MONDAY, MAY 14, 2012
H E A LT H & S C I E NC E
Germany to challenge EU rules on toxins in toys as too lax BERLIN: Germany is to challenge European Union toy safety rules in court, arguing that their thresholds for lead, arsenic and mercury are too lax, two government ministers in Berlin said last week. The new guidelines, which come into force in July next year, would mean that German toy-shops could sell products that are currently banned for fear that babies will ingest faint traces of
poison from paints and plastics if they put the toys in their mouths. Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner said Germany would entertain “no compromise” where the safety of its children was concerned. “They must ingest as little as possible,” she added. Economics Minister Philipp Roesler said Germany’s high standards had to be maintained. EU law allows decisions by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission,
to be challenged before the European Court of Justice. The challenge is to be filed next week, the ministers said. Commission spokesman Michael Jennings on Friday insisted that the EU measure “maintains the highest level of standards for toys.” He said the disagreement with Berlin comes down to “a matter of interpretation.” Faint traces of heavy metals show up in paints on toys or in plasticizers, chemical sub-
stances that give plastic its softness. Germany ’s I nstitute of R isk Assessment, which analyses risks using scientific tools for the government, said the EU guidelines would have the effect of sharply increasing permissible levels of the three substances as well as of antimony and barium. The EU rules are based on a pragmatic new principle known as “as low as reasonably achievable,” in place of
the previous regulatory principle used by Germany and the World Health Organization, of setting the “tolerable daily intake” for an individual consumer. Berlin had vainly asked the commission for a clearance to apply its own national limits on heavy metals in toys. Arsenic is believed to increase the risk of cancer, even in very tiny doses. Lead poisoning reduces a child’s intelligence. — dpa
Swimming good for body but important to change strokes Most prefer the breaststroke
ROME: Nuns hold a sign reading “Abortion is Violence” during an antiabortion march in Rome yesterday. A few thousand people opposed to Italy’s 1978 law allowing abortion have marched from the Colosseum to Castel Sant’Angelo, a landmark near the Vatican, in a protest drawing people from around the world, including Americans and Poles. — AP
How young people can set priorities in their lives MUNICH: Tests, relationships, hobbies, spor ts - young people of ten don’t know how to coordinate all their activities. Their first step has to be to find out what’s really important to them so that things that are a waste of time stay out of their daily routine. There are students whose schedules are so packed they have to find time to study, prepare presentations, go to sport, practice a musical instrument and, of course, meet friends all in the course of a week. When they start to feel like their schedules are bursting at the seams, young people can start to feel the negative effec t of the stress on their health. But there are a few tricks they can try to prevent things from going that far. “It is important for students to evaluate themselves and find out what in their lives please them the most,” said Germany-based stress researcher and neurobiologist professor Gerald Huether. Students should ask themselves what things they are developing a passion for and what their true talents are. These are questions that youths should ask themselves honestly and calmly if they start feeling overwhelmed. “You really have to sit down and quietly consider these questions,” Heuther said. Afterward you can start to set priorities and let the calendar clear on its own. “People who k now what they want are not overwhelmed by all the demands made on them.” Students also should think about their social lives, said Werner Tik i Kuestenmacher, an author and time management exper t in Germany. Kuestenmacher has spent years looking at the effects of stress on young people. “Youths have to understand what direction they want to take and who among their acquaintances are truly friends,” said Kuestenmacher. Young people often let themselves be influenced by people their own age who have completely different goals. This could dissuade the young person from his or her original goals and increase the pressure on them. Running from pressure and responsibilities is, of course, not always possible. When this is the case, students
