UPFRONT EHM US9:25 June
19/11/09
11:35
Page 25
UPFRONT 25
FAST FACT
There are approximately
350,000 people in the US with multiple sclerosis
OBESITY LINKED WITH MS A study by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health has found that being obese as a teenager may be linked with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis as an adult. The researchers used data from nurses taking part in a large study on diet, lifestyle factors and health. A 40-year study of 238,000 women found that those who were obese at 18 had twice the risk of developing MS compared to women who were slimmer at that age. Yet body size during childhood or adulthood was not found to be associated with MS risk, the US researchers report in Neurology. Over the length of the study, 593 women were diagnosed with
MS, a condition caused by the loss of nerve fibres and their protective myelin sheath in the brain and spinal cord, which causes neurological damage. The researchers compared the risk of the disease with body mass index (BMI) – a ratio of weight to height – at age 18. Those participating were also asked to describe their body size, at the age of five, 10 and 20, using a series of diagrams. The study showed that those with an ‘obese’ BMI of 30 or larger at age 18 had more than twice the risk of developing MS. There was also a smaller increased risk in those who were classed as overweight. The results were also the same after accounting for smoking status and physical activity level.
FROM THE VAULT In Q1 2009 of EHM, NANCY BROWN, CEO of the American Heart Association, explains her excitement at becoming the first female CEO at the organization, and the responsibility in educating the people of America to change their lifestyles. Go to www.executivehm.com to browse ‘Past issues’ and click on Issue 7, March 2009 and read of Brown’s call for a new healthcare model, “a focus on prevention and finding a way to make our healthcare system economically viable.”
VACCINE SHORTAGE Despite the fact the regular flu season the New York Times reports. has yet to start, the nation is already Although the nation is experifacing a severe shortage of seasonal encing this shortage, it does not flu vaccine. This comes at mean there will be an the same time as a increase in seasonal shortage of the swine flu deaths – Seasonal flu vaccine. which average flu deaths average Federal offiabout 36,000 about cials and indepenper year. The dent flu experts same amount of per year have said the situavaccine was made tion was unavoidable, this year as it was given that the global swine last, so there is no reason flu pandemic had raised demand to believe that any of the three for all flu shots far beyond what strains of seasonal flu will be any manufacturers can make in a year, worse this winter.
36,000