Another post that I’m resurrecting because its link disappeared as I transitioned to my self-hosted site!

 

Listeriosis

Last year we experienced the biggest food-borne outbreak of listeriosis in this country in over 20 years. At least 30 people across 12 states had died as a result of eating tainted cantaloupes that were linked to one Colorado farm. And at least 146 people in total suffered illness in this outbreak. 

The causative bacterial organism, Listeria monocytogenes, is a common cause of US food recalls in foods such as deli meats, hot dogs and soft cheeses made with unpasteurized milk. Its emergence as a contaminant in fresh foods like this, however, is a new and concerning event.

One problem associated with listeriosis is that it can take weeks, and up to two months in some cases, for symptoms to develop post-infection. This is very different to the quick onset of symptoms that occurs in cases of food-borne illness due to salmonella and E. coli infections.

Listeria is a very common organism in general, and it can also proliferate to high levels in low temperatures, rather than becoming dormant. This combination of facts means that it can potentially be introduced onto food at any point in the food chain – whether out in the field, in your home, or somewhere in between. Serious disease due to listeriosis is, however, uncommon. In order to cause serious illness the bacterium needs to get onto food and proliferate to levels high enough to cause disease – it’s been reported that people need to ingest over one million organisms to become sick.

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Symptoms?

Symptoms are generally non-specific. Flu-like complaints such as headache, muscle aches and fever, not too uncommon this time of year, can occur. Additionally, abdominal cramps and diarrhea commonly occur. Certainly the development of diarrhea and abdominal pain should prompt you to visit your doctor, especially if you have eaten cantaloupe in recent weeks. In particular, older people, newborns, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk of listeriosis.

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What To Do With Your Cantaloupe

The outbreak has only been linked to a single location, Jensen Farms, in Colorado. If you are unclear as to the origin of that cantaloupe in your kitchen, you are advised to throw it away. And don’t assume that if it’s been sitting in the fridge, that it’s ok – remember it tends to multiply in cold temperatures. So the longer a tainted cantaloupe is in the fridge, the higher your risk of developing listeriosis. Some people advise washing the cantaloupe to reduce the contamination risk, but inevitably this won’t sterilize the fruit, so the general advice from the CDC is: “If in doubt, throw it out”. 

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Some general guidelines offered by the CDC to help avoid listeriosis:

1) Rinse fruit and vegetables thoroughly before eating

2) Thoroughly cook raw meat and poultry

3) Cook hot dogs, deli meats, & cold cuts until steaming hot before serving

4) Avoid unpasteurized milk or cheeses containing unpasteurized milk

 5) Keep your fridge at or below 40F, and your freezer at or below 0F

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Image credit mconnors @morgueFile

We seem to see new headlines about the diabetes epidemic every week. Typically we tend to think of increasing diabetes in terms of the type 2 form of the disease, because of the increased incidence of obesity and poor lifestyle choices.

However, there is also plenty of evidence that type 1 diabetes is also on the rise.

The type 1 form of the condition is an immune-mediated disease that tends to begin in childhood, and has therefore come to be known as “Juvenile Diabetes”. Its incidence has been steadily rising at a rate of up to 5% each year, and scientists are still struggling to explain the reason for this. 

Although both types of diabetes are very different, it is thought that both may be connected to lifestyle choices that cause excess weight gain.

If you’re interested in reading more about this alarming rise, including some of the possible reasons behind it, feel free to read the article that I recently wrote for a new diabetes website called Be Sure To Test.

 

 

 

Image credit cohdra @morgueFile

Listeriosis
Last year we experienced the biggest food-borne outbreak of listeriosis in this country in over 20 years. At last count, 30 people across 28 states had died as a result of eating tainted cantaloupes that were linked to one Colorado farm. And a total of 146 cases were confirmed in this outbreak.

The causative bacterial organism, Listeria monocytogenes, is a common cause of US food recalls in products such as deli meats, hot dogs, and soft cheeses made with unpasteurized milk. Its emergence as a contaminant in fresh foods like this, however, is a new and concerning event.

