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4A – Daily News – Monday, June 14, 2010 Vitality & health (MCT) — A childhood obesity program tested by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is being rolled out nation- wide by the insurers' sis- ter firms, the company said Wednesday. The approach provides doctors with strategies for talking with youngsters about maintaining a healthy weight and get- ting adequate exercise. It's been used in North Car- olina among many of the insurer's doctors since 2007 as part of a broader effort by the state's largest insurer to tackle rising obesity rates. In North Carolina, a third of youngsters are obese or overweight, increasing their risk for developing diabetes, hypertension, heart dis- ease and stroke. Type 2 diabetes, in particular, is often linked to excess weight caused by a fatty, high-calorie diet and too little exercise. At one time, Type 2 diabetes nearly always occurred later in life. But that's changed. In recent years, Type 2 diabetes has increasingly been diag- nosed in children. Nation- ally, 4 in 1,000 children have diabetes, and nearly a third of those cases are Type 2, according to an annual health survey. For an insurer such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the mounting health prob- lems associated with obe- sity are a huge expense. An economic analysis by RTI International put the medical costs of obesity nationwide at $147 billion a year _ much of which includes the hospitaliza- tions, treatments and ther- apies that insurance com- panies cover. "When you look at a per-member, per-month basis, adults who are obese are 32 percent more expensive than a non- obese person," said Dr. fitness Insurer shares strategy to slim kids down Anti-allergy protein TOKYO (MCT) — A team of researchers has discov- ered a human protein that inhibits hay fever, atopic der- matitis and other allergies, a finding that could lead to the development of "super medicines" to treat such ailments. The achievement by a University of Tsukuba team, led by Professor Akira Shibuya, was reported by the scientific journal Nature Immunology last Sunday. According to the article, the protein exists naturally in humans. Named Allergin-1, the team discovered the protein on the surface of mouse and human mast cells. Mast cells produce and discharge histamine and other allergy-causing substances. The team found that Allergin-1 inhibits mast cells from transmitting signals to discharge histamine and similar sub- stances. The team also confirmed mice deficient in Allergin-1 suffered severe allergies. "If medicines enhancing Allergin-1 functions are devel- oped, we can block the discharge of histamine and allergy- causing substances," Shibuya said. "We can then funda- mentally suppress most allergies and provide sufferers with much better treatments." Currently, medicines preventing the body from activat- ing histamine and similar substances are used to treat aller- gy sufferers. Allergies are triggered when the body's immune system MCT file photo Fernando Valladolid, 12, left, and his twin brother Victor put away fruits and prepare a salad at home after grocery shopping with their mother, not pictured. In back is their sister Andrea, 8, with their little brother Edgar Tellez, 8-months-old. Don Bradley, chief med- ical officer at the insurer. "An overweight person is 16 percent more expen- sive. When you consider that two-thirds of the pop- ulation is either over- weight or obese, that's quite a lot." To tackle the problem, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina helped develop a tool kit for doctors to launch interventions with chil- dren and their parents. The approach offers sug- gestions about healthy diets, regular exercise and less computer, video game and TV time. Specifically, doctors are urged to recommend eat- ing five helpings of fruits and vegetables a day, and drinking no beverages with calories, including sweet tea, fruit juices and sodas. Dr. Edie Bernosky, a pediatrician from Chapel Hill who helped pilot the insurance company's effort, said the informa- tion in the tool kits is easy to understand and helps put the problem in per- spective. She said many children and parents are unaware of the serious health consequences of obesity _ and the likeli- hood of severe problems occurring earlier in life. The Blue Cross pro- gram provides doctors with an accessible defini- tion of the body mass index, for example, to help frame the scope of the problem for children and their parents. The BMI is a calculation of weight and height, with anything over 25 consid- ered overweight. "We're talking about the BMI as almost a vital sign," Bernosky said. "When a child's BMI is really high, parents are aware of cardiovascular disease in adulthood and adult onset diabetes, but they don't make that con- nection of an elevated BMI in childhood leading to the same outcomes." She said it's important to make those connec- tions, and to change behaviors early. "This is a national epi- demic, and what we need to do is take measures and strategies from multiple directions," Bernosky said, noting that healthy foods should be available and affordable, and exer- cise should be