Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/541130
ByMikeStobbe TheAssociatedPress NEW YORK Most U.S. adults still aren't eating nearly enough fruits and vegetables. In a large national sur- vey, only 13 percent said they ate the recommended amount of fruit each day. And only 9 percent ate enough vegetables. California — a big pro- duce-growing state — ranked highest for eating both fruits and vegetables. Tennessee was at the bot- tom of the fruit list, and Mississippi was last in eat- ing vegetables. The government recom- mends that adults eat 1½ to two cups of fruit and two to three cups of veg- etables each day. Health officials have been trying to promote fruits and vegetables — especially leafy greens — as healthy alternatives to salty, fatty and sugary foods. The goal is to curb the nation's obesity prob- lem and reduce diabetes, heart disease and other maladies tied to bad di- ets. The findings come from a 2013 national telephone survey of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention re- leased the study Thursday. Officials say it's difficult to compare the latest find- ings to previous years be- cause of a change in how the survey was done and how it asked about pro- duce consumption. But the amount of fruit and vegetable eating ap- pears to be holding steady at a disappointingly low level, said the study's lead author, Latetia Moore. Not berry good: US adults still skimp on fruit and veggies NUTRITION DAVIDGOLDMAN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE Danny Castillo wheels boxes of produce to a customer's truck at the Atlanta Farmers Market in Georgia. You're there for Mom. We're here for you. Connect with experts and other caregivers aarp.org/caregiving 1.877.333.5885 By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press WASHINGTON Caught be- tween kids and aging par- ents, the sandwich gener- ation worries more than most Americans their age about how they'll afford their own care as they grow older, a new poll shows. But most aren't doing much to get ready. Nearly 1 in 10 people age 40 and over are "sand- wiched" — they're support- ing a child while providing regular care for an older loved one, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Pub- lic Affairs Research. Another 8 percent may join the ranks of double- caregivers in the next five years, citing declining health of an older relative or close friend. Dueling responsibilities can make some days feel like a tug-of-war. "If my mom needs some- thing badly, I get pulled away from my kids a lot," said Kamila Al-Najjar of Santa Rosa, California, a lawyer with two children and self-described health advocate for her mother. She visits her mother's assisted living facility at least twice a week and checks in daily by phone, to oversee a list of ill- nesses. "You're dealing with someone who is aging, to- ward the end of their life; then you have to deal with a teenager. I hear from my mom and daughter that I'm a nag. There's no winning in it," she said. Adding to the challenge, 40- and 50-somethings tend to be at the height of their careers — and need to hang onto their jobs despite dif- ficulties of caregiving, said Susan Reinhard, who di- rects AARP's Public Policy Institute. Employer flexibil- ity is a top issue as the pop- ulation ages, she said. "It's not just their own fi- nancial security, it's the fi- nancial security for their children and for the future," Reinhard said. After age 65, government figures show nearly 7 in 10 Americans at some point will need long-term care — from a relative, home aide, assisted living or nursing home. Yet the AP-NORC Cen- ter poll found overall, most Americans 40 and older — 54 percent — have done lit- tle or no planning to get ready for this often pricey reality. Only a third re- ports setting aside money for those needs. That's even though Medicare doesn't pay for the most common types of long-term care, and a nursing home can cost more than $90,000 a year. Drill down to the 9 per- cent of this age group who make up the sandwich gen- eration, and their experi- ence leaves them far more concerned about their own senior years. About half worry about being able to pay for their future care needs or hav- ing to move into a nurs- ing home, compared with just over a third of other adults, the poll found. Also, 44 percent of sandwichers fear leaving debts to fam- ily, compared with 28 per- cent of others polled. But the poll found the sandwich generation no more likely than other mid- dle-aged adults to be plan- ning and saving, possi- bly because of time or re- sources. Al-Najjar is glad her mother "saved all her life ... so she didn't have to stress out about stuff like that." Caring for her has