgery.”
“I attempted to get help from the Virginia’s Subsection of Insurance, who well-versed me that by law my surgery has to be covered; a self-insured plan with Aetna is exempt from abiding by asseverate and federal laws.”
“This insurance denial has not purely caused monetary hardship on my family, but my dentist has put all my dental work on hold because I am impotent to open my jaw more than 12 millimeters. I now risk the loss of all of my root canal teeth, I can’t have dental cleanings, and my orthodontist can go no assist in correcting my inappropriate mal-occlusion.”
Read stories like this every era by way of Voting Day at: http://www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org
Sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee
Eighty-two percent of Americans think the U.S. healthcare practice should be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt (Commonwealth Fund, Aug. 7, 2008). America’s nurses distinguish that only segregate-payer, improved and expanded Medicare for all settle upon set up our intermittent organization and the tragedy of our devastated families. HR 676, by U.S. Rep John Conyers, is the most broad, rate effective way to achieve guaranteed healthcare in return all.
Guaranteed Healthcare
Discovery Suggesst Cancer Studies Could Advance In Drosophila
An enzyme found at elevated levels in several human cancers has been linked to abnormal tumor growth in fruit flies, a discovery that provides a new imitation for understanding the connection between stem cell biology and cancer, according to researchers at the University of Oregon.
Using fluorescent staining and laser-scanning microscopy, the eight-member enquiry team forced various mutations in a gene called aurora-A to inspect how changes in protein sensitivity affected the ability of Drosophila neuroblasts, a kind of neural stem apartment, to maintain their stem cell character without forming tumors.
Reporting in the Dec. 20 difficulty of the journal Genes & Development, Chris Doe and colleagues exhaustively how an overproduction of renewed neuroblasts in the flies can be traced to misregulation by the aurora-A kinase. This enzyme included normal conditions appears to be deprecatory as a traffic cop for various proteins during mitosis in neuroblasts, they concluded.
“In humans, there has been a lot of meditation that perhaps stem chamber populations are at the sincerity of many cancers,” said Ryan O. Andersen, a doctoral student in Doe’s lab. “The numbers are off drastically. Instead of properly dividing, they are overproducing more stem cells rather than maintaining a uniform people. This loss of code leads to tumors populated with these overproduced cells.”
Andersen and Cheng-Yu Lee, a postdoctoral fellow, were lead authors on the paper. Doe, a Howard Hughes Medical Start investigator, is a professor of biology in the UO Inaugurate of Neuroscience and Institute of Molecular Biology.
In Drosophila, Doe’s team originate that a change in aurora-A, an evolutionary conserved gene in fruit flies and humans, results in two distinguishing problems: Proteins (Numb) involved in the differentiation into neurons and neuroblast self-renewal (aPKC) are not sorted to their proper sides of the cell, and the mitotic spindle that provides cortical polarity becomes misaligned. The aftermath of splitting leads to new cells with out of place proteins mixes, including an overproduction — in this case 10 times more than normal — of new neuroblasts that lead to tumors in the brain.
“We conclude that the aurora-A kinase is required to coordinate the position of proteins within the neuroblasts,” Doe said. “When it is absent, too little neuron-promoting proteins are delivered into the young neurons and they not at all lose their advance-cell nature. This leads to a stem-cell tumor in the chuck intellect.”
The team’s findings occur to catastrophe traditional intelligent that too much activation of aurora-A leads to tumors, including those in more than half of colorectal cancers. Rather than, Doe and colleagues argue that aurora-A and numb are tumor suppressants included normal conditions, and that a loss of aurora-A is what prompts overproduction of new neuroblasts and, thus, tumor evolvement.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Co-authors with Lee, Andersen and Doe were Clemens Cabernard (postdoctoral researcher), Laurina J. Manning (research assistant), Khoa D. Tran (doctoral student) and Marcus J. Lanskey (doctoral student), all of the UO Institutes of Neuroscience and Molecular Biology, and Arash Bashirullah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah School of Cure-all. Commencement co-author Lee is now at the Center due to the fact that Stem Cell Biology at the University of Michigan.