promoted at schools and elsewhere. "It's useless to promote these concepts if we don't reinforce that and make it possible to achieve these goals." Big study identifies new genes that may be involved in autism (MCT) A large international con- sortium of authors (including some at UCLA) have identified new genes that appear to be involved in autism somehow. The findings appear in the journal Nature. The researchers in this big effort examined the DNA of 996 children with autism spectrum disorder plus their parents, and compared what they found with the DNA of 1,287 matched controls (who didn't have autism but were of similar ancestry, etc). They looked for differences between the two groups in places in the genome where chunks of DNA are repeated or deleted. Such repeats or deletions were found 20 percent more often in the autism group _ some of them situat- ed at genes that, therefore, may be involved in the condition. The implicated genes appear to be involved in functions such as nerve connections and nerve growth, and others had been implicated in learn- ing disabilities. In some cases, the parents also had these little duplications or dele- tions, implying inheritance. In other cases, the kids had them but the par- ents did not, implying, perhaps, that they had developed in sperm or eggs that gave rise to the children. That genes are involved in autism is not a surprise: The condition is known to run in families, and twin studies indicate inheritance. And previous studies have identified some genes. But this was the biggest autism-DNA study yet, and it adds to the list of genes that could be involved in autism. The study doesn't produce any kind of diagnostic test, since the genes identified don't definitively predict autism, but just indicate heightened risk (some of the researchers are now working on a project to see whether the genes can China Buffet CHINESE RESTAURANT Open 7 Days A Week Sunday Buffet Special $ 9.99 Expires 6-30-10 COUPON China Buffet Happy Hours Monday Lunch $ All Day $6.99 Tuesday - Saturday 6.99 Dinner $ 9.99 343 S. Main St. Red Bluff 530-529-5888 (No Checks) help in diagnosis of new cases of autism). And they also don't explain more than a fraction of autism cases. Here's the Nature paper. http://www.nature.com/nature/jour- nal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature09146. html You can also read several news releases explaining the study in sim- pler terms_for example, one from UCLA http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucl a/world-s-largest-dna-scan-for- f amilial- 159750.aspx?link_page_rss=15975 0 and one from Oxford University. http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_st ories/2010/100610.html Here's a fact sheet about the global Autism Genome Project. http://www.autismgenome.org/ And here's a write-up at Scientif- ic American. http://www.scientifi- camerican.com/article.cfm?id=autis m-genetic-complexity. Ownership Under New 10 % off COUPON on dinner only (everyday) Expires 6-30-10 COUPON overreacts to protect the body from alien substances. Aller- gic rhinitis and anaphylaxis caused by repeated bee stings are among some allergies commonly suffered. For example, during an allergic reaction, pollen and bee toxin are bound to the antibody immunoglobulin E (IgE) and stimulate mast cells via a particular protein. By discharging highly toxic substances such as hista- mine, allergic reactions are designed to expel parasitic worms from the body. These reactions can therefore cause severe symptoms. Xtreme Eating Awards Loosen your belt — or better yet, slip into your baggiest sweat pants —and take our gluttonous quiz based on the Center for Sci- ence in the Public Interest's 2010 Xtreme Eating Awards. 1. The Cheesecake Fac- tory's biggest indulgence is the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake. In addition to boast- ing 1,670 calories, how many grams of saturated fat are in a slice? a) 22 b) 48 c) 81 2. The burger chain Five Guys (which soon will open restaurants in Natomas and Vacaville) is known for its 920- calorie bacon cheese- burger. Ah, but the fries: How many calories are in a large order of Five Guys fries? a) 950 b) 1,220 c) 1,460 3. California Pizza Kitchen's individual tostada pizza with grilled steak con- BOOK BARN Used Books Tues-Fri 10-5 Sat 10-2 Serving Tehama County since 1994 619 Oak St., Red Bluff (530) 528-2665 a) 240 b) 520 c) 733 4. When it comes to sodium, it's hard to top P.F. Chang's, which features a double pan-fried noodles combo that has 1,820 calo- ries and 7,690 milligrams of sodium. How many days' worth of the daily recom- mended allowance of sodi- um is that? a) 2 b) 2.5 c) 3.3 5. Outback Steakhouse's rack of New Zealand lamb, at 1,300 calories, is equiva- lent to how many pork chops? a) 5 b) 8 c) 11 tains 1,680 calories. How many fewer calories is it if you go with the vegetarian option? Mon.-Fri. 10:30 to 5:30 Sat. 11-3 40 Crafters in 1 Shop! 650 Main St., Red Bluff 530 528-2723 Come & Shop Crafter’s Boutique Or Rent a Space to Sell Your Crafts Gifts for family & friends Plenty of parking on Pine Street ANSWERS: 1: b (about 2.25 days' worth of the max- imum fat a person should eat); 2: c; 3: a; 4: c; 5: b