changed how she spends and plans for the future. "It's like a wake-up call," she said. There are "a lot of seniors in the United States that don't have that money." The squeeze isn't ending as children grow up. Among currently sandwiched par- ents, 29 percent have adult children living at home, the poll found; others are pro- viding adult children with financial assistance, mean- ing some are sandwiched even after their children leave the nest. Another challenge: Find- ing services to help seniors live out their days at home. AARP recently opened an online "livability index" to rank communities on such factors as accessible hous- ing and transit options. Carroll Burnett of Whitesboro, Texas, cared for his 88-year-old father, who'd suffered a stroke, for a year before he died in March. "I felt good that I could take care of him," said Bur- nett, a retired tool and die maker who had help from his wife and one of his three grown children. But he's saving up: "I don't want any of my kids to go through what I did." The AP-NORC Center survey was conducted by telephone April 7 to May 15 among a random national sample of 1,735 adults age 40 or older, with funding from the SCAN Foundation. Results for the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. HEALTHCARE 'S an dw ic h' g en er at io n st ru gg le s to care for parents, kids, selves ERIC RISBERG — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Kamila Al-Najjar, center, visits with her mother, Joan Groen, right, at her assisted living facility as her daughter, Inanna Al-Najjar, 14, le , looks on in Santa Rosa. By Lindsey Tanner The Associated Press CHICAGO For pregnant women, abnormal results from certain prenatal tests may signal that something is wrong — with the moms- to-be, not the fetus, a pre- liminary study suggests. Very rarely, these re- sults may indicate cancer in the women when follow- up testing shows the fetus is healthy. The noninvasive tests are increasingly being used to detect fetal chro- mosome abnormalities, in- cluding Down syndrome. They test pregnant women's blood, which contain small amounts of fetal DNA. But cancer is among conditions that can cause results that mistakenly indicate an ab- normality in the fetus, the researchers say. The results are not definitive, although smaller studies have had similar findings. Some highlights from the research, published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical As- sociation. Thedetails The study involved blood tests from more than 100,000 women, pro- cessed over nearly three years by a Redwood City, California, laboratory. Nearly 4,000 women, or about 3 percent, had re- sults suggesting fetal chro- mosome abnormalities. In 10 cases, the babies turned out to be healthy but the women were later diag- nosed with cancer, includ- ing lymphoma, leukemia and colon cancer. The study focused on eight of these women, who were diagnosed within weeks to several months of the test. Most had prenatal tests suggesting more than one chromosome abnormal- ity in the baby. In three women, cancer was diag- nosed during a medical work-up prompted by the prenatal test results. Other cancers were discovered af- ter women developed symp- toms. Two women had ad- vanced cases. The tests Noninvasive prenatal tests for fetal chromosome abnormalities are increas- ingly being recommended for women at high risk of having a child with Down syndrome; about 2 million tests have been performed worldwide, said lead author Dr. Diana Bianchi. False- positive results are rare; they occur in just 0.2 per- cent of tests at the lab in- volved in the study, said Bi- anchi, executive director of Tufts Medical Center's Mother Infant Research In- stitute. False-positives can occur for several reasons, includ- ing a twin pregnancy when one twin dies, and when the mother has a trans- planted organ from a male donor. Cancer cells shed DNA that the tests can de- tect. It's a rare cause of false-positives but Bianchi said more definitive data are needed to determine the incidence. The advice "We don't know how many people are walking around with silent cancers this test is accidentally un- covering," Bianchi said. Women should be aware of the possibility when they seek the prenatal tests, and when results suggest a fe- tal problem, follow-up test- ing including amniocente- sis is recommended. But Bianchi said it would be premature to recom- mend cancer testing for all women whose tests have false-positive results. A JAMA editorial says more rigorous research is needed to help doctors de- termine how to counsel these women. WOMEN'S HEALTH Si le nt c an ce r a ra re r es ul t in p re na ta l te st s RANDAL S. 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