should start by working on what they find least appealing, said Kuestenmacher. Rewards such as taking a leisurely stroll or going to the movies should only come for having fulfilled responsibilities. Or pleasant things can be combined with practical things - studying with a friend before going out to eat together or going to play football, for example. An ideal situation is when young people manage to develop a true interest for a school subject and follow that interest intently. Then they no longer perceive working on it as a burden. Holger Domsch, a school psychologist in Muenster, Germany, recommends using Post-It notes when students are under stress. “ The best approach is to write all responsibilities on small notes and stick them on the door of a cupboard. Whenever you have completed a task, throw the note into the wastepaper basket,” he said. This is a way of making the success of having completed a task visible and it helps prompt a feeling of being in control. It is exactly the feeling of losing control and not being able to accomplish everything that results in chronic stress. Stress is meant to be a positive reaction to a situation, said Domsch. It becomes problematic and unhealthy when it turns into a permanent condition. This makes finding sufficient time for spor t all the more impor tant. “People who exhaust themselves physically through spor t automatically reduces stress,” he said. Studying for the entire day and then going to the gym to sweat is not, however, an ideal mix. Variety and balance also are impor tant. Young people should therefore not ignore non-sport hobbies such as theatre, music or art courses. Kuestenmacher added that it is not recommended for young people to continue a hobby only because their parents want them to. This doesn’t mean that young people have to give up everything. Instead they can look for things that are related. A students who has played the trombone for five years and has no desire to continue should look around for a rock band where he can apply his talent, said Kuestenmacher. — dpa
JERSEY CITY: Bojana Coklyat and Omar Tzic at the Concordia Learning Center at St. Joseph’s School for the Blind in Jersey City, New Jersey April 23, 2012. The art class taught by artist Bojana Coklyat of Jersey City, who became a volunteer art teacher at Concordia after she started losing her eyesight from diabetes. — AFP
BERLIN: Most people learn how to swim as children, often in formal lessons ending with the issuance of a swimming certificate. As adults they jump pretty fearlessly into swimming pools and lakes. A lot of them swim incorrectly, however, putting undue strain on their body. “The big advantage of swimming is that it negates the force of gravity somewhat,” remarked Herbert Loellgen, president of the German Society for Sports Medicine and Prevention. “It therefore puts less strain on the joints compared with sports like jogging or tennis.” What is more, Loellgen said, swimming strengthens the cardiovascular system-particularly if you swim at least a few hundred metres at a stretch-and breathing deliberately while swimming can have a calming effect on the psyche. Many adults are aware of the benefits and regularly swim laps in indoor and outdoor pools. Most prefer the breaststroke. “It’s the most common stroke in Germany because it’s the first one we learn,” noted Andreas Bieder, a swimming expert at the German Sport University in Cologne. “But you often see people swimming it in an extremely vertical position”-like a duck, in other words, with the head always above water and the buttocks being pulled toward the water’s surface. “As a result, the neck is bent far backwards and the back of the cervical vertebrae (located in the neck) are strongly compressed, which strains them” and can cause tension, Bieder said. “Many people’s cervical vertebrae are already strained due to office and desk work, so it’s not good if they’re overstrained during swimming, too.” So it is better to regularly submerge the head when performing the breaststroke, Bieder advised. “You inhale above water and exhale underwater. The vertebrae are bent when you inhale, but extended when you exhale” - which relieves them considerably, he said. But as Beate Ludewig, an instructor for the German Swimming Federation, pointed out: “A lot of people are afraid to put their head underwater.” One reason is that they
have been swimming for years with their head above water, and another is that “it’s a human instinct not to go underwater.” These people can accustom themselves to submersion, though, for example in special adult courses, said Ludewig, or they can try to do it on their own. “You can practice at home in the bathtub by putting your face underwater - at first briefly and then for longer,” she said. Another option is to work on submersion straightaway in a pool. “You should practice at the pool’s edge and get used to the feeling of your head going underwater,” Ludewig advised. Once the person feels more confident exhaling underwater, he or she should practice swimming with the head moving into and out of the water. “You’ve got to take your time and practice gradually,” she said. According to Ludewig, it typically takes about 10 hours of practice to become comfortable with head submersion. “And if it takes someone 20 hours, it doesn’t matter,” she said.