One problem associated with listeriosis is that it can take weeks, and up to two months in some cases, for symptoms to develop post-infection. This is very different to the quick onset of symptoms that occurs in cases of food-borne illness due to salmonella and E. coli infections.

Listeria is a very common organism in general, and it can also proliferate to high levels in low temperatures, rather than becoming dormant. This combination of facts means that it can potentially be introduced onto food at any point in the food chain – whether out in the field, in your home, or somewhere in between.

Serious disease due to listeriosis is, however, uncommon. In order to cause serious illness the bacterium needs to get onto food and proliferate to levels high enough to cause disease – it’s been reported that people need to ingest over one million organisms to become sick.

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Symptoms?
Symptoms are generally non-specific. Flu-like complaints such as headache, muscle aches and fever, not too uncommon this time of year, can occur. Additionally, abdominal cramps and diarrhea commonly occur. Certainly the development of diarrhea and abdominal pain should prompt you to visit your doctor, especially if you have eaten cantaloupe in recent weeks.

In particular, older people, newborns, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk of listeriosis.

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What To Do With Your Cantaloupe
If you are ever unclear as to whether that cantaloupe in your kitchen is safe to eat, you are advised to throw it away. And don’t assume that if it’s been sitting in the fridge, that it’s ok – remember it tends to multiply in cold temperatures.

So the longer a tainted cantaloupe is in the fridge, the higher your risk of developing listeriosis. Some people advise washing the cantaloupe to reduce the contamination risk, but inevitably this won’t sterilize the fruit, so the general advice from the CDC is: “If in doubt, throw it out”.

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Some General Guidelines Offered by the CDC to Help Avoid Listeriosis 

1) Rinse fruit and vegetables thoroughly before eating
2) Thoroughly cook raw meat and poultry
3) Cook hot dogs, deli meats, & cold cuts until steaming hot before serving
4) Avoid unpasteurized milk or cheeses containing unpasteurized milk
5) Keep your fridge at or below 40°F, and your freezer at or below 0°F

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Image Credit Kevin_P @morgueFile.com

Social and News Media Trends Correlated Well with Officially Reported Data During the 2010 Haitian Cholera Outbreak
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Social media certainly tends to get a bad rap sometimes – but did you know that during the 2010 Haitian cholera epidemic, information on disease parameters was transmitted faster via social media and internet news than via health officials?

Even more importantly, this early informal data correlated significantly with later official data.

Rumi Chunara, PhD, with Harvard Medical School, and colleagues reported their findings in the January 1st, 2012 issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

According to the authors, early epidemiologic assessment may be hindered during disease outbreaks because officially reported data are often unavailable for weeks. Since disease data from informal media sources, however, are available immediately, the authors set out to determine whether these unofficial reports correlated with officially released data.

Unofficial data from Twitter (188,819 tweets) and HealthMap (4,697 alerts), and official data from the Haitian Ministry of Public Health (MSPP) were examined from the first 100 days of the outbreak. The researchers compared the data over three major time periods of activity, corresponding to the initial period of the outbreak (Phase I: October 20 – November 3), the increase in cases during the flooding associated with Hurricane Tomas (Phase II: November 3 – December 1), and the first 100 days of the outbreak (Phase III: October 20 – January 28).

In phases I and II, MSPP hospitalization data correlated significantly with data from HealthMap (October 20 – November 3: 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.55–0.88; November 3 – December 1: 95% CI = 0.63–0.85), and Twitter (October 20 – November 3: 95% CI = 0.71–0.93; November 3 – December 1: 95% CI = 0.36–0.72).

In phase III (October 20 – January 28), however, MSPP hospitalization data correlated poorly with data from HealthMap (95% CI = 0.29–0.51), and Twitter (95% CI = 0.13–0.37).