Lee was funded by a Damon Runyon post-doctoral clan and a Career Furnish in Biomedical Investigate from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Bashirullah worked under a grant from the Civil Institutes of Health, and Doe was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Source: Chris Doe, professor of biology
Association: Jim Barlow
University of Oregon
Studies Examine Ways To Curb Nonemergency Care In EDs, Risks Of Individual Health Insurance
“Safety Net Dispensary Emergency Departments: Creating Safety Valves notwithstanding Non-Urgent Grief,” Center for Studying Strength Plan Transmute: According to the brief, medical centre emergency departments are treating more patients, including those with non-urgent health needs, and safety lattice-work hospitals are looking for ways to meet those non-urgent needs more efficiently. The brief finds that a combination of approaches could help suppress ED use for nonurgent heed, including expansion of community condition centers and community and fettle clinics, as well as strategies to improve their accessibility. Aligning hours of operation and available services centre of existing providers also could growing patients’ care options at lower costs, according to the brief (HSC release, 5/7).
“How Iffy Is Individual Health Insurance?” Healthfulness Affairs: The study, by Mark Pauly and Robert Lieberthal of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Train, finds that insured people in fair or low-grade health are less likely to ditch or lose coverage entirely if they have individual coverage rather than cheap-group coverage. It also states that workers with relatively unlucky health and small-crowd coverage who became unemployed were considerably more fitting to become uninsured than their counterparts with individual coverage. People with either humongous- or small-group insurance, however, were less favourite to become uninsured than those covered through the characteristic market, the library says (Health Affairs release, 5/6).
“Planning for the Future — Long-Term Take charge of and the 2008 Election,” Advanced England Journal of Physic: In the perspective, David Stevenson, an pal around with professor of robustness policy at Harvard Medical Lyceum, discusses how the “candidates in the 2008 presidential race have been nearly silent about eat one’s heart out-term care policy,” despite the fact that desire-term care “has all the makings of a great campaign issue.” Stevenson also examines what elongated-term supervision look after issues should be addressed, including financing, routine-structure and whether the emphasis should be on public or sneakily programs (Stevenson, NEJM, 5/8).
Reprinted with kind authorization from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the in one piece Kaiser Daily Well-being Action Boom, search the archives, or sign up for email articulation at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Scheme Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a unchained service of The Henry J. Kaiser Progeny Foundation.
© 2008 Hortatory Live Business and Kaiser Family Underpinning. All rights antisocial.
South Korea Confirms H5N1 Bird Flu Outbreak
After an H5N1 bird flu outbreak was confirmed by South Korean authorities, 236,000 poultry will be slaughtered in Iksan, about 145 miles south of the capital, Seoul. A strict quarantine has been established around the immediate vicinity of the affected room.
Siren bells rang earlier on this week when 6,000 poultry suddenly died at a work the land in Iksan. Authorities culled all poultry and eggs in the farm and imposed a 10 km quarantine around the area.
The matrix obsolescent South Korea had a bird flu outbreak was almost three years ago, when over five million birds were slaughtered.
Japan has suspended the imports of poultry from South Korea. People arriving to Japan from South Korea today contain to have the soles of their shoes disinfected.
Scientists fear the H5N1 bird flu virus strain may mutate and become easily merciful transmissible. So far, it is difficult for humans to catch bird flu from birds, and even harder for infected people to infect others.
Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Reviser: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical Communication Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
Study reveals that signs of heart disease are attributed to stress more frequently in women than men
Research presented at the 20th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium, sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), found that coronary heart disease (CHD) symptoms presented in the context of a stressful life story things turned out were identified as psychogenic in pedigree when presented by women and organic in derivation when presented by men. The study could help explain why there is often a down in the assessment of women with compassion condition.
“We know that there is a delay in diagnosing CHD in women and this is an important step forward in understanding why,” said Alexandra J. Lansky, M.D., director of the Women’s Health Initiative at CRF, director of Clinical Services at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy, a cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, and an associate professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The investigation – “Gender Bias in the Diagnosis, Treatment, and Interpretation of CHD Symptoms: Two Experimental Studies with Internists and Family Physicians,” was led by Gabrielle R. Chiaramonte, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Clinical Fellow at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The study examined the effects of patients’ gender and the context of how CHD symptoms are presented (with/without mention of life stressors and anxiety) on primary care physicians’ patient evaluations.
“The selection of internists and family physicians was particularly relevant as they are generally the first medical professionals to assess patients’ symptoms and to make treatment recommendations. A greater understanding of factors contributing to gender bias in CHD assessment in this group would thus be especially meaningful,” said Dr. Chiarmonte.
The researchers hypothesized that the presence of life stressors/anxiety would shift the interpretation of women’s – but not men’s – CHD symptoms, so that these would be perceived to have a psychogenic etiology.
“The greater prevalence of anxiety disorders in women, along with the greater likelihood that women will discuss stressors with their physicians, and the overlap of CHD and anxiety symptoms, contribute to this shift in interpretation,” Dr. Chiaramonte said.
In the studies, 87 internists (Study 1) and 143 family physicians (Study 2) read a vignette of a 47-year-old male or a 56-year-old female (by age at equal risk for CHD) presenting a multitude of CHD symptoms and risk factors. Half the vignettes included sentences indicating the patient had recently experienced a life stressor and that they appeared anxious. Each physician read one version of the vignette and then specified a diagnosis, made treatment recommendations, and indicated the etiology of symptoms.
As the investigators predicted, results showed a gender bias when CHD symptoms were presented in the context of stress, with fewer women receiving CHD diagnoses (15% versus 56%), cardiologist referrals (30% versus 62%), and prescriptions of cardiac medication (13% versus 47%) than men. No evidence of a bias was observed when CHD symptoms were presented without the stress. Results also showed that the presence of stress shifted the interpretation of women’s chest pain, shortness of breath and irregular heart rate so that these were thought to have a psychogenic origin. By contrast, men’s symptoms were perceived as organic whether or not stressors were present.
Dr. Chiaramonte stated, “For women, the presence of stress or anxiety drives the interpretation of accompanying symptoms so that symptoms such as chest pain or shortness of breath undergo a ‘meaning shift’ when presented in the context of stress or anxiety and they are perceived as a manifestation of the stress or anxiety and not as CHD symptoms. For men, cardiac symptoms drive the interpretation of accompanying symptoms so that anxiety or stress is perceived (rightly so) as a risk factor for CHD and may in fact augment the CHD assessment. The presence of anxiety or stress in men does not deter from the CHD assessment; for women, it appears to preclude a CHD assessment.”
Dr. Chiaramonte warned that, “Given the overlap of CHD and anxiety symptoms (e.g., chest tightness common in both) and given the higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms or disorders in women, physicians need to be aware of gender differences in symptom presentation and they need to be especially careful to rule out CHD before considering an anxiety diagnosis. In the case of women, anxiety appears to have a pervasive influence on medical judgments regardless of the gender of the health care provider making the evaluations.”
Ronald Friend, Ph.D., co-investigator, Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University and Oregon Health & Sciences University, School of Nursing, added: “The assessment of women’s CHD is further complicated by evidence that women sometimes present with ‘atypical’ CHD symptoms and that chest pain, a hallmark symptom in men, is less common in women. We recently conducted an additional study with 142 family physicians examining the influence of stress on the assessment of patients presenting atypical CHD symptoms. Results showed a different dynamic in this case: Women were more likely than men to receive a GI rather than a CHD diagnosis regardless of the presence of stress; the addition of stress increased GI diagnoses in both men and women. Given that women are more likely to present with atypical symptoms (and stress), these preliminary results are cause for concern.”
Prior to conducting the two studies reported here, the researchers had tested their hypothesis with 99 first year medical students, 82 third and fourth year medical students, and 122 physician assistant students. The investigators were surprised to find nearly identical results whether the participants surveyed were first year medical students or experienced practicing family physicians and internists.