“In any case, you shouldn’t be ashamed if you’re fearful.” Many people believe the backstroke is better for the back. “This hasn’t been scientifically proven but seems plausible” because the head is supported by the water so the neck muscles are not tensed, Bieder said. “It’s important to be truly relaxed, however, and not constantly worry about water sloshing across your face,” otherwise there’s a risk of tenseness. The front crawl is a bit different. “Here, too, you also exhale underwater and inhale above water, which takes a load off the spine,” Loellgen said. But there are disadvantages. Crawl swimmers are not suffered gladly in crowded pools lacking a designated lane for them. And a lot of people find this swimming stroke’s combination of arm and leg movements, and inhaling and exhaling, difficult to master. Loellgen offered the following tip: “It’s good to regularly change the stroke; that way you don’t overstrain any part of the body.” — dpa
Australia researchers halt MS in mice SYDNEY: Australian researchers working with mice have found a way to halt the progressive nerve damage that makes multiple sclerosis (MS) such a debilitating disease. Steven Petratos, leader of the Monash University team, said he was confident that clinical trials less than a decade away would show the therapy also worked in humans. Working with colleagues in the United States and Canada, the Melbourne team identified a protein, collapsin response mediator protein 2, or CRMP-2, that in MS patients is modified. They suspect CRMP-2 triggers nerve cell damage when it interacts with another specific protein in the brain, spinal cord or optic nerves. They managed to block both the modification of CRMP-2 and the
interaction. Using gene therapy to breed so-called block-out mice, they found nerve damage could be stopped. “What we did was to take that gene, make it resistant to damage, and reinsert it using a viral delivery mechanism into the nervous system,” he said. “What we found with those mice is that when we tried to induce the disease we didn’t see any nerve cell or nerve fibre damage.” The research, published in the latest issue of the journal Brain, was welcomed by Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia chief executive Jeremy Wright. “It’s one of the most exciting breakthroughs we’ve had,” Wright said. “It verifies what science says about the disease - that it’s about the immune system going a bit skew-whiff and not having the
genetic controls all in place.” Wright said the research helped explain how drugs now in use are working. Women are three time more likely than men to get MS, a disease thought to be caused by the immune system malfunctioning and launching attacks on the myelin cells around nerve endings. The drugs now in use attempt to weaken the whole immune system, and so weaken its attacks. The breakthrough flagged by Petratos offers a different approach. “This is the first treatment where we’re starting to get specific attacks on specific molecules,” Wright said. “ We’re blocking the attacks as opposed to trying to dampen the immune system, which means you’re not wasting the treatment on the rest of the immune system.” Petratos is buoyed by similar
research work he has done on Alzheimer’s, another neurological degenerative disease, and one where regulatory authorities have approved the gene therapy approach. Hospital patients in the US have been recruited for clinical trials on gene therapies to treat Alzheimer’s. Having approvals in the bag means clinical trials on MS patients could be less than 10 years away. “It’s the progressive form of MS that responds very poorly to conventional methods of treatment,” Petratos said. “If you have limited damage to nerve fibres (and get the course of injections he expects will form the therapy) you won’t end up getting progression. It’s the progression that makes you go from ambulant to being in a wheelchair.” —dpa
FDA delays rules to ease sunscreen confusion WASHINGTON: Sunscreen confusion won’t be over before summer after all. The government is bowing to industry requests for more time to make clear how much protection their lotions really offer. The Food and Drug Administration ordered changes to sunscreens last summer but gave their makers a year - until this June - to get revised bottles on the shelf. The changes aimed to finally distinguish which brands protected against both sunburn-causing ultraviolet B rays and the deeper-penetrating ultraviolet A linked to skin cancer and premature aging. They also couldn’t claim to be waterproof or sweatproof, only water- or sweat-resistant so that people know sunscreens have to be reapplied frequently. But sunscreen manufacturers said they were having a hard time meeting the deadline. And Friday, the FDA said it would give major sunscreen makers another six months to make the changes - until December, beyond sunbathing season in most of the country. Smaller companies will have even longer, until December 2013. “The FDA took a major step backwards today and as a result, more consumers will likely get burned this summer,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who had long urged the FDA to tighten its
regulation of sunscreens. The regulations had been in limbo for years. But FDA officials worried that holding companies to the original deadline might lead to a temporary shortage of some types of sunscreen this summer, spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said in an email. Still, the FDA said companies could go ahead and put the new relabeled bottles on store shelves as soon as they’re ready - and encouraged them not to waste time. There is a mix already in stores, as some companies have found it easier to re-label certain brands and bottles than others, said Farah Ahmed of the industry’s Personal Care Products Council. But neither she nor the FDA could estimate how many of the new consumer-friendly sunscreens have made it to the market so far. Ahmed, who chairs the council’s sunscreen task force, said sunscreens aren’t having to be reformulated as a result of new testing requirements from the FDA’s pending rules. The real problem was the time it takes to revise package labeling, especially on smaller packages that now will have to fit extra information about just what protection is offered, she said. So what should consumers look for today? You want protection against both UVA and UVB rays, explained Dr.
Joshua Zeichner, a dermatologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Once the new rules are in place, any sunscreen labeled “broad spectrum” will offer both, but until then, there’s no guarantee behind that wording. To check for UVA protection now, look on the ingredient list for any of these names: zinc, titanium, avobenzone or
ecamsule. Zeichner said. Once the new rules are in place, sunscreens with less than an SPF of 15 or that aren’t “broad spectrum” will have to carry a warning label: “This product has been shown only to help prevent sunburn, not skin cancer or early skin aging.” Zeichner advises using a sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher. — AP
LONDON: A woman looks at a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) showing the effect of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Kant’s 3rd Critique on the human brain during the Wellcome Collection’s major new exhibition “Brains: Mind of matter” in London. — AFP