Although the study showed that informal media sources can provide good indicators that a disease outbreak is occurring, and highlight its dynamics, the authors stated that “Further research is needed to determine if informal media will be a good measure of morbidity in other epidemics, and how such sources can best be used for monitoring and characterizing future infectious disease epidemics.”

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Image credit jscreationzs @FreeDigitalPhotos

If you’re considering surgery any time soon, you might want to take into account the results of a recent study that unveiled a link between a surgeon’s age and the incidence of complications after surgery.

Antoine Duclos MD, from the University of Lyon, France, and colleagues performed a multicenter study that aimed to evaluate the association between experience and performance of surgeons on post-thyroidectomy complications. They reported their findings in the 2011 issue of the British Medical Journal. 

In a nutshell, thyroidectomy by surgeons aged 35 to 50 years old (with 5 to 20 years of postgraduate experience) had the safest outcomes. Postsurgical complications, however, were more likely if thyroidectomy was performed by either inexperienced surgeons, or those with 20 or more years of experience. 

According to the researchers, medical specialists tend to reach the peak of their expertise between 30 and 50 years of age, corresponding to about 10 years postgraduate specialty experience. 

The study investigated 3,574 thyroidectomies during a one year period at five high volume academic French hospitals. The surgeries were performed by 28 surgeons, with a mean age of 41 years, and an average of 10 years experience. Patients were assessed over a course of 6 months following surgery, for evidence of two major complications of thyroidectomy – permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy and hypoparathyroidism. 

When thyroidectomy was performed by surgeons between 35 and 50 years old (with 5 to 20 years of postgraduate experience), surgical outcomes were better than with younger or older colleagues with respect to both complications. 

The results suggest that the performance of surgeons changes throughout their career. The authors concluded that practising in a high volume hospital does not make up for surgical inexperience, and that surgeons cannot reach or maintain peak performance merely by accumulating additional years in practice. They did state, however, that the influence of other unevaluated determinants may have influenced complication rates, since surgical outcomes are affected by interactions between numerous factors that remain poorly characterized and understood.

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Image credit wax115 @morgueFile

Well I’m a little old to do the “Trick or Treat” runs these days, but nevertheless I still love chocolate! And who can resist those adorable, bite-sized chocolates that are in abundance at this time of year? I know I can’t – one of the reasons I just don’t keep chocolate at home!

Before you over-indulge, apply some conscious thought to your chocolate craving this Halloween. I think it’s all-too-common for most of us to splurge over the holidays – and especially with the bite-sized options. You simply can’t just have one….and one leads to another, and soon enough you’ve gathered quite the collection of empty wrappers!
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How Many Calories Do Those Little Chocolates Contain? 

• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups: (One package) 220 calories
• Kit Kat: (2-piece bar) 107 calories
• Butterfinger: (Fun-sized bar) 100 calories
• Almond Joy: (Snack-sized bar): 80 calories
• Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar: (Fun-sized bar) 77 calories
• M&Ms: (Fun-sized bag) 73 calories
• Hershey’s Nuggets Dark Chocolate With Almond: (One nugget) 45 calories
• Mars Mini Musketeers: (One mini) 25 calories

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So you can see the variation in calorie content between these popular Halloween chocolates. And I know it’s not all simply about the calories – there’s all that sugary badness and fat content to boot. But for sure the calorie content goes a long way toward adding to those bonus holiday pounds that many people acquire in the coming season. So it’s a good starting barometer when it comes to “should I, or shouldn’t I?” If you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth this holiday, at least opt for the chocolates that have the lower calories count.

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Don’t Forget The Kids

We all know how childhood obesity is becoming an increasing problem in this country, and how our First Lady is actively promoting the Let’s Move initiative to encourage children to lead healthy lifestyles to stay fit.

Although many people argue that “it’s just one day of over-indulgence”, this often isn’t the case. The holiday festivities seem to extend to last longer and longer with every passing year, and children are exposed to the excess of candies just as much as we are.

In addition to limiting the amount of candy your kids get to actually eat, there’s always the option of limiting how much other kids get to eat too. Why not add some less unhealthy alternatives to those treat bags?