Dr. Chiaramonte concluded, “The consistent results observed with participants of varying clinical experience attest to the strength of the research and the pervasiveness of the effect. Our results suggest the need for the development of educational initiatives aimed at improving health care providers’ understanding of gender differences in symptom presentation.”
http://www.crf.org/
280 million pound package to transform the quality of school meals
Britain’s Tutoring Secretary Ruth Kelly today start down that schools should spend at least 50p per child on nutriment ingredients as she unveiled a £280 million package to transfigure the quality of school meals.
From September and over the next three years, schools and local education authorities will be supported in transforming school meals with healthy food, prepared fresh on the premises by trained school cooks, which would follow tough minimum nutrition standards underpinned by Ofsted inspection. The following elements will deliver a step change in school meals:
£220 million new funding grants direct to schools and local education authorities to ensure they can transform school meals, including a minimum spend on ingredients of 50p per pupil per day for all primary schools, and 60p per pupil per day for all secondary schools, as well as providing increased training and working hours for school cooks;
£60 million from the Big Lottery Fund and the Department for Education and Skills to enable a new School Food Trust to give independent support and advice to schools and parents to improve the standard of school meals;
tough minimum nutrition standards developed by an expert panel to be rolled out to primary and secondary schools from September 2005, and becoming mandatory from September 2006; the panel has been asked to strongly consider the use of nutrient-based standards and whether any individual foodstuffs should be banned;
proposals to enable parents to work with schools and the School Food Trust to improve the quality of their child’s school meal, with a dedicated ‘toolkit’ for parents to be published in May;
Ofsted to review the quality of school meals as part of regular school inspections from September, and to perform detailed inspections with nutritionists of the nutritional content of school food in a sample of schools in every local education authority.
From April, a new vocational qualification will be available for school caterers to help them promote healthy food, and ensure they are high status school cooks who are as integral to the whole-school team as teachers and classroom assistants. The Learning and Skills Council will also work with the School Food Trust to develop a ladder of qualifications to meet the skills needs of all kitchen staff, from the basics of hygiene and nutrition through to more specialist preparation and cooking.
New or upgraded school kitchen facilities where fresh produce can be prepared and served will be made a priority through the current school rebuilding and refurbishment programmes. The Government is investing £5.5bn in 2005-06 rising to £6.3bn in 2007-08 to improve secondary school buildings, and at least £1.8 billion to improve primary schools in 2007-08.
Ruth Kelly said:
“This £280 million package will make a real difference. Every school will now be able to spend a minimum of 50p per pupil on ingredients for school meals. This new investment will transform what is offered to children and teenagers in our schools so that high-quality healthy food is on every child’s plate.
“But it is not just about money for ingredients, it is also about ensuring schools have the expertise available. To help schools make the change, the new School Food Trust will give independent support and advice to schools and parents to improve the standard of school meals.
“And it is not just about banning what is unhealthy, it is also about promoting what is healthy. Tough minimum nutrition standards coupled with continued work to promote good health to young people in schools will help them understand the importance of eating a balanced diet.”
By July the Department for Education & Skills will publish more help for schools and local education authorities in drawing up catering contracts to source healthy school meals’ services and healthy food in vending machines, tuck shops, or breakfast clubs.
The Department of Health also launched today the Food in Schools toolkit to support, guide and inspire schools in taking a ‘whole-school’ approach to healthy eating and drinking including vending machines, breakfast clubs and after school cookery clubs. Developed following pilots in over 300 schools, the toolkit will be fully integrated into the Healthy Schools Programme and supports the Healthy Living Blueprint.
Health Secretary John Reid said:
“We have already made clear we are determined to see fast progress in this whole area, and tackle the problems of children eating junk foods and unhealthy foods with firm measures, which is why I welcome today’s announcement on school meals as part of the wider push to improve children’s diets.
“The introduction of nutrition based standards for healthier school meals will help us deliver our aim in the White Paper to reduce the amount of fat, salt and sugar in our children’s food and to increase fruit and vegetables and other essential nutrients.”
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/