Thursday, February 05, 2009



Lying asshole

"Children are eating their way to cancer". Stupid bitch warns of obesity timebomb. So how come moderately overweight people live longer than skinny people? And no mention of course of the various studies which show that fat women get LESS breast cancer (e.g. here). This is at best epidemiological speculation and intellectual fashion about the evils of fat -- parading as science

Children are facing an 'explosion' in obesity-related cancers thanks to junk food and a lack of exercise, an expert warned last night. Professor Kathy Pritchard-Jones says thousands will die if parents and ministers do not take the childhood obesity epidemic more seriously. Obesity is linked to cancers including those of the kidney, breast, colon, liver and prostate. It can also lead to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, and experts warn the rising tide of these diseases could bankrupt the NHS.

Professor Pritchard-Jones, president of the European Society for Paediatric Oncology, said eating more healthily and taking more exercise would not help stave off cancer in childhood. But it would encourage them to lead a better lifestyle as adults, cutting the risk of having life-threatening diseases later.

Some 17 per cent of British children - 900,000 - are obese, so fat that their health is in danger. Two years ago Government scientists said that without action, this figure would soar to 25 per cent by 2050. Professor Pritchard-Jones said: 'Childhood is when the habits of a lifetime are established. If you want healthy adults you start by making healthy children. 'The chronic risk factors for cancer in adults, such as smoking, obesity and diet, are habits established in childhood. 'If we don't do something about tackling how much exercise our young people take and how concerned they are about what they eat and their weight, we are going to have another explosion of cancers.'

The rates of cancers linked to obesity are already increasing, with prostate up by 38.9 per cent in ten years and liver up by 33.4 per cent. But experts warn the 'explosion' will become apparent in the next couple of decades when those born in the Fifties and Sixties reach old age. Last week, it emerged that Britain's adult obesity rate was 23 per cent, twice that of France. Experts warn that by 2050 more than half of adults will be obese, with disastrous consequences for the NHS and taxpayers.

Other effects of obesity include erectile dysfunction and problems during pregnancy. Recent figures show survival rates for many cancers are far lower than those in western Europe and on a par with Poland.

Dr David Haslam, clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said: 'Cancer is one of the least recognised consequences of obesity and one of the most serious. 'It won't be just an occasional case - we're going to see a vast increase in the cancer rate. It's serious for the NHS and could push it towards bankruptcy.'

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'Whatever their weight, children need to eat well and be active. 'Our Change4Life programme is about helping families change their lifestyles for the better. 'Children who are carrying too much fat are at risk of developing a host of serious illnesses. 'Keeping a healthy body is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of getting cancer.'

SOURCE






Penis abnormality linked to hairspray

Popular summary followed by journal abstract. It's just data dredging. When lots of occupations are considered, some of them will come up as different by chance alone. Even if we take the results seriously we have the old "correlation is causality" fallacy. For instance: Maybe beauticians are especially feminine and that is what affects their sons. The whole thing is utter balderdash driven by intellectual fashion about "bad" chemicals

Women exposed to hairspray at work -- such as hairdressers and beauticians -- are more likely to have boys with a common type of penis birth defect, hypospadias, where the opening of the urethra is abnormal. The cause isn't known; one possibility is that chemicals disrupt hormones in the baby. The study in Environmental Health Perspectives compared 471 cases of hypospadias with 490 randomly selected births. Mothers exposed to hairspray in their job were 2.4 times more likely to have a boy with the problem. Women who took folate supplements in early pregnancy were less likely to have an affected child.

Endocrine Disruptors in the Workplace, Hair Spray, Folate Supplementation, and Risk of Hypospadias: Case-Control Study

By Gillian Ormond et al.

Background: Hypospadias is one of the most common urogenital congenital anomalies affecting baby boys. Prevalence estimates in Europe range from 4 to 24 per 10,000 births, depending on definition, with higher rates reported from the United States. Relatively little is known about potential risk factors, but a role for endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) has been proposed.

Objective: Our goal was to elucidate the risk of hypospadias associated with occupational exposure of the mother to endocrine-disruptor chemicals, use of folate supplementation during pregnancy, and vegetarianism.

Design: We designed a case-control study of 471 hypospadias cases referred to surgeons and 490 randomly selected birth controls, born 1 January 1997-30 September 1998 in southeast England. Telephone interviews of mothers elicited information on folate supplementation during pregnancy and vegetarianism. We used a job exposure matrix to classify occupational exposure.

Results: In multiple logistic regression analysis, there were increased risks for self-reported occupational exposure to hair spray [exposed vs. nonexposed, odds ratio (OR) = 2.39 ; 95% confidence interval (CI) , 1.40-4.17] and phthalate exposure obtained by a job exposure matrix (OR = 3.12 ; 95% CI, 1.04-11.46) . There was a significantly reduced risk of hypospadias associated with of folate use during the first 3 months of pregnancy (OR = 0.64 ; 95% CI, 0.44-0.93) . Vegetarianism was not associated with hypospadias risk.

Conclusions: Excess risks of hypospadias associated with occupational exposures to phthalates and hair spray suggest that antiandrogenic EDCs may play a role in hypospadias. Folate supplementation in early pregnancy may be protective.

Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 117, Number 2, February 2009

No comments: