BMI linked to allergy and asthma risk in children

New research has found that a child's BMI is linked to an increased risk of allergies and asthma. 

A high BMI at the age of one, four and seven was linked to a significant increase in developing asthma at the age of eight. There was no link between high BMI during infancy, 12 months or 18 months, and an increased risk of developing asthma.

Children who had a high BMI at four years old but had a normal BMI by the age of seven were not linked to an increased asthma risk.

Researchers analyzed the health records of 2,075 children using school records. Parents answered questions about allergy symptoms and irritant exposure when their child was one year old, two years old, four years old and eight years old. Blood samples were collected when the child turned eight.

Future research can lead to a better understanding of how being overweight affects asthma risk and will be of interest to Medical ID wearers. 

Why a morning coffee may prevent diabetes

Heavy coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, and now scientists in China may have discovered why.

In 2009, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that people who drank the most coffee seemed to have the lowest risk of developing type 2 diabetes. That study reported that with each cup of coffee consumed daily, the risk of type 2 diabetes dropped by 7 percent.

Chinese Researchers have cited the protective benefits of compounds in coffee that inhibit a substance called human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP), which has been linked to diabetes, stated science and health news website Science Daily in a report on the new study. 

A U.S. diabetes expert was guardedly optimistic about the study's conclusions.

"Scientifically, this is a very nice paper, but it has its limitations," Dr Vivian Fonseca, president of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association, told Medical ID wearers. 

"This was done in cells, not in animals or people. We also don't know if the [abnormal deposits arising from hIAPP] are the most important thing in the development of type 2 diabetes, or if it's something that develops later."

Fonseca advised that it's too soon to make any recommendations about drinking coffee to prevent diabetes, adding, "if you want to prevent diabetes, there are some very straightforward things to do. You can walk for 30 minutes most days of the week, and reduce calories a little bit and reduce your weight a little."

Tall men may be at lower risk of heart disease

A US study has found that tall men may be at less risk of heart failure than short men. 

Data came from 22,000 male doctors who were followed as part of a large study of heart disease and cancer. 

The tallest men in the study, those over 1.8 metres (six feet), were 24 percent less likely to less likely to report a heart failure diagnosis during the study period than men who were 1.72 metres (5 ft 8 in) and shorter.

That was after their age and weight, as well as whether they had high blood pressure and diabetes, had all been taken into account.

"As much as we know about the development of very common diseases like heart failure, there's still a lot we don't know... There's still a lot more that impacts the development of those diseases beyond those things," Jeffrey Teuteberg, a cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who was not involved in the study, told Medical ID wearers.

He added that height is currently not a big consideration when thinking about heart risks.

Chocolate may prevent heart disease in diabetics

In a perfect example of a good news/bad news story, researchers have discovered that chocolate enhanced with dietary flavonoids may reduce the risk of women with type 2 diabetes developing heart disease. 

However, the researchers stressed that this did not mean women with type 2 diabetes should eat more chocolate as commercially available chocolate does not contain "nearly as much of it as the women consumed" and eating too much chocolate would adversely affect weight unless the diet was balanced for energy intake.

The chocolate bars used in the trial were specially formulated to provide a high dose of two flavonoid sub-classes - flavan-3-ols which are found in cocoa and tea, and isoflavones which are found in soy.

Dr Iain Frame, director of research at Diabetes UK, told Medical ID wearers: "This trial assessed the effects of flavonoids on the risk of heart disease in post-menopausal women with type 2 diabetes over a period of one year.

"Although it involved quite a small number of women already at high risk of heart disease, these compounds appeared to offer them better protection against heart problems than conventional drugs when administered under very carefully controlled circumstances."

Heart attack psoriasis connection

New research has found that people who suffer from psoriasis may be at higher risk of heart attack. 

Researchers used records of patients who had undergone a heart scan called coronary angiography to compare the results of patients with and without psoriasis.

Overall, 84 percent of patients with psoriasis had narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to the heart -- a condition called coronary artery disease -- compared to 75 percent of patients without the skin condition.

The researchers also found that patients had a higher risk of heart disease the longer they'd had psoriasis.

"One of the things that we've come to understand is that psoriasis is not a disease that's just limited to the skin," Dr. April Armstrong of the University of California, Davis, who worked on the new study, told Medical ID wearers.

Skipping breakfast could cause diabetes

We've often been told that a good breakfast is the best start to the day and now a study has found that skipping breakfast could make you more susceptible to diabetes. 

The Australian researchers found that skipping breakfast causes a sudden drop in blood sugar levels in the late morning, causing a craving for sugar, which then triggers a sudden surge in blood sugar and over-stimulation of insulin, something which may be familiar to Medical ID wearers.

This increases the likelihood of the body's cells becoming resistant to insulin production causing diabetes to set in at an early age. 

Prosthetic may prevent epileptic seizures

A system that could electronically detect and prevent epileptic seizures is under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Researchers at the US university say the system will rely on an implantable prosthetic, which will detect electrical activity associated with seizures and then use light to rapidly drive or silence key neurons in order to halt the seizure.

Prof Edward Boyden, a neuroscientist from MIT and leader of the research, told Medical ID wearers: "Over the last several years, we’ve developed a suite of molecular tools that make neurons activatable or silenceable by pulses of light.

"These tools are in widespread use in science because they let you turn brain cells on or off, thus revealing what the cells do in the brain. We’re eager to keep expanding this toolbox and also to help figure out clinical uses for the tools as novel therapeutics."