• Fruit (little bags of apple slices, or tasty nectarines)
• Little toys
• Coins for their piggy bank!

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My Favorite Halloween Treat Alternative

One of my favorites though, is the Halloween Candy BuyBack program – participating dentists in many regions are offering to exchange that wrapped, unopened candy for cash! And even better, they will then give the candy to programs such as Operation Gratitude. Programs like this are responsible for sending the candy overseas to our military servicemembers who won’t get to enjoy Halloween, or the upcoming holidays, with their families this year.

A win-win situation in my book. The kids get to enjoy collecting treats, maybe get to keep some of them, and even make some cash in exchange for the remainder! Their teeth will thank them later, for sure. Plus, our deployed military servicemembers get to experience a little piece of home during the holidays.

What a great way of keeping the Halloween tradition, while teaching kids to enjoy healthy choices too. Simultaneously it introduces them to the sacrifices that our military make, and allows them to learn the value of giving, as well as taking.

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Feel Like Adding A Little Science To Your Halloween?

This might be a fun project to add to the kids’ entertainment for tonight: Keep Your Candy Cool With Physics!

Although the kids by me won’t have too much trouble keeping their candy cool – they’ll get to do their haunting in 6″ of snow, thanks to this early snowstorm that we’ve received in the past 24 hours! 
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Happy and safe haunting tonight, wherever you are!
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Do You Need To Choose A New Doctor?

Maybe you are moving to a different region, or perhaps there is another reason for changing physicians – some changes in health insurance plans can leave you needing to find a new doctor, for instance. Or maybe you just don’t feel that you have an ideal relationship with your current doctor and would like to find a new one.

Whatever your reason for changing physicians, there are many factors to take into consideration, so don’t make the decision without due thought. I recently wrote an article for NJTopDocs.com, providing some pointers on things to consider if you’re looking to make the change.

 

(Edit 2015): The article no longer exists on the site, but if you’re looking for some pointers, try the site: HealthFinder.gov.

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It’s natural to focus on women when we think of breast cancer. But we shouldn’t forget that men can develop this condition too.

A recent study published in the Journal of Oncology compared trends in breast cancer in 2,665 men and 459,846 women over the last 40 years.

Some of the important points that they raised:

• The incidence rate of breast cancer in men is less than 1% that of women.
• Men are often in their 60s and 70s when diagnosed.
• Men present with later stages of the condition, often with spread of the disease outside of the breast.
• Men had less surgical and radiation therapies than women, but similar rates of chemotherapy and hormone treatments.
• Men had a 72% chance of survival to 5 years post-diagnosis, compared with 78% in women.

The news isn’t all “worse” though. The researchers found that men who had their cancer diagnosed at the same stage and received the appropriate treatment, had a better chance of surviving their breast cancer than women.

Since breast cancer is still relatively rare in men, patients and physicians alike are less likely to consider it a possibility when men develop a breast lump or other symptoms. The recommendation for screenings in women certainly leads to many cases of breast cancer being caught in early stages. This is not the case in men, however, who are not regularly screened.

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How Can You Help Yourself If You Are A Man?

• Seek a physician’s advice as soon as possible if you develop a breast lump or other suggestive symptoms.
• Talk to your doctor about screening options if you have a family history of breast cancer.

Men tend to ignore symptoms for longer than women, and an additional problem is the isolation they tend to feel when diagnosed with breast cancer. In a world where this condition is so much more common in women, it’s not difficult to understand why men feel unsupported when services tend to all be geared towards women.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 2,140 new cases of breast cancer will arise in men in this country this year. They estimate that 450 of these men will die. Tough statistics to see.

Although it is still not advised that men should have regular screenings like women, persuading the man in your life to seek help as soon as possible might just save his life.

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Breast Cancer Awareness
Remember that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so if you haven’t already done so, please consider speaking to your doctor about screening, or even persuade a loved one to seek advice.