Health and Fitness for Tuesday January 4, 2011

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Exercise drops risk of colon cancer death ST. LOUIS (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say there is yet another reason to exercise -- a lower risk of dying from colon cancer. Kathleen Wolin of the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis says people often wonder around the start of a new year whether exercise really will help them stay healthy. "It's never too late to start exercising," Wolin says in a statement, "but it's also never too early to start being active." The researchers studied more than 150,000 men and women -- looking at their levels of physical activity from 1982 to 1997, the number of colon cancer diagnoses between 1998 and 2005, and the number of colon cancer deaths during that time. Wolin and colleagues found those who exercised consistently for at least 10 years had the lowest risk of colon cancer death. The study is published in Cancer Epidemiology found people who were consistently active over the course of their adulthood had a lower risk of death from colon cancer than those who were sedentary. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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New Zealand: No treatment for some cancers WELLINGTON, New Zealand (UPI) -- New Zealand says a shortage of oncologists mean patients with certain kinds of cancers will not be referred to specialists or be eligible for chemotherapy. Hospitals in the central North Island have been instructed not to send people suffering a range of 14 cancers to oncologists, the Wellington Dominion Post reported Monday. MidCentral District Health Board says it does not have enough oncologists, and doctors at local hospitals should not refer patients suffering particular cancers "unless there are active relevant clinical trials or overriding individual circumstance," it said in a letter to physicians. Patients suffering relapses of some cancers, including cervical and esophagus, are on the list, as are those with melanoma. "Of course, in a perfect world people would be able to get the very best of everything, but if we have to have a list, this is a good list," Cancer Society chief executive Dalton Kelly said. Making the list public was a step toward identifying where real treatment shortages were and where in the country there was spare treatment capacity, he said. "It might not be what we want to hear, but it is honest ... . It is good to know they will not be hiding patients on waiting lists," he said. The letter, though not confidential, had been intended for clinicians, not the general public, MidCentral operations director Nicholas Glubb said. Peter Foley, Hawke's Bay District Health Board chief medical officer of primary care, said it was time to be "open and honest" with patients who would not benefit from intensive treatment. "Understandably, people diagnosed with cancer want to see the top man, the oncologist, but they can't see everyone," he said. "When we are patients we have ... to trust the people looking after us. When a GP tells us an oncologist can't help us, we're going to have to trust him." Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Pediatricians, appendix ruptures linked BALTIMORE (UPI) -- Areas with fewer pediatricians have higher rates of appendix ruptures in children, U.S. researchers say. Dr. Fizan Abdullah of The Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore factored in the availability of hospitals, emergency room doctors, surgeons, imaging services and insurance coverage. The statistical analysis also accounted for age, gender, household income and race. The number of area doctors specializing in child care was more important than any other factor. "Our analysis shows that the most potent predictor of outcome in children with appendicitis was the number of pediatricians available in an area, emphasizing the pivotal role they play as the point of first contact in the care of a sick child," Abdullah, the lead investigator for the study, said in a statement. The study, published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association -- Archives of Surgery, found the ruptured appendix rate was 12 percent higher in geographical areas with fewest pediatricians versus areas with most pediatricians. Hospitalization due to perforated appendix was twice as long as hospitalization for uncomplicated appendicitis, doubling the cost of care -- from $10,385 to $20,581, on average. Abdullah and colleagues looked at 241,301children -- 77,097 of whom had a diagnosis of a ruptured appendix. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Patients should be told of sleepy doctors NEW YORK (UPI) -- An editorial in a U.S. journal argues that patients should have notice that their physician may be sleep-deprived. First author Dr. Michael Nurok, an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician at Hospital for Special Surgery, says in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, studies show sleep deprivation impairs psychomotor performance as severely as drinking alcohol. A study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed an increase in the risk of complications in patients who underwent elective daytime surgical procedures performed by attending surgeons who had less than a 6-hour opportunity for sleep during a previous on-call night. People who are sleep-deprived are often unable to assess accurately their degree of self-impairment, Nurok says. "Sleep deprivation affects clinical performance. It increases the risks of complications. And it is clear from survey data that patients would want to be informed if their physician was sleep deprived and that most patients would request a different provider," Nurok says in a statement. "We think that institutions have a responsibility to minimize the chances that patients are going to be cared for by sleep-deprived clinicians." Copyright 2010 by United Press International
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Submit Your Baby Photos! It's a new year -- and a new chance to show off your favorite baby photos! Join the readers already submitting their pictures to the ArcaMax Baby Photo Gallery. Send the link to your friends and family and encourage them to vote to make your photo the most popular for the month! Visit the Baby Photo Gallery. Subscribe to ArcaMax Parents instantly for more reader photos, parenting tips, and more. Find out more before subscribing. -- From the ArcaMax editors
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